The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

Harry Prudence's final year at Oxford was lackluster.The things that excited him in the first place—the rowing week, the bells in the morning mist, the students in their traditional black robes—became the familiar backdrop.Most of the students were destined: Whitehall, the courts, Westminster, MI[-], the family business.The rest, like Harry, took their chances around with letters of recommendation.

In June 1955, he and Alex took the ferry from Cornwall to Saint-Malo, where they spent a damp and restless holiday.Harry's mind was preoccupied with his work at the Post.Nothing ruins a summer more than an ambiguous reply from the editor that Harry will be informed of their decision in late August or early September.Because of the rain, they spent most of their time indoors, in a top-floor guest room, the planks creaking painfully from the whipping of the wind and rain.Outside the window, seagulls gathered on the sloping roofs, flapping their wings to threaten each other, competing for the scarce habitat space, and making a lot of noise.Two weeks later, Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally able to leave Brittany by boat.

The Post made a decision before September, hired Harry and gave him a desk in the big, smoky office, but Harry didn't stay there long, and three months later he died because of The dean's introduction went to the "Viewpoint" newspaper, wrote short articles for the gardening column praising the new variety of narcissus, and soon started running local news, chasing the police around with a good-natured photographer and picking up the breadcrumbs of murder and robbery.

Alex and he still lived in the small apartment at 55 Juniper Street, and Alex now used the spare bedroom as a study, moving his typewriter and stacks of books into it, and spending all day in the Inside, smoking one cigarette after another, coming to bed in the early hours of the morning.Harry often didn't sleep either, catching up on tomorrow's manuscript under the lamp, Alex leaned over to kiss his ear, and peeked over Harry's shoulder to see his report.

"If I remember correctly, your off-duty time is five o'clock."

"Theoretically, five o'clock." Harry replied absently, typing a comma, "but this Mr. Baker's decision to stab his creditor with a splinter of a wine bottle at eleven o'clock in the evening is out of my control."

"Poor Mr. Prudence would you like some tea?"

"Yes, thank you."

Alex went to the kitchen, Harry heard the roar of boiling water, and then the tinkling of china, Alex came back softly, closed the door, put the teacup in Harry's hand, and Sitting on the table, he picked up a piece of manuscript paper and read it.

"I don't understand your passion for this job."

"Think of it like translation." Harry pulled out the filled paper and replaced it with a blank one, "except that instead of language you're dealing with, you're dealing with human behaviour, the best and worst, that newspapers actually control Does it appeal to your perception of the world that journalists control the paper?"

"The big oligarchs control the newspapers, and there is no room for them to create."

"We both know who is the most creative of the two of us."

"Your skills of flattery are still unimproved, Mr. Prudence."

"But very effective?"

"But it works."

Harry smiled at the typewriter keyboard. "Go to bed, Alex."

With a bit of hindsight, one might say that if the Viewpoint's foreign correspondent hadn't fallen on a ski slope in Grenoble and left him permanently ill, and the German-savvy deputy editor was eight months pregnant Wife, the story of the rest of Harry's life will not stray from 55 Juniper Street, he will not get a new job offer, buy a bottle of red wine on the way home, and tell Alex gleefully to himself To go to continental Europe.

"What was the reaction of M. Loiseau?" asked the reporter.

"He was happy too, at least it seemed. He asked me if it was long-term or temporary, how long I needed to be away, and I said I didn't know, that's true, I really didn't know at the time. He said, go ahead , sailor, I will wait here. I remember my departure date, January 1957, 1, not by plane, but by ferry, London to Calais, from there to a slow train with a stop After going through the checkpoint, I changed another train, and then went to Bonn. I have no fixed residence in continental Europe, and I was led by the editor’s telegram. Alex’s letter can only be sent to the Bonn branch of the newspaper. over there."

Prudence pulled out a typewriter-addressed envelope addressed to "Mr H. It is dark blue ink.

"Harry,

It's your fifth month of being swallowed by Europe, and maybe you're single-handedly preventing nuclear war, which explains why you haven't written back.I'm fine, thank you, although you didn't ask.

I saw your editorial on June 6 on Viewpoint. The article on NATO's policy towards the Warsaw Pact is so serious and tough, like you, but not like you.This, I said to myself, was the Mr. Prudence others saw, not my Harry.It is a pity that you and the harsh Mr. Levine of The Diplomat are involved in a paper war, Mr. Levine is a real warmonger, and your courteous exchanges have provided me with considerable entertainment during the past month.

As for me, I try to get up before eleven, eat enough to stay alive, and stay away from alcohol, though not necessarily successfully.Sitting down at my desk to deal with the cacophony of conversations and unorganized paragraphs in my head.It's been too quiet at home so I've made some changes in the last few days and went to work on "Puffin and the Trident", it's very effective, the loudness of the tavern balances the voices of dozens of characters in my head, they never shut up Mouth.The bartender agreed to leave me a table near the window, on condition, of course, that he pay at least two glasses of stout.do you remember that placeTo the right of the entrance, under the stairs, I can hear other people's conversations, but unless they observe carefully, it is difficult for them to see me. The small palm-sized window can see the barren garden.Harry, another group of young students gathered here, like cute sparrows, and the ghost story on the second floor of the tavern frightened them again, no one dared to approach the stairs.

