The Dreamers (5 page)

Like children who, in awe of its hunting horns, its
bottles
of champagne, the foxtrots and quicksteps of its horses, the scarlet evening dress of its riders, confuse the hunt with the hunt ball, our three heroes confused the cinema itself with a pitched battle in which the future of the cinema was at stake. They were happy to remain on the sidelines, admiring the actors, applauding the stars. They had no wish to take part. They sought nothing more than to be bystanders, innocent bystanders.

But the film had outstayed its welcome. They left before the end. While the casualties straggled from the battlefield, helped down the metro stairs by those who had escaped unscathed, they were already far away, in long-shot, wandering along the Left Bank, three almost imperceptible dots on the horizon.

In the place de l'Odéon they found the usually routine business of taking leave of each other awkward and affecting. Because the visit to Chaillot had been an extemporaneous shot in the dark, they'd forgotten to stock up with sandwiches. Only now did they realise how famished they were.

‘What will you do about dinner?' Théo offhandedly asked Matthew. ‘Do you have a gas range in that room of yours?'

Matthew thought of his cramped L-shaped hotel room with its peeling yellow wallpaper and the oblong sheet of glass mounted on balsa wood that, propped up against one of its walls, served him as a mirror.

‘No, no, I've got nothing to cook on.'

‘So where will you eat?'

The question startled Matthew. Yet he didn't care to remind Théo and Isabelle that of late, after all, he had
spent virtually every evening in their company. He hadn't understood that, when they arrived home by the last metro, they would regularly clean out the
refrigerator
. The sandwiches, the hard-boiled eggs, he had dined off had been a mid-evening snack for them.

‘Oh, I can always have a couscous in the
quartier
. Or maybe buy a kebab and smuggle it into my room. Unless,' he added tentatively, ‘unless we all go out for a meal?'

Théo turned to Isabelle.

‘Want to?'

Isabelle screwed her face in a moue of distaste and said, ‘Nah. Isabelle no wanna go to a nasty restaurant in the
quartier
and have nasty couscous.'

Matthew should have known his run of good fortune was due to come to an end.

‘I ought to be going,' he said, squaring his shoulders, preparing to be the first to say goodbye.

Théo looked at him, ironically, tenderly.

‘Why don't you come back with us?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Come back and have dinner with us. Shouldn't he, Isa?'

Matthew instantly scanned Isabelle's face for the most
infinitesimal shadow of vexation that might play across it.

She smiled at him. ‘Yes, do, Matthew. It's time you met the folks.'

The implication of her turn of phrase, as Matthew knew, wasn't to be taken seriously. But, like all sufferers from unrequited love, he had ceased to be particular. The words had been said. For that he was grateful. For his nocturnal reveries, for the postmortem of each day that he conducted night after night, it was all that mattered.

‘I'd love to,' he said, adding, with a calculated coltish charm, ‘I thought you'd never ask.'

He no longer needed a prompter. He was word-
perfect
.

Théo and Isabelle lived in a first-floor flat on the rue de l'Odéon to which access was gained by a narrow spiral staircase rising from an inner courtyard identical to a thousand others on the Left Bank. The flat itself was large, if one counted the number of rooms, but from any one vantage point it didn't appear to be, since all of its rooms were low-ceilinged and small, made even
smaller
by its ubiquitous bookcases.

Their father was a dandified fossil, a Giacometti 
sculpture in a silk dressing-gown, who lived his life at the edge of a void, but as comfortably as one might live in a villa on the shore of a Swiss lake. As a poet, he was a celebrated perfectionist. Writing verse, he was like a woodcutter who chops down a tree to make a
matchstick
. To make a second matchstick he chops down a second tree. By matchsticks, we mean words. He was as admired for these words as other writers are for their brilliant sentences.

There were so few words to one of his pages, and so very few pages to a volume of his verse, it was rare for reviews of his work not to take longer to read than the work itself. And, like all poets living above the mêlée and reluctant to descend from a cloud-shrouded ivory tower, he was exceptionally touchy where criticism was concerned. As much scoring-out went on in his address book as in one of his manuscripts.

