The Incorrigible Optimists Club (24 page)

11

M
y mother wanted to spend the Christmas holidays in Algiers, at her brother Maurice's house. It had become a tradition and there was no question of breaking with it. My father disagreed. He reckoned there was no point in courting danger. There had been assassination attempts in Paris, but no one felt threatened. Down there, there were explosions every day, though no one knew whether it was the FLN or the OAS that was planting the bombs. On the one hand, the government proclaimed loud and clear that it had the situation under control, and on the other, no one believed them. During a Sunday lunch, he had been adamant: ‘If you want to go, I can't prevent you. But Juliette will not go, I forbid it.'

Grandfather Delaunay also thought it was unwise and, faced with this unusual alliance, my mother gave up the idea.

Cécile received a letter from Pierre who, out in the sticks somewhere near Constantine, seemed to be living on another planet, far removed from what was going on. He had heard about events through the radio and the newspapers, and he was waiting to go on leave. He didn't tell us where. Cécile was hoping that he would come back to Paris, until we received a postcard depicting two camels in the palm grove at Tébessa that left us confused.

Dear Cécile,

We thought we'd go for a swim. We were allowed to spend seven days a hundred kilometres away from our base. It's a paradise on earth here. We spend our days stuffing ourselves with Barbary figs and dates and playing jokari. We had an inter-army tournament and I lost in the semi-finals against an arsehole of a legionnaire who has three lungs and never stops farting as he runs. I got on well with him. In doubles, I play with my pal Jacquot. We qualified for the final
which takes place tomorrow. We're going to smash them. I'm still waiting to read your thesis. Don't forget that Aragon's a man in love.

‘I can't imagine Pierre playing jokari,' I remarked.

‘Nor can I imagine him getting on well with a legionnaire.'

We looked at one another. We both thought of the same thing. I waited for her to talk to me about it.

‘And supposing we scrubbed the shutters? The ones that give onto the little courtyard,' she suggested.

‘Did you see the state they're in? They're beyond repair. They haven't been cleaned since the First World War.'

‘You're always complaining. You'll never change.'

She threw herself on top of me and started tickling me. From time to time, the mood came over her. It amused her. I'd have preferred to stay calm just so as to annoy her, but I didn't resist for long before I collapsed laughing. She laughed just as much as me. I took a series of photographs of her that day while she was getting on with odds and ends and scraping off the wallpaper in the corridor. She was in a joyful mood and was fooling around with the broom and the vacuum cleaner. She didn't like posing. I waited for the right moment to snap her unawares. I was correct about the shutters. When we opened the right-hand one, it was rotten and came off its hinges.

No news of Franck. Fifteen months of silence. We didn't know whether he was in Algeria, in France or in Germany. When my father made enquiries at the Ministry of Defence, he received a reply saying it was up to Lieutenant Franck Marini to provide his family with news. Maurice resolved the problem by deciding that this year they would come and spend the holidays in Paris. The moment he set eyes on me, he addressed me in English: ‘Hi Callaghan, how do you do?'

‘Very good, Uncle.'

I earned the right to a friendly chuck on the chin.

‘How are things at school?'

‘Fine.'

‘Apparently they don't want you at Polytéchnique because you're too clever?'

He burst out laughing. I didn't like his making fun of me in front of the cousins. I wished I could have answered him back and shut him up. I replied curtly. My mother showed him around the shop, which he hadn't seen before. They had needed to expand and had taken over the next door shop, which was used as a workshop and after-sales service office. Maurice came on a busy day and was flabbergasted by the number of people who were queuing and taking a ticket from the dispenser. My father didn't make much of an effort.

‘Forgive me, Maurice, I must look after these ladies and gentlemen.'

A couple were signing a purchase order. The man handed a cheque to my father. He stapled it casually and showed the file to Maurice whose eyes opened wide in amazement when he saw the amount.

‘Ten grand! I don't believe it!'

My mother proudly explained to him how the different services functioned and how difficult it was recruiting competent technicians to do the various jobs.

‘I'm amazed. You're terrific!'

When she told him the turnover they had achieved that year, he couldn't believe her.

‘And even then, we're missing out on sales. If we could find the staff, we could make thirty or forty per cent more. And I'm not going to tell you what our profit margin is.'

