The Incorrigible Optimists Club (10 page)

15

F
or several weeks, the apartment rustled with the launching of the new shop. The eighth wonder of the world. My father had had to do battle with Philippe, who did not see the point of spending so much money on improvements.

‘It's all for show. The house of Delaunay has a reputation. A lick of paint to make it clean, that's normal. To demolish everything just for the sake of it; out of the question!'

My father would not have prevailed in the fight over the shop had my mother not tipped the balance in his favour: ‘Listen, Papa, you left the shop to me. Now, I'm in charge. As you've seen, it's going well. Paul's right, we need to modernize.'

‘Spending millions on a window giving onto the street, marble and neon lighting everywhere, sliding doors, moving the offices to the first floor, the shop to the courtyard, and replacing my shop sign which was as good as new, now there, my girl, I do not agree. Playing music! What is this nonsense? We're not near the Opéra. You may be in charge of the shop, but I'm the shareholder. It's too big, it's too smart. Our clientele is working-class. We mustn't forget that. Luxury doesn't suit the neighbourhood. In business, just as in life, one mustn't have ideas above one's station.'

When people thwart her, my mother is not the sort of woman to answer back. She keeps mum and patiently endures the smouldering flames. But you can't depend on her silence. She had supported my father for years. This Sunday afternoon, as Philippe was venting his spleen, my mother's face hardened.

‘Papa, I'm sorry, I'm the boss now. I've decided. This is the way it's going to be and that's that!'

My father, Juliette and I glanced at one another, flabbergasted that she should be using one of father's expressions. Philippe had looked taken aback and, despite their disagreement, my father tried to console him:
‘It flatters people to shop in a place that looks flashy. We're going to blow them away. Small businesses today, they're finished. We're going to sell with smaller margins. We'll have two or three times the number of orders. We're going to make more profit than we do now. We're going to advertise.'

‘Neighbourhood advertisements, you mean.'

‘Advertising. On the radio and in the evening paper!'

Philippe stood up, stared at us as if we were a load of halfwits and, followed like a shadow by Grandma Alice, he left looking very offended. It was six months before we saw them again. They refused to come to the opening.

I walked along avenue des Gobelins. The old shop sign that had seemed huge to me had been replaced by one twice as tall and glittery, which kept flashing at rapid intervals, and gave the time and the temperature. You could see it from place d'Italie. On the day before the opening, the construction work was completed in an atmosphere of complete chaos. The grubby and austere old store, which had not altered in half a century, had made way for a bright and ultra-modern shop with a white marble façade which served as an exhibition space for baths, bathrooms and kitchen equipment. The place was buzzing and bustling as though it belonged in a Charlie Chaplin movie. My mother was pursuing my father because we were heading for disaster and because she should have listened to her father, my father was pursuing the architect because nothing was ready. He was threatening him with a ruinous lawsuit once he had smashed his face in. The architect was complaining to the workers because things were not moving quickly enough, the workers were swearing that the delay was due to the electricians perched upon ladders and inside the false ceilings, which they never stopped touching up, and whom nobody said anything to because their foreman, an Italian who was well over six foot tall, was yelling in his giant's voice to drown the musical drizzle of the chorus from
Bridge over the River Kwai
that emanated from the ceiling. He did not look very easy to get on with. He was a former lighting engineer who took his job seriously and rushed around the spotlights, illuminating
every cooker with love and inspiration as if it were a starlet. The future sales staff were whistling the tune ‘
Hello, le soleil brille, brille, brille
' in unison and were bustling about, unpacking and installing the equipment, and cleaning and polishing it. My father was directing affairs as though he were on the parade ground, issuing his instructions on the move. A shrill, piercing sound made us jump. The man who was mending the loudspeakers panicked and disconnected the sound system. After several fruitless attempts, he managed to get the orchestra started again and struggled to reduce the deafening whistling noise. The architect was running after my father, brandishing twenty or so sheets of paper which my father refused to look at. He despatched him to my mother who scrutinized the pile with a mistrustful eye. The architect handed her his ballpoint pen for her to sign the sheets.

‘What is this?'

