Our Riches, page 6
That was when they took me away and locked me up in the Barberousse prison, before putting me under house arrest at Charon, near Orléansville. In prison I met a craftsman from the Casbah who’d been arrested because of a vague resemblance to a safecracker. Maybe I’ll write about him one day.
Camus is safely hidden in Oran. They’re after Max-Pol Fouchet too; he managed to hide in the US consulate. I was freed thanks to the intervention of the journalist Marcel Sauvage, who used to manage a hotel in Tunis and is now the editor of the magazine Tunisie-Algérie-Maroc. He was able to influence the Minister of the Interior. This unfortunate episode has held up the publication of Gertrude Stein’s book, but the store stayed open, thanks to Manon and our friends. It’s clearer than ever to me that without friendship there could be no Éditions Charlot. It all depends, essentially, on circumstances, friendships, and encounters.
April 1, 1942
The war has thrown everything into chaos. I can’t get any more paper or ink. The results of my latest effort were pitiful: I had to staple the book because there’s no more thread, and use dirty, porous butcher’s paper.
April 6, 1942
A day of do-it-yourself chemistry with Max-Pol Fouchet. We bought some grape-seed oil on the black market at a scandalous price (I didn’t dare tell Manon). Then we shut ourselves up in the kitchen and carefully mixed the oil with chimney soot and boot polish. What a sight we must have been, the pair of us peering into the big pan. The ink is yellowish, blackish, filthy. And the stench! I’ve never smelled anything so disgusting.
April 17, 1942
No more paper, no more binding thread, no more ink. Nothing. I wander around the city in search of any material that will enable me to go on publishing and printing. Leaves? Earth? Mud? I don’t know what to do anymore.
May 18, 1942
A visit from the police: they came to Les Vraies Richesses to remind me that if I want to get paper, I have to submit the manuscripts to the Control Board first. Bastards.
May 22, 1942
I put an advertisement in the newspaper offering good prices for old and new books (first editions, rare titles, fine bindings, illustrated books). If I can’t print, I have to get stock from somewhere.
June 6, 1942
Birth of Frédérique, our first child. Great joy. Manon is recovering gradually.
June 15, 1942
Wrote to Jules Roy warning him that I will have to send his Sky and Earth to the paper distribution committee: they’ll decide whether or not it can be published.
July 2, 1942
Visited my printer Emmanuel Andreo. He’s doing his best but the results are catastrophic. He warned me: “Your books won’t last; this ink we’re using eats into the paper from both sides . . .” It also has a lingering, acrid smell. But what can I do? The only paper to be had is the bit that’s left on the ends of the rolls from the rotary presses, the “steaks,” as they say. There are holes all over the place. It gives a very poor impression of French publishing. One day, perhaps, someone will buy these books with Éditions Charlot on the cover, switch on a lamp, and open them up to discover white pages full of stinking holes.
September 5, 1942
I got in touch with Hachette; they laughed in my face: they have no stock. A distributor without books, it’s unheard of. Unimaginable. We’ve run out of everything, I’m desperate. The shelves are almost bare. It looks so sad . . . I have to plot and scheme to publish anything at all. When a new book comes onto the market, it sells out almost straightaway, but there’s practically nothing left to print on. How am I going to survive?
September 11, 1942
The shelves are still bare. I’m keeping the store open every day because friends drop in to see me, and people come in off the street to talk. It has come to this: Les Vraies Richesses without books.
November 8, 1942
Spent the evening at Max-Pol Fouchet’s; he insisted that I go. I must have looked like a bird of ill omen, wrapped in my black overcoat all night. There were lots of people. A great pleasure to see René-Jean Clot, and Frédéric Jacques Temple, a young soldier who has been in Algiers since the beginning of last summer; he writes, and has excellent taste in poetry. The Jewish singer Agnès Capri, who has taken refuge in Algiers, was there as well. The atmosphere was charged; people kept alluding to a mysterious event that was to take place in the course of the night. I went home around four in the morning, and an hour later, the Americans landed! Max-Pol had feared that we might be arrested, so he brought us all together for protection.
