Happy Are the Happy (6 page)

I ate a king of clubs. Not all of it, but almost. I am a man who reached such an extreme that I was capable of putting a king of clubs in my mouth and chewing part of it to pieces, munching and swallowing it the way a savage would munch and swallow raw flesh. I did that. I ate a card that had been handled by dozens of other people before me, and I did it in the middle of the annual bridge tournament in Juan-les-Pins. I admit only one error, the original mistake: playing with Hélène. Letting myself be taken in by the sentimental little song-and-dance women do. I’ve known for years that I shouldn’t play with my wife as my partner anymore. The period when Hélène and I could play as a team, in a spirit of harmony – the word’s an exaggeration and doesn’t exist in bridge, let’s say indulgence then, on my part in any case, or in a spirit of, I’m looking for the right word, of conciliation – that period is long gone. One day, by a stroke of luck, we won the French mixed open pairs championship together. Since then, our alliance has produced not a single spark and ruined my blood pressure. Hélène didn’t know how to play bridge when I met her. A friend of hers brought her to a café where there were games at night. She was taking a secretarial course at the time. She sat down, she watched. She came back. I taught her everything. My father was an automotive toolmaker in a Renault plant and my mother a seamstress. Hélène came from the North. Her parents were textile
workers. Nowadays things have become democratized, but in former times people like us wouldn’t have been allowed into the clubs. Before I left everything for bridge, I was a chemical engineer at Labinal. I spent my days working in Saint-Ouen, my evenings at the Darcey in Place Clichy, and then in the clubs. Weekends at the racetrack. Little Hélène followed along. The passion for cards can’t be communicated. There’s a box in some brains, a box separate from the rest. It’s the
Cards
box. Those who don’t have it don’t have it. You can take all the lessons in the world, there’s nothing to be done. Hélène had it. In the short run, she played quite decently. Women can’t concentrate for long periods of time. After thirteen years of playing bridge separately, one fine day Hélène woke up and suggested we go back to the Juan-les-Pins tournament and play together. Juan-les-Pins, the blue sky, the sea, the memory of a hotel in Le Cannet, God only knows what image she had in her head. I should have said no and I said yes, like every man who’s growing old. The drama occurred at the seventeenth hand. North-South had reached a contract of five spades. My opening lead is the two of diamonds, dummy plays low, Hélène lays down the ace, declarer plays low. Hélène trots out her ace of clubs, North plays low, I have three clubs to the king, I play the nine, dummy plays low. So now what does Hélène do? What does a woman I’ve taught everything, a woman who’s supposed to have become an elite player – what does such a woman do? She continues in clubs. I played the nine of clubs on the previous trick, and Hélène led another club! We had three sure tricks, and we made only two of them. At the end of the game, I showed her my king of clubs and cried, now where am I supposed to put this? Shall I eat it? Do you want to kill me, Hélène? Do
you want me to have a heart attack right here in the middle of the Palais des Congrès? I waved the card under her nose and then stuffed the thing in my mouth. As I began to chew, I croaked at her, you saw my nine of clubs, you idiot, I played the nine, did you think I was playing it to pass the time? Hélène was petrified. Our opponents were petrified. That galvanized me. When you eat cardboard, the urge to vomit comes over you quite soon, but I worked my jaws aggressively and concentrated on mastication. I felt movement around us, I heard someone laugh, and I saw my friend Yorgos Katos’s face coming my way. He was, like me, a veteran of the games in Place Clichy. Yorgos said, what the hell are you doing, Raoul, old boy, spit that crap out of your mouth. I said–with a great effort, because I was intent on getting that king of clubs down my gullet – I said, where did she put her white cane? Eh? Let’s see that white cane, my poor girl! Raoul, Yorgos said, or so it seemed to me, you can’t let yourself get so worked up over a bridge tournament, a bit of fun at the beach. Those are the last words I remember. I heard someone call the referee, the table was swaying, Hélène stood up, she extended her arms, I tried to catch her fingers, I saw her floating with the others in a circle above my head, I felt bodies close against mine, I retched, I puked on the card-table cover, and then everything stopped. I woke up in an anise green room that I didn’t recognize and that turned out to be our hotel room. Three persons were whispering in the doorway. Yorgos, Hélène, and a stranger. Then the stranger left. Yorgos looked toward the bed and said, he’s coming back to life. Yorgos has the same kind of hair as the novelist Joseph Kessel. A sort of lion’s mane that appeals to women and makes me jealous. Hélène rushed to my bedside
