20 THE ECHO OF BOOTS
20
T HE E CHO OF B OOTS
The convertible parked at the door of the Théatre du Chatelet without screeching. Five German soldiers in uniform from head to toe jumped out of the car. They had a mission, the determination to carry it out, and the explicit orders not to be unpleasant toward the musicians. To get from the Conciergerie to the theater square, they needed only to cross the Seine River through the pont au Change. They could’ve arrived immediately if they had walked, but they preferred showing up in a car. It was imposing, scary, and gave the order an official air.
The concert rehearsal continued, indifferent to the ruckus in the streets. Before lunchtime, the orchestra followed Schubert’s score and Maestro Delphin Moureau’s baton. He was a conductor restrained in his motions but expressive in his facial expressions. The seats on the main floor were empty. In the penultimate row, Ferdinand napped in a wooden seat, accompanied by the notes of Symphony no. 8. He’d walked there from his house through the deserted city, and just like he had done every day to make the walk feel shorter, he’d counted the cars scorched by the entrance of the Wehrmacht to the city and abandoned in the mass exodus in the days that followed. Four months had passed, and no one had taken away the scrap metal. In fact, some of the automobiles still slept belly up. Counting—abandoned cars, swastikas hanging from the streetlamps, women waiting in a line in front of some establishment with their ration cards in hand—was one way, like any other, of distracting himself and not thinking about the horror they’d been forced to live through. Or of surviving.
Finally, Ferdinand had walked up the right bank of the Seine and arrived at work. Once at the theater that Tuesday, he’d followed the same routines as always, far from the world of threats, death, and bombs. He’d put on his khaki coveralls and started the workday much earlier than the musicians, who’d shown up loaded with their instruments. With the whole theater to himself, he could make noise without anyone shooting him mean looks. He’d changed the burned-out light bulbs; he’d steadied the conductor’s platform, which the conductor complained had been “dancing”; he’d gone back and forth all day, and the moment he’d been able to sit down to listen to the orchestra, he’d fallen asleep. Since the time of sirens and planes had begun, Ferdinand had slept with his ears open. Sleep is never completely deep during times of war. This time, because he was the closest to the door, Ferdinand was the first to notice the noise, the murmur coming from outside. All of a sudden, he heard it quickly approaching. A knock on the door, some footsteps, and some running, all of which weren’t good signs. The echo of the Nazi soldiers’ boots. He’d heard them for months, and he never heard that clomp-clomp without a shiver running up his spine. In no time, there were five soldiers behind him. Ferdinand stood up reflexively. The conductor noticed the violinists sitting closest to him were looking toward the back of the room from the corners of their eyes. Continuing to move the baton in his hand, he turned his head to see what was distracting his musicians. He guessed where all the ruckus was coming from. When he saw the uniforms standing at the back of the room, belt buckles shining, he went back to concentrating on his orchestra. He continued conducting like nothing had bothered him, neither him nor Schubert. The soldiers didn’t want to interrupt the rehearsal either. Without being told to do so, all of them let the music prevail until the first movement ended, as a well-placed compromise between the soldiers and musicians. The conductor took a seat, and it was finally then that the rhythmic steps of the boots began advancing up the aisle of the main floor. Onstage, the musicians let their instruments rest. The conductor, with his white eyebrows, approaching seventy years old, wiped his forehead with a crumpled handkerchief before returning it to his pocket.
“Sir, how can we help you?”
“That wasn’t Mendelssohn, was it?” asked the only official wearing a peaked cap.
“No, sir. Schubert, Symphony no. 8.”
“Sounds good.”
“Thank you. Many hours of—”
The official, who barked in an angry French, was not there for conversation. A soldier with a soft cap took out a folded paper and handed it to the official.
“There are more people here than last week.” His gaze swept across the orchestra. “There aren’t any empty chairs today.”
“I can’t make bread without flour,” responded the conductor, not in the mood to agitate anyone.
The official put on his reading glasses. “I will list one by one the names of those who were in this orchestra the last time we came. You know how it works. When you hear your name, stand up.” He began reading the typed list from the very top. “Delphin Moureau?”
“Present. I’m sorry if I don’t stand up. For a while now, I—”
He was cut short by a glare.
“Are you the conductor of the Pierné Orchestra or the class clown?”
“Sorry, sir.” He understood that now was not the time to act brave and dropped his baton on the music stand.
“I don’t want you to respond. Don’t say anything. When you hear your name, get up and stay quiet. Understood? Archambault.” A bassoonist stood up. “Beaulieu. Bélanger. Chastain. Cornett ...”
They stood one by one. A violinist, a clarinetist, a cellist, a timpanist—all stood when they were called and remained standing. The officer kept them in alphabetical order.
“Daniau. Fontaine. Forestier. Herzog.” No one stood. “Herzog?”
“He’s not here,” said the conductor.
“Herzog?” the official asked again, like he’d only heard a buzzing in his ear. “Herzog, oboe? He isn’t here?”
