The Incorrigible Optimists Club (30 page)

10

M
y father arrived at the wrong moment. Superintendent Bourrel was about to reveal the name of the murderer. We were waiting impatiently for the last five minutes of the detective mystery and, at the crucial point, the front door slammed and he swept into the flat. He looked like a man who hadn't slept for two nights, who had travelled standing up in a packed corridor, unshaven and dishevelled. Without replying to my mother's questions, he rushed into the shower and we waited for half an hour by the bathroom door.

‘Well, Paul?' my mother asked.

‘I haven't found him.'

‘I told you so. It was pointless going there. What a waste of time.'

They went off to bed. We felt irritated, for we would never know who had killed the cheesemonger.

In the middle of the night, my father came into my bedroom. I felt his hand on my shoulder. He didn't want to switch the light on. In a low voice, I told him what had happened after Igor's telephone call. How I had missed Franck and how he had suddenly turned up the following morning on the way to Henri-IV.

‘I skipped lessons on Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning. It wasn't my fault. I managed to intercept the letter from school. You've got to do something.'

‘I'll deal with it. Where is he?'

‘He lives in cellars and he changes his whereabouts each day.'

‘And his friends?'

‘He told me that they would hand him over to the police. We're the only ones he can rely on. He's frightened. He's suspicious and on his guard. He's got a gun.'

‘What for?'

‘He said he wasn't going to let himself get caught.'

My father was silent. I could hear his deep breathing. ‘I can't believe it,' he murmured. ‘How did you manage to meet?'

I didn't see Franck on my way to school, but when I had reached Place du Panthéon, I heard him; he was three or four yards behind me. That was the way he did things. He guided me. We walked down rue Mouffetard, in single file. We went into a small bar in rue Censier. I asked him whether he'd had a problem the previous day.

‘Got some cash?' he asked me, still on the alert.

I handed Igor's seven hundred francs to him under the table. Franck wasn't expecting so much money.

‘Where's this cash come from?'

‘A friend lent it to me.'

‘Did you say it was for me?'

‘What else could I do? He managed to get in touch with Papa, who'll be here tomorrow or the next day.'

‘If his phone's being tapped at the hotel, the cops will know I'm in Paris.'

‘Can you see any cops? Aren't you taking enough care?'

He didn't look happy. He walked over to the owner and gave him some money. Perhaps he was running up a bill. He was restless.

‘We've got to get out of here.'

Instead of parting, we waited by the entrance to the métro. We pretended to be talking to one another, while Franck watched the bar. He relaxed a bit. We separated, then met again in the botanical gardens. He was chain-smoking Celtiques. He offered me one.

‘I don't smoke. What happened?'

He didn't answer. It started to rain. We sheltered in the Natural History Museum. There was nobody there apart from us and two wardens who were putting out some bowls to collect water spilling from the glass roof. We sat down in the large hall opposite a stuffed giraffe.

‘We were in the hinterland south of Oran, on the high plateaux. We controlled the region. There were small bands of very mobile
fellaghas
. We weren't able to corner them. We turned up in villages. We picked up
a few of them. The intelligence officers questioned them and we could hear them screaming from a hundred yards away. They were butchering them. Sometimes they were dragged into helicopters that returned empty. After the interrogation, they were taken for a ride in the country. They were told to get lost. They set off running, or in whatever way they could, and they were shot.'

‘Do you mean you fired at them?'

‘Here, that seems unbelievable, there it was run-of-the-mill. It's the way this war is. On their side, they don't give a damn about committing atrocities either. You're caught in a trap: if you don't force them to speak, you're accepting the attacks and the French people who have had their throats slit. You end up convincing yourself that you've got to do a dirty job so as to avoid anything worse.'

He couldn't speak any more. I waited for him to continue, but he was no longer with me.

‘What happened, Franck?'

‘The company captain asked for volunteers to gather wood.
*
No one offered. He couldn't go on his own. There were seven
fellaghas
. Three had been beaten up and two of them could hardly walk. Since I was a lieutenant, he chose me to accompany him. One of the Arabs had a kid aged ten or twelve who was supporting him. It was late November and in the full sunlight the heat was stifling. My combat uniform was sticking to my skin. We went about a kilometre. He told them to get lost. He shot two of them. I asked him to spare the kid. He took aim. The others were hiding behind a tree. He was waiting for them to appear before lining them up. I yelled at him to stop. He didn't listen to me. He got the father. I shot him in the head. That's what happened. Then I hotfooted it. They did everything they could to find me, but I slipped through the net.'

