Promise at Dawn Page 13

  She boiled my three eggs as usual and made my cup of chocolate. She watched me eat. At last a faint hint of tenderness showed in her eyes. She must have been reflecting that, after all, I was only twelve. When I got my books together, ready to start off for school, the same hard expression as before came back into her face.

  “You’ll never go back there again.”

  “But . . .”

  “You will continue your education in France. Only . . . sit down.”

  I sat down.

  “Listen to me, Romain.”

  I stared at her in amazement. I was no longer Romantchik Romouchka. This was the first time she had ever not used the diminutive. This new departure made me feel extremely ill at ease.

  “Listen to me carefully. The next time a thing like that happens, the next time your mother is insulted to your face, I’ll expect to see you brought hope on a stretcher. Do you understand?”

  I sat there with my mouth open. Her face was very hard. Almost hostile. There was no trace of pity in her eyes. I could not believe it was my mother who was speaking. How could she say things like that? Was I not her Romouchka, her little prince, her precious treasure?

  “I shall expect to see you brought back with blood on your face, do you understand?”

  Her voice rose. She leaned toward me. She was almost shouting.

  “Unless you realize that, it’s not worth our going to France. . . . Not worth going anywhere.”

  A profound feeling of injustice gripped me. My lips began to tremble, tears came into my eyes, my mouth opened still further. I had no time to do more. I felt a stinging slap on my cheek, then another and another. So great was my stupefaction that the tears vanished as though by enchantment. It was the first time my mother had ever raised her hand against me and, like everything she did, it wasn’t done by halves. I sat motionless and petrified under her rain of blows. I didn’t even cry out.

  “Remember what I’ve said to you. From now on, you have to defend me. I don’t care what they do to you with their fists, that’s not what hurts most. If necessary, you’ll let yourself be killed.”

  I again pretended not to understand, to be only twelve, to hide myself. But I understood all right. My cheeks were smarting, I was still seeing stars, but I understood and she saw that I did. It seemed to have a calming effect on her. She breathed noisily—always a sign with her of satisfaction—and poured herself out a cup of tea. She drank it always with a lump of sugar in her mouth, the way Russian peasants do. She was staring into the distance, busily seeking, scheming, calculating. Then she spat what remained of the sugar into the saucer, took her handbag and went out. She went straight to the French Consulate and energetically set about making arrangements to have us admitted as residents in a country where, as she wrote on the application which she got M. Dieuleveut-Caulec to draw up, “it is my son’s intention to settle, to study and to grow into a man”—but there, I am sure, the phrase outdistanced her thoughts and she did not fully realize what it was that she was thus demanding of me.

  1 Our comrade.

  CHAPTER 19

  What I chiefly remember of my first contact with France is the porter at the Nice station, with his long blue smock, his peaked cap, his leather straps and a hale and hearty complexion which was the combined product of sun, sea air and good wine.

  The uniform of French porters is much the same today, and each time I return to the South I am sure of finding that friend of my childhood. To him we entrusted the box containing all our future, that is to say the famous set of old Russian silver, the sale of which was to ensure our prosperity during the years to come.

  We settled into a pension de famille in the rue de la Buffa and my mother gave herself barely time enough to smoke her first French cigarette—a Gauloise Bleue—before opening the box in question, taking out a few particularly choice pieces, putting them into a small suitcase and, with a confident air, setting off to hunt through Nice for a purchaser. I, meanwhile, burning with impatience, hurried down to the beach to renew my old acquaintance with the sea. It recognized me at once and crept up to lick my toes.

  When I got back to the house, I found my mother waiting for me. She was sitting on the bed, smoking nervously. The expression on her face was one of complete incomprehension, a sort of prodigious astonishment. She gave me a questioning look, as though expecting me to supply her with the key to a riddle. In each shop she had entered with her samples of our treasure, she had met with the coldest of cold receptions. The prices she had been offered were utterly ridiculous. Naturally she had told the various dealers what she thought of them. The jewelers were nothing but professional thieves who had tried to rob her; besides, not one of them was truly French. They were, all of them, Armenians, Russians, perhaps even Germans. Tomorrow she would visit French shops, kept by real Frenchmen and not by dubious refugees from eastern Europe whom France should never have allowed to settle on her territory in the first place. There was nothing for me to worry about: the Imperial silver was worth a fortune and, in any case, we had enough money to see us through several weeks. Meanwhile we were sure of finding a purchaser and then our future would be assured for a number of years. I said nothing, but the distress, the incomprehension which I could clearly read in her staring and somewhat enlarged eyes immediately communicated itself to my bowels, thus renewing the strongest bond between us. I knew already that the silver would not be bought by anyone and that, in a fortnight’s time, we should find ourselves penniless in a foreign land. It was the first time that I had thought of France as a foreign land, which only goes to show that we were truly at home.

