The Foundling Boy Read Online Free PDF

‘corporal. Finished as a sergeant.’
    ‘Like me. Stay a bit longer.’
    ‘I need to get to Menton.’
    ‘She’ll wait for you …’
    ‘It’s my daughter.’
    ‘Ah! I understand. Well, come by again one day. We don’t stick together enough. My name is Léon Cece.’
    Antoine got back into the car and freewheeled down to Menton. The cicadas sang in the pine woods and tomato fields. The town was already deeply asleep. It felt like the sleep of a sick person, so respectful was the silence of the deserted streets. The fragrance of lemon trees in blossom and the dimmed glow of the streetlights were redolent of hospitals. The houses were hidden deep in jungly gardens, walled behind high gates. Not a fishing boat moved in the dock. Antoine drove cautiously along the Promenade and eventually found a passer-by who told him the way to the clinic, a large turn-of-the-centurydetached house deep inside a silent park. The windows were shuttered and the doors locked. He switched off the engine, turned up the collar of his jacket, rested his head and arms on his steering wheel, and went to sleep.
    It was not the dawn that woke him, but the sound of a pair of shutters opening on the balcony above his head. Geneviève appeared in a white nightdress with a ribbon in her hair. She seemed terribly thin to him, and pale, but more beautiful than before, a creature so fragile that the morning breeze or a shaft of sunlight might kill her.
    ‘It’s you, Papa!’ she said. ‘I thought it was. I was sure I heard the sound of a Bugatti last night. Is it the new one?’
    ‘Well, it’s the new one for now, the Type 22, four cylinders. Bugatti’s planning to replace it soon with the 28, which is apparently a marvel.’
    ‘I already like that one!’
    Antoine puffed himself up. ‘Do you want to go for a spin?’
    ‘It’s difficult so early. The door’s still locked. A bit later, if you like.’
    ‘I’ll go and have a coffee. Look, I’ve brought you some nougat.’
    He tossed two boxes up to the balcony, and Geneviève retrieved them.
    ‘Thank you! It’s so sweet of you to think of spoiling me. I adore nougat. When you come back, could you be really kind and bring me cigarettes and matches?’
    ‘You smoke? That’s not good.’
    ‘Nothing is good from where I’m standing.’
    ‘Really? I thought you felt better. You’re worrying me.’
    From her pout he recognised his daughter from several years before, his little girl whom he had kissed on the doorstep of La Sauveté on the morning in August 1914 when he had left to join his unit. She had changed quite suddenly: now she was this frail young woman with an oval face and loose blond hair, who made him feel shy and intimidated.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she said.
    ‘But you won’t get better!’
    ‘Do we get better?’
    He realised that he wasn’t sure enough of the answer to be able to convince her. He could only think of distractions.
    ‘Do you need perfume?’
    ‘Well, if you can find something fairly modern …’
    ‘I’ll try.’
    A figure in pyjamas appeared on the next balcony, a dishevelled man who began to gesticulate, showering them with insults.
    ‘What the hell is going on? Are you mad? There are people asleep here, sick people, and you don’t give a damn!’
    ‘Calm down, Piquemal,’ Geneviève said in a gentle voice. ‘It’s my father. We haven’t seen each other for five years. Anyway, he’s going. He’ll come back later.’
    ‘Your father, your father!’ Piquemal shouted, but said no more as he was choked by a fit of coughing.
    ‘You know you mustn’t get angry. It’s very bad for you.’
    Piquemal, doubled up with coughing, retreated into his room.
    Geneviève leant down to her father.
    ‘Don’t be offended. He’s half mad. In any case he hasn’t got much longer.’
    ‘I’ll be back soon,’ Antoine said.
    ‘See you very soon, Papa.’
    The sloping drive allowed him to roll the Bugatti back to the gate, where he dropped the clutch and had