Their mother was English, a much younger woman than her husband who had cheerfully accepted that her primary role in the poet's life was to serve that crabby invalid: his inspiration. She was ever at its beck and call with an unending supply of placebos – cups of watery Indian tea, vague words of encouragement and, mostly, silence. Once, indeed, when Théo had been stretched
out on his bedroom carpet listening to Ravel's
Boléro
, she had put her head round the door so often to ask him to turn the sound down lest his father be disturbed that the famous crescendo had remained at a pianissimo level throughout. As did her own life.

Isabelle entered the drawing room to find her father seated in an armchair in front of an ornate fireplace. She playfully nipped the hairs on the back of his neck.

‘Papa, it’s us. We’re eating in tonight.’

‘What about the Cinémathèque?’ he grunted, without looking up from what he was doing: slicing open the pages of a book with a bronze paper-knife.

‘Closed.’ She took the paper-knife out of his hand. ‘Can’t you see we’ve got a guest? This is Matthew.’

Shambling to his feet, tugging the halves of his robe together in front of him, the poet contemplated his guest. Having been writer-in-residence at a minor Midwestern college for one unforgettable semester, he wasn’t unused to young Americans trooping through the flat, but they had generally been graduate students preparing theses on his work. As he shook hands with Matthew, his eyes appeared to think independently of the rest of his
loose-muscled
face. He had eyelids like a doll’s.

‘We invited Matthew to dinner,’ Isabelle continued. ‘He lives in a nasty hotel without a range.’

The poet blinked. He didn’t know what a range was. He thought it must be some kind of American Bar and Grill.

‘In that case, I advise you to warn your mother. There’s surely insufficient for five.’

Matthew hastened to intervene.

‘Oh please, I don’t want you to put yourself out on my account.’

‘Nonsense, my young friend. We can’t have you returning to a hotel without a range. Sit, please. Have a cigarette,’ and, plucking one from the pocket of his robe, he held it out to Matthew.

‘He doesn’t smoke,’ said Isabelle.

Smartly retrieving the cigarette, her father replaced it in his pocket.

‘Of course you don’t smoke,’ he said to Matthew. ‘Far too young, as I see now. And too young to be living in a hotel, wouldn’t you say?’ He peered into his face. ‘Just how old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?’

Embarrassed, Matthew answered, ‘Eighteen.’

The poet blinked again. He looked at Matthew, suspicion nakedly declared on his features. It was clear he
believed he was being lied to. There followed a
momentary
awkwardness, one relieved by the entrance of his wife. Forewarned by Théo, she insisted that reorganising a dinner for two so that it might serve five instead posed no problem at all.

Dinner was a lugubrious affair. The poet at once launched into what Baudelaire, referring to Victor Hugo, described as ‘that monologue he calls a
conversation
’. Whatever his public, a journalist, a graduate
student
, a fellow man-of-letters, a young American with whom his children were acquainted, he was incapable of digressing from the script.

