Across the Bridge Read online

  When Pascal was about nine, his father said, “What do you suppose you will do, one day?”

  They were at breakfast. Pascal’s Uncle Amedée was there. Like everyone else, Pascal called him Dédé. Pascal looked across at him and said, “I want to be a bachelor, like Dédé.”

  His mother moaned, “Oh, no!” and covered her face. The magistrate waited until she had recovered before speaking. She looked up, smiling, a bit embarrassed. Then he explained, slowly and carefully, that Dédé was too young to be considered a bachelor. He was a student, a youth. “A student, a student,” he repeated, thinking perhaps that if he kept saying it Dédé would study hard.

  Dédé had a button of a nose that looked ridiculous on someone so tall, and a mass of curly fair hair. Because of the hair, the magistrate could not take him seriously; his private name for Dédé was “Harpo.”

  That period of Pascal’s life, nine rounding to ten, was also the autumn before an important election year. The elections were five months off, but already people argued over dinner and Sunday lunch. One Sunday in October, the table was attacked by wasps, drawn in from the garden by a dish of sliced melon – the last of the season, particularly fragrant and sweet. The French doors to the garden stood open. Sunlight entered and struck through the wine decanters and dissolved in the waxed tabletop in pale red and gold. From his place, Pascal could see the enclosed garden, the apartment blocks behind it, a golden poplar tree, and the wicker chairs where the guests, earlier, had sat with their drinks.

  There were two couples: the Turbins, older than Pascal’s parents, and the Chevallier-Crochets, who had not been married long. Mme. Chevallier-Crochet attended an art-history course with Pascal’s mother, on Thursday afternoons. They had never been here before, and were astonished to discover a secret garden in Paris with chairs, grass, a garden rake, a tree. Just as their expression of amazement was starting to run thin and patches of silence appeared, Abelarda, newly come from Cádiz, appeared at the door and called them to lunch. She said, “It’s ready,” though that was not what Mme. Brouet had asked her to say; at least, not that way. The guests got up, without haste. They were probably as hungry as Pascal but didn’t want it to show. Abelarda went on standing, staring at the topmost leaves of the poplar, trying to remember what she ought to have said.

  A few minutes later, just as they were starting to eat their melon, wasps came thudding against the table, like pebbles thrown. The adults froze, as though someone had drawn a gun. Pascal knew that sitting still was a good way to be stung. If you waved your napkin, shouted orders, the wasps might fly away. But he was not expected to give instructions; he was here, with adults, to discover how conversation is put together, how to sound interesting without being forward, amusing without seeming familiar. At that moment, Dédé did an unprecedented and courageous thing: he picked up the platter of melon, crawling with wasps, and took it outside, as far as the foot of the tree. And came back to applause: at least, his sister clapped, and young Mme. Chevallier-Crochet cried, “Bravo! Bravo!”

  Dédé smiled, but, then, he was always smiling. His sister wished he wouldn’t; the smile gave his brother-in-law another reason for calling him Harpo. Sitting down, he seemed to become entwined with his chair. He was too tall ever to be comfortable. He needed larger chairs, tables that were both higher and wider, so that he would not bump his knees, or put his feet on the shoes of the lady sitting opposite.

  Pascal’s father just said, “So, no more melon.” It was something he particularly liked, and there might be none now until next summer. If Dédé had asked his opinion instead of jumping up so impulsively, he might have said, “Just leave it,” and taken a chance on getting stung.

  Well; no more for anyone. The guests sat a little straighter, waiting for the next course: beef, veal, or mutton, or the possibility of duck. Pascal’s mother asked him to shut the French doors. She did not expect another wasp invasion, but there might be strays. Mme. Chevallier-Crochet remarked that Pascal was tall for his age, then asked what his age was. “He is almost ten,” said Mme. Brouet, looking at her son with some wonder. “I can hardly believe it. I don’t understand time.”

  Mme. Turbin said she did not have to consult a watch to know the exact time. It must be a quarter to two now. If it was, her daughter Brigitte had just landed in Salonika. Whenever her daughter boarded a plane, Mme. Turbin accompanied her in her mind, minute by minute.

