The Incorrigible Optimists Club (5 page)

Paris at night.
La belle vie!
I felt ten years older, and light as a swallow. I was surprised by the mass of people in the street and in the bars. The boulevard Saint-Michel was packed. People seemed happy to be alive. I was frightened of being spotted. But nobody had noticed me. I looked older than my age. I could pass for a student like anyone else. I shoved my hands in my pockets and drew up the collar of my jacket. On quai des Grands-Augustins, the music could be heard from the pavement. Carl Perkins was waking up the early-to-beds. I rang the bell. A young woman I did not know opened the door. She was slim, with regular features, very short black hair, brown eyes opened wide in surprise, and a mocking smile. She stood aside to invite me in. I had scarcely set foot inside than Pierre walked over and made the introductions: ‘D'you know my sister, little bugger?'

I stammered.

‘Cécile, this is Michel, the best baby-foot player on the Left Bank. He's like you. He never stops reading. Cécile is doing a literature degree. She adores Aragon, can you imagine? Aragon!'

Her smile grew wider. She turned and vanished into the crowd who were rocking away to ‘Hound Dog'.

‘I didn't know you had a sister.'

Pierre put his hand on my shoulder and dragged me in, followed by two of his previous girlfriends as well as the current one, and introduced me as if I were his best friend. He reeked of alcohol and was smoking a Cuban cigar he had bought in Geneva. He spluttered smoke into my face. He offered me a fat cigar and a glass of whisky. I declined. One of his exes held the bottle in order to serve him as soon as he requested. He gazed at me solemnly.

‘I'm glad you came, Michel. May I ask you a favour?'

I swore that he could ask me anything. He was leaving for Algeria for a long time and did not know when he was coming back. Not for a year at least, perhaps longer. You could no longer go on leave in the city. He wanted to entrust a small treasure to me. According to him, I was the only person worthy of guarding it until his return. I protested: it was a heavy responsibility. He cut short my prevarications by laying his hand on two boxes of rock albums. Fifty-nine exactly. His American imports, acquired for a fortune. I stood there speechless and open-mouthed.

‘It would be a pity for no one to make use of them. I've no intention of playing the hero for the French army. It'll give me time to write my book. I'll get myself discharged at the first opportunity. In six months' time, I'll be home again. That's my little plan.'

I wanted us to make a list of the albums he was lending me. It was pointless. He knew them by heart.

‘May I lend them to Franck?'

Pierre drew on his cigar, shrugged his shoulders and turned away. I pressed him.

‘Couldn't care less!'

I caught up with him. I swore to him that he could trust me completely.

‘By the way, do you like science-fiction, little bugger?'

I was rather taken off guard. I wondered what he was driving at. I shook my head.

‘Do you know Bradbury?'

I had to confess my ignorance. He picked up a book, which he shoved in my pocket.

‘It's the finest novel I've read. Straightforward, unfussy stuff.'

I froze, rooted to the spot by what I saw. In the midst of the intertwined couples, Cécile was dancing to a soppy Platters tune, pressed against Franck. They were kissing one another passionately. My gaze turned from the couple to Pierre, convinced that he was about to pounce on them and smash Franck's face in. On the contrary, he appeared to be amused. I panicked: ‘Pierre, you mustn't be angry with him.'

He had not heard and was yelling at the deejay: ‘We're fed up with the slow stuff!'

He shook his finger vindictively at me: ‘In the new world, those who don't dance to rock'n'roll will be executed!'

A lively rock'n'roll number broke the cocoon-like spell. Suddenly, Franck noticed me. He rushed over towards us, grabbed me by the arm and began shaking me roughly.

‘What the fucking hell are you doing here?'

Pierre stepped brusquely between us: ‘Leave him alone! Tonight, it's party-time.'

Franck let go of me in a fury. Looking slightly anxious, Cécile joined us. Pierre completed the introductions. She turned towards Franck: ‘I didn't know you had a brother.'

He took her hand and dragged her off to dance. Pierre knocked back his glass and, with a far-away look in his eyes, murmured: ‘Nowadays, people speak to one another and they don't say anything.'

I attended my first party rather as an entomologist might examine a colony of unknown ants. I sat on a stool, drinking a glass of vodka and orange that made me dizzy. In order to feel more confident, I accepted a yellow Boyard cigarette from the person beside me. The first drag exploded in my lungs. Franck took no notice of me. Cécile shot me occasional half-smiles. At around midnight, I decided to go home. Pierre was slumped on a sofa, dead drunk. Ought I to take his albums? He had made me this offer while he was semi-intoxicated. When he came down to earth, he might have changed his mind. I slipped away without anyone noticing.

