The Incorrigible Optimists Club (53 page)

21

T
hursday 2 July was a foul day. The results of the
bac
were announced. I didn't even go and look at them. A friend told me that I had been given a ‘satisfactory' pass. Any normal human being would have been over the moon, and would have gone and had fun at the student ball. But I couldn't give a damn. I had had no news of Camille for a fortnight. No phone call, no letter, no meeting. I had been expecting her to show up after the exams. We could have spent this time together. Instead every day took us a little further away from one another. I ran round the Luxembourg until I was out of breath. In the afternoons, I went to the Lycée Fénelon. It was deserted. The lists of those who had passed and failed were pinned up on the noticeboards. She had passed ‘with merit'. She had made her choice. Judging by my expression that evening, my mother thought at first that I had failed. She opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the occasion, but I refused to clink glasses. I was clearly a killjoy. She asked me what I wanted to do next year.

‘Gym teacher.'

‘You! Are you joking?'

‘I've never been so serious in my life.'

It continued to rain. How long can you go on running before you're forced to stop? The firemen tried to keep up. As soon as I accelerated, I left them standing. How about being a fireman? Do you need a diploma? I decided I would go and ask them. It would be better than teaching sport to a lot of softies. As I passed the statue of Delacroix, I spotted her. Camille was leaning against a tree. Because of the rain, we went and took cover beneath the park keepers' mushroom-shaped shelter.

‘I called your home. Juliette told me you would be here. You're drenched.'

‘I like running in the rain.'

‘She told me you wanted to be a gym teacher. Is that a joke?'

‘I've changed my mind. Now I've decided to be a fireman.'

‘Are you mad?'

‘Didn't you know that it's what every boy dreams of doing? The big red truck that really does go nee-naw. Why should you be interested in my future?'

‘You passed. You must be pleased?'

‘If you start talking to Juliette, you'll never get away.'

‘I went by Henri-IV. I saw the results. I'm happy for you… My brother failed his
bac
.'

All of a sudden, the man condemned to death and facing the firing squad opens his eyes. I understood what Dostoevsky must have felt when he was told that he was reprieved. He surely did as I did. He took several deep breaths. It's wonderful to breathe. We don't think about it enough. I was dripping with sweat. What a lovely day it is today. How beautiful she is.

‘So will he be forced to do it again?'

‘In Israel. We're leaving tomorrow.'

The shot had been fired. I shuddered. How long would it take for me to feel it? Why wasn't I dead?

‘Damn it all, Camille! Why won't you stay?'

‘I can't, Michel.'

‘Your father told me that if you'd wanted to, you could have gone to stay with your uncle in Montreuil.'

‘Did he tell you that?'

‘I promise you.'

‘His brother's in a kibbutz on the Jordanian border.'

‘Was he making fun of me?'

‘What did you think of my mother's biscuits?'

I collapsed onto the bench.

‘You shouldn't have come, Camille. You should have let me go on running.'

She sat down beside me. She took my hand. She gazed at me with a strange expression.

‘Michel, I love you. I love only you. I think of you day and night. Every moment. It's unbearable. I can't go on. I want to live with you, stay with you, never ever leave you.'

‘So do I.'

‘I feel so close to you, do you understand?'

‘Why haven't you been in touch with me during these two weeks? I felt terrible.'

‘I wrote you two letters a day.'

‘I never received anything.'

‘I didn't send them.'

‘Why have you come back?'

‘I couldn't help it.'

‘Camille, don't go. We'll find a solution.'

‘I can't, Michel. I'm sixteen. I must obey my parents. I couldn't do that to them. I'm trapped.'

‘I'm ready to go with you.'

‘It's not possible. My parents wouldn't want it.'

‘Let's go away together then. Doesn't matter where. You suggested that to me. Do you remember? I know a place where we can go. No one will find us.'

‘Michel, listen to me. Do you love me?'

‘How can you ask me that question? Do you really doubt it?'

‘You'll wait for me and I'll wait for you.'

‘How long will that last?'

‘I don't know. A long time. It's a hurdle we'll have to overcome.'

‘It's torture.'

‘If we manage it, we'll feel stronger. Nothing will be able to separate us again. We'll be together for life. And after all, it's not the end of the world. Perhaps we'll manage to see each other during the holidays. Do you agree?'

