Promise at Dawn Read online

  When, at last, I gave up and turned away, he was starting on the last of his sandwiches. I, myself, had eaten nothing since the previous day. Since the German breakthrough, the menu in the sergeants’ mess had been particularly tempting, French cooking at its best, worthy of our great traditions and designed, no doubt, to build up our morale and to still our doubts by reminding us of the basic and permanent values of our country. But I dared not leave the airfield for fear of missing the chance of getting away. Above all, I was thirsty, and I gratefully accepted some red wine offered me by the crew of a Potez-63 lolling on the grass in the shade of the wings. Perhaps under the influence of the strong Bordeaux on an empty stomach, I launched upon another piece of oratory; I spoke of England, the aircraft carrier of victory; I invoked the memories of Guynemer, Joan of Arc and Bayard; I gesticulated; I laid one hand upon my heart; I brandished a clenched fist; I gave myself noble and heroic airs. I truly believe that it was my mother’s voice which was talking through me, because the longer I went on the more staggered was I by the astonishing number of clichés which flowed from my lips without my feeling in the least embarrassed. It was useless to feel outraged by the shamelessness of my performance: I went on and on, partly from fatigue and wine, but mostly under the influence of some strange force over which I had no control, since my mother’s personality and determination had always been stronger than I. I even believe that a change came over my voice and a strong Russian accent was clearly audible when my mother conjured up a vision of our “immortal country” and spoke of our giving our lives for “this France of ours which is eternally reborn” to the interested and appreciative audience. Now and again, when I began to weaken, they pushed the bottle in my direction and off I started on a new tirade—taking advantage of the state I was in, my mother was really giving her all in particularly juicy selections from her patriotic repertory. At last the three sergeants took pity on me and made me eat some hard-boiled eggs and bread and sausage, which had the effect of sobering me up sufficiently to let me get hold of myself and put in her place the excitable Russian woman who was presuming to give us lessons in patriotism. They also gave me some dried prunes but refused to go to England since, according to them, it was from North Africa, under General Noguès, that the war would be continued. They were going to make for Morocco as soon as they could refuel their plane, which they were determined to do, even if it meant getting hold of a tanker lorry at pistol point. There had already been some fighting round it, and the tanker moved with a guard of armed Senegalese riding on top with fixed bayonets.

  My nose was stuffed up with clots of blood and I had difficulty in breathing. There was only one thing I wanted and that was to lie down on the grass and stay there on my back forever. But my mother’s vitality and her will power drove me forward. Indeed it was not I who was wandering thus from plane to plane but a fierce old lady dressed in gray, stick in hand, and a Gauloise between her lips, who had made up her mind that she would go to England to continue the fight and that nothing was going to stop her.

  CHAPTER 32

  At 4 p.m. the squadron at last received orders to proceed to Meknès, in Morocco, which seemed to confirm the prevailing view that North Africa would remain in the war, and we left Mérignac at five in the afternoon and arrived that same evening at Salanque on the shores of the Mediterranean. We landed there just in time to learn that every plane on the airfield had been forbidden to leave the ground. Apparently, some new authority was now in control of all air movements toward Africa and all previous instructions were to be considered null and void. I knew my mother well enough to feel that she was quite capable of making me swim the Mediterranean rather than accept the surrender. Fortunately, I found a sympathetic soul in one of the squadron pilots and, without waiting for any new orders or counter-orders from our new batch of beloved leaders, we set a course for Algeria, at dawn.

  Our Potez was equipped with Petrel engines, which meant that, without supplementary tanks, there was a very considerable risk that our propellers would come to a standstill some forty minutes’ flying time short of the African coast, forcing us to ditch.

  We took off just the same. I knew that nothing could happen to me since I was protected by a formidable power of love and also because I was still young enough to see life as a perfectly ordered work, classical and Mediterranean in its essence, as though human destiny followed a pattern of strict balance and proportion, intending a masterpiece. Such a comfortable vision of things, making justice a sort of aesthetic imperative, made me feel invulnerable as long as my mother lived: I was her victory, her happy ending. I was meant to return to her triumphant. As to Warrant Officer Delavault, though wholly unsupported by literature, he set off across the sea with a phlegmatic “Well, let’s see what happens,” taking with us two tires to serve as lifebuoys in case of necessity.

  Fortunately, the wind was in our favor, and since my mother was probably also doing some blowing in the right direction, we landed on the airfield of Maison-Blanche at Algiers with a comfortable margin of ten minutes of fuel in our tanks.

  From there, we proceeded next morning to Meknès, where the flying school had taken up temporary headquarters. We arrived just in time to be told not only that the armistice had been accepted by the North African authorities as well, but also that, as a result of certain “desertions” of rebellious crews intent on reaching Gibraltar, orders had been given to ground all aircraft.