  In the course of that fortnight my mother engaged in, and lost, an epic struggle in defense of the good name of old Russian silver. She had set herself the task of educating the jewelers and silversmiths of Nice. I watched her putting on a wonderful act of artistic ecstasy before a decent Armenian in the Avenue de la Victoire—who was later to become our friend—extolling the beauty, the rarity and the perfection of the sugar bowl in her hand, only breaking off for a moment to give vent to a dithyrambic chant in honor of the samovar, the soup tureen and the mustard pot. The Armenian, with eyebrows raised to a great height on the limitless expanse of his scalp, which was barren of all hairy obstacles and creased with a thousand wrinkles of astonishment, followed with a sort of petrified gaze the movements of the ladle and the saltcellar in the air, and assured my mother that he had the highest esteem for the articles in question but was slightly surprised by the price she was asking for them, which seemed to him to be ten or twelve times in excess of the current market value. Confronted by such ignorance, my mother returned her property to the suitcase and left the shop without a word of farewell. She was scarcely more successful in the next shop, kept, this time, by two well-born Frenchmen. She displayed before the eyes of the elder the admirably proportioned samovar and, with truly Virgilian eloquence, conjured up the picture of a flourishing French family gathered about it in an atmosphere of domestic coziness. To this, the charming M. Sérusier—who later was often to employ my mother and to supply her with objects for sale on commission—shook his head and, holding to his eyes a pair of beribboned pince-nez which he never put fairly and squarely on his nose, delivered himself as follows:

  “Madame, the samovar has never become a native of these latitudes.”

  This he said with so heartbroken an air of regret that I could almost see the last herd of samovars expiring in the depths of some Gallic forest.

  When received so courteously, my mother gave signs of being abashed—good manners and sweetness always disarmed her—said no more, gave up any attempt at argument and, lowering her eyes, set about silently wrapping each object in paper before putting it back in the suitcase, each object, that is, except the samovar, which was so cumbersome that I had to carry it in my two hands with the greatest care and walk behind her under the wondering eyes of the passers-by.

  We had very little money left and the thought of what would happen to us when it sho
uld be exhausted made me sick with anxiety. At night, we both pretended to sleep but for a long time I saw the glowing point of her cigarette moving in the darkness. I watched her with a terrible feeling of despair, as powerless as a beetle which has been turned over on its back. Even today, I cannot see silver, no matter how beautiful, without wanting to vomit.

  It was M. Sérusier who came to our rescue, on the very next morning. Being a shrewd man of business, he had at once realized my mother’s great talents when it came to singing the praises of her fine and rare “family pieces” to possible buyers, and it occurred to him that he might do worse than make use of her gifts to our mutual advantage. I have an idea, too, that this experienced collector had been much struck by the presence in his shop, among so many other curious objects, of two living specimens of considerable rarity. Adding thus to his natural kindliness the excuse of commercial astuteness, he there and then decided to give us a helping hand. He advanced us a sum of money and, very soon, my mother was making the rounds of all the luxury hotels along the Riviera, offering to the clientele of the Winter Palace, the Hermitage and the Negresco, the “family treasures” which she had managed to take with her when she had fled the Revolution, or which had been entrusted to her by an old friend, a Russian grand duke who, “as the result of circumstances beyond his control” had found himself obliged to dispose of his possessions in as unostentatious a manner as possible.

  We were saved, and saved by a Frenchman—which was the more encouraging since, as France had forty million inhabitants, our future looked bright indeed.

  Other shopkeepers followed suit, with the result that my mother, tirelessly combing the town for purchasers, was enabled, little by little, to provide for our needs.

  As to the famous silver, disgusted by the ridiculous prices she was offered, my mother packed it away in a box, pointing out that this service of twenty-four pieces, all engraved with the Imperial eagle, would be very useful to me in the course of my diplomatic career when I would have to do a lot of “entertaining”—this last word being uttered with a solemn air of mystery.

  She gradually extended the field of her activities. She had showcases for the display of luxury articles in the hotels, acted as intermediary in the selling of apartments and building sites, acquired an interest in a taxi, and a twenty-five per cent share in a lorry which delivered grain to the local poultry farmers, took a larger flat, two rooms of which she sublet, and gave a considerable part of her time to a knitting concern. In the midst of all this, she still found time to surround me with every attention. Her plans for my future had long been made: first, the lycée, then naturalization, a degree in law, military service—needless to say, as a cavalry officer—the School of Political Science and, finally, entry into the Diplomatic Service. When she spoke those two words, she lowered her voice respectfully and a shy look of wonderment showed in her face. To reach that ultimate goal—I was in the third form at school—would mean, according to our constantly repeated calculation, a mere nothing of eight or nine years, and she felt quite capable of carrying on till then. She sniffed with satisfaction and looked at me with anticipatory admiration. “Secretary of Embassy,” she repeated out loud, the better to absorb those wonderful words. It needed only a little patience. I was already fourteen—almost there! She put on her gray cloak, took her suitcase, and I followed her with my eyes as she strode forward energetically toward that brilliant future, cane in hand. She now had to walk with a cane.

