Paris: The Novel

comrade?” said Le Sourd.
    “Why not?”
    When they got to the desk, a young officer was taking down theirdetails. He looked like a child. Le Sourd gave his age as forty, and though the officer gave him a quick look, he either didn’t care, or he was so young that anyone over thirty-five seemed equally old to him.
    With Luc, for some reason, the officer took more care. Searching through a huge dossier on the desk he found his name.
    “The doctors will check you out,” he said, and he waved him on.

    Dear Maman and Papa, and all the family
,
    I am alive and well. I have been digging trenches since the big battle, which you’ll have heard about. Please send me strong gloves if you can, because I may be in this trench for some time
.
    Thank you for seeing me off, Papa. I saw you waving like a lunatic in the Champs-Élysées, but I was too embarrassed to wave back
.
    My love to you all
.
    Your son
,
    Robert

    Marc Blanchard had not expected the proposal from his brother, nor was it welcome. Though he was forty-five, he’d been wondering whether to enlist.
    “What about Father?” he said. “He could do it far better than me.”
    “He doesn’t want to,” Gérard answered. He gave a wry smile. “I already asked him.”
    It was more than five years since Jules Blanchard had finally retired to Fontainebleau. He still kept the big apartment on the boulevard Malesherbes, but he went there less and less.
    “The store manager and two of my best clerks have all gone to fight. I couldn’t stop them,” Gérard continued. “I need help, and I want someone in the family. If anything happened to me …”
    “You look pretty robust.”
    “That may be. But all the same …”
    “James could do it. He’s a lawyer, and far more competent than I.”
    “Your sister and brother-in-law are in England. They can’t come over.”
    “You’ve already asked them?”
    “Of course. I knew you wouldn’t want this. You have your own life—though that may be somewhat curtailed while this war lasts, I imagine.”
    Marc’s career had been moderately successful. Every year he got a commission or two for a portrait. When a gallery put on a show of his work, a large and fashionable crowd turned up and the paintings would sell. He had talent, but not genius. Had he wanted to, he could have become the director of a museum or an art school, or he could have run a gallery, but he disliked administration. Instead, while carrying on his own work, he became a critic and promoter of the work of others, a respected fixture on the art scene and a man with many friends. Now that the war had started, he had wondered whether to offer himself to the government as a war artist.
    And now his brother wanted him to come and help run the family business.
    “I could be called up,” Marc objected. “I’m probably just young enough.”
    “I already have an exemption for you,” Gérard told him. “The wholesale business is part of the war effort, you know. We’re already supplying food to the troops.” He paused. “I need you to understand the wholesale business, but your main task would be to keep the store going—if we can.”
    “Joséphine? You’d close Joséphine?”
    “I know you like the store. It would break Father’s heart if we had to close it. But if the war drags on, fashion goods are going to be tough to sell. It may be hard to keep Joséphine going. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it. I haven’t got the talent. But perhaps you could succeed.” He glanced at his brother with mild amusement. “Funnily enough, if you put your mind to it, I think you’d run Joséphine rather well.”
    Marc gave his brother a long look.
    “But I’d have to work for you.”
    “We’d work together. But yes, I’d make the final investment decisions.” Gérard gazed at him calmly. “People are going to sacrifice their lives, Marc. This would be your sacrifice. You may dislike the idea, but it wouldn’t kill you. And I want to preserve the business for the next generation.”
    “I’ll give you my answer tomorrow,” Marc told him.
    He was at his aunt Éloïse’s apartment within the hour. She wasn’t surprised to see him.
    “I assume that Gérard has spoken to you,” she remarked.
    “You’ll support me when I refuse, won’t you?” he said.
    “Not at all,” she answered firmly. She smiled. “I love you, Marc, but you are selfish. And we’re at war. You must accept at once.”

Chapter nineteen
    •  1917  •
    Father