  My mother was beside herself. She didn’t give me a minute’s peace. She was raging, storming, brandishing her cane. All my attempts to calm her were useless. She rebelled with every beat of my heart, boiled with indignation in every corpuscle of my blood and kept me awake at night, urging me to do something about it, to take things into my own hands. I kept averting my eyes sheepishly, pretending not to see her look of scandalized incomprehension when faced by a phenomenon so completely new to her: the acceptance of defeat—as though man were something that could be defeated. In vain did I beg her to control herself, to be patient, to have confidence in me. She wouldn’t listen and kept on summoning all the sons of France to rally round the flag: she was profoundly shocked and hurt by the refusal of North Africa to answer her call.

  The appeal broadcast by General de Gaulle, calling on all Frenchmen to continue the fight, was made from London on June 18, 1940. Without wishing to complicate the task of the historians, I think it only right to point out that my mother’s rallying call was sounded on the 15th or 16th of the same month, at the Buffa Market, from Mr. Pantaleoni’s vegetable stand, and numerous witnesses can bear me out on this point.

  Twenty persons were later to describe to me this frightening scene, the sight of which, thank heaven, I was mercifully spared: my mother standing on a chair among carrots, beetroots and lettuces, brandishing her cane and calling on all good men to reject the shameful armistice and to continue the war from England and North Africa, shoulder to shoulder with her son, the famous writer and diplomat, who was already dealing the enemy mortal blows. Poor woman. Tears come into my eyes when I think of her winding up her tirade by opening her bag and showing around a page cut from a weekly, containing one of my short stories. Many among those present must have laughed. I don’t blame them: I blame only myself for my lack of talent and stature, and for having failed to be other than I was. That was not what I wanted to give her.

  Never was her presence more real to me, more physically felt than during the long hours I spent in aimless wandering around the Medina of Meknès, trying to forget, if only for a moment, in a world so completely new to me, in the exotic sea of colors, sounds and smells breaking over me, the voice that summoned me to battle with an insupportable grandiloquence swollen with all the most overworked clichés of the jingoist’s repertory. My mother took advantage of my extreme nervous exhaustion to take over from me completely. My deep need for affection and care, born of too long sheltering beneath the maternal wing, had left me with a confused longing to feel some benevolent feminine power guiding my steps, so
that her image never left me for a single moment. It was, I think, in those long solitary hours of wandering among the strange and colorful crowds, that all that was strongest in my mother’s nature prevailed, once and for all, over what was still weak and irresolute in mine; that her breath flowed into me and replaced my own and that she became truly me, with all her violence, her lack of balance, her aggressiveness, her love of drama, all those characteristics of a nature, every feature of which was excessive and extreme and was soon to earn for me, among my comrades and with my superiors, the reputation of a hothead, to say the least.

  I have to admit that I tried hard to escape from that domineering presence and did my best to escape it in the motley, swarming world of Medina. I haunted the bazaars, absorbed in contemplation of the leather and the metals worked with an art new to me; I bent over a thousand treasures under the remote and fixed gaze of merchants seated, cross-legged, on their counters, their heads and shoulders propped against the wall and the mouthpiece of a chibouk between their lips, in an odor of hashish, incense and mint. I visited the red-light district, where, though I did not know it then, I was soon to experience the most abject adventure of my life. I sat in Arab cafes, smoking cigars and drinking green tea, attempting—an old habit with me—to fight my distress of spirit with the sense of physical wellbeing. But my mother followed me wherever I went and her voice held a note of cutting irony. A little sight-seeing? While the France of my ancestors lies torn and bleeding between an implacable enemy and a gutless government? Well, we might just as well have stayed in Vilna, and spared ourselves all the trouble of coming to France—obviously I didn’t have in me what it takes to make a Frenchman.

  I would rise, leave the Moorish café and plunge down a side lane in a throng of veiled women, beggars, hawkers, donkeys and assorted soldiery, and in that swiftly-flowing tide of new impressions, of colors, voices, sights, on one or two occasions I did manage somehow to give her the slip.

