The World at Night

planned under cover of an air raid. Now, he thought, her look suggested that she did know. He read sympathy in her eyes, and sorrow. But, also, determination. “Careful with this,” she said, handing him a cup and saucer. “It’s very hot.” She turned to Yvette. “Now,” she said, “I’m going to bring you some.”

“No, dear. Please, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. I’m going to go and get it. And Charles Arnaud has just gone out for fresh bread.”

After a moment of resistance, Yvette nodded, accepting, giving in to the inevitable. Veronique went off to get the coffee.

My fault, Casson thought. His heart ached for a lost friend. Not that he would survive him very long. They would meet in heaven, Langlade would explain what was what, the best way to deal with it all. Casson wiped his eyes. Merde, he thought. They’ll kill us all, with their stupid fucking wars.

24 June, 9:10 A.M.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. I’m looking for a copy of the Decameron, by Boccaccio.”

“Any particular edition?”

“No. Whatever you have.”

“I’ll take a look, I’m sure we have something.”

“I’m at 43 09 19.”

He was in a cafe on the boulevard St.-Germain, noisy and crowded and anonymous. The phone rang a moment later.

“Yes?” It was Mathieu on the line.

“I’ve decided to go to Strasbourg. Right away, because I need to be in Lyons on the first of July.”

“Please understand, about Strasbourg, that we really don’t know what’s going on there.”

“Perhaps I can find out.”

“It will help us, if you can.”

“I’ll call Millau this morning, let him know I’m ready to go.”

“All right.” There was a pause, a moment’s hesitation. “You have to walk very lightly, just now. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I know.”

All day he felt numb and lifeless. He went to the office, though it seemed to him now a dead place, abandoned, without purpose. He looked in the bottom drawer of his desk, found the notebook with the last version of Hotel Dorado and began to read around in it. A few days earlier he’d tried to locate Fischfang, but now he really had disappeared. Perhaps gone underground, or fled to Portugal. Maybe arrested, or dead. Perhaps, Casson thought, he would never know what happened.

He began to clean up his files-this actually made him feel better, so he made some meaningless telephone calls to settle meaningless problems. Soon it was time for lunch; he went to the bank for cash, then returned and took Mireille to the Alsatian brasserie on the corner, slipping black-market ration stamps to the waiter, ordering the grandest choucroute on the menu. Bernard, he thought, you used to eat this with me even though you hated it. Warm sauerkraut, garlic sausage, it made him feel better, and he silently apologized to Langlade because it did.

He flirted with Mireille all through lunch. How it used to be when they were young. Going out dancing in the open pavilions in the early days of spring, falling in love, secret affairs, stolen hours. The bones in the backs of her hands sharply evident, Mireille worked vigorously with knife and fork, delicately removing the rind from a thick slice of bacon as she talked about growing up in a provincial city. “Of course in those days,” she said, “men didn’t leave their wives.”

It was still light when he got home. Trudged up the stairs, put the key in the lock, and opened the door. Standing at the threshold, he smelled cigarette smoke and froze. It is now, he thought. Inside, a board creaked, somebody moving toward the door.

“Well, come in.” Citrine.

He put his hand on his heart. “My God, you scared me.” He closed the door, put his arms around her, and hung on tight, inhaling her deeply, like a dog making sure of somebody from a long time ago. Gauloises and a long train ride on her breath, along with the licorice drop she’d eaten to hide it, very good soap, her skin that always smelled as though she’d been in the sun, some kind of clove and vanilla perfume she’d discovered-the cheaper the better, the way Citrine saw it.

“It’s all right I came?” she said. She could feel his head nod yes. “I thought, oh, he’s alone long enough. I’ll just go up there and throw the schoolgirls out-probably he’s tired of them by now.”

He walked her down the hall and back into the living room. They sat close together on the couch. “How did you get in?”

“Your concierge. She will not stand in the way of true love. Especially when it’s movie actresses. Also, she knew me from before. Also, I bribed her.”

“That’s all it took?”

She laughed. “Yes.”

He kissed her, just a little. She was wearing a tight brown sweater, chocolate, with her yellow scarf tied to one side. A pair of very expensive nylon stockings caught the early evening light.

“I don’t care if you’re mad,” she said.

“I’m not mad.”

She studied him a moment. “Tired,” she said. “What is it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t even look in the mirror.”

“A long time by the sea, I think.”

“Yes.”

“Under the palm trees.”

“Yes. With you.”

She lay on her side on the couch and he did the same-there was just room. “Do you want to make love right away?” she said.

“No. I want to lie here. Later, we can.”

The evening came, birds sang on the roof across the street, the sky darkening to the deep Parisian blue. She took the stockings off and put them carefully aside. He could just see her in the living-room dusk as she put one foot at a time on a chair and rolled each stocking down.

She headed back to the couch, he held up his hand.

“Yes?”

“Why stop?”

“What?”

He smiled.

“You can’t mean-” Her “puzzled” look was very good; heavy lips apart, head canted a little to one side. “Well,” she said. She understood now, but was it the right thing? She reached around behind her for the button on the waistband of her skirt. “This?”

“Yes.”

The telephone rang. It startled him-nobody called at night. It rang again.

“They’ll go away,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, but he sat upright on the couch. Answer the phone. On the third ring he stood up.

She didn’t like it.

“I have to,” he said.

He walked into his bedroom and picked up the receiver. “Casson!”

Mathieu screamed. “Get out! Get out!” The connection was broken.

“Citrine.”

She ran into the bedroom.

“We have to leave.”

She disappeared into the living room, swept up coat, valise, handbag. Stockings in hand, she forced her feet