“Your men took him away,” responded the electrician from the back of the hall. “Seven days ago.”
The five uniformed men turned all at once. The officer, a question on the tip of his tongue, narrowed his eyes to see who’d spoken.
“And you ... Who are you?”
“The electrician.” He stood up as well. “The electrician for the Chatelet.”
“Name?”
“Dutronc. Ferdinand Dutronc.”
“A friend of Herzog?”
“No, sir. I knew him here, of course.”
“Are you also Jewish?”
“No.”
“Anything more to say?”
“No, sir.”
“Then be quiet. Ferdinand ... What was it?”
“Dutronc, sir.”
Using an uncapped pen that a soldier rushed to hand him—everyone has a role in a war—the officer wrote down the name Dutronc at the very top of the list and continued down the alphabet. Hidalgo, Jordan, Lefebvre, Martinez, Mirailles. With each name, he made sure the musicians placed their instruments on the chair and stood up in the resigned manner of people who have lost.
There were still some men left sitting in the middle of the orchestra once he finished the list. The officer counted them in a quick glance.
“Very well. I see there are seven recruits left, conductor.”
“May I speak?”
“If it’s to say the flour thing again, I understood it the first time.”
“I mean, if you may permit me, an orchestra needs all its musicians. Schubert composed for a fixed number of violins, percussion, and woodwinds, and ... if the musicians leave Paris or if ... I have to look for others, you understand? I need fifty-four musicians. The concert is next Sunday.”
“Symphony no. 8?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll come.”
“It would be an honor to play for you.”
“You don’t know how happy I am, conductor, that Paris has welcomed us warmly—”
Suddenly, a metallic plate crashed to the floor. The bang scared everyone. One of the soldiers drew his hand to the holster of his gun. Mirailles, the cellist, turned white as paper. No one was in the mood to laugh. The officer asked the seven musicians who hadn’t been on the list to stand up and identify themselves. He required them to go section by section. The wind instruments were the last ones standing.
“My name? Damien Devère.”
“Is that a clarinet?” The officer pointed with his pen.
“No, sir. It’s an oboe.”
“It’s the second oboe,” the conductor clarified.
“So you’re taking the place of ...” The officer looked at his list. “Herzog?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing that I am, yes, sir.”
“Did you know him?”
“I don’t know him, sir.”
“Aren’t you a little young to play in an orchestra?”
“I’m twenty-one years old, sir.”
The conductor intervened once more. “May I say something?” Looking down, he waited for permission. “I could say that, due to the circumstances, there really isn’t much of a selection. But I prefer to tell you the truth. Devère is very good. He’s been with us for less than five rehearsals, and ... He’s surprised us all, because, as young as he looks, he’s a virtuoso.”
Damien was scared the officer would make him play. He’d really hate to have to demonstrate his skills in front of everyone. It was a cursed trauma. During his musical beginnings, when he hadn’t yet switched from the flute to the oboe, he’d hated when his parents forced him to perform a small concert for the family’s Sunday dinner. But he avoided the danger. It looked like the officer was suddenly in a rush.
“You already know the rules. You can play, you can rehearse, you can have concerts, and you can continue with your musical lifestyle, but not a single Jewish person is to be in this hall. Not onstage, in the orchestra, or in the theater.” He pulled off his glasses and stowed them in a pocket. “What time is the concert?”
“At four in the afternoon, sir. As always.”
“We’ll see you on Sunday.”
The farewell—“We’ll see you on Sunday”—was more informative than threatening. But then the echo of the ten boots resounded up the aisle to the exit of the hall. They didn’t need to mark their steps to show who was in control. Their pride went nicely with their uniforms. The orchestra members took a while to react. No one said anything, no one sat back down, and the instruments continued resting on the ground or on top of the chairs. The conductor, the first to take a deep breath, gave everyone a ten-minute break. Once they determined that the soldiers had left the theater, the majority of the musicians took advantage of the October sun to go outside for a smoke in the square.
“Damien Devère?” Ferdinand with his cleft chin had waited for Damien in the aisle. “I want to introduce myself. I’m Ferdinand, the electrician.”
“I heard. You were brave, sir.”
“Or irresponsible, depends on how you look at it. Ferdinand Dutronc.” He extended a strong hand.
“You took a gamble.” Damien clasped his hand, musician’s fingers in the electrician’s.
“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”
“Maybe, but whoever goes against them ... So, they took Herzog away?”
“It’s a tragedy what they’re doing with the ...” He didn’t dare say the word. “You should’ve seen them last week. They took him and four more like him away. Herzog was a veteran of the orchestra. A good man, a father of three, but poor people—a last name like that rats him out.”
“I’m sorry to be taking his place.”
“You go your own way, boy. Like everyone else. It’s war. You’ve done well for yourself. Are you going out for a smoke?”
“No.” He excused his blunt reply. “I need to keep my lungs clear. I have companions who smoke like chimneys, but it’s better not to when it comes to playing.”