I returned home by another route. With the same careful attention to detail as when I left, I opened the service door and stood on the landing, peering around. The flat was silent. The parents were asleep. Carrying my shoes, I walked into the kitchen, which was lit by the moon shining through the fanlight, I locked the door and, without making a sound, was on the point of returning to my bedroom when the light was switched on. My mother stood in front of me. Before I could make a move, a monumental smack caused me to whirl full circle, then my mother grabbed hold of me and laid into me. I was given the biggest hiding of my life. She hit me all the harder because she had been so frightened. She yelled and beat me and kicked me. I curled myself into a ball. It went on and on. She thumped me on the head so many times that I thought I was going to die. She also hit my father, who was trying to separate us. He had to use all his strength to prevent her from crippling me. He managed to control her and drag her away. She was hysterical.

‘Think of the neighbours!' he yelled.

She calmed down. He hurled me into my bedroom. The door slammed shut. My mother was wailing about the ingratitude of men in general and of her sons in particular. My father kept on telling her that it didn't matter. Eventually silence was restored. My heart was pounding away, my cheeks were on fire and my bottom ached. I lay there in the dark recovering my breath. I waited for sleep that never came. In spite of the thrashing and the punishments that would follow, I did not regret a single moment of the escapade. I felt in my pocket for the novel that Pierre had given me. I turned on my bedside light:
Fahrenheit 451
. It was not a long book. It had not been damaged by my mother's fury. Various passages had been underlined by Pierre. I started to read at random:

… I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlour' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid… Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it… Why, there's one town in Maryland, only twenty-seven people,
no bomb'll ever touch that town, is the complete essays of a man named Bertrand Russell…

Certain paragraphs had been annotated, but Pierre's spidery scrawl was illegible.

6

T
he weeks that followed were tedious. I became a sort of pariah. The family and the neighbours gave me sideways looks, as though I were a delinquent. Maria, normally so friendly, glared at me as if I had spat on the Cross. Old Mother Bardon, the caretaker of the building, regarded me with a pained expression. Her husband, an usher at the Paris City Council, took the liberty of making comments in my mother's presence such as: ‘You'll have to take care to wipe your feet on the doormat, young man, you've got to respect other people's work.'

My mother backed him up: ‘Monsieur Bardon's right, Michel, you don't respect anything.'

I was more irritated by the jibes from this Poujadist than I was by the many restrictions I had to endure. (I took my revenge. Every time I noticed any dog shit, I deliberately stepped on it and then wiped my feet on his doormat.) On Thursdays, I was not allowed to watch television and had to spend the whole evening doing homework in my bedroom. If I displayed the slightest urge to disobey orders, Maria had been told to phone my mother immediately, which resulted in my being bawled at and given official warnings. I made my situation worse by refusing to admit I was to blame or to look downcast. The small amount of freedom I had obtained had disappeared. Once again I became a child whose mother took him to school and came to collect him. In a panic, I asked my father to intercede. He hesitated and changed his mind several times before remarking in a half-convinced way: ‘That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be.'

My mother would not allow anyone else the job of tightening the screw on me. She had decided to take charge of my education. But if you are going to educate someone, it takes two of you, and I was determined not to play my part. My father had suggested he pick me up in the evenings as he often came home before her. He was given a categorical refusal and did not press the matter any further. Franck pleaded my cause. Because of the
bad company he kept, she considered him as being partly responsible, and she put him in his place. Behind her artificial smile, she ran the household as she did the Delaunay business: as an energetic woman who was used to being obeyed. For a while, I had hopes that her schedule would prevent her coming along when classes were over, but she arranged with the principal that I should stay behind studying until seven o'clock. The baby-foot and the pals were over. I did not work any harder. I took the opportunity to read. Because I had no other choice, I made use of the school library, which was pathetic, consisting solely of books given as end-of-year prizes.

Pierre's book enthralled me. Reading Bradbury prompted me to embark on a trial of strength. You've got to know how to resist, not to compromise or give in or accept the dominance of force as inevitable. The decision was obvious and simple: I would stop speaking. To anybody. This would be my way of punishing them. I took refuge in a protective silence and I answered in mumbles. When I left school at the end of the day, my mother would be waiting for me in the car, and I would get in without replying to her questions about what I had done during the day. The short journey took place in a wonderfully weighty silence. I went to the table and sat down there with my eyes glued to my plate, experiencing pleasure at the awkwardness I was creating. I left the table without any warning and rushed off to my bedroom without appearing again.

