Across the Bridge - Mavis Gallant [27]
“I may have mentioned this before,” said the magistrate. “And I would not wish to keep saying the same things over and over. But I wonder if you agree that the pivot of French politics today is no longer in France.”
“The Middle East,” said M. Turbin, nodding his head.
“Washington,” said M. Chevallier-Crochet. “Washington calls Paris every morning and says, Do this, Do that.”
“The Middle East and the Soviet Union,” said M. Turbin.
“There,” said M. Brouet. “We are all in agreement.”
Many of the magistrate’s relatives and friends thought he should be closer to government, to power. But his wife wanted him to stay where he was and get his pension. After he retired, when Pascal was grown, they would visit Tibet and the north of China, and winter in Kashmir.
“You know, this morning –” said Dédé, getting on with something that was on his mind.
“Another time,” said his sister. “Never mind about this morning. It is all forgotten. Étienne is speaking, now.”
This morning! The guests had no idea, couldn’t begin to imagine what had taken place, here, in the dining room, at this very table. Dédé had announced, overjoyed, “I’ve got my degree.” For Dédé was taking a correspondence course that could not lead to a degree of any kind. It must have been just his way of trying to stop studying so that he could go home.
“Degree?” The magistrate folded yesterday’s Le Monde carefully before putting it down. “What do you mean, degree?”
Pascal’s mother got up to make fresh coffee. “I’m glad to hear it, Dédé,” she said.
“A degree in what?” said the magistrate.
Dédé shrugged, as if no one had bothered to tell him. “It came just the other day,” he said. “I’ve got my degree, and now I can go home.”
“Is there something you could show us?”
“There was just a letter, and I lost it,” said Dédé. “A real diploma costs two thousand francs. I don’t know where I’d find the money.”
The magistrate did not seem to disbelieve; that was because of his training. But then he said, “You began your course about a month ago?”
“I had been thinking about it for a long time,” said Dédé.
“And now they have awarded you a degree. You are perfectly right – it’s time you went home. You can take the train tonight. I’ll call your mother.”
Pascal’s mother returned carrying a large white coffeepot. “I wonder where your first job will be,” she said.
Why were she and her brother so remote from things as they are? Perhaps because of their mother, the grandmother in Colmar. Once, she had taken Pascal by the chin and tried to force him to look her in the eye. She had done it to her children. Pascal knows, now, that you cannot have your chin held in a vise and undividedly meet a blue stare. Somewhere at the back of the mind is a second self with eyes tight shut. Dédé and his sister could seem to meet any glance, even the magistrate’s when he was being most nearly wide awake. They seemed to be listening, but the person he thought he was talking to, trying to reach the heart of, was deaf and blind. Pascal’s mother listens when she needs to know what might happen next.
All Pascal understood, for the moment, was that when Dédé had mentioned taking a degree, he was saying something he merely wished were true.
“We’ll probably never see you, once you start to work,” said Pascal’s mother, pouring Dédé’s coffee.
The magistrate looked as if such great good luck was not to be expected. Abelarda, who had gone upstairs to make the beds, screamed from the head of the staircase that Dédé’s room was full of smoke.
Abelarda moved slowly around the table carrying a plum tart, purple and gold, caramelized all over its surface, and a bowl of cream. Mme. Turbin glanced at the tart and shook her head no: M. Turbin was not allowed sugar now, and she had got out of the habit of eating desserts. It seemed unfair to tempt him.
It was true, her husband said. She had even given up making sweets, on his account. He described her past achievements – her famous chocolate mousse with candied