Topaz - Leon Uris [116]
“Well, Picard, Michele has no doubt told you she and I are very close.”
“She has.”
“Then may I speak candidly?”
“Certainly.”
“The bloom goes off the rose once you are stuffed together in one of Paris’s magnificent one-room, fourth-floor, walk-up flats.”
“Papa ...”
“Michele is spoiled and lazy. She has no idea of how to manage money. So you ask her to wash your socks and underwear, prepare meals, keep house, be your lover, and also continue her studies.”
“Papa, please ...”
“And you, young man. What happens when your bachelor quarters are suddenly invaded by a permanent female hanging stockings, brassieres, and panties over the shower rail? A man changes with the burden of a wife. And then in a short time you will both see pimples on each other’s backsides that you simply refuse to see now.”
François shrugged. “Well, darling, you did tell me he was this way. Are you telling me, Monsieur Devereaux, not to marry?”
“Of course not. Michele is happy studying at the Sorbonne. She has a lovely home and a good allowance. I suggest the two of you take an apartment together, not yours or hers but a neutral one belonging to both of you. Try it for six months, and if you still feel as you do now, then marry. Otherwise, part friends and no one is hurt.”
“I knew you would suggest something like this,” Michele said.
“Well, you’re sleeping together now, aren’t you?”
Their abashed silence was enough.
“And for Gods sake, don’t get pregnant,” André said.
4
ROBERT PROUST’S APARTMENT ON the Rue Poussin showed that it was the home of a moderately well-to-do bureaucrat. Proust had not fared so well personally. He was balding, dull, and tired.
André peered out of the window of Robert’s study to the Bois de Boulogne, then let the drapes fall together and turned back to the room.
“I’ve been followed ever since I’ve returned to Paris. Is this the work of your office, Robert?”
Robert sighed. “Well, you know I haven’t had a chance to see you once since you have been back. Otherwise, I would have told you.”
“Who told you to put a tail on me?”
Robert balked. “The orders came from Colonel Brune personally.”
“I saw Ferdinand Fauchet tonight.”
“What the hell, André! Do you think I luxuriate running this dirty division? My life has become ridden with people like Fauchet. Do you think I like it?”
“What’s it all about? What did Colonel Brune say?”
“They say, all over the service, that you’re in too thick with the Americans. That maybe ...”
“Maybe I’m working for them?”
“Yes,” Robert whispered. “Look, André, everything is crazy. Jacques gave me orders he claimed came from La Croix himself to put a tail on Colonel Brune. This Topaz business has the President in an absolute rage. If it turns out that one of the heads of the French Secret Service is a Soviet agent, we have the worst scandal on our hands since the war. Is it all true?”
“It’s true.”
“I know what’s going to happen. Orders will come for liquidations. Ferdinand Fauchet will be a busy man. Christ, I hate this job,” he whimpered, “but what can I do with all these years in the service? What kind of pension will I get? And if I leave on bad terms with La Croix, he will see to it that any decent job in France is closed to me.”
There was no use in browbeating Robert Proust. He had had to be carried from the beginning. Now he wallowed in self-pity, terrified of the issues flaming around him.
“What about this boy Michele is going around with, this François Picard?”
Robert slipped into his deep chair and rubbed his eyes wearily. “I’d rather not ...”
“Michele intends to marry him.”
“There’s a group of journalists, television writers, reporters, who are violently anti-La Croix. They are getting too bold. We have orders from someone in the government to break them up.”
“Break them up? My God, Robert, I know Pierre La Croix has established a personal regime in France, but destroying political opposition by the use of the Secret Service? Robert, we are still a democracy.”
Robert Proust lifted his face and shook his head slowly. “No, André. Democracy in France