‘In France, there are judges. It's not the same thing.'

‘In the military court, they have you standing to attention. They don't make judgements, they issue orders, and then you're supposed to get back
into your kennel. With a conventional examining magistrate and a civil court, I might have had a chance. There, I hadn't a hope. Look what happened in October, when they chucked hundreds of Arabs into the Seine: who protested? No one. Everybody keeps quiet. The press as well as the trade unions. They do whatever they like. They're not going to get me. I've got to get out of France. Go to a country where they won't be able to find me. Papa will have to help me. I need cash.'

‘He's really uptight. I'd never seen him like that. He's gone away. He'll get in touch with you.'

‘You must sleep, lad. You did well. We'll help him. We can be proud of him.'

He kissed me in the darkness. I didn't hear him leave my bedroom. I didn't know whether he was still there. I switched on my bedside light. He was no longer there.

 

 

*
‘Gathering wood' or ‘wood duty' was an expression used by French soldiers to denote the summary execution of prisoners during the war in Algeria. Tr.

11

L
eonid sighed, his gaze lost in the wispy cirrocumulus clouds. Sergei watched him furtively. His captain was not talking to him, not responding to any of his jokes, and he had stopped admiring young Alexandra's sumptuous bottom. The radio operator confirmed the landing in London. Good weather awaited them.

‘Fucking Met Office,' Leonid moaned.

At the airport, he let his crew leave without him.

‘I'll join you in the hotel as soon as I can.'

He managed to get in touch with Milène at Orly, courtesy of the Air France manager at Heathrow. She was not expecting his call.

‘Milène, it's me.'

‘Where are you?'

‘I've just arrived in London. I'm so glad to hear your voice. I've not stopped thinking of you.'

‘Neither have I.'

‘I've got thirty hours before the return flight.'

‘It's not long.'

‘Perhaps we can see each other?'

‘I'm waiting for you.'

‘What can we do? I can't come to Paris. I haven't got a visa. If I fly over, they'll find out.'

‘I'd thought of that. I was convinced it was over between us.'

‘Milène, we can't not see each other any more. Don't you want us to meet again?'

‘Don't say that.'

‘I can't go anywhere. You're the one who'll have to come.'

‘I finish my shift at eight o'clock this evening. I could catch the plane for London. Wait, I'm checking… It's not possible, the last flight's just left.'

‘If you can't come to London and I can't go to Paris, we won't see each other again.'

‘If you did Moscow–Paris, it would be easy.'

‘Aeroflot has no flight to Paris. Milène, I need you. Do you understand?'

‘Leonid, I don't enjoy saying this to you. Our affair is an impossible one. We've experienced something very beautiful. To continue would be madness. Do you realize that we're trapped? We can't take on the entire world.'

‘I couldn't give a damn. Nothing and nobody will prevent us seeing each other again.'

‘There's nothing we can do, Leonid. It's impossible.'

‘Give us just one chance, at least.'

‘We live in different and incompatible worlds.'

‘Tell me that you don't feel anything and I'll stop.'

‘It's complicated with us. It won't work.'

‘I've met you only once. I don't know you, and you don't know me, but what happened between us is stronger than everything. It's the first time this has happened to me. What about you?'

There was a long silence. What was going on inside Milène's head? Was she frightened of missing out on a remarkable experience? Or was it pride? Was she saying to herself: I'll succeed where others have failed? Or had she suddenly stopped thinking things through? Didn't she wonder why obstacles that seemed insurmountable a moment ago had now vanished, as though removed by a magic wand?

‘What hotel are you staying at?'

‘The Hyde Park Hotel. It's in the centre.'

‘Go there.'

Milène arrived at two in the morning. Leonid had fallen asleep, fully dressed, with the lights on. He heard gentle tapping at his door, got to his feet with difficulty and, half asleep, opened the door. It took a few seconds for him to realize that she was there, in front of him, wearing that smile that overwhelmed him. She rushed into his arms.

Late that morning, worried that he had not seen Leonid, who was always the first to be up, Sergei went to find out what had happened. Leonid came to the door, his hair tousled, wrapped in the bedside rug, unaware of the
time, the day, or where he was. Through the half-open door, Sergei could make out a shapely leg protruding from the sheets, and he heard a female voice asking: ‘What's happening, darling?' and concluded that it was not the right moment to suggest visiting the Tower of London.

The return flight was cheerful and relaxed. Alexandra was granted the complete set of jokes about air hostesses who were frozen at high altitude.