We’re no longer under the control of Vichy. This is the capital of Free France!
November 12, 1942
I can’t keep up with the requests and orders. Paper is available again.
November 21, 1942
Camus is stuck in Chambon-sur-Lignon, where he was convalescing. He was to return to Algeria by boat, but the American landing has left him stranded. His wife, Francine, who came back earlier, tells me that his financial situation is precarious. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to send him money; all communications are cut.
December 2, 1942
Called up again: assistant to Admiral Barjot in the provisional government, in charge of propaganda. I’m running the publications department in the Ministry of Information. We are planning to set up “France Publishing.” A young colleague asked me why I don’t write, since I love literature so much. I didn’t dare tell him that writing bores me. What I like is publishing, collecting, sharing, bringing people together through the arts!
December 11, 1942
Dinner with Soupault, who told me the story of his journey across Tunisia on a bicycle. He managed to get away the day before the Germans took Tunis. Then he went back in an air force plane to get Gide. I’m glad to have met him. We had a long discussion about the possibility of launching a series together. Pocket editions for the five continents, published in five languages. An ambitious project (especially the way things are now), but it’s exactly what we need!
December 17, 1942
I’m leading an odd sort of life: mostly I’m shut up in the barracks, but in the little leave I get, I’m meeting masses of people. Since the Americans landed, writers and artists, men and women from all over are arriving in Algiers. Strange times.
March 5, 1943
Dinner with Gide and Saint-Exupéry, who have both come to live in Algiers. Saint-Exupéry seemed depressed; the Americans are refusing to let him fly. He hid his frustration well enough not to spoil the meal, and played a fine game of chess with Gide. He also provided some entertainment: card tricks and prestidigitation. He had brought his one copy of The Little Prince, published in the United States. He refused to lend it to me and would only let me look at it sitting right beside him. It’s a beautiful edition; the illustrations have come up splendidly. I tried to convince him to let me publish the book here, in Algiers, because I’m sure it would be a big success, but he refused. He’s worried that it wouldn’t match the quality of the US edition, and he’s right; I don’t have the means to do that kind of work.
Before I left, Gide took me aside to tell me about his project of launching a magazine to serve as a vehicle for the diffusion of French thought around the world. He’s worried about what’s happening with the Nouvelle Revue Française, controlled by the Germans through Drieu La Rochelle, even if the publisher Jean Paulhan is doing what he can, with the support of Gaston Gallimard. Gide has already talked to the young poet Jean Amrouche, who is very enthusiastic and is planning to move to Algiers soon. I told Gide how much I admired the batch of Amrouche’s poems that Guibert had sent me. Curious individual, Jean: Kabyle, Christian, French, Algerian background, teaching literature in Tunis. We could do something really good together.
April 3, 1943
Lots of traveling with the provisional government. Luckily Manon and our friends have been able to look after Les Vraies Richesses. At night, I’m working on manuscripts and this magazine we’re trying to set up, Gide, Amrouche, and I. We have a name for it: L’Arche.
May 20, 1943
I’ve just heard that Drieu has resigned from the NRF. L’Arche is well placed to become the important French magazine after the war.
June 12, 1943
I’m signing a good number of French authors. The catalogue has never been so rich: Bernanos, Bosco, Giono, loyal as ever. I’m publishing foreign authors too: Austen, Moravia, Silone, Woolf.
June 27, 1943
The governor is courting the Muslims, promising them the moon. The powerful colonial families are furious. Who knows, maybe we’ll have more justice in this country after the war.
June 30, 1943
Spent the whole evening reading a new manuscript from Gide: pages from his journal, 1939–1941. I was so overcome I offered him a 20 percent royalty. He refused; he wants 10 percent like everyone else, and told me that in any case he wouldn’t sign a contract because that’s not how he does things. I’ll give him 15 percent.