and said, are you all right? She gently stroked my forehead. I said, what’s happening? —Don’t you remember? You got a little hysterical yesterday evening at the tournament. Yorgos said, you ate a king of clubs. I ate a king of clubs? I asked, making what seemed like an immense but only partly successful effort to sit up. Hélène arranged my pillows. A ray of sunlight struck her face, she was as pretty as always. I said, my little Bilette. She smiled and said, the doctor gave you a shot to calm you down, Rouli (Bilette and Rouli are our private nicknames for each other). Yorgos opened the window. We heard children’s cries and the music of a carousel. I don’t know why, but deeply buried memories suddenly came back to me: the empty carousel in the seaside resort where my family used to go when I was a child, the barrel organ, the gray weather. We’d camp on the campground. I’d sit under the awning of the pump room, watching the animals go round and round and waiting for the end of the day. A violent sadness overcame me. I thought, uh-oh, what did that crazy doctor give me? I’ll be going, Yorgos said. You have to stay in bed today. Tomorrow you can take a walk. A little nature will do you good, a few breaths of sea air, he said. The bar where we’d met, Yorgos and I, was on the corner of Place de Clichy and Boulevard des Batignolles. We were twenty years old. When the Darcey closed at two in the morning, we’d hurry over to Pont Cardinet. We lived our lives entirely without troubling ourselves about the light of day. From the club to the bed, and from the bed back to the club. We played all the games, poker, backgammon, we plucked quite a few pigeons in the back rooms. We amused ourselves with bridge and participated in big international championships. Yorgos was the last guy who should have
been recommending nature and walks. Might as well prescribe the grave. I said, what happened? Is it serious? You don’t remember anything, Rouli? Hélène asked. I replied, not very clearly. Yorgos said, good luck, dear girl. He kissed Hélène and went out. Hélène brought me a glass of water. She said, you lost your temper at the end of a hand. —Why aren’t we at the tournament? —We’ve been kicked out. I don’t know what it is about carousel music, but that hurdygurdy sound can really give you a terrible case of the blues. I said, close the window, Bilette, and the curtains too, I’m going to sleep a little more. At around noon on the following day, I woke up for good at the moment when Hélène came back from the town with some packages and a new pink straw hat. She declared that I looked very well. She herself seemed enchanted with her purchases. She said, what do you think, it’s not too big, is it? They also had some with plain ribbons, so I could exchange it, and in any case we have to go back to that store and buy you a hat too. I said, a straw hat like old men wear? What next? The sun’s really beating down, Hélène said, you’re not going to get a sunstroke on top of everything else. One hour later, I was sitting on the terrace of a café in the old town, wearing new glasses and a plaited hat. Hélène was perusing the tourist guide she’d bought, getting carried away at every page. Meanwhile I discreetly checked off the horses I liked in a copy of
Paris Turf
(I had permission to buy it, but not to consult it). She was the one who brought the matter up again. Out of the blue, she said to me, I didn’t much appreciate your calling me an idiot in public, in front of everybody. —Did I call you an idiot, my Bilette? —In front of everybody. She made a little face like a vexed child. That really wasn’t nice, I said. —And the white
cane, that was truly hateful, you can’t say, let’s see that white cane, my poor girl, you can’t say that to your wife, and in front of five hundred people. —Five hundred people, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. —Everyone knows about it. —I wasn’t myself, Bilette, you could see that. —All the same, it was pretty disturbing when you ate that card. I shrugged my shoulders and pulled in my neck the way a man who felt ashamed would do. It was hot. Various people passed by, adults wearing loose clothes and carrying canvas bags, children eating ice cream, girls covered with trinkets. I found I had nothing to say to Hélène. I watched the colorful, dismal parade. Hélène said, suppose we go and have a look at the Fort Carré? Or the archaeological museum? —All right. —Which one? —The one you prefer. —Maybe the archaeological museum. They have objects that were found in sunken Greek and Phoenician ships. Vases, jewels. —Fabulous. As we were walking down a nearby street, I spotted a bar where they showed the races on live television. I said, Bilette, suppose we separate just for an hour? Hélène said, if you step inside that bar, I’ll go back to Paris like a shot. She snatched the rolled-up
