Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 by Date, Darkness (v1.1)

the bar.
          "I cannot drink alcohol." Madame Faubel's dry, thin face smiled painfully. "The
diet ruined my digestion. I think it is ulcers.... Now I," she said,
"told them that I knew and that I was not going
to tell them, and after a while they believed me. I was in for a different
matter, but she was in my hut. I told her, girl, either tell them the truth,
that you do not know, and nothing else; or tell them that you do know and do
not intend to tell them, but for God's sake don't lie to them beyond that. I
said , they will keep it up forever if you start lying
to them." She smiled again and shrugged her shoulders. "She was new
then. She was clean and fresh and she resented advice from a dirty old woman.
Later it was too late."
          Paul Laflin returned with the familiar small bottle and a glass.
          "She was in there by mistake,
then?" Branch asked presently.
          "Mistake? Perhaps, or perhaps someone did not like her. Or perhaps-" Madame Faubel smiled her thin lipped smile. "-perhaps she was
unwittingly serving France by taking the place of
someone who did know."
          "Kind of tough on her," Branch
said. He could not feel that they were talking about real people.
          Madame Faubel sipped her Coca-Cola. "I am not saying it was not a simple mistake, you
understand," she said gently. "I do not know. It was nothing to do
with me, except that she was in my hut."
          Branch looked at the primitive colors of
the mural and chewed at his pipe. At the back of his mind was the feeling he
always had when hearing about it, that he could not really feel indignant about
it, because the thousands who had experienced this personal malevolence were
relatively insignificant against the millions who had known the blind
inquisition of the battlefield. It was a legalism to draw an arbitrary line and
say, this is a crime, and this is war. It was all war. You could blame them for
starting it, but to itemize the horrors, now that they were defeated and it was
over, seemed petty.
          Mr. Hahn said, "She was an object
when we broke in, I can tell you. Even Paul did not want her."
          "After you have nursed anything long
enough you become rather attached to it," the woman said. "She did
not want to go back to her family. I offered to take her, but she did not want
to." She tasted her drink again. "Pride, I suppose. So I brought her
along. She has been useful. You cannot deny she has been useful. She does as
well as she can." The last was addressed to the two men across the table.
          Paul Laflin said
dryly, "Oh, yes, we could not do without Constance ."
          "But you can see that she might be a
little cold in certain respects," Madame Faubel said to Branch. "I hope you did not..."
          Branch said uncomfortably, "Well, I
made a pass at her, all right. Hell," he said, "she was feeding me a
long line about how nice I was and how I .. ." He
stopped defending himself. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
          "Oh, she will be all right," the
woman said easily. "She will be all right in the morning."
          "Well," said Mr. Hahn,
"let's forget about it."
          "I'll get another round of
drinks," Paul Laflin said, rising.
          Branch watched the large young man cross
to the bar and did not like him; and he did not like the chinless man either.
For the woman he had a definite respect, and her long hands fascinated him. He
asked her, "What did you do before ..." She glanced at her hands.
"I played the violincello , she said . " It is always a little ridiculous, a woman playing
the cello, is it not? In an evening dress it looks like a joke." After a
moment she said, "Perhaps I will take it up again some day. But music
seems a little frivolous now. A little like a luxury."
          Madame was a concert cellist," Mr.
Hahn said.
          "That is an exaggeration," the
woman said. "I gave a few concerts, it is true, but mainly I played with a
small