The Foundling Boy by Michel Déon Read Free Book Online

son.’
    ‘Michel?’
    ‘Do I have another?’
    She acknowledged that, at La Sauveté at least, he could only mean Michel.
    ‘I’ll send him to you, but …’
    ‘But what?’
    ‘You’re always so hard on him.’
    ‘Have you ever seen me hit him?’
    ‘No. You’re worse. Either you don’t speak to him, or you look at him with astonishment, as if he were a stranger.’
    ‘He is a stranger. He’s the only person in the world who looks at me with terror in his eyes, and occasionally even something close to hate.’
    ‘He’s a wild boy. You need to make a bond with him.’
    ‘I’ll try.’
    He turned his head impassively and lifted the curtain again. Albert was repairing his hosepipe with some rags and string. A few steps away, Jean was watching with his hand on his cheek. The slight movement of his shoulders gave away his stifled sobbing. Antoine’s silence conveyed to Marie-Thérèse that she should now do as he had asked.
    He waited calmly, followed with an attentive ear the discussion between mother and son at the bottom of the stairs and their slow approach to the first floor, then listened, without attempting to work out their sense, to the excited whisperings on the other side of the door. Finally Marie-Thérèse must have managed to convince him, for Michel entered alone into the room with his father. He stood with his back against the closed door, his legs together, his head high. They exchanged a look and Antoine was glad to see that his son did not lower his eyes. They sized each other up for a moment in silence,the father almost startled to find his son good-looking – this boy he knew so little of – the son surprised that his father did not vent his anger straight away.
    ‘You’re really quite a handsome little chap!’ Antoine said.
    It was true. At six years old Michel, slim and with long, well-muscled legs, square shoulders, a long neck, a well-defined profile and pale blond hair, was a beautiful child. Antoine felt he was seeing him for the first time. What sort of incomprehension had kept them apart for so long? He mused on this for a moment, distracted at first, then suddenly conscious of what was happening on the other side of the door, of a mute and fearful presence. He waited; there was plenty of time. It was Marie-Thérèse who, unable to bear the silence any longer, knocked, tentatively opened the door and put her head around it. Antoine smiled.
    ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t eaten him.’
    ‘But you’re not talking.’
    ‘We are communicating to each other matters that cannot be spoken aloud.’
    Barely reassured, Marie-Thérèse retreated. Antoine listened to the sound of her feet going away downstairs and, without allowing vexation or irritation into his voice, said, ‘Aren’t we, Michel?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I think you know what I’d like to talk to you about.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Something about a headscarf and a hosepipe punctured with scissors.’
    Michel breathed deeply, like a diver about to disappear underwater.
    ‘Don’t punish Jean,’ he said. ‘He’s only four.’
    ‘Because he did it.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘He’s very precocious, isn’t he? But I appreciate you taking his side. You’re a good-hearted boy.’
    ‘He’s a servant’s son.’
    ‘Jeanne is not a servant. I don’t like to hear you say that word. Jeanne is our caretaker and her husband is my friend.’
    ‘How can he be your friend? He’s a gardener.’
    ‘I prefer a gardener to many of the people your mother makes me entertain in this house.’
    ‘Anyway, Jean doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
    ‘Are you sure he did it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Antoine remained silent. He was discovering who his son was, and the discovery interested him. In one sense he was proud that the boy was sticking to his lie, knowing that his father knew. He allowed that he had courage, and a deep scorn for the truth.
    ‘I want to be sure that Jean won’t be punished, so I would like Albert to come up and see me. Would you