“Of course.”
“But if you’re going out, I’ll accompany you.”
“It’s not necessary. I appreciate it. Would you mind it if ...” He took out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his buttoned coveralls.
“Go ahead.”
“I smoke four a day. Can’t afford more.”
Ferdinand lit a cigarette on the main floor, and the two crossed the lobby to the street. Damien, a mess of curls on his head, was quite chatty. During the ten-minute break—which lasted exactly ten minutes, because Moureau was a man of stubborn discipline—he said it was an honor for him to join the Pierné Orchestra, which had been lucky to be one of the four great companies the Germans had permitted to continue with programming. There were many other orchestras and bands that’d had to dissolve, and many musicians, of all ages, were looking for work anywhere they could find it. He was fortunate they’d hired him from his first audition, because he had several colleagues who’d just left the conservatory or had long careers who were now offering private lessons at a discount to earn some money. “Everyone’s looking for work,” he said. Things were becoming scarce in every way. It’d been only four months since the Wehrmacht had entered Paris, and the situation became more difficult with every day that passed. Week after week, things got worse. Everyone said it, without fearing the Germans understood them, and it was true. The tension of the early days was gone, but every morning the city was emptier. Emptied of people, food, life, and stores. Between those who’d closed their blinds, those who’d fled—to the south, toward the fields, looking for unoccupied territory—and those who didn’t have enough for food, establishments became fewer each day. Ferdinand listened, nodding his head in agreement. “The day will come,” Damien said, “when they’ll sell us cuts of meat that look like matchbooks.” He said he and his family—father, mother, and a younger sister—lived two blocks from les Halles, and there was still movement at the market. They were lucky—he emphasized “lucky”—they could still maybe find a bit of everything.
“I live on rue Chappe, up in Montmartre in the eighteenth arrondissement. A lot of people there have fled to the countryside. There are abandoned homes, whole buildings where no one lives. Sometimes, these days, you see a family return who’d left during the occupation. They’d packed everything in a few hours and left loaded up like mules. Some even took their queen-size mattress ... And now you see them coming back little by little.”
“In les Halles, there are also people who ... Actually, I can’t say it too loud ... My parents and sister fled the day before the Germans entered, but once they saw they had nowhere to go, they came back to the apartment to hold out. There’s no other choice.”
“There’s more life at the foot of the Montmartre hill. There are the Clichy cabarets, the brothels of Pigalle. That’s the kind of meat they want. They go crazy, these soldiers, like they’ve never seen nipples before.”
“They have to demonstrate their power, I guess.”
“Yeah, with our women.”
With a shout, the conductor had everyone in front of the music sheet right on the hour. He didn’t make a speech. He limited himself to raising the baton to call for a serene silence. The concentration. The magic of the moment before the music. Once he resumed the rehearsal, he managed to make the Unfinished Symphony fill the hall in the way it more or less sounded in his head. Serious and mysterious in the beginning like the human soul, delicate and in spurts in the final coda. He couldn’t perform miracles. With seven new musicians, what more could you expect?
The concert on Sunday went the way the conductor thought it would. The strings were better than the winds, more concentrated in the end than in the beginning, and because the hall was full, any out-of-place note went unnoticed. He hoped the audience hadn’t perceived the early entrance of the clarinet, and based on his experience, he was convinced that only the true lovers of music would have noticed the viola had been out of tune during the second movement. The local audience, satisfied by the appearance of normality, applauded madly. The German officer and his soldiers, who had occupied the very best rows on the main floor, left proud, believing the show had been performed especially for them. Plus, the fact that a German composer was being played in France was an honor of conquest.
Ferdinand had seen the concert from the drop scene. Due to the absence of a stage manager—he’d disappeared from the grid with the occupation in June—he took it upon himself to lower the curtain after the last applause. While the musicians gathered and debriefed, he went up to Damien Devère, who at that moment was putting his oboe back into its case.
“Congratulations. A good debut with the Pierné Orchestra.”
“Honestly, it’s such a strange feeling. But it sounded good, yes. The conductor just came to shake my hand. That’s a good sign, right?”
“The best. Moureau tells it like it is.”
“Did you like it?”
“I don’t understand music.”
“A way of saying you didn’t feel it.”
“The very opposite. I would’ve liked to have brought someone today.”
“Your wife?”
“Better. My daughter. She ...” He doubted whether to continue. If he stayed quiet, the story would have ended there. “She also plays the oboe.”
“Oh, really?”
“Well, she’d like to. Actually, she was asking me ...”
“What is it?” Damien smiled. Ferdinand had taken a stand against a German officer with decorated lapels, but he was nervous to speak to him?
“She was asking ... It’s nothing. If you maybe could give her a lesson. She’d be so happy. We’d pay you something, of course ... What we can, you know we’re all—”
“Oboe lessons? I’ve never thought about it.” But why not, he thought. “How old is she?”
“She must be around ... sixteen. Her name is Margaux.”