‘The additional charges for the work.'

‘Turn the sound down!' yelled my father.

She leafed through the invoices, distraught.

‘It's not true. It's not possible! I won't sign. It's daylight robbery! Do you hear?'

‘Your husband told me that—'

‘Ask him to pay you! I'm not paying for a penny more than the original estimate!'

They started shouting, and each of them tried to drown out the other's voice. My mother was not the kind of woman to allow herself to be impressed by an architect, even if he was employed by the government, even though he weighed twice as much as her. My father, who did not concern himself with management problems, remembered that he had an urgent meeting elsewhere and vanished through the back door. My mother and the architect searched for him. No one had seen him leave. His disappearance inflamed them. The architect was convinced he was being taken for an imbecile. My mother could not bear the slightest trace of suspicion. They swore they would summon their lawyers, who were formidable, and they threatened one another with the foulest legal actions. Furthermore, they were sure of winning: the architect
was influential, and my mother had relatives in high places. Listening to them, you could tell one of the two was going to regret this for the rest of his or her life. My mother picked up the phone and dialled a number. Her lawyer was not there. She refused to let the architect ring his lawyer from the office. The architect ordered the workers to leave the building. My mother threatened not to pay them unless they completed the work and, caught in two minds, they were not sure what to do. My father chose this moment to resurface. Far from restoring calm, his presence increased the fury of the architect, my mother and the Italian foreman, who wanted to be paid immediately. In the face of this panic, I abandoned ship. I returned home and started
L'Homme révolté
.

My father returned home in the early morning, exhausted. The shop was ready, apart from the sound system. He looked pleased. The problem – the furious architect and the additional charges – must have been settled. They did not discuss the matter. He went to bed for two hours to rest before the final assault. My mother never stopped deliberating about her appearance after she had asked for my opinion. I did not have any precise view, not knowing whether it was preferable to wear a smart, unbusinesslike outfit, or whether to maintain a discreet appearance that did not suggest this was a decisive new beginning for the future of the family. While I was deliberating on this dilemma, she glared at me as though she had never seen me before.

‘And you, what are you going to wear?'

‘Well, this.'

‘Jeans. The boy's crazy.'

She rummaged through my cupboard. I had three pairs of grey trousers that reached the bottom of my calves and a worn Terylene suit that was patched at the knees and too small for me.

‘What do you wear to go to school?'

‘One of those. You're not allowed to wear jeans.'

‘That's all I need. It's my fault. I don't take enough care of you.'

We dashed off to a shop in boulevard Saint-Michel. The proprietor attended to us. She took the opportunity to invite him to the opening, he and his wife.

‘He needs clothes. The problem is that he never stops growing.'

‘You've got to get the stretchy new material, it's the latest thing in trousers.'

I found myself kitted out with three pairs of trousers that were supposed to grow with me. We waited until the alterations were ready.

‘Did you reach an agreement with the architect?'

‘How do you know about that?'

‘I came along to the shop yesterday evening.'

‘We reached a compromise with him. I'm satisfied.'

‘Didn't you settle all this beforehand?'

‘What with the additional work, he was trying to take advantage of your father's gullibility. We let him try it on and we caught him.'

‘I wouldn't have thought that—'

‘It's business, Michel. One day you'll understand.'

I nodded knowingly.

‘By the way, where's your brother? We don't see him any more. He's disappeared.'

‘Franck doesn't tell me what he's doing.'

‘Perhaps he's with… that girl.'

‘He doesn't tell her anything either.'

‘Is he at her home?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Then it can't be serious between them. Perhaps he's changed girlfriends.'

I was slightly on my guard. My mother never spoke in the spontaneous way that my father or most other people did. Enzo once told her that she expressed herself with her head, as though she had ulterior motives. She had not been pleased. This impression was accentuated by the permanent smile on her face. She continued to interrogate me. Whether I knew her, what she was like and what did she do. I didn't want to discuss any of this with her. Even if I had found the words, she wouldn't have been able to understand Cécile. They were light years apart from one another. They could only ever disagree where Franck was concerned. I acted dumb. She persisted. She knew a great deal, or pretended she did. She was aware that
Cécile's brother was a lieutenant in Algeria, that I had been to the farewell party at their place on the famous evening when I had crept out of the flat, that they had lived on their own since the death of their parents in a motoring accident. Franck had given her a few explanations. I opened my eyes wide, adopted an innocent expression and shrugged my shoulders. Silence fell. She looked impatiently at her watch several times. She was worried about missing her appointment at the hairdresser.