Paris Turf
out of my pocket and started shaking the roll in all directions. —What’s the use of being married if we don’t do anything together? What’s the use? —The Phoenicians bore me, Bilette. —If the Phoenicians bore you, you shouldn’t have ruined the tournament for us. —I’m not the one who ruined the tournament. —It wasn’t you? It wasn’t you who went crazy? It wasn’t you who insulted me and vomited? —It was me. But not without cause. We’d inadvertently drifted into the roadway, and a driver blew his horn at us violently. Hélène struck his hood with the racing form. The guy told her off through the
window, and she screamed, shut up! I tried to take her arm and pull her back onto the sidewalk, but she prevented me. —You led the deuce of diamonds, Raoul, I thought you had a diamond honor. —If I need you to lead back diamonds, I play the deuce of clubs. —How am I supposed to know you have three clubs to the king? —You don’t know it, but when you see me play the nine, you have to think that’s a signal. What do you call it, Hélène, when your partner plays a nine? You call it a sig-nal. —I interpreted it wrong. —You didn’t interpret it wrong, you don’t look at the cards, you stopped looking at the cards years ago. —How do you know, you don’t play with me anymore! —And with good reason! A small group had formed around us. Hélène’s pink straw hat was too big for her (she’d been right about that), and I felt rather ridiculous with mine. Her eyes were moist and her nose was turning red. I noticed that she must have bought herself some Provençal earrings. I suddenly felt a surge of affection for that little woman, the love of my life, and I said, my Bilette, I’m sorry, I get upset about nothing, come on, let’s go to your museum, it’ll do me good to see amphorae and stuff like that. While I was leading her away (and directing a little good-bye wave to the onlookers), Hélène said, if the old stones bore you, Rouli, shall we go somewhere else? They don’t bore me at all, I said, and watch this. With a solemn gesture, I took the copy of
Paris Turf
away from her and threw it in a trash bin. As we walked along the crowded streets with our arms around each other’s waist, I said, and then afterward we’ll pass by the casino. It opens at four o’clock. If you don’t want to stay with me at the blackjack table, you can go and try your luck at little roulette, my Bilette.

I heard Édith Piaf howling while I was still on the stairs. I don’t know how the other residents tolerate so many decibels. Personally, I don’t care one bit for those voices of wretchedness and those rolled, throaty
r
’s. It’s like I’m being attacked. My grand-aunt lives in an old folks’ home. To be more precise, in a room in an old folks’ home, because she almost never leaves it, and if I were her I’d do the same. She makes crocheted patchwork items – quilts, pillowcases, or just squares of no particular use. In fact, nothing my aunt makes is of any particular use, because her productions are ghastly dust traps and old-fashioned to boot. You accept them and pretend to be happy with them, but as soon as you get home you put them way in the back of a closet. Out of superstition, nobody dares throw them away, and you can’t find anyone to unload them on. Recently, she was given a CD player that’s easy for her to operate. She loves Tino Rossi. But she also listens to Édith Piaf and certain Yves Montand songs. When I enter her room, my grand-aunt’s trying to water a cactus and wetting the whole shelf while Piaf bellows, “I’d go to the end of the world, / I’d have my hair curled, / If you asked me to …” I immediately turn down the sound and say, Marie-Paule, the cactus doesn’t need very much water. This one’s different, my grand-aunt says, this one loves water, was it you who just turned off “Hymne à l’amour”? —I didn’t turn it off, I lowered the
