Paris: The Novel

then?”
    “Pierre might have to fight.”
    “Not only boys like Pierre. There’ll be a general conscription. I’ve heard army officers talk about it in the past. You’re over fifty, a bit too old. But I’ll probably be called up.”
    “You think so?”
    “I do. So I’ve made a decision. I’ll wait a little while, but if we hold the Germans, I’m going to volunteer.”
    “Why?”
    “You probably get better treatment, have a better chance of finding yourself a good billet, if you’re a volunteer. People who wait to be conscripted, and forced into the army, don’t do so well. That’s usually how these things work.” He gave his brother a thoughtful look. “If that happens, Thomas, I want you and Édith to take over the bar and restaurant.”
    “But that’s not what I do.”
    “Thomas, if the war drags on, life might get very hard. I don’t think people will be building much. And anyway, you’re not getting any younger. There could be food shortages. Think of the siege of Paris back in 1870. People were starving. With the bar, you stand a better chance of getting by than most people. And then after the war, whoever wins, you’ll still have it.”
    Thomas looked doubtful.
    “I don’t know, Luc. It’s not my style. And Édith …”
    There was no need for Thomas to finish the sentence. But it wasn’t only that Édith had never liked Luc. Ever since the terrible secret of the murder had come between them, there had been a distance between the two brothers as well. Nothing was ever said, but they both knew it. Even in Luc’s absence, Thomas was reluctant to become involved in his brother’s business. And he certainly didn’t want to join him as any kind of partner.
    “Don’t worry,” said Luc, wryly, “I’ll probably be killed. I wouldn’t be the first,” he added quietly.
    But to Thomas’s surprise, when he spoke to Édith about the subject that night, she was enthusiastic. “As long as Luc’s not there,” she stipulated.
    “I thought you would not want it,” he said.
    “Why? It’s better than what we have.”
    “Luc thinks he might be killed.”
    “Make sure he leaves the business to you. Make sure there’s a proper will.”
    This wasn’t Thomas’s way of doing things. But the next day when, with embarrassment, he mentioned what Édith had said to his brother, Luc smiled and remarked that she was quite right. “Give this to yourwife,” he said, and handed Thomas a copy of his will, together with the name of his lawyer.

    It was not long before news started arriving about the great battle on the River Marne. It had been the small band of gallant aviators in their flimsy biplanes who had brought the French command news that the German forces outside Paris were split. French and British troops, reinforced by the Parisian troops who’d come in by taxi, were poured into the gap.
    The fighting was desperate, the casualties huge. But in less than a week, the Germans had pulled back northeastward to the line of the River Aisne in Picardy and Champagne. There they started a massive line of trenches, and dug in. Paris was saved.
    But the news of the casualties was terrible. In that one week of battle, France alone had a quarter of a million casualties, of whom eighty thousand were dead. In such extreme circumstances, it was not always possible to make precise tallies, nor, at first, to inform all the families of the dead.

    A week after the battle was over, when there was still no news of Robert, Luc Gascon went to volunteer. He’d taken his decision carefully.
    It was clear that Germany would not be able to overrun France as planned. Not only that: the kaiser would now be forced to fight a war on two fronts—on the plains of France and Flanders to his west, and in Russia to the east. The war might be brief, but Luc suspected it would not. More recruits would certainly be needed, and soon.
    The recruiting station was a collection of quickly erected wooden huts near the Gare de l’Est railway station. There he found a small crowd of men, waiting in groups and chatting together before they joined the short line filing in at the doorway. As he certainly wasn’t in a hurry, he paused and surveyed the scene.
    There were all sorts of men. Most seemed to be in their thirties. The younger men, he surmised, had been more recently conscripted and were probably already in the reserve. A few were laborers and factory hands, but more of them looked like clerks or shop assistants, mostly