Affairs of State

Thursday 12 December

At the Intelligence Service headquarters there was tension in the air as the day dragged by following Macquart’s return from the Élysée. Eyes and ears had been positioned everywhere they possibly could. Reports came in regularly: nothing’s happening. Bornand is at home, he’s not moving, not telephoning, not receiving any visitors. Françoise Michel is having dinner with a girlfriend at the Champs Élysées Drugstore as if it were the most normal thing in the world. They’re going to the cinema to see The Year of the Dragon. Macquart wagers she has no idea of what’s going on.

Fernandez arrived at the Hôtel de la République, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye at around midnight on Monday evening. He parked his car in a paying car park, and hasn’t moved it since. He goes for walks in the forest, reads the newspaper, bets on the horses and plays table football at the nearest bar-cum-tobacconist and betting shop, eats at the hotel and drinks whisky in his room.

Macquart summarises for them. ‘In other words, he’s telling us that he’s been out of Paris since Monday evening. But he’s right next to a busy train station where there’s no likelihood of his being identified … We’ll soon see about that.’

Bornand has shut himself up in his drawing room and sits slumped in an armchair. He’s had his mistress informed that he’s not available, sent Antoine away, locked his door, unplugged the telephone, and opened a bottle of vodka. The President refused to see him and congratulated himself in front of his closest associates for never having invited Françoise Michel to the Élysée. The verdict has been delivered and it is final: no scandals of this nature in the corridors of the presidential palace. Bornand is asked to leave his office at the Élysée immediately, and its door is now closed to him. With all his files inside. He is not the only one who understands the workings of power. He is to put an immediate end to this affair, and ostensibly go back to living with his wife. ‘Then, we’ll see,’ says the President, ‘it all depends on the reaction of the press and of public opinion.’

Bornand takes a large slug of vodka and closes his eyes. Go back to living with his wife. A half smile. They never had lived together. They’d lived in the same house while Thomas was alive, that’s all that can be said. Then Bornand’s wife moved away to live in Saumur, one day after the funeral. It was several days before he noticed she’d gone. So, resume their cohabitation, why not?

The vodka bottle is empty. His stomach’s burning. He feels shut in. Plagued, as in the past. Sees himself locked in his room with Thomas, his father-in-law to be, pacing the floor, shouting, randomly banging into furniture.

‘In the Militia! You idiot … What are you trying to do? Act the martyr? … Wake up. This is March 1943. The Germans have lost Stalingrad, the Americans are in North Africa and the Japanese are retreating in the Pacific. Can’t you see for yourself that Hitler has lost the war, and Vichy and the Militia will go down with him?’

He follows Thomas with his eyes and says nothing. Vichy, the new homeland, building the Europe of tomorrow, destroying Communism, the enemy of Western civilisation, is he the only person who believes in it?

‘The kids’ games are over. You’ll go and live with my mother in the country, and you stay put until further orders. Let people forget you. I’ll have enough on my plate trying to salvage my business after the war, without having a collaborator on my hands as well.’

He gave in, that’s all, neither a rebel nor a hero. Just like today. The solitude is unbearable. Of course he will step back in line and go back to his wife, at least for a while. He opens another bottle of vodka and falls asleep.