He came back and glanced at Madame Michaud who, finding herself in his path, was the first target of his fury. "Get the section heads together in the meeting room. Right now, if you don't mind!"
Madame Michaud went out to pass on his orders. A few moments later the employees filed into a large room containing a marble bust of the bank's founder and a full-length portrait of the current president, Monsieur Auguste-Jean, who had been ailing for some time with a softening of the brain caused by his great age.
Monsieur Corbin received them standing behind the oval table where nine sheets of blotting paper marked the Board of Directors' places. "Gentlemen, we are leaving tomorrow morning at eight o'clock to go to our branch in Tours. I will take the Board's files in my car. Madame Michaud, you and your husband will accompany me. As for those who have a car, be in front of the bank at six o'clock to pick up other staff members, that is, the ones I have selected. I will see what I can do for the others but, if necessary, they will have to take the train. Thank you, gentlemen."
He disappeared and immediately the murmur of anxious voices buzzed around the room. Only two days before, Corbin had declared he could foresee no reason to leave, that the hysterical rumours were the work of traitors, that the bank, the bank, would remain where it was, would fulfil its obligations even if others did not. Given that the "withdrawal," as it was discreetly called, had been decided so suddenly, all-without doubt-was lost! The women wiped the tears from their eyes. Through the crowd the Michauds found each other. Both of them were thinking about their son, Jean-Marie. His last letter was dated 2 June. Only a week ago. My God, anything could have happened since then! In their anguish, their only comfort was being together.
"How lucky we are not to have to be apart," he whispered to her.
6
Night was falling but the Péricands' car was still waiting outside their door. Tied to the roof was the soft deep mattress that had adorned their marital bed for twenty-eight years. Fixed to the boot were a pram and a bicycle. They were trying in vain to cram in all the family's bags, suitcases and overnight cases, as well as the baskets containing the sandwiches, the thermos flask, bottles of milk for the children, cold chicken, ham, bread and the boxes of baby cereal for the elder Monsieur Péricand. There was also the cat's basket. At first they had been delayed because their clean linen hadn't been delivered and the laundry couldn't be reached by telephone. Their large white embroidered sheets were part of the Péricand-Maltête inheritance, along with the jewellery, the silver and the library: it was impossible to leave them behind. The whole morning had been wasted looking for things. The launderer himself was leaving. He had ended up giving Madame Péricand her sheets in damp, crumpled bundles. She had gone without lunch in order to supervise personally the packing of the linen. It had been agreed that the servants, along with Hubert and Bernard, would get the train. But at all the train stations the gates were already closed and guarded by soldiers. The crowds were hanging on to them, shaking them, then swarming chaotically back down the neighbouring streets. Women in tears were running with their children in their arms. The last taxis were stopped: they were offered two thousand, three thousand francs to leave Paris. "Just to Orléans…" But the drivers refused, they had no more petrol. The Péricands had to go back home. They finally managed to get hold of a van, which would take Madeleine, Maria, Auguste and Bernard, with his little brother on his lap. As for Hubert, he would follow the cars on his bicycle.
All along the Boulevard Delessert, groups of people appeared outside their houses-women, old people and children, gesticulating to one another, trying, at first calmly and then with increasing agitation and a mad, dizzy excitement, to get the family and all the baggage into a Renault, a saloon, a sports car… Not a single light shone through the windows. The stars were coming out, springtime stars with a silvery glow. Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper. In the darkness the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Even people who were normally calm and controlled were overwhelmed by anxiety and fear. Everyone looked at their house and thought, "Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I'll have nothing left. We haven't hurt anyone. Why?" Then a wave of indifference washed over their souls: "What's the difference! It's only stone, wood-nothing living! What matters is survival!" Who cared about the tragedy of their country? Not these people, not the people who were leaving that night. Panic obliterated everything that wasn't animal instinct, involuntary physical reaction. Grab the most valuable things you own in the world and then…! And, on that night, only people-the living and the breathing, the crying and the loving-were precious. Rare was the person who cared about their possessions; everyone wrapped their arms tightly round their wife or child and nothing else mattered; the rest could go up in flames.
If you listened closely, you could hear the sound of planes in the sky. French or enemy? No one knew. "Faster, faster," said Monsieur Péricand. But then they would realise they'd forgotten the box of lace, or the ironing board. It was impossible to make the servants listen to reason. They were trembling with fear. Even though they wanted to leave too, their need to follow a routine was stronger than their terror; and they insisted on doing everything exactly as they had always done when getting ready to go to the countryside for the summer holidays. The trunks had to be packed in the usual way, with everything in its correct place. They hadn't understood the reality of the situation. They were living two different moments, you might say, half in the present and half deep in the past, as if what was happening could only seep into a small part of their consciousnesses, the most superficial part, leaving all the deeper regions peacefully asleep. Nanny, her grey hair undone, her lips clenched, her eyelids swollen from crying, was folding Jacqueline's freshly ironed handkerchiefs with amazingly firm, precise movements. Madame Péricand, already in the car, called her, but the old woman didn't reply, didn't even hear her.
Finally, Philippe had to go upstairs to look for her. "Come along, Nanny, what's the matter? We have to leave. What's the matter?" he repeated gently, taking her hand.
"Oh, leave me be, my little one," she groaned, forgetting suddenly that she now only called him "Monsieur Philippe" or "Father," and instinctively returning to the past. "Go on, leave me be. You're kind but we're lost!"
"Come now, don't get so upset, you poor thing, leave the handkerchiefs, get dressed and come downstairs quickly. Mother is waiting for you."
"I'll never see my boys again, Philippe!"
"But you will, you will," he said, then he himself tidied up the old woman's hair and put a black straw hat on her head.
"You'll pray to the Holy Virgin for my boys, won't you?"
He kissed her gently on the cheek. "Yes, yes, I promise. Come along now."
The driver and the concierge passed them on the staircase as they went up to collect the elder Monsieur Péricand. He had been kept away from all the commotion until the very last minute. Auguste and the male nurse were just finishing dressing him. The old man had had an operation a short while ago. He was wearing a complicated bandage and, given the cold night air, a flannel girdle so big and so wide that his body was swaddled like a mummy. Auguste buttoned his old-fashioned boots and pulled a light but warm jumper over his head. As he put on his jacket, Monsieur Péricand, who until now had wordlessly let himself be manipulated like an old, stiff doll, seemed to wake up from a dream and mumbled, "Wool waistcoat…"