‘Well, Hélène, all I can say is bravo, bravo, bravo! I'm glad to see that those management seminars have borne fruit.'

‘They've helped me a lot,' my mother admitted.

‘You should attend the seminar on “Soldering success in plumbing jobs” said my father, making a dig at her, ‘you could open a shop in the Casbah.'

Over the two following days, we spent our time shopping for the Christmas Eve dinner, which promised to be sumptuous.

Cécile decided to go away for two weeks to stay with her uncle who lived near Strasbourg, the only family she still had. She wrote a letter to
Pierre, enclosing a copy on onion-skin paper of the first chapter of her thesis. She didn't want me to read it.

‘When he sends it back to me, I'll give it to you. Do you want to send a note?'

I had so much to tell him. It was the first time I had written since he had gone away. I thanked him for the records, which I listened to every day, thinking of him. Many of my friends were extremely envious. I would give them back on his return. I gave him a bit of news about Henri-IV, about Sherlock and Shrivel-face, and told him about my mathematics mishaps. I told him about the people I had met at the Club. I laid it on a bit by saying that they were a group of revolutionaries whom Special Branch was keeping an eye on. I was sure that would interest him. I took the opportunity to ask him whether, in his position, he could obtain news of Franck and, if there was any, to let me know. I'd have liked to tell him that it seemed as though he had been away for ever and that I missed our discussions, but I remembered that he hated people flaunting their feelings. I scratched out two lines and avoided saying anything personal. Cécile was curious: ‘You're writing a book. What are you saying to him?'

She tried to read over my shoulder, but I slipped the letter into the envelope without her having read it.

In spite of the cold weather, we went for a run in the Luxembourg. We managed five complete circuits, then I accompanied her to the Gare de l'Est. As I was leaving, I noticed a baby-foot table in a café on the other side of the street. I couldn't resist.

My mother was keen that her brother should come and stay with us.

‘Why pay for a hotel? We've got room.'

I had to move into Juliette's bedroom and vacate mine for the cousins. Maurice and Louise moved into Franck's room. It was a bit like camping. It felt like being on holiday. There was a queue for the bathroom and the lavatories. ‘Well, we'll just have to make the best of things,' my father would say, being the only one not to enjoy this merry shambles. He set off at dawn and came home late, having telephoned to tell us not to wait for him at dinner. He had work to do at the shop. He then used the
excuse that grandmother Jeanne was ill in order to go to Lens for three days. During the fortnight we were obliged to cohabit, Juliette prevented me from sleeping. She snored. No one had ever realized before. However much I shook her, she rolled over and started again five minutes later. When I told her about this, she was offended and made out that I was lying. One night I went to fetch my cousins, Thomas and François. They discovered I was telling the truth. Juliette was obliged to admit she snored and she was very annoyed with me.

Whenever he came to Paris, Maurice had only one thing on his agenda: to see as many films as possible; and this time we were allowed to go with him. He set out his conditions: he would choose the film and the cinema. And no cartoon movies. In Algiers, he hadn't the time and it was dangerous. Bombs were exploding in the cinemas. The films were dubbed and, for him, that was a crime. John Wayne in French was a joke, and as for Clark Gable, it was enough to make one weep. Every day, while Louise and my mother wandered around the department stores and shops of the Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, we would go and see an American film in its original version. Each time Louise dragged him off to see a French film, he would fall asleep. There, that proves it, doesn't it? He strolled down the Champs-Elysées, with his nose in the air, fully trusting the poster, the stars and the title, and he scanned the photographs to determine whether we would be bored or not.

‘This will be great. It's a French film, with a plot like an American one.'

I realized where my nickname came from when we went to see
Callaghan remet ça
, the sequel, as he explained to me later, to
A toi de jouer Callaghan
and
Plus de whisky pour Callaghan
, humorous and action-packed thrillers that featured at the top of his pantheon of movies alongside
Lemmy Caution
with Eddie Constantine, both featuring heroes adapted from books by Peter Cheyney. As we came out, I earned a little punch on the chin: ‘At least we weren't bored.'

After the film, we went and had an ice cream at the Drugstore. He loved its wild-west, saloon-style decor. He bumped into a pied-noir friend, a shoeshop owner, whom he had not seen for two years. He had managed to sell his shop in a suburb of Algiers and to buy one on
boulevard Voltaire. He advised him to follow his example. Maurice went red in the face.