I dreamed of Mercury last night, and I don’t know why there are Carfax bells in the wilderness. We walked to the seaside, but we didn’t make it until we woke up.

What else is there to tell you, of course, that "The Kite of Agnes" has recently been reprinted, with added illustrations, by a very talented Miss D. Grateful.In addition, I

Harry,

Forgive the lack of organization of this letter, which was interrupted in the middle of writing.I have other plans today, so I'm afraid it's not good news.George's "state is not stable", my father told me so ambiguously on the phone. Judging from the current limited information, for unknown reasons, George shot at his London apartment last night. Fortunately, no one was hit. Or any object, but his wife and neighbors were terrified and the neighbors called the police.My father was still in Cornwall and Lyra was in Brighton, and I was the only one who could see him right away.stop here.

yours,

A.

6.20.1957 "

The reporter folded the letter, carefully put it back in the envelope, and took the next letter from Prudence, dated four days later, on June 1957, 6, from London, stamped urgently .

"Dear Harry,

I wanted to send a telegram, but I didn't want to send it to the newspaper because I didn't want to attract attention.For God's sake, where the hell are you now?

Meeting George was even more intolerable than usual, obstinate, haughty, and quick to lose his temper.He insisted he saw the burglar that night, but the police found nothing at all, the door was locked, the windows were closed, and there were no signs of climbing on the ledge.He won't allow anyone to take his side pistol, so I had to stealthily unload the magazine, maybe he'll find out soon enough, and then we'll figure it out.

Doctors think it's a post-war syndrome, 'bomb sickness', you know hundreds of soldiers who come back from Europe have this problem?The doctor told me that he had seen a case where the poor man was so frightened that he could cry at the sound of the kettle boiling.Of course George couldn't accept that conclusion and nearly screwed the doctor's head off, well, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it's pretty much the same.The doctor advised him to recuperate in the country, and we persuaded him to go back to Cornwall for a few months, which he reluctantly agreed to, thank God.

If you get this letter, do not reply to this address in London, I am leaving to take George back to Cornwall tomorrow.If you wish to send a telegram or telephone, please send it to our old lair at the same number.

A.

6.24.1957 in London"

A week later, another note went on to describe how things were going:

"Harry,

There was another shooting that nearly scared poor Martha to death, Martha now lives on the ground floor, she is 61 and can't climb the stairs, the gunshots are heard most clearly in her room.George claims to have seen a suspicious intruder in the garden and suspects him to be a German spy.Poor George, perhaps in his tortured brain, the war was never over.

Now we hid his gun, as did Father Browning.Everyone was panicking, not sure if he was going to get better.

A.

in Cornwall"

The next letter came in a thick, delicate pale blue envelope with Knife and Mockingbird stamped on the seal.

"Dear Sailor,

Received the telegram, I am glad to know that you will be back soon, please let me know when the ticket is confirmed, I will pick you up at the station, don't refuse, I insist on doing so.Greetings from Father and George, we're fine, thanks, country life has helped George (and me, to be honest) and he's finally stopped wandering the halls in the middle of the night with a gun.

I haven't been in this post office for a long time, and Miss Carlston is still here, and is now 'Mrs. Mills'.This letter has been hastily written over the counter, as I am returning to Oxford in a moment.

your alex"

Prudence stroked the envelope lightly and looked at the fireplace, where the wood had burned away to reveal red-hot coals beneath.

"My vacation was only two weeks, a little over a week after travel. I brought letters and telegrams with me so I wouldn't lose them. Alex was very excited at first, just as George had been many years ago The same as when the front came home, it quickly became cold. I'm not mad about it, he's always been like this, it's a self-protection mechanism for Alex, he's not good at saying goodbye. We discussed my work — 'discussion' is a euphemism for that. By the time I was about to leave, we had refused to speak to each other."

There is no difference between you and Barry and them now.Alex said coldly, the walking dead who thinks he is worldly.

And you need to grow up.Harry retorted, are you going to be a three-year-old entertaining yourself for the rest of your life?

Prudence sighed and looked away from the fire: "I wrote a long letter afterward, apologizing, and prostrated myself at his feet begging forgiveness, but I received no reply. Shortly after my return to Bonn, I Went to Budapest with the Post with the British-American Joint Diplomatic Mission and stayed there for a week. This was my first time going beyond the Iron Curtain, I had no access to diplomatic channels and almost all communications were cut off .So I received this letter a month late."

He handed out a thin piece of letter paper, and the reporter took it carefully, holding his breath.

"Harry,

I don't know why I'm still writing to you, maybe you never get it.

George died, suicide.The funeral was yesterday. "

No signature or date at the end.

tbc.