‘
Hein
, my young Matthew? For, you know, a writer’s life is nothing but pretence. What you Americans call “make believe”. Do I write a poem, eh? Not at all. Nothing so obvious. I
pretend
to write a poem. I
pretend
to write a volume of poetry. The poet – the real poet,
n’estce
pas
? – is someone who
pretends
to write a poem,
pretends
to write a book – up to that moment, that miraculous moment, when he finds that a new poem has materialised in front of him, a new book has
materialised
in front of him. Eh? That is why I will never
comprehend
the kind of writer –
le genre
Mauriac – who sits
down at his table at nine and rises at five. What? Are we in a profession?
Foutaise
! Or else … or else it can be
compared
… only just, you understand … to the profession of the doctor. You follow what it is I am telling you, my young American friend? That the poet, like the doctor, must expect to be called at any hour of the day or night.
L’inspiration, c’est ça
. Like a baby, it does not choose a nice seemly hour to enter the world. It has no consideration for the poet –
ça non
. But when it does come … then, you know … it’s …’ – here his voice assumed the reverence appropriate to the pathos of the creator
humbled
before the mystery of creation – ‘it’s … it’s
magnificent
. For monks is what we are, my dear Matthew, monks who enter literature with our heads bowed, as if taking religious orders. It’s as simple as that. The poet for whom the subject, the only conceivable subject, is art itself – and for the true poet, I tell you, there can be no other subject – such a poet is a monk whose whole life coincides with the adoration of his God and for whom posterity is his Heaven. You’ – he stressed the
you
– ‘
you
know what I mean, don’t you? The immortality of his soul. For what is an oeuvre, after all, but the soul of its creator? That’s why I chuckle so at the antics of those pathetic buffers in the Academy with their pretensions
to immortality.
Les Immortels
, hah! Maurois, Achard, Druon, Genevoix, that crowd! What a graveyard, Matthew,
n’est-ce pas
? Dead is what they are, dead, not immortal, dead as writers, mummified as men, propped up in their
fauteuils
like so many old codgers in wheelchairs. What a farce!
Hein
? And, you know, you know, it has just occurred to me, it has just this instant occurred to me, that true immortality, the immortality of Racine, of Montaigne,
qu’est-ce que j’en sais
, of Rimbaud, is to the Immortality of the Académie Française what Heaven is to – to the Vatican.
Hein
? For that’s what it is, the Academy, the Vatican of French literature. Yes, but yes, I see it now, the Academy and the Vatican. Doesn’t the Academic green rival the Papal purple? Eh? Eh? Don’t you agree? Ha, ha, ha! You could almost … And … and … the Thursdays, you’ve heard of their
Thursdays
,
hein
, those gloriously absurd Thursdays which they spend grinding out the famous Dictionary?
Quelle connerie
! Is it a French dictionary, would you say? Not at all. It’s Latin, my poor young friend, it’s Latin. The
language
of the Vatican. They are
latinising
this sublime language of ours,
hein
? You follow me?’

In his right fist, tightly clenched, Matthew was
holding
a blue cigarette lighter, one of the disposable kind
which can be bought in
tabacs
for little more than the price of a pack of cigarettes and which actually belonged to Isabelle. He had been fondling this lighter, fidgeting with it, zigzagging it every which way over the tablecloth’s checkerboard motif. And now, in the silence which followed the poet’s concluding words, words addressed to him, he suddenly, jarringly, found himself the object of everyone’s gaze.

With a tremor of panic, its lack as yet of any focal point causing it to register apocalyptically high on the Richter scale of his nervous system, Matthew looked up at his host.

‘Young man, you must excuse me,’ said the poet, sedately folding his napkin in front of him. ‘I imagined I was speaking to you. I imagined you were listening. However …’

‘I was,’ a stricken Matthew replied. ‘It was just …’

‘What?’

‘It was nothing. Really, nothing.’

‘You seemed to be mesmerised by this banal cigarette lighter, facsimiles of which – admittedly, in different colours – must already have swum into the ken of even one as young as yourself.’

He picked up the object, made a cursory inspection of
it, then tossed it back on the table as though flicking a cigarette butt between his fingers.

‘Perhaps you’d like to share your epiphany with us?’

‘Papa …’ Isabelle started to say.

‘
Tais-toi
. Matthew?’

‘Well, sir,’ Matthew began nervously, ‘I was …’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s true, I
was
playing with Isabelle’s lighter – the way you do. And, well, I put it down on the table here – the checkered tablecloth – and it happened to fall
diagonally
across one of these squares. Which is when I noticed it was exactly the same length as the diagonal itself. Look.’

For their benefit he performed a spontaneous
demonstration
.

‘Then I put it lengthwise along the outside edge of the square and I noticed that it extended to the point where this square interlocks with that one. See, that fits too.’

From the table he picked up a dinner plate on which was printed a blue willow-tree pattern. ‘Now take this plate. I’m sure … yeah, I’m right’ – everyone craned to see – ‘the length of the lighter is equal to the height of this little pagoda here and its width … its width … is, look, it’s the same as these five steps leading up into it.’

He stared at them all, expectant and flushed.