  “Thessalonika,” M. Turbin explained.

  The Chevallier-Crochets had spent their honeymoon in Sicily. If they had it to do over again, they said, they would change their minds and go to Greece.

  Mme. Brouet said they would find it very different from Sicily. Her mind was on something else entirely: Abelarda. Probably Abelarda had expected them to linger over a second helping of melon. Perhaps she was sitting in the kitchen with nothing to do, listening to a program of Spanish music on the radio. Mme. Brouet caught a wide-awake glance from her husband, interpreted it correctly, and went out to the kitchen to see.

  One of the men turned to M. Brouet, wondering if he could throw some light on the election candidates: unfortunate stories were making the rounds. Pascal’s father was often asked for information. He had connections in Paris, like stout ropes attached to the upper civil service and to politics. One sister was married to a Cabinet minister’s chief of staff. Her children were taken to school in a car with a red-white-and-blue emblem. The driver could park wherever he liked. The magistrate’s grandfather had begun as a lieutenant in the cavalry and died of a heart attack the day he was appointed head of a committee to oversee war graves. His portrait, as a child on a pony, hung in the dining room. The artist was said to have copied a photograph; that was why the pony looked so stiff and the colors were wrong. The room Pascal slept in had been that child’s summer bedroom; the house had once been a suburban, almost a country dwelling. Now the road outside was like a highway; even with the doors shut they could hear Sunday traffic pouring across an intersection, on the way to Boulogne and the Saint-Cloud bridge.

  The magistrate replied that he did not want to take over the whole conversation but he did feel safe in saying this: Several men, none of whom he had any use for, were now standing face to face. Sometimes he felt like washing his hands of the future. (Saying this, he slid his hands together.) However, before his guests could show shock or disappointment, he added, “But one cannot remain indifferent. This is an old country, an ancient civilization.” Here his voice faded out. “We owe … One has to … A certain unbreakable loyalty …” And he placed his hands on the table, calmly, one on each side of his plate.

  At that moment Mme. Brouet returned, her cheeks and forehead pink, as if she had got too close to a hot oven. Abelarda came along next, to change the plates. She was pink in the face, too.

  Pascal saw the candidates lined up like rugby teams. He was allowed to watch rugby on television. His parents did not care for soccer: the players showed off, received absurd amounts of money just for kicking a ball, and there was something the matter with their shorts. “With all that money, they could buy clothes that fit,” Pascal’s mother had said. Rugby players were different. They were the embodiment of action and its outcome, in an ideal form. They got muddied for love of sport. France had won the Five Nations tournament, beating even the dreaded Welsh, whose fans always set up such eerie wailing in the stands. Actually, they were trying to sing. It must have been the way the early Celts joined in song before the Roman conquest, the magistrate had told Pascal.

  No one at table could have made a rugby team. They were too thin. Dédé was a broomstick. Of course, Pascal played soccer at school, in a small cement courtyard. The smaller boys, aged six, seven, tried to imitate Michel Platini, but they got everything wrong. They would throw the ball high in the air and kick at nothing, leg crossed over the chest, arms spread.

  The magistrate kept an eye on the dish Abelarda was now handing around: partridges in a nest of shredded cabbage – an entire surprise. Pascal looked over at D
édé, who sat smiling to himself, for no good reason. (If Pascal had continued to follow his father’s gaze he might be told gently, later, that one does not stare at food.)

  There was no more conversation to be had from M. Brouet, for the moment. Helping themselves to partridge, the guests told one another stories everybody knew. All the candidates were in a declining state of health and morality. One had to be given injections of ground-up Japanese seaweed; otherwise he lost consciousness, sometimes in the midst of a sentence. Others kept going on a mixture of cocaine and Vitamin C. Their private means had been acquired by investing in gay bars and foreign wars, and evicting the poor. Only the Ministry of the Interior knew the nature and extent of their undercover financial dealings. And yet some of these men had to be found better than others, if democracy was not to come to a standstill. As M. Brouet had pointed out, one cannot wash one’s hands of the future.