volume. —How are you, darling? Oh my, don’t break your neck wearing those shoes, you’re way up there, my goodness. —It’s you that’s shrinking, Marie-Paule. —Lucky for me I’m shrinking, you see where I live. “My country I’d deny, / I’d tell my friends good-bye, / If you asked me to …” I turn off the music. I say, she gets on my nerves. Who? asks my aunt, Cora Vaucaire? —It’s not Cora Vaucaire, Marie-Paule, it’s Édith Piaf. —No indeed not, it’s Cora Vaucaire. “Hymne à l’amour” is Cora Vaucaire, I still have my wits about me, says my aunt. If you say so, I say, but it’s the song that gets on my nerves, I’m against love songs. The more famous they are, the stupider they are. If I were queen of the world, I’d ban them. My aunt shrugs. Who knows what you like, you young people these days? says my aunt. Do you want some orange juice, Virginie? She shows me a bottle that’s been open for about a thousand years. I decline it and say, young people these days adore love songs, all the singers sing love songs, it’s only me who can’t stand them. You’ll change your mind the day you meet a boy you like, says my aunt. She’s managed to irritate me in thirty seconds. As fast as my mother. It must be a distinguishing trait of the women in my family. On her night table there’s a framed photograph of her husband smoking a pipe. One day she showed me the drawer in her dresser that’s entirely dedicated to him. She’s kept all his letters, his notes, his little gifts. I don’t have a clear memory of my granduncle, I was too little when he died. I sit down. I let myself drop into the big, soft armchair that takes up too much space. It’s sad, this room. It’s got too many things in it, too much furniture. I take the balls of cotton yarn she ordered out of my purse. She hastens to arrange them in a basket at the foot of her bed. Then she sits in the other armchair and says, all
right, good, tell me what’s going on. When she has all her wits about her, it’s hard to understand what she’s doing here, alone in this penal colony, far from everything. From time to time, when I call her on the telephone, I have the impression she’s just been crying. But ever since the episode of the exploding rice dish, I know my aunt’s brain is working less and less, to use her expression. The last time my parents and I were at her house, she’d placed a big glass dish filled with rice left over from the previous evening on a hot griddle two hours before dinner. This warming method left the rice at the top cold. My aunt went into her kitchen to stir the rice with a spatula, that is, to project a lot of it onto her work surface. It was impossible to give her advice or even to enter the room. We caught a glimpse of her through the partly open door, up to her elbows in rice, mixing it with her hands as if she was shampooing a mangy dog. At eight o’clock the dish exploded, strewing the kitchen with grains of rice and shards of glass. After that incident, my parents decided to put her in a home. I say, did you like it when Raymond smoked his pipe? —He smoked a pipe? —In that photo, he’s smoking a pipe. —Oh, he gave himself airs from time to time, and besides, I couldn’t control everything, you know. When are you going to get married, sweetie? I say, I’m twenty-five, Marie-Paule, I’ve got a lot of time. She says, do you want some orange juice? —No, thanks. I ask her, were you faithful to each other? She laughs. She raises her eyes to the ceiling and says, a leather goods salesman, what do you think, I couldn’t have cared less, you know! With some people, you can’t see their youthful face anymore, the years have erased it. With others it’s the opposite, when their faces light up they look like kids. I see that at the clinic, even with people who
are gravely ill. And my little Marie-Paule is like that too. —Was Raymond talkative? She considers the question and then says, no, not so much, a man doesn’t need to be talkative. Right you are, I say. She twists a strand of wool around her fingers and says, my brain’s still working, you know. —I know your brain’s still working, and that’s why I want you to advise me on an important matter. All right, she says. Do you want some orange juice? No, thanks, I say. So here’s the thing. Do you remember that I’m a medical secretary? —Yes yes yes, you’re a medical secretary. —I work in a clinic with two oncologists. —Yes yes yes. —Well, one of Doctor Chemla’s patients, a woman about your age, always comes in accompanied by her son. He must be nice, says my aunt. —He’s very nice. Especially since his mother’s a pain in the ass. He’s old, imagine, he may even be forty. But I like older men. Boys of my age bore me. One day I found myself having a cigarette with him outside. To tell you the truth, I’d noticed him some time before. I’ll describe him to you: he’s dark-haired, not very tall, he looks like a slightly less handsome version of the actor Joaquin Phoenix, you know who I mean? A Spaniard, says my aunt. —Yes, but … it doesn’t matter. Anyway, we’re standing under the awning and smoking. I smile at him. He smiles back at me. There we are, smoking and smiling at each other. I try to make my cigarette last, but I finish it before he finishes his. I’m still at work, I’ve got my white coat on, so there’s no reason for me to linger. I say to him, see you soon, and I go back to my basement floor. Time passes, he brings his mother in for several visits, I exchange a few words with him. I make their appointments, I find addresses for his mother’s supplementary care. One day she gives me some chocolates and says,