To begin with, I was playing with them and they did not realize. In the little game of ‘How long can you live without talking to your parents?' I was capable of holding out for a long time. They would give in before me. But then I was rather pleased to discover an unsuspected power within me. I would never have believed how unsettling silence could be. Néron paid the price and, starved of communication, he deserted me and found refuge in Juliette's bedroom; she was delighted to have him back. After a fortnight had passed, I began to sense signs of weariness. My mother and father had rows about me, though never in my presence. I loved hearing the sound of them arguing. My mother was not ready for this insidious warfare. I ignored her covert overtures and her peace initiatives. I watched them getting worked up, giving me sideways glances, talking about me as if I were crazy – ‘Perhaps there's a problem that's not obvious?' – and
wondering whether they should consult a psychologist. Franck was the only one not to be taken in. He urged me to stop ‘arsing around'.

Grandfather Delaunay asked one of his friends to intervene, a professor of medicine, whom they invited to lunch one Sunday. He observed me from a distance for two hours. I heard via Juliette that he had considered me tired and depressed. He advised some sporting activity and a course of vitamins. After that I was entitled to a glass of squeezed orange juice every morning. But I refused to join the football team. And still, to every question that was put to me, I waited, shrugged my shoulders, unable to make up my mind, and returned to my bedroom to read.

Juliette sometimes came and joined me. She sat at the side of the bed and Néron placed himself between us. She told me about her life in detail. I continued with my reading. I didn't listen to her. Only Néron looked as though he were following her. After an hour or two, I stopped her: ‘Juliette, I'm going to sleep.'

She stopped, gazed at me sympathetically and gave me a kiss: ‘It's nice when we talk to one another from time to time.'

One evening, over dinner, my mother raised the possibility of going to the cinema on Sunday afternoon to see John Wayne's
The Alamo
, the film everyone was talking about. I was longing to go. Several months before the film was released, I had declared my admiration for Davy Crockett and my father had given me the cap with the fox tail made of artificial fur. My mother knew I would find it hard to resist. My father pretended that he had not been expecting this suggestion and declared that it was a wonderful idea. Before the showing, we would go and have lunch at the Grand Comptoir. He wanted to go to a cinema on one of the central boulevards. The film would look splendid on its giant screen. They looked at me and waited for a response that never came. I stood up without saying a word. I left the table. As I was going out of the door, I had an inspiration. I turned round. I opened my mouth as if about to say something. I held back so as to make the pleasure last. I only had to say yes for hostilities to cease and for life to go on as it had before, with an exciting film into the bargain, but I had developed a taste for masochism and provocation. I rammed the point home: ‘Next year, I'd like to go to boarding school.'

My father appeared bewildered. My mother sat open-mouthed, unable to understand. Franck looked surprised. I said nothing more. I couldn't give a damn about their response, positive or negative. Had they agreed on the spot, it would have been all the same to me. They looked at each other without knowing what to say. My mother asked me: ‘Why?'

I paused in order to produce the maximum impact: ‘So that I won't have to see you any more.'

I left the dining room. And that is why I missed seeing
The Alamo
on a panoramic screen. It immediately made me feel sick. My only consolation was that they did not see it either. I stayed in my room, hesitating. I came within a hair's breadth of admitting my errors. I was on the point of giving in. With my ear glued to the wall, I could hear a more than usually fierce quarrel going on between my parents. It was the first time my father had gone out, slamming the front door violently behind him. My mother came into the bedroom. I pretended to be immersed in reading
La Condition humaine
. My cheeks were ablaze. My heart was thumping. I was doing all I could not to show how upset I was. She sat down at the side of the bed. She gazed at me in silence. I went on reading without taking in a word.

‘Michel, we have to talk.'

I put the book down.

‘Haven't you gone to the cinema?'

She gazed at me intently, trying to understand me. But how could she when I reacted without thinking? Her confusion was palpable. I pretended to go on reading.

‘You frighten me. If you go on like this, you'll find yourself on a slippery slope. You'll ruin your life. I won't be able to do anything for you.'

I looked up from my book as if surprised to see her there.

‘About boarding school, you weren't being serious?'

I replied that that was what I wanted. She shook her head several times: ‘What's the matter with you, Michel?'

I almost burst out laughing and told her that it was a bad joke and that I didn't mean it. But something stronger urged me on: ‘I'd prefer it. It would be better, wouldn't it?'

