I kissed her, and suddenly she stiffened against me.
“What’s that?” she demanded, putting her hand under my arm where I kept my gun.
I had to tell her. “A pistol, just to be safe.”
Her lip quivered. She was going to cry. “Jules, please, don’t you get mixed up in this. Please.”
“Now, now,” I said. “I’m not ‘mixed up’ in anything. I merely felt a little nervous and decided at least to be in a position to protect myself should any of my friends . . .” I trailed off.
She buried her face in my shoulder and cried softly. “Any of your friends. Why won’t they leave us alone? Oh, poor Marcel.” Her voice broke again. She looked up at me pleadingly. “Jules, really, you’re not involved? You’re not a spy?”
“No,” I said, “no, I’m not a spy. I’m a middle-aged man who’s getting old and ready to retire with his lover. I don’t want anything to threaten that, so I carry a gun, but only until we find what happened to Marcel. All I want to do is brew beer and tend my vineyards”—I picked up her chin—“and love you.”
She smiled bravely.
I kissed her again and stepped back. “I have to go. Georges and Paul will be waiting. I’ll pick you up on the way back. We’ll stay together tonight.”
I watched her walk off into the house, then turned and headed down the stairs to the Ford. The damn thing was, all I really did want to do was brew beer and tend my vineyards and live with Tania. But, then, what if Tania were a spy? No, I wouldn’t let myself think that.
It was hot in the car as I turned into the road. I’d have to see Lupa after I’d been to St. Etienne, and I found myself hoping that Fritz would deliver the beer before long. I was as bad as Lupa with his sausages. My rituals were beginning to keep me from the pain of Marcel’s death, as a kind of insulation.
But my friend was dead, and when the rituals were over, that would remain, so I drove slowly, thinking of my own best sausage recipe and watching out for potholes.
6
The war was everywhere. If normal life can be said to continue in a town stripped of its young men, then normal life went on. But of course the war touched everyone you knew or met and colored the mood of the entire countryside. Even as the sun shone brightly down on our fountain, where Paul sat with his pants rolled up cooling his feet, the streets were cleared for a convoy of trucks and carriages carrying supplies to the front.
I pulled over and parked across the square, watching the vehicles roll past, then walked over to join my friends. Paul was smoking a cigarette and talking animatedly to Georges. They stopped as I drew nearer, and Paul pulled his feet from the water and rolled down his trousers.
