After thoroughly enjoying The Quiet American last year, I found this slim book in the bargain bin during my post-Christmas binge. I knew nothing about it, so the story and the novel’s history were both a delightful surprise.
Greene was both novelist and screenwriter, and in that latter mode he wrote this short novel in 1944, as preparation for a screenplay for MGM. The story never went anywhere until 1983 when, in a supposed fit of housekeeping, MGM sold the story to another publisher, Anthony Blond. Blond contacted Greene, who had forgotten altogether about the story, one he originally conceived as early as 1937. Greene made some edits and wrote an introduction, and the book was published in 1985.
A bit of a mash-up of Les Misérables and The Return of Martin Guerre, the story begins in a German prison camp near the end of the Third Reich’s occupation of France. In one cell block are 30 men, there for various crimes and suspicions. After a disruption in the camp, the Germans tell the men that one in ten of them will be executed the following morning, and that they must chose the three for execution. The prisoners draw lots, and a wealthy lawyer named Chavel is the third tenth-man chosen (perhaps there is some foreshadowing here of the later and much more famous story of Greene’s, The Third Man). Panicked, Chavel offers a deal – all of his wealth and possessions if any of the others will take his place in the execution. A man known as Janvier agrees; Chavel writes out the transfer of his assets and also executes Janvier’s will, leaving the money and property ultimately to his (Janvier’s) sister.
Not long after the executions, the Germans retreat and Chavel is released. Ashamed of his cowardice, he assumes a new identity (Charlot) on his discharge papers. Penniless, he makes his way back to his former home to find the sister, Thérèse, and her mother in residence. The formerly stately home is now ramshackle and unkempt, as the sister, despite her newfound wealth, cannot hire help from the local village; they are distrustful, as this period of time saw much suspicion of anyone new to an area (especially someone well off) as a potential collaborator trying to escape justice. Thérèse lets Charlot stay on the strength of his having been in prison with her brother and so aware of the details of his death and her inheritance. She has a deep hatred for Chavel, as she would rather have had her brother alive than all this misbegotten wealth. One night, another stranger arrives, claiming to actually be Chavel. Charlot lets the charade persist, hoping that Thérèse will expel her anger on this person and thus be free to start her life with him (Charlot has, of course, fallen in love with her). After much back and forth around the mistaken identities, all is revealed.
For such a short novel, Greene packs a great deal of action in. Of course, if he had written a full novel, there would have been much more background and development of the characters and settings, but one can imagine those fairly well from what is provided. The mistaken-identity plot points could very easily have fallen into a French farce mode (shudder), but Greene maintains both the believability as well as the ongoing tension throughout. As expected with Greene, the ending is not a happy one, but one that is truly fitting for the story.
Shortly after its belated publication, the story was made into a Hallmark movie, so was eventually realized as the screenplay it was meant to be.
Greene is now two for two with me, so more of his novels in my future.
Fate: I’m hanging on to these classic (and small) books as a talisman against future sanitization of literature.
1 – murder
9 – made into a film
13 – set somewhere I’ve never been
15 – a number in the title
rclr 