I turned away from her. I began reading again. I sensed her get to her feet. I did not hear her leave the room. She must be waiting. I turned around. She looked at me. We remained there, face to face. I knew instinctively that the first one to speak would have lost. I held her gaze without arrogance or insolence. The telephone began to ring in the dining room. No one picked it up. They had gone out. There were just the two of us. The ringing went on endlessly. We looked at one another without a word. The ringing stopped. The silence between us was restored. I saw her raise her arm. It remained in suspension with a slight quivering. I did not move. She hurled it with force. It was Malraux who bore the brunt. My book hurtled against the wall. She rubbed her hand and left the room. The front door slammed. I heard her steps growing fainter as she went downstairs. I was alone in the empty flat. The telephone rang again. I let it ring. That evening, Néron decided that our separation had lasted long enough. He returned to my bedroom and reclaimed his position at the end of my bed.

The following morning, Maria announced that I would be going to school on my own. My mother would not be coming to collect me any longer. During the afternoon, Sherlock, the head supervisor summoned me. He was a cold, sharp-featured man, with a natural authority. At the mere sight of him, you stopped talking. You stopped running and you bowed your head when you passed him. He had a way of scrutinizing you that made you feel guilty. And yet he had never been heard to raise his voice or mistreat a pupil. Pierre Vermont liked him very much and swore that he was one of the most cultured of men, a philosophy graduate who had given up teaching to go into administration. Sherlock asked me for my pupil's pass. He looked at it suspiciously. He had my school record open in front of him. He glanced back and forth between his figures and me, while I shifted from foot to foot.

‘Marini, your results are not up to the mark. Especially in maths. If this continues, you're going to have to repeat a year. You've got the final term to pull yourself together. You're a year ahead, it would be a pity to waste it.'

He tore up the yellow card and replaced it with a pale green one, signed it, removed my photograph, which he stapled on, and rubber-stamped
it. The green card indicated that I was free to leave after the last class. He handed me the pass. Just as I was taking it, he kept hold of it.

‘I don't want to see you hanging around in bars any more. Is that clear?'

At five o'clock, I waited. Nobody came to collect me. For a moment, I felt like going to see my mother at the shop to tell her that I was sorry. I hesitated. I decided to go home. Nicolas was the first to be surprised at my change of attitude when I refused to go with him to the Balto or the Narval. I did not mention Sherlock, just said I had to get down to work or else… Nicolas was a realistic boy who spoke without any ulterior motives: ‘You and maths, it's a hopeless case. But don't worry, there are masses of jobs that don't require maths.'

If God exists, he's my witness that I tried. Truly. I applied myself. I spent ages at it. So did Franck. He did everything he could to knock the wretched syllabus into my head. In my mind, it was worse than a blockage, it was emptiness. I would feel that I'd understood and was making progress, but as soon as he left me on my own, I plummeted. He persisted: ‘It's not complicated. Don't get worked up. Any idiot is capable of solving these problems! You must get there and you will.'

We spent entire evenings, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays at it. We didn't succeed. When he explained a theorem to me, it all seemed obvious, but I was incapable of working it out on my own. A couple of his pals did their best but then gave up.

‘Don't worry. It's a matter of time and work.'

One day, even he gave up. He had his own exams to prepare for. I didn't blame him for stopping. He had done all that a brother could do. Maths and me, we just didn't get along together. There was nothing anyone could do. It wouldn't be the first time inexplicable things occurred on this earth, nor the last time. I preferred not to think about what would happen if I had to repeat a year. I put the maths book back on the shelf and set off to meet Nicolas. Blow the consequences. We began to play baby-foot once more. We were given some drubbings and we handed out even more. That's life, after all.

One evening, Nicolas wanted to change venues. Because he was so
insistent, we went to the Narval. I had not been back there since Pierre left, three months ago. I did not want to come across Franck, who was convinced that I was racking my brains over Euclid, harmonic beams and quadratic equations. When he saw me at the baby-foot with Nicolas, he muttered ‘I see' in a way that spoke volumes. I behaved as if nothing were the matter. My bad mood affected my opponents, who were given a thrashing. A group of spectators congregated around the baby-foot table. When we swapped teams, I glanced over hurriedly at Franck's table. He had left the bistro without a word. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned round. Cécile was smiling at me.

‘Did you go missing?'

I realized that Franck had not told her anything about my family tribulations. I did not reckon it was worth expanding on the matter and adopted an evasive air: ‘I've had… a lot of work to do.'

Her eyes sparkled. I felt like I was melting into a warm puddle. I was dripping with sweat. For the first time in my life, I skipped my turn at baby-foot. The incredulous expression on the face of Nicolas, who had acquired a new attacker, increased my discomfort.