‘Bloody hell! Do you think I've been waiting for your lousy advice? You're wrong, you great moron! Mine's not a twenty-square-metres shop at Saint-Eugène. I own thirty-two buildings! If I sell anything at all, it will be the cemetery. I've been warned! There's nothing I can do. I'm trapped. We'll find a way out of it, believe me. We're going to smash them! We're going to stay in our own country!'

A customer got involved. Voices rose. The guy called him a fascist and a dirty colonialist. Maurice had not attended seminars on diplomacy. He spat in his face and called him a filthy commie motherfucker. The man did not appreciate this. They grabbed each other by the neck and shook each other, then attempted to hit one another. Some waiters intervened. We were accompanied unceremoniously to the door of the Drugstore, without having finished our ice creams. There was one consolation: he had not paid for them.

12

T
he Christmas Eve feast
was
sumptuous. As far back as the Delaunays could remember, no one had ever seen such a fine table, with gleaming silverware, Limoges china, lace place mats and Baccarat crystal glasses. No one mentioned the Drugstore incident. We were not going to ruin the party for the sake of a few idiots. Some of Louise's relatives joined us. We were fifteen, but we could have fed twice the number. My mother and Louise had planned everything down to the smallest detail. The meal was scheduled to last two hours. We had to be at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont for midnight mass at eleven o'clock.

‘If you can find a way of getting out of it,' my father whispered to me over the apéritif, ‘I'll pay for your Circuit 24.'

It was an incredible offer. My mother refused to buy the car racing game for me. She thought it was ridiculous and that I didn't deserve it. We spoke to one another like conspirators, in a low voice and out of the corners of our mouths.

‘I'm going to say that I'm not feeling well and that you're going to have to look after me.'

‘She won't believe you.'

‘Oysters, they made me ill when we went to La Baule. And I'll drink white wine. I can't bear white wine.'

‘She'll realize.'

‘What are you two plotting?' asked grandfather Philippe as he sat himself down between us.

‘I was telling him about the film we saw this afternoon. It was great.'

‘Michel, there are other words in the French language besides “great”. Can't you alter your vocabulary?'

‘You're right. I won't say “great” any more.'

‘I was told that your mother was tired,' he said to my father. ‘I hope it's nothing serious.'

‘It's her heart. The doctor wants her to go on a diet.'

‘It's an obsession!' he exclaimed. ‘They're going to kill us with their diets.'

‘It's not much fun being in hospital over Christmas. Papa is with her this evening.'

‘Don't worry, she'll be back on her feet again.'

‘Let's sit down,' my mother announced as she brought in an enormous smoked salmon.

There was an infectious good atmosphere. Perhaps the Gewürztraminer contributed. I held out my glass. Maurice filled it. Not bad. I was allowed a second round before anyone realized, apart from my father, who tried to dissuade me with a glance. In the news, the only item of topical interest that captured people's attention was the acquittal of the serial poisoner, Marie Besnard.

‘She bumped them off. She's awesome,' my grandfather stated.

‘She's innocent,' suggested Louise.

‘Landru also protested his innocence. If she's innocent, I'm the pope,' protested Maurice.

‘The experts have said that—'

‘I tell you what I would have done to her,' announced Philippe peremptorily, ‘I would have made her drink her own arsenic, which they found in her garage, and as she was dying, before she snuffed it, off to the guillotine with her!'

‘What you're saying is appalling,' exclaimed Louise.

‘And those whom she poisoned so that she could pinch their inheritance, I suppose that's not so horrible?'

‘She was acquitted! And—'

‘Holy mackerel! A lot you know about criminals, my dear girl!'

Nobody gave her time to explain. You could never discuss anything. If you didn't agree with grandpa, you were simply stupid. He shook his head and raised his eyes to heaven. She gave in. She should have known that you weren't allowed to go it alone. At the Delaunays, you hunted in a pack and you shared the same opinions.

‘I hope you haven't put any arsenic in the salmon,' my father asked my mother.

‘A little in the oysters,' she answered.