16

A
s if to keep misfortune at bay, my father had chosen 22 November, the date of their wedding anniversary, for the opening. My mother categorically refused, because it was the day of her brother Daniel's death. Confronted with my father's insistence, she had pretended to give in, but my father should not have deluded himself into believing that he had imposed his views. In actual fact, she had already foreseen that, given the additional costs, she would kill two birds with one stone: the opening was to be delayed by several weeks at least, and this would free her from Philippe's intrusive supervision.

The opening was scheduled to start at four o'clock in the afternoon and would run on into the evening. I came home to get ready. Juliette, jealous of the bags that I had brought home, struck up the old tune of ‘I've got nothing to wear' and was told to pack it in by my father who was making phone calls to make sure that journalists would be present. To listen to him – and he knew how to be convincing – it was the most important commercial event in Paris since the opening of the Drugstore. He hung up in excitement.

‘
L'Aurore
is sending someone from the newspaper!'

He immersed himself in his list again and rang up
Elle
.

Juliette came into my bedroom and pretended she couldn't make up her mind. She had a huge range of clothes to choose from in her model wardrobe. I threw her out and unpacked my things under the expectant eye of Néron. My new suit made me look like a man. With the tie, if I combed my hair flat and pulled back my shoulders, put my hands in my pockets and didn't smile, I could pass for sixteen or seventeen. My mother came back with a blonde perm, crimped and lacquered, which she was very proud of. I was turning to and fro so that she could admire the results of her purchases when her face suddenly fell. From the bathroom, we could hear my father singing at the top of his voice:
‘
La donna è mobile, qual piuma al vento, muta d'accento, e di pensiero…
'

She leapt to her feet. I could hear their loud voices arguing: ‘Are you crazy singing so loudly? The whole building will hear you.'

‘Am I no longer allowed to sing?'

‘Not in Italian. I don't want to have the neighbours making remarks.'

‘It's
Rigoletto
. It's Verdi!'

The bathroom door slammed. My mother's footsteps echoed in the corridor. He began singing ‘
La donna e mobile'
again in his tenor voice.

My mother had the rare ability to shout without raising her voice.

‘Paul, stop immediately!'

Ever since his return from Germany, Franck had been evasive. We hardly saw one another. He would drop in, rush over to the fridge to eat whatever he found there, lock himself in his bedroom, spend hours on the telephone looking as though he were plotting something, and then disappear without warning. Cécile pursued him. She rang up frequently and blamed me for not passing on her messages to him. She didn't hear from him. He didn't sleep at home. He wasn't with her. She seemed anxious. Nobody knew what he was up to.

He had reappeared on the day of the opening. He was in one of his foul moods, with rings under his eyes and a week's growth of beard. My mother shouted at him. He didn't hesitate to come to my father's defence.

‘For years now you've been boring us stiff with your neighbours. We couldn't give a damn what they think. We're suffocating here. We have to walk around in slippers. We have to turn down the radio. I've had enough!'

My mother was outraged.

‘We should respect our neighbours. They're decent people and I'm not going to allow you to—'

Franck paid no further attention and sat down at the kitchen table to consume what remained of the roast chicken. She made an effort to control her anger.

‘I'm glad you've come home. You must get ready for the opening.'

‘Oh, it's not a good day. I won't be coming.'

‘May I know why?'

‘We've got a cell meeting. I have to prepare for it.'

‘Obviously, you're not going to spare any time for me.'

‘Whether I come or not won't change anything. You don't need me. The party, on the other hand, does need me.'

‘So because of your bloody party meeting you're going to let your family down?'

‘This bloody party was the party that was being fired upon while others were lining their pockets on the black market, if you see what I mean.'