July 11, 1943
Thanks to my pilot friends, our books are going to Lebanon, Egypt, and South America. Before they set off on a mission, they stop by Les Vraies Richesses to pick up bundles of books, which they sell on to stores at the other end. I’m an international publisher!
I’m also receiving a great many letters from Armand Guibert, who is living in Portugal now. He tells me that I absolutely have to get Fernando Pessoa translated and invited to France. And he always ends up complaining that I’ve forgotten him: “I am no longer in your thoughts . . .” I like Armand a lot, but responding to all these long letters of his is taking an eternity. If I don’t answer them quickly enough, he gets cross and bombards me with grievances. And his little ways can be trying: he expects a pretty stamp on every envelope.
September 27, 1943
Amrouche has approached the chief of the Information Division and asked for permission to publish L’Arche, plus a monthly paper allowance, and a one-time subsidy of 250,000 francs to help us launch our magazine.
October 7, 1943
Frédéric Jacques Temple entrusted me with ten of his poems. I gave him one of my personal copies of Nuptials. He’s about to set off for Italy with General Juin’s French Expeditionary Forces, and Camus’s book will go with him. I’m keeping his work safe. Something should be done with it one day: they’re very fine poems and deserve to be read. He promised he would write from the front.
October 19, 1943
I was notified by telephone that a package for me had come from London in the diplomatic pouch. Inside there were photos of proofs: a text entitled The Silence of the Sea, and a penciled note: “Please reprint immediately.” The author’s name means nothing to me: Vercors. As far as I can tell, the text, which is fairly short — it’s a long story or a novella — was published secretly by Minuit last year, then republished in July by Cahiers du silence in England. They’re asking me to reprint, but that’s all they say. Nothing about how many copies, or how they want it done (do I keep the author’s name?).
How did they even know about me? Odd.
October 20, 1943
Started reading the Vercors and couldn’t stop. I absolutely have to publish this. I showed it to my printer Emmanuel Andreo, who sat down and read it in front of me. Give me a day, he said.
October 21, 1943
Emmanuel has just left Les Vraies Richesses. He collected all the paper he could find, regardless of color and type. He has enough for 20,000 copies of The Silence of the Sea! It will be a multicolored edition on green, yellow, and pink paper . . . but it will be readable! We’re going to press straightaway.
October 31, 1943
The Silence of the Sea has sold out in a week: not one copy left in Algiers! The shelves are bare. Everyone’s talking about it. They say the Free Forces are parachuting it into occupied France. Resistance!
November 6, 1943
Got the go-ahead for L’Arche. As well as Gide and Amrouche, we can count on the journalist Robert Aron. Lucie, Edgar Faure’s wife, has agreed to let us use her apartment as our office.
January 30, 1944
Robert Aron told me that Gide doesn’t want his name in the contract for L’Arche, although he’s very keen to be part of the adventure. He thinks we should take control of the project: the young should be in charge. Good!
February 2, 1944
The first number of L’Arche is about to go to press, with a text by Saint-Exupéry, which we’re especially proud to publish: “Letter to a Hostage.”
February 3, 1944
Robert Aron and Jean Amrouche are bombarding each other with letters. Aron’s accusing Amrouche of not respecting him as editor and having set up a contract for L’Arche that’s unfair to me. (I didn’t ask for anything!) Amrouche doesn’t want Aron to bring in Lucie Faure as a line editor.
February 8, 1944
Robert Aron passed on General de Gaulle’s congratulations on the first number of L’Arche: he was shown the proofs.
February 10, 1944
Amrouche and Aron keep firing letters like missiles at each other. I’m expected to intervene.
February 15, 1944
L’Arche is a great success. We’ll have to reprint. Amrouche is proud, as he should be; he’s doing an excellent job with the magazine, toiling away tirelessly.