They laughed for a couple of minutes. The centre of the table was cleared. Between them, my mother and Maria carried in a pyramid of silvery oysters. Fifteen hands reached out simultaneously, seized hold of the oysters and poured a little shallot dressing over them, and they were swallowed down in a jiffy. You would have thought it was a competition to see who could eat the most oysters in the fastest time. There were so many of them that the heap appeared to remain intact for a long while. My mind was made up. I was going to stuff myself with oysters. How many could one eat before collapsing? Two, three dozen? More? I decided that at about ten o'clock I would pretend I had a stomach ache and writhe about in pain. My father would stay with me and the others would set off to mass. I needed to drink some white wine. A little more. It was worth taking a few risks for a Circuit 24.

‘I reckon this one has a strange taste,' said Philippe, examining his oyster suspiciously.

‘What's the matter with it?' exclaimed my mother anxiously.

‘It smells slightly of arsenic. A little bitter and not unpleasant,' he said, feeling rather pleased with himself.

‘You fool,' she said, relieved.

‘Watch out, Paul, you've just eaten an oyster stuffed with arsenic,' announced Maurice.

‘I'm not bothered on that score. What I leave behind me is of no consequence. But don't trust your husband, Louise. He's not going to miss out.'

I was the first to hear the doorbell, for the ring was muffled by the laughter and the din.

‘Papa, I think someone rang the bell.'

‘I didn't hear anything.'

There was silence. The bell rang. Several long rings.

‘Michel, go and answer the door. I wonder who it could be at this hour.'

‘It must be the caretaker,' said my mother as I left the table.

I opened the door. I stood rooted to the spot. On the landing, four policemen in uniform were looking me up and down. My father came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

‘Gentlemen, what is it you want?'

‘Monsieur Paul Marini?' asked the oldest of them.

‘That's me.'

‘We're looking for Franck Marini.'

‘Franck? He's not here. He's in Algeria. He's doing his military service.'

‘No, Monsieur. Your son has deserted.'

‘What?'

My mother had joined us.

‘What's going on?'

‘I don't know. They're saying that Franck has deserted.'

‘I don't believe it!'

The policeman drew a bundle of papers out of his briefcase, and read from the top page, weighing each word: ‘We act in accordance with letters rogatory issued by Monsieur Hontaa, the examining military magistrate at the permanent military tribunal of the armed forces at the ZNA in Algiers…'

He stumbled over ZNA
*
and did not appear to know what it stood for. I could feel my father's fingers digging into my shoulder. The policeman glanced inquiringly at his colleague, who grimaced uncertainly, and he began to read again: ‘… who has issued an arrest warrant in respect of Franck Philippe Marini, born in Paris XIV on 25 May 1940, and has ordered a search of his home address.'

He walked in, followed by his three colleagues. My mother hurriedly closed the door behind them. The others wanted explanations. The conversations grew confused. No one knew who was replying to whom. We shuffled around the hallway and the corridor. Grandfather Delaunay mentioned his connections at the Ministry. The comment did not please the chief policeman. He would later make a note of it in his report. They made us go back into the sitting room. One of the policemen, stationed by the door, kept watch over us. His colleagues carried out a search in my father's presence. We remained standing, not speaking, and glancing
at one another. My mother muttered something in Maurice's ear. We began to talk to each other in whispers. After ten minutes, a policeman appeared at the half-open door. He wanted his colleague to note down the identities of those present and he asked Maurice to follow him.

‘Why me? I've got nothing to do with him.'

‘If you please!'

They went out. Muddled noises reached us from the other side of the wall. Maurice returned. Since he and Louise were occupying Franck's bedroom, the police wanted to know what belonged to them. My father walked in with the policemen, who had finished their search. They had confiscated files, books and notebooks, magazines and a diary, and had placed them in plastic bags that were sealed with red wax and an official stamp. They made my father sign the official sequestration paper, and the chief policeman handed him a summons to report to the police station at Reuilly barracks on 27 December at three o'clock to make a statement.

‘A statement, what for?' my mother asked.

‘About your son, Madame.'

‘That's easy: I've had no news of him since he left for Algeria and I don't want any.'

The chief policeman felt awkward. He spoke in a hushed voice to one of his colleagues, who nodded.

‘If you prefer, I can take your statement straight away.'

