The President Read online

  If the policeman on duty was watching them through the window he must have been surprised to see the Premier and his secretary bending over the hearth, throwing in papers that burned with tall, roaring flames.

  “We shall have to burn the books as well.”

  “What books?”

  So she hadn’t thought of the American edition of his memoirs, and she was astounded to see its pages black with notes, probably wondering when he could have written them without her knowledge.

  “No point in burning the bindings, they’re too thick, and we mustn’t put too many pages at a time into the fire.”

  It was a long job tearing out the pages a few at a time and stirring them with the tongs to help them burn. While she was squatting down and attending to it, he stood behind her.

  “Madame Blanche as well?” he asked, knowing she would understand.

  She did understand, gave an affirmative gesture, added, after a moment’s reflection:

  “She couldn’t have done otherwise. . . . ”

  He hesitated to name anyone else.

  “Emile?”

  “From the very beginning.”

  In other words, Emile had already been reporting on his behavior to the Rue des Saussaies when he was still a Cabinet Minister, then Premier.

  Hadn’t he always known it at the back of his mind, he who had considered it his duty to have other people spied on?

  Or had he been ingenuous? Cunning? Needing to feel that he was an exception, that the rules didn’t apply to him?

  “And Gabrielle?”

  “That’s not the same thing. In Paris, when you were away from home, an inspector came now and then to ask her questions. . . . ”

  He had been standing for too long, and he felt the need to sit down, in his place, his armchair, in his usual position. It was as comforting as getting home and slipping on one’s old clothes. The tall, dancing flames were roasting him down one side and on one cheek, but it would soon be over. As his elbow knocked against the silent radio set, where it stood on the desk, unneeded from now on, he said:

  “Take this too. . . . ”

  She misunderstood him, or pretended to misunderstand, so as to do her bit to cheer up a situation that was depressing her:

  “You want to burn the radio?”

  He gave a faint chuckle.

  “Give it to whoever you like.”

  “May I keep it myself . . . ?”

  She stopped herself just in time from adding:

  “ . . . as a souvenir.”

  He had understood, but he didn’t scowl. He had never seemed so gentle in all his life, and he was like one of those old men who are to be seen in the country or the suburbs, sitting in sunny doorways, gazing for hours on end at a tree or some drifting clouds.

  “I’m sure Gaffé will have telephoned to Dr. Lalinde.”

  Now he had confided in her, she was ready to reciprocate.

  “Yes. He said he was going to.”

  “Was he very frightened when he found me asleep?”

  “He didn’t know you’d taken the medicine.”

  “What about you?”

  She didn’t answer, and he realized he mustn’t begin to pester them with questions. They, too, had done what they could, like Xavier, like Chalamont, like that swine Dolomieu.

  What did the word “swine” remind him of?

  “That swine . . . ”

  He couldn’t recall it, and yet when the word had been spoken it had seemed to be of considerable importance.

  There was a name on the tip of his tongue, but why make the effort? Now he’d come full circle, that kind of thing had ceased to concern him.

  It was a strange impression, agreeable and a little terrifying, not needing to think any longer.

  A few more flames, a few pages writhing and then falling to ashes between the tongs, and all threads would be severed.

  Gabrielle would come to announce that the Premier’s dinner was waiting for him. The Premier would follow her obediently, would sit down on the chair offered by young Marie, with her perpetual dread of his sitting down on air. He wasn’t hungry. He would eat, to please them. He would answer the questions put to him by Gaffé when he came, perhaps accompanied by Lalinde, around seven o’clock, and he’d allow his pulse to be taken yet again, let himself be put to bed as he’d promised.

  He wouldn’t be sarcastic with any of them, not even ironical with Lalinde, who was always a shade pompous.

  He would only be unfailingly patient from now on, only taking care not to cry out, not to call for help, when the moment arrived. He meant to see to that by himself, decently, with discretion.

  Whether it came tomorrow, in a week, or in a year, he would wait, and when his glance fell on Sully’s memoirs, he murmured:

  “You can put that book away.”

  What was the sense of reading other people’s recollections any longer? It didn’t interest him, neither did any other book, and they could have burned the whole library for all he cared.

  “There we are!”

  There had been nothing dramatic about it, when all was said and done, and he was almost pleased with himself. There was even a gleam of mischief in his gray eyes as he thought about his household’s reactions.

  Seeing him so calm and gentle, wouldn’t they shake their heads sadly and whisper behind his back:

  “Have you noticed how he’s sinking?”

  Gabrielle, no doubt, would add:

  “Like a lamp dying down. . . . ”

  Merely because he’d ceased to concern himself with their little affairs.

  “Are you asleep?” Milleran inquired anxiously, noticing all of a sudden that his eyes were closed.

  He shook his head, raised his lids, smiled at her as though she were not only Milleran, but the whole of the human race.

  “No, my child.”

  He added, after a moment’s silence:

  “Not yet.”

  Noland, October 14, 1957