War remains one of literature’s enduring themes. Writers continue to draw on its power, often writing fiction that is judged important because of the subject yet is otherwise of limited artistic merit.
The soldier or warrior has preoccupied poets and storytellers through the centuries, and heroes who die in battle are often immortalised. Yet along with the dead and bereaved often the most tragic figure to emerge after any conflict is the returning soldier. Society finds it easy to honour and mourn the fallen. Dealing with the survivors, most particularly the wounded and traumatised, who return to civilian life is far more difficult.
Many American writers, most recently Willy Vlautin in The Free , have been exploring the nightmare dilemma of soldiers who, having risked their lives in unpopular wars, return home to a country that does not want to know.
Daniel Anselme's brilliantly observed debut, On Leave , written in 1957, at the height of the French engagement in Algeria, is as important as it is outstanding. Anselme, who had served in the Resistance with his father, was a journalist whose outspoken approach and demeanour are in ways reminiscent of the great Joseph Roth. This sharp, intelligent narrative goes to the heart of the Algerian travesty and the ways it tore France asunder.
It seems very simple. A trio of soldiers are about to begin a week’s leave. Their train is approaching Paris, but the mood is ambivalent. One of the men is thrilled to see fog again. His companions are sleeping. One of them awakes, and he too is pleased: “It’s a treat to see lousy weather again.” For him Paris means a chance to pick up a girl. The other two have different plans. The corporal is eager to see his family. The eldest of the three, the sergeant, Lachaume, who was an English teacher in his former life and is middle class, is going home to a marriage that may be over.
Anselme is very good on character and random physical gestures: from the opening sequence in the train, three very different men all emerge as individuals, all having become close through their horrific experiences. It is obvious that Lachaume is troubled and edgy. This tension is conveyed very effectively through his response to a harmless old man who boards the train in the closing stage of the journey, “a round-eyed man of about 60 whose square-cut moustache quivered beneath a shiny nose as he got his wind back. He greeted the soldiers with a knowing wink. He had a clutch of medals on his lapel.”
The former soldier, now a hotelier, is well disposed to the next generation of warriors. His attitude is benign. Lachaume dozes with an unlit cigarette between his lips. The old man, eager to help, produces a lighter. It is a simple gesture, yet it startles Lachaume to fury. “He threw away his cigarette, turned back towards the wall, and went back to sleep.” The old man takes no offence. “His fat face oozed indulgence and understanding . . . And he sighed in a way to suggest that he, too, was no stranger to the weariness of war. But before settling on a definite attitude, he uttered the word ‘Algeria’ sharply, but with a crossing of his eyebrows that could have been intended to make it into a question. He wanted to make sure he was talking to soldiers who had seen action.”
Once he is satisfied that the soldiers are serving in Algeria, he tells them, at some length, what it was like in his day. He shares his food with them and talks on, making a number of big statements about France and patriotism. The two younger men listen politely, but Lachaume snaps at him: “Just because we are in uniform does not give you an excuse to recite your military memoirs.” Here Anselme risks losing any reader sympathy for Lachaume, yet the outburst, instead of alienating him, helps broaden his character.
Superb set pieces
As he walks through the streets of a vividly evoked Paris, Lachaume realises that his only link with his former life is his wife, who is about to leave him. He also discovers that his anger is abstract. His arrival at their apartment is one of several superb set pieces. The flat is not just empty but feels deserted. There is no sign of his wife, and he looks at his books before taking down a volume of Shakespeare. "Cut it out! he thought as he closed the book. I am not Lawrence of Arabia."
It soon becomes obvious that On Leave , which does make an emphatic statement about yet another war that should never have been waged, is really the story of Lachaume and how the war stole his life. It is he who initially wanders through Paris, killing time. His colleagues appear far less disturbed. They are also younger.
After several hours he accepts that his wife will not be returning, and he books into a hotel. A letter arrives for him, but the lazy receptionist misplaces it, and again Lachaume loses his temper. Soon the entire hotel staff, most of whom appear to be related, and all of whom are Algerian, become involved.
This is very well executed, and in addition to Anselme’s light touch is the sure-footed translation of David Bellos, who has championed this forgotten classic. The argument rages through reception area and up the stairs. Lachaume goes up to his room. “He suddenly felt worn out. The whole scene, the shouting, his own anger, now seemed pointless and absurd. What’s wrong with me? he wondered. What has come over me?”
Ironically, the misplaced letter turns out to be an invitation to supper at the home of one of the other soldiers, Valette, an electrician. The dinner, prepared by three generations of women, which begins as a domestic social occasion, quickly collapses into a political discussion as one of the guests preaches a different style of communism.
Lachaume appears to have fallen out of step with everyone. Yet somehow, despite the confusion, his mother tracks him down, and he is invited to dinner at his aunt’s home. Yet, aware that he is returning to Algeria, he cannot settle.
Anselme, a highly visible commentator and Left Bank literary figure who died in 1989, makes it clear that his soldiers can no longer fit in at home and can only find some kind of comfort in each other as they bicker, and drink and stagger about, eager to show Paris, and France, their shared resentment at having to go back to Algeria.
Eloquent and convincing
In the most dramatic moment in this fast-moving, eloquent and convincing account of three souls discovering exactly how lost they have become, the trio clamber on to the empty plinth of a missing monument, aware that the statue had probably been destroyed by the Germans during the previous war. They create their own tableau, by adopting classical sculptural poses.
Ironically, they ask Lena, a girl who drifts through her days in Paris, and who is German, to photograph them. Although she has been very accommodating throughout, for some reason she is reluctant to take the picture, yet she does. “She could see the black rectangle, with a bit of goodwill, you could make out a vague smudge in the middle.”
As a work of fiction, On Leave is stylish and wry, atmospheric and convincing, with strong characterisation and dialogue for which many a scriptwriter would sell his or her soul. The narrative has a prophetic quality – in fact Anselme was so astute that the novel was far too close for comfort, and it disappeared on publication.
The Algerian war ended in 1962, although its ripples continued to expand through French history.
More than half a century has passed, and now this forgotten work will be acknowledged as a very important book that also happens to be a most impressive novel. Polemic is seldom as well served by such understated literary flair.