  I, however, took a more realistic view. I had no intention of marking time for nine years—anything might happen. I wanted to accomplish something formidable for her at once, without waiting. I decided to win the championship in the junior swimming competition, a five-mile crossing of the Baie des Anges, and I trained every day at the Grande Bleue, but I succeeded only in almost drowning during the race. As a result, I was driven back to literature, like so many other failures. Notebooks piled up on my table filled with more and more eloquent, more and more grandiose, more and more desperate pen names. In my desire to score a bull’s-eye with my very first shot, to steal the sacred fire without further waiting, I read the names, new to me, on the covers of the books in the shops: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, André Malraux, Paul Valéry, Mallarmé, Montherlant, Apollinaire, and, since they seemed to glow with all the brilliance on which I had set my heart, I felt cheated, and kicked myself for not having been the first to think of using one of them for my own adornment.

  I still continued with my efforts to triumph on sea, on land and in the air and to become the champion of the world at something or other. I often had the feeling that I would die of smallness, helplessness and love. I went on with my swimming, running and high-jumping, but it was only at ping-pong that I could really give everything I had in me and return home crowned with laurel. It was the only victory I could offer my mother, and the silver medal, engraved with my name and housed in a violet velvet case, stood on her bedside table until the day of her death.

  I also tried my hand at tennis, having been given a racquet by the parents of one of my friends, but to become a member of the Club du Parc Impérial meant paying, and the membership fee was far beyond our means. Seeing that lack of money made it impossible for me to enter the Parc Imperial, my mother became righteously indignant. The matter, she announced, would not rest at that. She stubbed out her cigarette in a saucer, grabbed her cloak and her cane, and ordered me to fetch my racquet and to follow her that very instant to the Club du Parc Impérial. There, the club secretary was summoned, and, since my mother had a very carrying voice, he lost no time in obeying, followed by the club president, who rejoiced in the admirable name of Garibaldi and who also answered the call at full speed. My mother, standing in the middle of the room, with her hat slightly askew, and brandishing her cane, let them know exactly what she thought of them. What! With a little practice I might become a champion of France and defend my country’s flag against foreigners, but no, because of some trivial and vulgar matter of money, I was forbidden to go onto the courts! All she was prepared to say to these gentlemen at this time was that they had not the interests of their country at heart, and this she would proclaim at the top of her voice, as the mother of a Frenchman—I was not yet naturalized but that, obviously, was a minor matter—and she insisted on my being admitted to the Club courts, there and then. I had not held a tennis racquet in my hand more than three or four times in my life, and the thought that these gentlemen might suddenly ask me to go onto the court and show what I could do made me tremble. But the two distinguished officials were far too overcome with astonishment to give a thought to my possible talents as a tennis player. It was, I think, M. Garibaldi, who, in the hope of calming my mother, hit on the fatal idea which led to a scene the memory of which fills me with confusion even to this day.

  “Madame,” he said, “I must ask you to moderate your voice. His Majesty King Gustav of Sweden is sitting only a few steps from here, and I beg you not to make a scandal.”

  His words had on my mother an almost magical effect. A smile, at once naïve and radiant with wonder, which I knew only too well, showed on her face and she rushed forward.

  An old gentleman was taking tea on the lawn under a white parasol. He was wearing white flannel trousers, a blue and black blazer and a straw “boater” slightly tilted over one ear. King Gustav V was a frequent visitor to the Riviera and its tennis courts. His celebrated straw hat appeared regularly on the front page of the local papers.

  My mother did not hesitate for a moment. She made a deep curtsy and then, pointing her stick at the president and secretary of the club, exclaimed: “I crave justice of Your Majesty! My young son, who will soon be fourteen, has a quite extraordinary gift for lawn tennis and these bad Frenchmen are making it impossible for him to practice here. The whole of our fortune has been seized by the Bolsheviks and we are unable to pay the subscription. I come to Your Majesty for help and protection.”

  This performance was conducted according to the best tradition of po
pular Russian legends in the time of Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great. At its conclusion, my mother turned triumphant eyes upon the numerous and interested audience. Could I have melted into thin air or dissolved into the earth, my last conscious moment would have been one of tremendous relief. But I was not to be allowed to get off so lightly. I had to stand there under the amused gaze of beautiful women and handsome men and win the only world championship that seemed always to be open to me, that of shame and ridicule. But even there my true laurels were yet to come—I had merely qualified for the finals.

  His Majesty Gustav V was, at that time, already a very old man and this, combined no doubt with Swedish phlegm, accounted for the fact that he seemed not in the least surprised. He took the cigar from his lips, gave my mother a solemn look and me a casual glance and, turning to his coach: “Hit a few up with him,” he said, “and let’s see how he does.”