‘No, I don't see,' said my mother in an icy tone. ‘What are you trying to say?'

‘Ah, it's true, I forgot that the Delaunays behaved like heroes during the war. Brave Uncle Daniel. That fellow didn't die in vain.'

‘I'm not going to allow this! You're a disgrace.'

‘Didn't the Delaunays get wealthy during the war?'

‘That's incorrect! We were exonerated.'

My father felt that the discussion was taking a dangerous turn and tried to calm things down.

‘Franck, it's in the past. Me, I had to put up with four years of prison camp and yet today, we're friends with the Germans. We've turned the page and so much the better. I think of the future and of the family. You should do the same.'

‘Listen, Papa, I've got to go to this meeting. It's important.'

‘What can be more important than the opening, may I ask?'

‘You'll see!'

It might have remained there. A family row like millions of others. Everyone sulks in his own corner and, three days later, it's all forgotten. Nothing unpleasant would have come of it. Everything would have continued as before. But my mother rose to her full height and, weighing every word, said to him:

‘You will apologize, Franck. You will withdraw what you have said.'

There was a long silence. Her eyes were gleaming, her face impassive. I knew what Franck's reply would be and, deep down it was what I hoped for, which proves just how stupid one can be at that age.

‘I will not apologize. It's the absolute truth.'

‘You will take back what you have just said or you will leave!'

Franck stood up, his chicken thigh in his hand. My father made a final attempt: ‘All right, let's calm down Listen, Hélène, there's no point in getting angry. If he doesn't wish to go to this opening, it's his bad luck, he won't have any champagne.'

‘I've no intention of feeding a viper. You will apologize immediately!'

Franck hurled the chicken thigh across the kitchen.

‘You won't be seeing me again in a hurry!'

He rushed off to his bedroom and filled a bag with clothing. He left, slamming the door behind him. We tried to come to terms with what had just happened. At moments of tension, one has to learn to keep one's mouth shut. The first person to speak has lost. My father grumbled: ‘You shouldn't have said that to him!'

She exploded. It was my father who took the brunt of it. The neighbours heard everything. That he had gone badly wrong, that we were now paying the price for his poor education and the Marinis' political views. Say what you will, but you would never hear a child speak to his mother in that tone at the Delaunays, and his father just sit there like a vegetable, without reacting. Then an unusual thing happened. Instead of grinning and bearing it, and waiting for the storm to pass, my father beat his fist on the table. So hard that the Baccarat crystal vase fell over. The water spilled on to the wooden floor. No one dreamed of intervening.

‘Shut up!' he yelled. ‘You've driven your son out! Are you satisfied?'

‘Don't worry, he'll be back.'

‘Idiot!'

My mother remained speechless and so did we. My father returned to the bathroom. He did not sing.

One hour later, we were all together again in the entrance hall. My father had put on his best suit, made of black alpaca, and had sprayed himself with cologne. Juliette was waiting, sitting beside him on the sofa in the corridor, swinging her feet. She was holding my father's hand. I joined them. They pushed up to make space for me. I took his other hand. My mother arrived in her Chanel suit. She walked past us without a glance. We stood up.

‘We're late,' my father remarked in a neutral voice.

We didn't look as though we were going to the opening of our new shop, but to our own funeral. We were out on the landing when the telephone rang. My father rushed to take the call. We thought it was Franck. He held out the receiver to me.

‘It's for you.'

It was Cécile. Her voice was hoarse.

‘Michel, I beg you. Come!'

‘What is it?' I shouted.

‘Come, I'm going to die!'

She didn't need to tell me twice. I shot off down the stairs. I could hear my mother cry out: ‘Where's he going?'

