The Captive Reader

I had consciously stayed away from Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski, having somehow got the idea into my head that it not at all something I’d like.  But it is one of the few Persephones my library owns so I decided that one must encourage such acquisitions by actually reading them.  I could not have been more surprised by how entertaining I found it.

The book opens at Christmas, 1943.  Hilary Wainwright, the most emotionally reserved poet I have ever come across, receives the news that his adored wife Lisa was killed a year before in occupied Paris and that his toddler son, John, is missing.  In 1945, after the peace, Hilary is finally able to return to France to attempt to track down his lost son, if indeed the boy is still alive, and it is that journey, both physical and emotional, that the book chronicles.

Pierre, an old friend of Lisa’s, has followed what he thinks is the most likely trail and discovered a boy at an orphanage outside of Paris who he very well thinks might be John.  Hilary goes to the town and, through daily visits with the child Jean, tries to discover if the small five-year old is the son Hilary only met once, the day after his birth.  Jean is an extremely adorable child, denied so much growing up in a war-ravaged country, thrilled by each little treat Hilary can bestow, be it a trip to see the trains pass by or a pair of mittens, and is delighted, most of all, just by getting to spend time with Hilary.  Jean’s surprising openness is harshly contrasted by Hilary’s absolute reserve.

Hilary’s reticence to claim the boy, his need for absolute certainty that this is his son, make this a unexpectedly tense novel.  Since his wife’s death, Hilary has been searching for someone to love while consciously denying himself any relationship where his tenderness would be appreciated.  He has flings with cheap, tawdry women and a respectable but unemotional attachment to a clever, professional woman in London.  It is very clear to the reader that he needs Jean’s love as much as Jean needs his, whatever their biological relationship may be, but it is not quite so easy for Hilary to accept that.  Hilary is struggling not just with the question of is Jean his son, but also if he wants a son, a family, at all, if he is ready to open himself again as he did with Lisa.

The story takes place in a France still shattered by the war and Laski takes great care to detail both the physical and moral struggles being faced.  The conditions at the orphanage where Jean lives horrify Hilary: the orphans don’t have enough to eat or wear, only those five and under get milk, tubercular children are kept in with the healthy ones and though the nuns may hate the situation, at least they know they aren’t facing the horrors of their German, Austrian, and Polish sisters.  To Hilary’s disgust, at the same time as children are going without milk and meat in the orphanage, across town the restaurants are covertly offering black market feasts at outrageous prices.

Of course, in a story set in a once occupied country, there is always the question of what people did during the war.  Most of the characters seem almost tired of the question of who collaborated, but they still certainly remember who did and how (details as benign as serving Germans the best wine rather than something less impressive).  What is more pressing here, creating current tensions and resentments in the town, are those who have extended the moral ambiguity of war into peace, those who cheat and swindle to get ahead of their fellow Frenchman.  That is no longer a means of survival, just a sign of greed and corruption.  As one character explains to Hilary:

 ‘To me, the most horrible thing is hearing everyone excusing themselves on the ground that deceit was started against the Germans and has now become a habit.  It would have been better to have been honest, even with Germans, than to end by deceiving each other and finally by deceiving ourselves.

I consumed this novel in one gulp, pausing only to say ‘go away!’ to people who would dare disturb me while I was reading.  Laski’s writing is gripping and entertaining.  I don’t think it is exceptional art – there’s a certain clumsiness to the plot and none of the characters are particularly developed or compelling – but Laski knows how to engage her audience and tell a story.  I am so glad I picked this up and I’m now eager to read Laski’s other books (one of which, The Village, I already own).