They sat down in the kitchen. They made some room on the cluttered table. My father offered them a drink. They accepted a coffee, but they didn't want anything to eat. Apparently one of the policemen, the fair-haired one, took down their statements by hand. My parents were given no information. The policemen explained they were not privy to the details of the case.

‘A judge in Algiers has initiated proceedings. You should get in touch with him. There's a problem with these papers. Normally, they issue a summons. When it's an arrest warrant, it's more serious. If you're in touch with him, tell him it's in his own interest to give himself up to the authorities. We catch them all, in any case. Sooner or later.'

They left so quickly that grandfather, who looked dazed and had collapsed into an armchair, wondered whether he had had a bad dream. Louise sat down and patted his hand. Maurice kept repeating: ‘I can't get over it!' Maria ought not to have interrupted in order to ask cheerfully whether she could serve the vol-au-vents. My mother told her off in no uncertain terms. Even we, the children, who had no idea what a permanent armed forces military tribunal, or arrest warrants, or searches might mean, were appalled. Our anxiety was heightened by our parents' concern and confusion. We realized instinctively that it was a disaster for the family, and a major threat, that it was linked to current events, to the war and to whatever it was that was being concealed from us. There's nothing like the arrival of a quartet of policemen to ruin a Christmas Eve party. In my mind's eye I could see Franck at our moment of farewell at the bistro in Vincennes. His desertion was impossible to understand. I wondered how I was going to break the news to Cécile. Maurice sat down at the table.

‘Boys and girls, if we don't want to miss mass, we'll have to get a move on.'

My mother walked over to my father and said to him: ‘You see, I told you so. I was right.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘It's your fault.'

‘It's not my fault! It's not yours! And it's not his! It's this fucking war.'

‘It's because of his shitty party and those lousy ideas they've filled his head with. If you'd done something, this wouldn't have happened.'

‘This is sheer madness! I forbid you to say that!'

‘You can't forbid me anything! You're the one who's responsible!'

We waited for him to react, for the voices to rise, for an explosion. He stood there, with an uncomprehending look on his face, and then his expression grew hazy. Absorbed in his thoughts, he sighed, and, head bowed, he turned around, opened the cupboard, took out his overcoat, and left, closing the door without a sound.

‘You're going too far, Hélène,' grandfather snapped. ‘It's not his fault. You should go and talk to him.'

‘Never!'

‘Be careful what you say. You seem to me to be rather fraught. You should take a holiday.'

‘Papa, it's—'

‘That's enough! Get a grip on yourself. Come on, let's get ready. We've had enough to eat as it is.'

There was no question of a jolly meal. They put on their coats in silence.

‘Michel, what are you waiting for?'

‘Mama, I'm going to be sick.'

‘It's the oysters,' she observed, ‘he can't eat them.'

‘He drank too much white wine, said Louise.

‘White wine at his age! Now we've seen it all.'

‘Maurice, did you give him white wine?'

‘He's a grown-up now. He drank one glass.'

‘Two,' I specified.

‘It's unbelievable,' Louise went on. ‘You don't serve wine to a child. You don't think at all.'

‘Go to bed,' said my mother. ‘I'm going to give you a little bicarbonate of soda.'

I lay down on the sofa. Juliette came to see me. I thought it was to cheer me up. With a broad smile, she whispered in my ear:

‘You're going to die of poisoning.'

They set off for church. From their expressions, one would have thought they were going to celebrate a burial, not a birth. I waited for ten minutes. I had a good hour and a half ahead of me. I got dressed and opened the door carefully. The building was silent. I went down the stairs in the dark so as not to arouse the attention of the concierges. It was freezing cold outside. The wind was stirring up gusts of snow and the rare passers-by hurried on, their coat collars turned up.

I searched for him everywhere. The streets were deserted. I walked up rue Gay-Lussac as far as the Luxembourg. The restaurants and cafés were closed. Rue Soufflot was empty and the place du Panthéon was swept by icy squalls. I found him in his workers' dive in rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques, the only place open on this Christmas night. It was a bistro for
infidels who played tarot and joked as they knocked back the booze. He was watching the game attentively. I sat down next to him. He was a bit surprised to discover me there and put his arm round my shoulder.

‘Would you like a beer?'

‘No, thanks.'

‘Have a Coke.'