Tommy Barban
A soldier of fortune with no country and no house — half American, half French, and the most reliably dangerous person in the Divers' circle.
A war to go to. He says it plainly the first evening, and repeats it whenever the Riviera gets comfortable — when he is in a rut, he comes to see the Divers, and then he knows he will want to leave.
The book
At a glance
- Soldier of fortune, friend of the Divers, and Nicole's long-standing admirer
- Half American, half French; educated in England
- Eight countries' since the age of eighteen
- The Riff in Morocco, and the Communists; later reports he is going into stock-broking
- A pair of duelling pistols in his suitcase
- The first Riviera summer, a Munich café, and the last movement at Antibes and Nice
- A five-way composite by Fitzgerald's own notes — Edouard Jozan, Mario Braggiotti, Tommy Hitchcock, Percy Pyne and Denny Holden. Jozan is the one who matters biographically: the French naval aviator Zelda Fitzgerald became involved with on the Riviera in 1924 · Jozan 1899–1981 · Nîmes, France
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeTommy Barban is half American and half French, was educated in England, and has worn the uniforms of eight countries since he was eighteen. He fought the Riff in Morocco because he is a European and the Communists because they wanted to take his property. Asked what he is fighting for, he says it does not matter so long as he is well treated. Asked whether he is going home, he says he has no home and is going to a war — any war, since he has not seen a paper lately but assumes there is one.
He comes to the Riviera to be near the Divers, and is candid that the visits work on him like a wind-up: after a few weeks of them he wants to go to war again. He is fonder of Nicole than of Dick and says so early, to Rosemary, who finds the frankness repellent. He is also the circle's watchdog. When Violet McKisco starts hinting at something she saw in the Divers' house, it is Tommy who tells her to stop, and Tommy who does not let it go.
How the book draws them
- The laughA martial noise the book spells out — 'Um-buh--ha-ha!' As a rule he drinks little. Courage is his game, and his companions are always slightly afraid of him.
- The skinSo dark it has lost the pleasantness of a deep tan without arriving anywhere better: the book calls it worn leather. His tongue is awkward with the curl of too many dialects.
- At restHe does not like any man much or feel their presence with any intensity. He is relaxed for combat the way a good athlete on secondary defence is genuinely resting, while a lesser man only pretends to.
- The argument he wins by not having oneAlbert McKisco calls his reasons narrow-minded and looks around for an ally. He has no idea what he is up against — neither the simplicity of Tommy's stock of ideas nor the complexity of his training.
- UnsatisfiedAfter the duel, with both shots missed and everyone relieved, he declines to be finished: he declares himself unsatisfied, calls the distance ridiculous, and objects that he is not accustomed to farces.
- The Warsaw surgeonDick finds him in a Munich café with an eighth of his skull recently removed and knitting under his hair, in a suit made by Pilsudski's own tailor, having just come out of Russia leaving three Red Guards dead at the border. Two of them were his.
The five years of patience pay. Nicole, healing into her own hard Warren clarity, , and the exchange is almost businesslike — Tommy announces that he stands in the position of Nicole's protector until details can be arranged, and Dick concedes the logic. The line Dick leaves the scene on is the ugliest in the book, and he walks off with it.
The novel does not make him a villain, which is what makes the ending land. He is exactly what he advertised on the first evening, and Nicole chooses him with her eyes open. When she says, as she often does, that she loved Dick and will never forget him, Tommy answers that of course she won't — why should she?