  It was then that I lived what must be one of the shortest love affairs of all time. At a bar in the European quarter where I had gone for a drink, I found myself opening my heart and confiding my most intimate thoughts to a blonde barmaid, who seemed particularly touched by my impassioned serenade. Her eyes began to wander over my face, pausing at each feature with a look of tenderness and solicitude which made me feel that I was suddenly ceasing to be a mere rough sketch of a man and becoming the real thing at last. While her gaze shifted from my chin to my mouth and then dreamily caressed my left ear and then my right one, I felt my chest expand to twice its normal size, my heart swell with courage, my muscles acquire a strength which ten years of exercises could not have given them, and the whole of the earth became a pedestal under my feet. When I told her of my intention to desert and carry on the war from England, she took from around her neck a chain with a small gold cross and held it out to me. Suddenly and irresistibly, I was tempted there and then to ditch my mother, France, England and all the invisible but noble burdens which lay so heavy on my shoulders and settle down for good in Meknès with this unique being who understood me so well. She was a Pole who had come from Russia by way of the Pamir and Iran, and I put the chain around my neck and asked my beloved to marry me. By then we had already known each other well over ten minutes and there was no point in losing more time. She accepted my proposal. Her husband and her brother had both been killed during the Polish campaign and she told me that she had been living alone ever since, apart from the inevitable hoppings in and out of bed, a pure matter of economic survival. There was something hurt and pathetic in her expression which made me feel that I was giving her help and protection, whereas, on the contrary, it was really I who was grabbing at the first female lifebuoy floating within my reach. In order to face life I have always needed the comfort of a femininity at once vulnerable and devoted, tenderly submissive and grateful, which makes me feel that I am giving when I am taking, that I am supporting when, in fact, I am leaning. I am at a loss to say whence this strange need comes, or who is responsible for it. Armored in my leather jacket in spite of the overwhelming heat, with my cap over one eye, a real tower of strength, offering my virile protection, I clung desperately to her hand. The world was sinking rapidly around us and it drove us into one another’s arms at vertiginous speed, the very speed at which it was sinking.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon, the hour of siesta, sacred throughout Africa. The bar was empty. We went up to her room and there we lay for a good thirty minutes, clinging to each other, and never have two drowning beings tried so hard to help one another. We decided to get married at once and then go to England together. I was to meet at half past three with one of my fellow pilots who had gone to see the British Consul at Casablanca in the hope of getting him to help us with our projected journey. I left the bar at three o’clock, met my friend and warned him that there would now be three of us, instead of two. When I got back at half past four, the bar was already crowded and my betrothed very busy. I had no idea what had happened in my absence—she must have met somebody—but I could see that all was over between us. No doubt she had found the separation unbearable. She was now deep in conversation with a handsome lieutenant of Spahis—I can only suppose that he had come into her life while I was away. It was all my fault: one should never leave the woman one loves, loneliness overwhelms her, doubt and discouragement set in and, in a moment, the damage is done. She must have lost confidence in me and decided to make a new life for herself. I was very unhappy but didn’t feel that I could blame her. I hung about for a while with a glass of beer in front of me; I was terribly disappointed, all the same, for I had believed that all my problems were solved. She was very pretty, with something lost, beaten and defenseless about her which always inspires me and brings out the best in me, and she had a way of pushing back her fair hair from her forehead which still moves me when I think of it. I form attachments very easily. I spoke a few words in Polish to her in an attempt to arouse her patriotism but she cut me short, explaining that she was going to marry the lieutenant, who was a farmer, that she had had enough of the war and that, anyhow, the war was now over, Marshal Pétain had saved France and would put everything in order. She added that the English had betrayed us. I looked at the Spahi, who was spread all over the place, with his dashing red burnous, and I felt resigned. The poor girl was trying to get hold of something that looked solid a farmer is a farmer—in the general shipwreck; I wouldn’t hold it against her. I paid for my beer and left a tip in the saucer, together with the little chain and the gold cross. Once a gentleman, always a gentleman.

  My friend’s parents lived in Fez and we took the bus and went to see them. The door was opened by his sister and I at once saw in her a life buoy which made me forget the one I had missed by so little at Meknès. Simone was one of those North African Frenchwomen whose mat complexion, delicate wrists and ankles, and languorous eyes are well known and much admired. She was gay, she was cultivated, she encouraged her brother and me in our plan to go to England and, when she looked at me, there was a gravity in her expression, a silent promise of lifelong devotion which moved me immensely. Under those eyes I felt once more whole and complete, firm on my feet and secure in my love, and I proposed to her on the spot. The offer was well received, we embraced under the eyes of her tearful and delighted parents, and it was agreed that she should join me in England at the first opportunity. Six months later, in London, her brother gave me a letter in which Simone informed me that she had married a young architect in Casa. This was a terrible blow, for not only had I thought that I had found in her the woman of my life but I had already forgotten her completely, and thus the letter came as a doubly painful revelation about myself.

  Our efforts to persuade the British Consul to supply us with false papers failed and I made up my mind to seize, by force if necessary, one of the Moranes-315 on the airfield at Meknès and make for Gibraltar. But first I had to find one which had not been deliberately put out of commission on orders from our beloved lea
ders, or else to find a sympathetic engineer. I took to loitering on the airfield, staring hard at every engineer I saw in an effort to read his heart. I was about to accost one whose pleasant face and snub nose inspired confidence in me, when I saw a Simoun aircraft touch down on the runway and come to a halt a few yards from where I was standing. The pilot got out and walked toward the hangar. This was surely a friendly and collusive wink from heaven, and there could be no question of letting the chance pass. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and I felt a painful contraction in my stomach. I was very far from sure that I could get the Simoun into the air and keep it there. In my training I had never got beyond the Morane and the Potez-540. But there was no question of backing out now: the die was cast. I felt that my mother was looking at me with pride and admiration. I found myself wondering briefly whether with the defeat and the occupation there might not be a shortage of insulin in France. She could not have held out three days without her injections. Perhaps I could arrange with the Red Cross in London to send her a regular supply through Switzerland.