I ran like a lunatic. I jostled those who didn't get of the way quickly enough. I hurtled down boulevard Saint-Michel without stopping. I reached quai des Grands-Augustins. I bounded up the stairs three at a time. On the landing, my lungs were ready to burst. I rang and hammered at the door as I recovered my breath. No one answered. I opened the door with my key. The lights were on in all the rooms. I began to call out her name as I made my way around the vast apartment. I found Cécile on the bathroom floor, unconscious. I yelled, I shouted her name. There was no reaction. She looked pale. I shook her vigorously. She was as limp as a rag doll. I put my ear to her heart. It was scarcely beating. I was bewildered. I was expecting her to stir, to stand up. She lay there unconscious. My legs were trembling. A voice inside me said: You little bugger, this is no time to panic. I rang the emergency services. A man asked me for the address and told me that they were on their way. They were the longest twenty minutes of my life. I placed a flannel rinsed in cold water on Cécile's forehead. I kissed her hand. I stroked her face. I murmured a prayer in her ear: Don't go, Cécile, stay with me, I beg you. I pressed myself to her. I took her in my arms, hugging her as tightly as I could, to keep her, to stop her from going under. I cradled her like a child. It was then that I saw the small bottle that had rolled under the washbasin. The ambulancemen arrived and put an oxygen mask on her. I gave them the bottle. They rummaged through the medicine cupboard, which was crammed with boxes of pills. The older of the ambulancemen asked me whether she was ill. I wanted to say no to
him, but I couldn't speak. They gave her an injection. He took out a plastic bag and emptied the contents of the cupboard into it. They carried her downstairs on a stretcher. We crossed Paris at a crazy speed. The siren was making a deafening noise. I sat up front, and through the window I could see Cécile, who was swaying about, held in place by two ambulancemen. At the Cochin Hospital, she was taken to casualty. A young doctor in a white coat, accompanied by a nurse, came to ask me questions. I was not able to tell them anything useful apart from the fact that I was a friend and that she had telephoned me. If I understood correctly, she possessed loads of medicines at home that she shouldn't have had. I stayed sitting at the entrance to the casualty department. The ambulancemen and the police deposited their sad cargo of dying or wounded people covered in blood, before setting off again in a constant shuttling to and fro. A nurse gave me a hospital admission form to fill in. There was a mass of information required that I couldn't supply. A man brought in a woman who was screaming, her stomach streaming with blood. From what I heard, she had tried to perform her own abortion. I closed my eyes.

Down an endless dark corridor, I set off in search of Cécile. I pushed open the doors. The hospital rooms were empty. In some of them there were smears of blood on the walls. Loud cries of pain guided me along this deserted labyrinth of corridors and staircases and ceased the moment I stopped to work out where they were coming from. A vile smell overwhelmed me. I was horrified to discover that my hands were covered in shit. All of a sudden, a dazed-looking man passed close to me, without seeing me, his arm torn from his shoulder. Cécile was yelling and calling for me. I could not find her. At the far end, I noticed the green light of an emergency exit. I rushed down it so as to get away. But the more I ran, the more the light withdrew. I could hear Cécile's cries and I turned my back on them. I arrived at the emergency exit. I pushed open the door to get away. An enormous hand grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me. I jumped and came to my senses, numb with sleep. The young doctor peered at me, with one eyebrow raised.

‘Monsieur, Monsieur… Your friend has pulled through. For the time being.'

‘Is there a problem?'

‘She had taken enough pills to put an elephant to sleep. We've given her an enema. We'll see when she wakes up.'

‘Are there any complications?'

‘She's as well as she can be.'

‘May I see her?'

‘No. She's sleeping. Come back tomorrow.'

‘I won't leave without seeing her.'

The doctor let out a long sigh to let me know that I belonged to the category of bloody nuisances. He turned and walked away without a word. He held open the swing-door for me. Cécile was in a ward with five other patients. An old woman was tossing about deliriously on the next bed. Cécile was asleep, her breathing regular, her expression calm. Her right arm was connected to a drip.

‘What time will she wake up?'

‘In the late morning.'

I got home at four in the morning. I rang the bell and the door opened immediately. My father took me in his arms.

‘Are you all right, son?'

My mother pestered me with questions. Where had I come from? What had I been doing? Did I realize how worried she had been? What had she done to the Good Lord to deserve such sons? My father told her to be quiet and leave me alone. She went on like a machine. Why had I left? Was I with Franck? With Cécile? Why had she phoned me? What had happened? I told her in a calm voice: ‘Nothing has happened.'