  The magistrate had begun to breathe evenly and deeply. Perhaps the sunlight beating on the panes of the shut doors made him feel drowsy.

  “Étienne is never quite awake or asleep,” said his wife, meaning it as a compliment.

  She was proud of everyone related to her, even by marriage, and took pride in her father, who had run away from home and family to live in New Caledonia. He had shown spirit and a sense of initiative, like Dédé with the wasps. (Now that Pascal is fourteen, he has heard this often.) But pride is not the same as helpless love. The person she loved best, in that particular way, was Dédé.

  Dédé had come to stay with the Brouets because his mother, Pascal’s grandmother, no longer knew what to do with him. He was never loud or abrupt, never forced an opinion on anyone, but he could not be left without guidance – even though he could vote, and was old enough to do some of the things he did, such as sign his mother’s name to a check. (Admittedly, only once.) This was his second visit; the first, last spring, had not sharpened his character, in spite of his brother-in-law’s conversation, his sister’s tender anxiety, the sense of purpose to be gained by walking his little nephew to school. Sent home to Colmar (firm handshake with the magistrate at the Gare de l’Est, tears and chocolates from his sister, presentation of an original drawing from Pascal), he had accidentally set fire to his mother’s kitchen, then to his own bedclothes. Accidents, the insurance people had finally agreed, but they were not too pleased. His mother was at the present time under treatment for exhaustion, with a private nurse to whom she made expensive presents. She had about as much money sense as Harpo, the magistrate said. (Without lifting his head from his homework, Pascal could take in nearly everything uttered in the hall, on the stairs, and in two adjacent rooms.)

  When they were all four at breakfast Mme. Brouet repeated her brother’s name in every second sentence: wondering if Dédé wanted more toast, if someone would please pass him the strawberry jam, if he had enough blankets on his bed, if he needed an extra key. (He was a great loser of keys.) The magistrate examined his three morning papers. He did not want to have to pass anything to Harpo. Mme. Brouet was really just speaking to herself.

  That autumn, Dédé worked at a correspondence course, in preparation for a competitive civil-service examination. If he was among the first dozen, eliminating perhaps hundreds of clever young men and women, he would be eligible for a post in the nation’s railway system. His work would be indoors, of course; no one expected him to be out in all weathers, trudging alongside the tracks, looking for something to repair. Great artists, leaders of honor and reputation, had got their start at a desk in a railway office. Pascal’s mother, whenever she said this, had to pause, as she searched her mind for their names. The railway had always been a seedbed of outstanding careers, she would continue. She would then point out to Dédé that their father had been a supervisor of public works.

  After breakfast Dédé wound a long scarf around his neck and walked Pascal to school. He had invented an apartment with movable walls. Everything one needed could be got within reach by pulling a few levers or pressing a button. You could spend your life in the middle of a room without having to stir. He and Pascal refined the invention; that was what they talked about, on the way to Pascal’s school. Then Dédé came home and studied until lunchtime. In the afternoon he drew new designs of his idea. Perhaps he was lonely. The doctor looking after his mother had asked him not to call or write, for the moment.

  Pascal’s mother believed Dédé needed a woman friend, even though he was not ready to get married. Pascal heard her say, “Art and science, architecture, culture.” These were the factors that could change Dédé’s life, and to which he would find access through the right kind of woman. Mme. Brouet had someone in mind – Mlle. Turbin, who held a position of some responsibility in a travel agency. She was often sent abroad to rescue visitors or check their complaints. Today’s lunch had been planned around her, but at the last minute she had been called to Greece, where a tourist, bitten by a dog, had received an emergency specific for rabies, and believed the Greeks were trying to kill him.

  Her parents had come, nevertheless. It was a privilege to meet the magistrate and to visit a rare old house, one of the last of its kind still in private hands. Before lunch Mme. Turbin had asked to be shown around. Mme. Brouet conducted a tour for the women, taking care not to open the door to Dédé’s room: there had been a fire in a wastepaper basket only a few hours before, and everything in there was charred or singed or soaked.

