Madame Brittan by Ian Johnson

Madame Brittan pulled the cigar from her lips and let the ash fall to the table, missing the seashell ashtray. She blew out mahogany smoke. The passing waiter coughed.

            ‘Madame,’ he said ‘there are tables outside where you may do that thing.’

            ‘Get me a small, black coffee with cognac.‘ She threw her cigar to the floor and stifled it with the heel of her brogue. Tussles of grey hair fell over her face as she yanked off her beret and plonked it over the ashtray. The waiter stared. Madam Brittan stared back. He tossed his head and strutted away.

            To the front of the cafe there were a few more tables, then a newsstand with an array of magazines and papers. There were cigarettes and cigars for sale too. Beyond the cafe door were the outside tables and further than this Madame Brittan could make out the town square. There were just a few people in the square and half a dozen cars parked up. She thought she saw a familiar, blue Citroen.

            ‘That will be ten Euros.’ The waiter placed a small cup in front of her.

            ‘Put it on my account.’

            ‘You haven’t got an account.’

            ‘Well, make one.’

            The waiter didn’t move but put one hand on his hip.

            ‘Allow me to pay, Madame,’ a British voice said. He was holding a book, his thumb inside the first page.

            ‘Yes, okay,’ she said.

            ‘Will you sign your book for me?‘ He put Sleeping with the Nazis by Yvette Brittan on the table and opened it at the front page.

            ‘Have you got a pen?’ she said.

            ‘Can you make it out to John? John Fenton.‘ He gave her a silver ballpoint. She scribbled her name on the preface.

            ‘Can I ask you some questions?’ 

            ‘No, I’ve signed your book, that’s all you get.’

            ‘One question, please.’

            ‘No.’

            ‘One question and another coffee and cognac.’ He was crouching by her table and looking into her eyes. Madame Brittan pursed her lips; there was no expression in her eyes.

            ‘I’ll take your little drink, Monsieur Fenton...’

            ‘Thank you-.’

            ‘...And a box of 5 Cuban cigars.’

            ‘What, for one question?’ he said.

            ‘Okay forget it.’ she said.

            Fenton chewed the inside of his cheek and looked towards the exit. He looked at his book and then at Madam Brittan. He sighed and sat opposite her. ‘You can have your cigars. Now my question is this...  ’ he said. She frowned at him. He got up from his chair, went to the newsstand at the front of the cafe and returned with five of the best cigars. She unwrapped the box, took out a cigar and sniffed it; it was sweet and leathery. She lit up and blew out lots of smoke. The waiter came to the table and shook his head.

            ‘Can we have a cognac in a small black coffee and-,’ Fenton said.

            ‘That’s a large, black coffee,’ Madame Britton said.

            ‘And I’ll have a tea.’

            ‘We don’t do tea, Monsieur.’

            ‘Coffee then, white, decaffeinated.‘ Fenton made himself comfortable in his chair again. ‘Why did you really sleep with the Nazis?’

            ‘Have you not read my book?’

            ‘Over and over again. But I’m not sure I believe your reasons.’

She swigged her coffee, looking at him over her cup. She placed her cup on the table and lifted her cigar near to her mouth, fingering its end. ‘My reasons were for survival. The Nazis gave me food and money. It’s all in the book.’

            ‘Is that all?’

            ‘I was so close to the Nazis they couldn’t see I was working for the Resistance. I was that close neither could most of the Resistance see it. Some still don’t believe it but war does that, so what. It’s all in the book.’

            ‘I think there’s something deeper than survival in what you did.‘ Fenton leaned forward and raised his eyebrows a little.

            ‘You’re right. Those German boys were a bloody good lay.’ She laughed, banging her hand on the table, the coffee cups shaking, the teaspoons tinkling in the saucers. A woman made a rapid exit, dragging a child in either hand.

            ‘The locals hate me.‘ She pinched the tip of her nose and wafted her beret in front of her. ‘Memories die hard here. They call me “The Collaborator”. What do they know? Most weren’t born.’

            ‘But many have relatives who were in the Resistance or were Communists?’

            ‘Communists, Fascists, Resistance, Nazis - what’s the difference? Listen, I was on both sides. At either extreme of a rainbow is white light. They are all the same.’

            ‘You slept with a lot of the resistance too, didn’t you?’

            ‘I was young. We were all young. We had ideals and we thought we were in love.’ She sucked on her cigar and relaxed.

            ‘Did you have feelings for any of the men?’

            ‘Who said they were all men. Anyway love is not a feeling -who told you that?’

            ‘Well, we talk of making love,’ Fenton said.

            ‘We were blowing up German railway lines and depots. It was very dangerous. Our ‘lovemaking‘ was survival because we thought we could die the following day.’

            ‘Weren’t you just like every generation, thinking you had discovered sex?’ 

            ‘There’s a creature that blows off its sperm when it knows it’s going to die. It’s illogical but it thinks it has a last chance to procreate its species.’

            ‘That’s nonsense,’Fenton said, flicking cigar ash away from him on the table.

            ‘I think you’ve had your money’s worth,’ she said, blowing smoke in his face.

            ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Please, carry on.’

            ‘The sorry British. First you rescue me from Monsieur Faggot the Waiter and then you insult me. But then you waive it all to one side with an apology because you want something.’

            ‘It was just that I wasn’t following your line of argument.’

            ‘Oh dear. At least when you were insulting me you were being honest. Look I haven’t got much time. Insult me again and I stop talking. Understand?’

            Fenton nodded.

            ‘Female Israeli soldiers don’t fight on the front line anymore. Want to know why? Because during the Six-Day War they did nothing but shag the male soldiers. It caused chaos’.

            ‘Isn’t that just because young people were together?’

            ‘They were in danger of dying.’

            ‘I still, sort of, well, find it difficult to believe.’

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