‘Is there a choice?'

‘I swear that I'll wait for you.'

‘Me too. I'll wait for you.'

She smiled at me, picked up the bag that lay at her feet and took out a book, which she handed to me.

‘I'm giving it to you.'

It was her copy of
Le Matin des magiciens
, inscribed by Bergier and Pauwels.

‘It's my most precious possession. Think of me as you read it.'

‘I will, I promise. It will never leave me. I've got nothing to give you.'

‘It doesn't matter. Will you write to me?'

‘Every day. Wait.'

I took out my wallet. I pulled out a sheet of paper folded in eight. I gave it to her. She unfolded it carefully and found my rapidly drawn sketch of her.

‘I knew you hadn't torn it up.'

‘It doesn't look much like you.'

‘I like it a lot.'

We sat there in silence. We wanted this moment to go on for ever. We stood up. Her eyes were red. I took her in my arms and I clasped her to me with all my strength. She gave me a long kiss on the lips. My body thrilled from head to foot. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, she was gone. It was pouring with rain.

22

M
adeleine Marcusot was back by Monday. She couldn't bear the Auvergne. Since her children had left the drinks trade and the Balto was too big a business for a woman on her own, she had decided to sell it to the son of a cousin. They were in the process of preparing the papers and the loans with the brewery agent. She introduced us to Patrick Bonnet. He was young and looked no more than thirty. From now on, he was the owner. He was full of ideas for enlarging the terrace, expanding the restaurant business in the evening and improving its reputation. He was going to change the pinball machines and would leave the baby-foot tables as they were. A lick of paint would do no harm. He offered drinks all round to celebrate his arrival. We raised our glasses in Albert's memory. Madeleine would help him initially. In October, she would be taking over a small restaurant in Levallois. She would be near her daughter.

I was awaiting my turn at the baby-foot table when Sacha arrived. I had been round to his place three times to see whether he needed anything. His cheeks were hollow. He had grey circles under his eyes and two weeks' growth of beard.

‘What are you doing outside? You'll never get better with this lousy weather.'

‘I'd run out of cigarettes.'

‘They're bad for you, Sacha. You must stop smoking.'

‘Michel, you're very kind, but you're a bit of a pain in the arse.'

He went to buy two packs of Gauloises at the tobacco counter. Madeleine was in the kitchen preparing the dish of the day. She spotted him and went over to him. They embraced.

‘I'm sorry, Madeleine, I couldn't come before now.'

‘It doesn't matter, Sacha. You look tired. You shouldn't have gone to the trouble.'

‘I wanted to offer my condolences. To tell you just how upset I was by Albert's death. You know how fond I was of him.'

‘He liked you very much too.'

‘He was a friend. A fine person. It was so sudden.'

‘I'm annoyed with myself, you know. He was too fat. There was no way of putting him on a diet. I should have been more forceful.'

‘It's not your fault. He was happy.'

Suddenly, behind us, we heard a roar: ‘What the hell are you doing here?'

We turned round. Igor was red with fury.

‘I warned you: I didn't want you bloody well setting foot here again!'

‘I came to see Madeleine.'

‘You're forbidden to stay in this café!'

‘Fuck off!'

Igor hurled himself at him. He had lost control. He gave Sacha a colossal slap in the face that caused him to spin round ninety degrees. He grabbed him by the neck and dragged him outside, onto avenue Denfert-Rochereau. He began pummelling him with blows to the body and the head. We were dumbstruck. We watched Igor beating him up through the window. Sacha offered no resistance. He didn't try to protect himself. He fell to his knees. Igor seized him by the lapels of his coat and hammered his face with furious blows. Sacha's face was bleeding, but he didn't defend himself. I went outside and hurled myself at Igor. I grabbed him by the back. He was bigger and stronger than me and he was struggling, but I clung onto his arms and he was forced to let Sacha go. Sacha collapsed with his face to the ground. Igor went on kicking him violently in the ribs.

‘Stop it! You're crazy!'