  At lunch, breaking out of politics, M. Turbin described the treatment the tourist in Salonika had most probably received: it was the same the world over, and incurred the use of a long needle. He held out his knife, to show the approximate length.

  “Stop!” cried Mme. Chevallier-Crochet. She put her napkin over her nose and mouth; all they could see was her wild eyes. Everyone stopped eating, forks suspended – all but the magistrate, who was pushing aside shreds of cabbage to get at the last of the partridge.

  M. Chevallier-Crochet explained that his wife was afraid of needles. He could not account for it; he had not known her as a child. It seemed to be a singular fear, one that set her apart. Meantime, his wife closed her eyes; opened them, though not as wide as before; placed her napkin neatly across her lap; and swallowed a piece of bread.

  M. Turbin said he was sorry. He had taken it for granted that any compatriot of the great Louis Pasteur must have seen a needle or two. Needles were only a means to an end.

  Mme. Brouet glanced at her husband, pleading for help, but he had just put a bite of food into his mouth. He was always last to be served when there were guests, and everything got to him cold. That was probably why he ate in such a hurry. He shrugged, meaning, Change the subject.

  “Pascal,” she said, turning to him. At last, she thought of something to say: “Do you remember Mlle. Turbin? Charlotte Turbin?”

  “Brigitte?” said Pascal.

  “I’m sure you remember,” she said, not listening at all. “In the travel agency, on Rue Caumartin?”

  “She gave me the corrida poster,” said Pascal, wondering how this had slipped her mind.

  “We went to see her, you and I, the time we wanted to go to Egypt? Now do you remember?”

  “We never went to Egypt.”

  “No. Papa couldn’t get away just then, so we finally went back to Deauville, where Papa has so many cousins. So you do remember Mlle. Turbin, with the pretty auburn hair?”

  “Chestnut,” said the two Turbins, together.

  “My sister,” said Dédé, all of a sudden, indicating her with his left hand, the right clutching a wineglass. “Before she got married, my mother told me …” The story, whatever it was, engulfed him in laughter. “A dog tried to bite her,” he managed to say.

  “You can tell us about it another time,” said his sister.

  He continued to laugh, softly, just to himself, while Abelarda changed the plates again.

  The magistrate examined his clean new plate. No immediate surprises: salad, another plate, cheese, a dessert plate. His wife had given up
on Mlle. Turbin. Really, it was his turn now, her silence said.

  “I may have mentioned this before,” said the magistrate. “And I would not wish to keep saying the same things over and over. But I wonder if you agree that the pivot of French politics today is no longer in France.”

  “The Middle East,” said M. Turbin, nodding his head.

  “Washington,” said M. Chevallier-Crochet. “Washington calls Paris every morning and says, Do this, Do that.”

  “The Middle East and the Soviet Union,” said M. Turbin.

  “There,” said M. Brouet. “We are all in agreement.”

  Many of the magistrate’s relatives and friends thought he should be closer to government, to power. But his wife wanted him to stay where he was and get his pension. After he retired, when Pascal was grown, they would visit Tibet and the north of China, and winter in Kashmir.

  “You know, this morning –” said Dédé, getting on with something that was on his mind.

  “Another time,” said his sister. “Never mind about this morning. It is all forgotten. Étienne is speaking, now.”

  This morning! The guests had no idea, couldn’t begin to imagine what had taken place, here, in the dining room, at this very table. Dédé had announced, overjoyed, “I’ve got my degree.” For Dédé was taking a correspondence course that could not lead to a degree of any kind. It must have been just his way of trying to stop studying so that he could go home.

  “Degree?” The magistrate folded yesterday’s Le Monde carefully before putting it down. “What do you mean, degree?”

  Pascal’s mother got up to make fresh coffee. “I’m glad to hear it, Dédé,” she said.

  “A degree in what?” said the magistrate.

  Dédé shrugged, as if no one had bothered to tell him. “It came just the other day,” he said. “I’ve got my degree, and now I can go home.”

  “Is there something you could show us?”

  “There was just a letter, and I lost it,” said Dédé. “A real diploma costs two thousand francs. I don’t know where I’d find the money.”