February 17, 1944
I’ve come under attack for The Silence of the Sea. The communists want my head; they’re saying I published a fascist book. It’s because of the character of the good German. They want me to be tried by a military court. First I was a presumed Gaullist and communist sympathizer, now I’m a fascist . . . You can’t win as a publisher.
February 18, 1944
We got a shipment of paper released from customs: two tons in big rolls for the next number of L’Arche.
February 21, 1944
Robert Aron wrote to our printers, threatening them. He is insisting that nothing be printed for L’Arche without his signature and that all documents relating to the magazine be delivered to him. This is too much. I’ve been warned that he’s taking legal advice. Gide and I will have to sort this out. Amrouche will remain as editor; the position is his by right.
March 11, 1944
Sold the last copies of Nuptials. 1,225 in six years.
March 29, 1944
Received a batch of poems from F. J. Temple, written in his tank during odd moments of calm. They’re resonating in me still, here, in the middle of the night. Even though he’s fighting on the front line, he hasn’t lost his capacity for wonder.
August 1, 1944
It looks as though Saint-Exupéry crashed. That’s what I’ve been told, at least. Last seen on the radar near the coast of Provence. I ran into him a couple of days before he left. He was standing on the pavement, lost in thought. He told me that the Americans had finally granted him permission for a few flights, including a reconnaissance mission, but he knew that they thought he was too old to fly. I tried to comfort him, saying that the war was coming to an end, that we were going to win. His reply was strange: “Yes, we’ve won the war, but we’ve lost it all the same.” And off he went, with that worried look still on his face.
August 3, 1944
It’s no longer a rumor, what people have been saying the past few days . . . Saint-Exupéry has been reported missing in action. One of my dearest memories of him: we were invited to lunch by a mutual friend. When I arrived, everyone was there, except for Antoine. We waited and waited and finally, getting worried, I looked out the window. He was sitting on the pavement, in the blinding sun, surrounded by a mass of children shrieking with joy. He was making them little planes from the foil wrappers of army-issue chocolate bars. He always carried a supply of those bars and offered them to the children he happened to meet on his way. The little planes went spinning up into the sky, and the children, faces smeared with chocolate, ran after them, trying to follow their flight, leaping to catch them . . . Adieu, Antoine!
August 13, 1944
Drieu tried to kill himself, I’m told. Is the NRF dead and buried? What will become of Gallimard?
August 25, 1944
Paris is free! At last!
September 19, 1944
News from France in dribs and drabs, but it’s always the same story: arrests and trials. They’re trying to lock up writers and publishers suspected of collaborating with the occupying forces.
September 21, 1944
Planning to open a branch of Éditions Charlot in Paris. It’s now or never. There’s an opening, as Grenier would say.
November 5, 1944
The NRF has been banned because of its collaboration with the Germans. Paulhan’s in charge of winding it up, and Amrouche is champing at the bit. He’s setting obsessively high standards for L’Arche, which absolutely must, he says, replace the NRF. He’s preparing to leave Algiers and move the magazine’s office to Paris.
December 1, 1944
Still in uniform, but I’ve been transferred to Paris. I’ll be leaving my wife and children behind in Algiers. My brother Pierre will look after Les Vraies Richesses while I’m away.
4
Ryad is sweating on his mattress, breathing unevenly. It’s early in the morning. A feeling of panic overcomes him. The silence of the store weighs heavily, and Claire seems very far away. He sits up, one hand raking his hair, the other fumbling for the switch of the bedside lamp. With the light on, he can see the mezzanine more clearly. He looks around, disturbed by the thought of discovering something unfamiliar. He puts on his sneakers, hurries down the steep stairs, stumbles, recovers his balance, and flings the door wide open, hoping to lose himself in the noise of the city. He is met straightaway by a cold gust of wind and a bucketful of dirty water thrown by the neighbor upstairs, who is mopping her balcony. She bursts out laughing and disappears inside before Ryad can protest.