From now on, the Tuesday flight to London was a jolly affair. Nobody was in any doubt as to the reasons for Leonid's good mood. He disappeared as soon as they arrived and only returned for the boarding formalities. Nobody was concerned by this. Informed of the situation by the radio operator, the MGB
*
found nothing to object to. A hero of the Soviet Union was entitled to have fun. The routine enquiry, initiated by the military attaché at the Soviet embassy, was pushed through by an overworked official. There was nothing to fear from Milène Reynolds, a Frenchwoman,
née
Girard, the wife of the manager of an insurance company in the City. Nothing in his report about her separation from her husband. Nothing either about Milène's rejoining Air France. It was a recent development. Since neither Milene nor Leonid had access to strategic information, this concise dossier was filed away, especially since one of them had connections in high places.

Once a week, Leonid and Milène got together. He waited in the pilots' room at the Heathrow air terminal for the late-night arrival of the DC3 mail plane which delivered and collected the post. Milène had succeeded in persuading the crew to allow her to board the cargo plane even though carrying passengers was forbidden by the company. But what would any flight captain not have done for the sake of Milène's lovely eyes? She knew how to ask, and no man could refuse her. She made the journey sitting on a folding metal seat and she made good use of the postal bags for padding. On the tarmac at Heathrow, Leonid could make out the sound of the Dakota before it became visible and began its descent. Over time, it became a habit. Except, of course, when there was smog.

Sometimes, their time was limited, because of the weather, in which case, instead of going into London they would remain in a corner of the air terminal, talking and holding hands. Whenever they parted, it was both a wrench and a worry. A week to wait. Leonid's thoughts were filled with Milène. No woman had ever obsessed him so. She was with him night and day. Her presence was sweet. He spoke to her, he smiled at her, he caressed her from three thousand kilometres away. She replied that she thought of him continually. She had rented a small house in Hounslow. They could spend two days and nights at a stretch in bed, inseparable, scarcely bothering to eat. They walked around London's parks like a couple of students. Milène preferred Greenwich because of its huge cedars and the intrepid squirrels that would come and eat from the palm of her hand. She took him to the British Museum, but Leonid got bored in museums.

She introduced him to American movies. They went to the Odeon in Richmond, which showed two films at each session. He didn't understand everything. The actors spoke quickly. She explained by whispering in his ear. Once, they went to Covent Garden. Leonid adored the ballet. To begin with, she was astonished by the amount of whisky he absorbed without being affected by it. The first two bottles had no effect on him. By the third, his eyes lit up and he laughed at the slightest thing, but he could walk straight and keep his head. Leonid didn't like drinking on his own and Milène didn't drink. Her lips barely skimmed the glass. When he was with her, he refrained from drinking so much. They often spent part of the evening at the Black Fox, the local pub. One couldn't tell them apart from the regulars. They would leave at the last minute, amazed to discover how late it was, and rush off to Heathrow, she to return to Paris and he to Moscow: see you next week.

Periods of leave spent in Leningrad, once something he looked forward to, became dreary. The games of chess with Dimitri Rovine, who supplied him with pure eucalyptus oil, seemed interminable and Leonid was not bothered if he lost them.

‘You're making beginners' mistakes. What's the matter? You seem preoccupied.'

‘Dimitri Vladimirovitch, can I tell you a secret?'

‘If it's a secret, Leonid Mikhaïlovitch, it's best not to tell me anything. In our country, everyone should keep their secrets to themselves.'

‘I've met someone.'

‘In the five years I've known you, you must have had a hundred affairs, perhaps more, no? I'm going to confess a real secret to you, I envy you.'

‘This one's not the same.'

‘That's the main concern of women. Imagine if they were all alike. There would be no need to change. What's different about her?'

‘Everything.'

‘You're lucky to have met a different kind of woman.'

‘We can't live together.'

‘Is she married?'

‘They're separated.'

‘If there's no husband, what's the problem?'

‘She's French. She lives in Paris.'

‘Leonid Mikhaïlovitch, you're crazy! Didn't you have enough women here?'

‘I had no choice. Neither did she.'

‘How long has it been going on?'

‘Six months. I do the Moscow–London run and she works in Paris. She slips over on the sly and we see each other during my stopovers.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘What do you expect me to do?'

‘My poor Leonid Mikhaïlovitch, when all's said and done, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes.'

 

 

*
Created in 1946, the MGB, the Soviet Ministry for State Security, would merge with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the MVD, and would be renamed KGB in March 1953. Tr.