I managed to heave him a couple of yards away and hold him off. Nobody came to help me. Igor was yelling that he wanted to kill him. He pushed me away. I punched him in the stomach with all my strength. He wasn't expecting it. He looked at me in stunned amazement, his mouth gasping for air. He drew back, clutching his belly. I knelt down beside Sacha, who was unconscious and bleeding from the face. I heard loud voices. Madeleine was preventing Igor from entering the Balto: ‘Get out of my place!' she cried. ‘Did you hear? Outside!'

She turned to Patrick Bonnet: ‘I make it a condition of sale that this brute never sets foot here again!'

‘I don't ever want to see you again!' he said to Igor, shaking his finger at him. ‘Or you won't know what's hit you!'

Igor walked off in the direction of place Denfert-Rochereau. Sacha let out a feeble moan. I wiped his bloodied forehead with my handkerchief. Madeleine and Jacky came over and joined me.

‘We must ring the emergency services,' Madeleine said.

‘No,' wailed Sacha with a groan.

He stood up with difficulty. His eyes were staring, his face was swollen, one eye was closed, his nose was crooked, and one of his lips was split. He was bleeding everywhere.

‘Take me to the hospital next door. Quickly!'

He put his arm on my shoulder and we inched forward. At times, he faltered. I struggled to hold him upright. He was limping and clutching his ribs. They were the toughest three hundred metres of my life. People passing by stared at us in terror. They stepped aside from us as though we had the plague. He was breathing with difficulty. Drops of blood fell on the ground and I was spattered with it just as much as he was. At Port-Royal, he collapsed. A policeman who was guiding the traffic helped me and, each of us holding one arm, we dragged him to the casualty department of Cochin Hospital. The policeman left. Two male nurses laid him out on a stretcher.

‘What happened to you?' the elder of them asked.

‘I fell down the stairs,' Sacha murmured.

The nurse made a face.

‘I'm going to alert the duty houseman. He won't be long.'

He disappeared. I stayed with Sacha. He opened his eyes. He beckoned to me with his hand to come closer.

‘Michel, you mustn't say anything. You found me in the street. You don't know me.'

‘As you wish, Sacha.'

‘It's better. I want them to look after me, but not to operate on me.'

‘We must wait for the doctor. Let's see what he decides.'

A doctor arrived. He stared at me and frowned. He palpated Sacha's body. He couldn't help crying out in pain. He examined his face carefully. His fingers ran over every inch of skin with the delicacy of a blind man.

‘I don't want to be operated on!'

‘We're going to X-ray you, Monsieur, don't worry. It's not painful.'

A nurse pushed the trolley. Sacha disappeared behind a swing door. I sat down. There was the same procession of battered and blood-streaked bodies as last time, dumped here like parcels by well-meaning policemen or firemen, and the same smell of fear clung to these people living on borrowed time. Four years later, here I was again in the casualty department where I had waited after Cécile's attempted suicide. Where was she at this moment? Did she ever think of me? I would have so liked her to be with me, to be holding my hand. Would we see each other again one day? Perhaps it was this doctor who had attended to her at the time. Camille would have told me that my being here once more was a sign, and that it was written in the stars somewhere. If she had been there, I would have cried out that there is no such thing as predestination. It was just that I lived in this damned neighbourhood and I was unlucky with my friends. I began to blubber like a kid, like a bloody fool. The only advantage of being in this human pigsty was that nobody gave a damn, no one even noticed.

Sacha was brought back after less than an hour. He was dressed in green pyjamas and wrapped in a grey blanket. They put him in the corridor and we had to stand aside to allow the constant stream of other stretchers to go past.

‘What did they tell you?'

‘You're to turn over and not move.'

His face had been cleansed with arnica. He tried to sit up. He grimaced in pain. The slightest movement caused him to cry out. He breathed with difficulty in small breaths. His voice came from deep inside his throat: ‘I have to go, Michel. You'll help me.'

‘Sacha, you can't leave like this.'

‘They're not allowed to keep me against my will.'

‘You're not able to walk. What will you do?'

‘I don't want to stay here. I want to leave.'

He gripped me by the arm and pulled me towards him with unexpected strength. He tried to raise himself, but had to give up because of the pain. His jaw was clenched. A stretcher-bearer pushed the trolley into a room where the doctor was waiting for us. He was examining the X-rays that were spread out on a bright screen in front of him.

‘You have a fracture of the nasal septum at the point of the frontal sinus and the ethmoid. We're going to have to operate.'