Vincent chose them, and another time I see him waiting for an elevator that doesn’t come and I show him where the staff elevator is, you get the picture, that sort of thing. On the days when the name Zawada, their name, is written in the appointment book, I’m happy, I apply my makeup with special care. Do you want a glass of orange juice? my aunt asks. —No, thanks. His name is Vincent Zawada. A lovely name, don’t you think? Oh yes, says my aunt. —I’m in heaven at the moment, they show up every week because she’s having a course of radiation therapy. So last Monday, there we were again, he and I, smoking under the awning outside. This time he was there first. He’s like Raymond. Not at all talkative. My aunt nods. She’s listening to me quietly with her hands in her lap, one on top of the other. Every now and then she looks outside. Right in front of the window, two poplars partly block the view of the opposite buildings. I say, so I muster up all my nerve and dare to ask him what he does. It’s a little odd, you understand, a man who’s always free during the day. My aunt says, true, true. She opens her night-blue eyes very wide. She can thread a little needle without wearing glasses. I say, he’s a musician. He tells me he’s a pianist and also a composer. Not long after that, he finishes his cigarette. And then, instead of going back to his mother in the waiting room, and without any reason, because neither one of us is talking just then, he stays. He waits for me. He has no reason to remain outside, don’t you agree? My aunt shakes her head. It was cold and nasty besides, I say. We stayed outside, both of us, just like the first time, standing there and smiling at each other. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Generally I’m pretty fearless, but around that man I feel shy. When I finish my cigarette,
he pushes the glass door open to let me go in ahead of him (which proves that he was waiting for me), and he says, let’s take your elevator. Each of us could have taken a different elevator, or he could have said nothing, right? Let’s take your elevator, that’s a way of connecting us, don’t you think? I ask. My aunt says, yes, I do. The elevator’s very deep, I say, it has to accommodate gurneys, but he stands next to me as if we were in a tiny cabin. I can’t say he glued himself to me, I tell my aunt, but I swear to you, Marie-Paule, considering the size of the elevator, he really stood very close. Unfortunately, it’s a quick trip from the ground floor to the second level down. After we got out, we walked a few steps together, then he went back to the waiting room and I returned to the secretary’s office. Almost nothing happened, that is, nothing specific, but when we separated at the intersection of the corridors, I felt like we were parting on a train platform after a secret trip. Do you think I’m in love, Marie-Paule? Oh yes, my aunt says, you do seem to be. —You know, I’ve never been in love. Or if I was, it was only for two hours. Two hours, that’s not much, says my aunt. —And now what should I do? If I just depend on seeing him at the clinic, things won’t move forward at all. Between the patients, the telephone, and the medical consultation reports, I’m simply not free when I’m at the clinic. No, says my aunt. —Do you think he likes me? He likes me, isn’t that obvious? Oh, he surely likes you, says my aunt, is he Spanish? Don’t trust Spaniards. —But he’s not Spanish! —Ah, well, so much the better. My aunt gets up and goes to the window. The two trees outside are moving in the wind. They sway together, and the branches and leaves all do their frenzied dances in the same direction. My aunt says, look at my poplars, look at how
much fun they’re having. You see where I’ve been put. Fortunately, I have my two big boys there. They cover my windowsill with their seeds, you know, their little caterpillars, and that makes the birds come. Don’t you want some orange juice? No, thanks, Marie-Paule, I say, I have to go. My aunt gets up and starts digging around in her wool basket. She says, can you bring me a ball of Diana-Noel yarn, green, like this one? Of course I can, I say. I give her a big hug. She’s minuscule, my Marie-Paule. It breaks my heart to leave her there all alone. On my way down the stairs, I hear Édith Piaf again. She’s singing a catchy tune, and it sounds like someone’s singing with her. I go back up a few steps, and then I can make out my aunt’s thin voice: “It’s strange, what a change, / I’m yours in word and deed. / You’re the man, you’re the man, you’re the man that I need.”