‘It’s not the first time I’ve observed this kind of … well, harmony. It’s like everything in the world has to share the same limited handful of measurements with everything else. It’s as though every object, every
thing
, is either identical in length to every other thing or half its length or double its length. As though there exists a global – maybe even a cosmic – unity of shapes and sizes.’

Matthew self-consciously set the lighter back down on the table.

‘That’s what caused my mind to wander just now, sir. I’m sorry if I interrupted your train of thought.’

The ticking of the mantelpiece clock seemed to mimic the very heartbeats of time. The poet frowned. For
several
moments he looked at Matthew with a penetrating but no longer unkindly eye. He cleared his throat, then turned to Théo, who was seated on his left, rocking his chair backwards with his foot.

‘You have an interesting friend here, Théo. More interesting, I suspect, than you are aware. You ought to take the opportunity of getting to know him better.’ He turned again to Matthew.

‘My young friend, your observation intrigues me. Yes,
yes, it does. For it strikes me as having an application to our own modern society. On the surface all is chaos. Yet, viewed from above, viewed so to speak by God, it all locks together,
it all fits
.’

He waved a hand, one dappled with liver spots, in the direction of Théo and Isabelle.

‘My children believe – as, indeed, I did too when I was their age,
n’est-ce pas
? – that the state of – the state of – what name shall I give it? – the state of
rebellious
ebullition
in which they live presents a real and serious threat to the forces of power. They believe that their strikes and demonstrations and sit-ins – “sit-ins” is what you say, is it not? – they believe that these possess the capacity not just to provoke society but ultimately to
change
it. What they fail to understand is that our society actually
needs
those disruptive factors which would seem to be most hostile to it. It needs them as a monopolist needs a
competitor
– to conceal the fact that he
is
a monopolist. And so it is that those who demonstrate and those against whom they demonstrate are in reality just interlocking elements of that – of that transcendent harmony which your little analogy so charmingly illuminated for us.’

No one spoke for a moment. Then the silence was interrupted by a derisive snort from Théo.

‘You disagree?’ said the poet. ‘
Quelle surprise
.’

Théo slowly turned to confront his father.

‘What is it you’re saying? If Langlois is dismissed, we shouldn’t do anything? If immigrants are deported, if students are beaten up, we shouldn’t do anything? We shouldn’t take any action at all because’ – he gestured with his arm – ‘because, seen from up there, from
somewhere
up there, somewhere in the ether, everything is a part of everything else. We’re part of what it is we’re fighting, it’s part of us, and anyway it all comes to the same in the end.’

‘What I’m saying is that a little lucidity would not go amiss.’

‘So everyone’s wrong but you? In France, in Italy, Germany, America –’

‘Listen to me, Théo,’ said his father wearily. ‘Before you can change the world, you must understand that you yourself are part of it. You cannot stand outside, looking in.’

‘You’re the one who wants to stand outside! You’re the one who refused to sign a petition against the Vietnam war!’

‘Poets don’t sign petitions. They sign poems.’

‘A petition is a poem!’

‘Yes, Théo, and a poem is a petition. Thank you, but I’m not gaga yet. I don’t need you to remind me of my own work.’

‘That’s right!’ said Théo fiercely. ‘You wrote those lines. And now you reject everything they stand for.’

For a few seconds the poet contemplated his son, shaking his head. Then he turned to the table at large.

‘What is the time?’ he asked.

Matthew, whom life without a watch had made as sensitive to the time of day as a blind man is to sounds and scents, ventured, ‘Twenty-five past ten?’

It turned out to be twenty-two minutes past.

‘My dear,’ the poet sighed languidly to his wife, ‘it’s time you and I retired. I have letters to answer … letters,
n’est-ce pas
,’ he added in a last gasp of his earlier
febrility
, ‘which hang over me like unpaid bills. Stay and chat as long as you like, you three. Why don’t you invite Matthew to spend the night here?’ he said to Théo. ‘That hotel sounds revolting.’

Then he stood up and, followed by his ever-smiling spouse, walked out of the dining room with a gait so machine-like one would not have been too surprised to discover a wind-up key protruding from his back.