‘I don't want you to.'

‘There are splinters of bone. A clot will form. You'll be in a lot of pain. You'll find it increasingly difficult to breathe because you have no nasal ventilation. Your turbinate bones are crushed. You risk an infection. We can operate on you immediately. Under anaesthetic, you won't feel a thing. It's not a major operation, but it's vital. In three days' time, you'll be out. You also have two broken ribs.'

‘Can you put my nose back in place and nothing else?'

‘That will be enough for today. As for the rest, we'll see later on. Are you ready?'

‘You're not going to touch anything else?'

‘I promise. What's your name?'

‘Gauthier. François Gauthier.'

The doctor jotted down the name.

‘Where do you live, Monsieur Gauthier?'

‘In Bagneux. Avenue Gambetta. Number 10.'

He wrote down Sacha's false address on the entry certificate.

‘I've got no other papers. He beat me up so he could rob me.'

‘Don't worry. We're here to look after you. The anaesthetist will come to see you.'

He left with the X-rays. Sacha's eyes were closed as though he were asleep. He opened them. A tear rolled down his cheek.

‘He's stubborn, this doc.'

‘It's for your own good, Sacha.'

‘My name is François Gauthier. And you don't know me.'

‘You're a stranger whom I picked up in the street, and you were beaten up by a thug who stole your wallet.'

‘It's the truth.'

‘You must relax. As he told you, it's a very minor operation.'

‘You'll be pleased, Michel, I'm going to have to stop smoking. Do one thing for me. I can't move my arm. In the right-hand pocket of my coat, there's a flap. Hand me the contents.'

I did as he asked. I pulled out a one hundred franc note, folded in four. He took it with his good left hand and unfolded it.

‘Take this, Michel.'

‘What are you doing, Sacha?'

‘I'm not giving you anything. You're to keep it for me safely. You'll give it back to me when we see each other again. It's a tradition at home. It's to make sure the person who's being operated on comes to collect it. If you think I'm leaving my cash to you, you're quite wrong.'

‘I'll give it back to you tomorrow.'

‘I should hope so. I've got a good reason to recover now.'

He smiled with difficulty. I took his hand. It was frozen.

‘Get some rest, Sacha.'

He closed his eyes. After a while, I felt the pressure slacken in his now warm hand. He had fallen asleep. A man in a white coat came in. They were going to examine him. He took Sacha away without waking him. I slipped the hundred-franc note into my wallet.

It was still raining when I emerged from the hospital. I went back to the Balto to give Madeleine the news. The café was abuzz with excitement. Patrick Bonnet had locked the door of the Club, sealed it off with an enormous chain, and had stuck up a notice: ‘Permanent closure of these premises. Gambling forbidden. All drinks are to be consumed in the main room and orders must be renewed by the hour.' Leonid, Vladimir, Pavel, Imré, Tomasz and Gregorios tried to make him change his mind, but the owner remained adamant.

‘He didn't have to hit him. I don't want any trouble with the police.'

‘He was right! The only thing I regret is not having done it myself!' Leonid declared.

‘We should have got rid of him earlier. He's been making fun of us for years!' Vladimir added.

‘This is a café and restaurant for normal people. I don't want any maniacs. The chess club is finished! And if Igor comes back, I'll call the cops!'

‘If there's not going to be a Club any more and if Igor is no longer allowed in, we'll go somewhere else!' said Pavel.

‘Fine!'

They all trooped out together, with their heads held high. We really did think that Patrick Bonnet had shut down the Club because of Igor and Sacha's brawl. Later on, Jacky told me that it had been decided to close it at the time the sale was being negotiated in Saint-Flour. By doing so, he hoped to improve the café's reputation and its profitability. No one was angry with Igor. He had founded the Club and it was because of him that it was closed down. Interpreters date the official end of the Club, and of its period of renown, which some people still speak of with emotion and regret in their voices, to that Monday 6 July. As if to say: those were the good old days. The members searched for a friendly café in the neighbourhood, but didn't find one. When times got better they moved near to the orangery in the Jardin du Luxembourg. They became accustomed to playing there in summer or winter alike. They came from countries that had polar temperatures, so it didn't bother them if they spent hours sitting outside in the open air. Apparently, it's invigorating for both mind and body. Some of them still play there.