Léon and Louise by Alex Capus, John Brownjohn Read Free Book Online

nothing would ever change, no matter how long the war lasted, she decided to act. ‘Please excuse me, monsieur le maire, ’ she said the next time she had an invitation to deliver.
    â€˜What is it?’ asked the mayor, smoothing his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger and treating himself to a glance at the delectably swanlike curve of her neck.
    â€˜Is this another of these invitations?’
    â€˜What else, ma petite Louise, what else?’
    â€˜Who it is this time?’
    â€˜It’s Lucien, only son of the widow Junod,’ said the mayor. ‘Nineteen years old, the girls called him Lulu. Killed on February 7th at Ville-sur-Cousances. Did you know him?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜He was home on leave only this Christmas, I saw him at midnight Mass. He had a nice voice.’
    Louise took the envelope and went outside. Mounting her bicycle, she rode at full speed across the Place de la République and headed straight for the widow Junod’s house on the western outskirts of town. She rang the bell and handed over the envelope. When the widow had torn it open with her forefinger and was staring at it helplessly, Louise said:
    â€˜You don’t have to go there.’
    Then she took her by the elbow and led her into the house, sat down beside her on the sofa, and told her that her Lulu wouldn’t be coming back because he’d been killed in action.
    Louise sat silently on the sofa while the woman threw herself on the floor, screaming, and tore out whole tufts of her hair. Having later submitted to being pummelled by the widow’s fists and clasped around the neck by her, she let her cry her eyes out with an abandon she might have been too inhibited to display in the presence of a friend or relation. Louise passed her two handkerchiefs in succession and, when she had calmed down a little, lit one of her sugar-dusted cigarettes, pillowed the widow Junod’s head on a cushion, and went into the kitchen to make her some tea. When she returned with a steaming cup, she said:
    â€˜Well, I’ll be off now. Don’t worry about the invitation, Madame Junod. I’ll tell the mayor you won’t be coming.’
    A few minutes later, when she informed the mayor of how she’d handled the matter, he looked stern and said something about taking liberties and breaches of official secrecy, but he was of course extremely relieved and profoundly grateful to have been spared the inevitable scene for once. And when two more invitations cropped up the following day, he didn’t send Louise off with an admonition of any kind; on the contrary, he gave her the unsolicited information she needed in order to fulfil her new mission.
    â€˜This one’s name was Sebastien,’ he said, gazing up at the ceiling so as not to have to look down her cleavage. ‘He was the youngest son of Farmer Petitpierre. A decent lad. He had a hare lip and was good with horses.’
    â€˜And the other?’
    â€˜Delacroix, the notary. Fifty years old and childless, both parents dead. There’s only his wife. Now go, ma petite Louise. Well, off you go.’
    From then on the bereaved no longer had to present themselves at the town hall. Louise simply delivered the invitations to their homes; then they knew what was what and could fully surrender to the first great onset of grief while she sat on the sofa like a mute but sympathetic angel of death. The next day or the day after that, they were usually calm enough to send for Louise because they wanted to know details. Louise would then pay them a second visit and tell them everything that had been officially ascertained: exactly when and where and in what circumstances David or Cedric or Philippe had lost his life, whether he had suffered or died a merciful death, and finally, the most urgent question of all: whether his body had found eternal rest beneath the sod or lay strewn across the mud somewhere, blown to pieces, decaying, and