The Incorrigible Optimists Club (33 page)

17

L
eonid was reunited with Milène and it was the happiest day of his life. Ten years later, he still spoke about it with tears in his eyes. She had to wait a long time before the inspectors from the Sûreté nationale granted him a pass. When he left the customs office, she rushed over and threw herself in his arms and they remained huddled together in an endless embrace. They drove away in the white 203 and were held up in a traffic jam on quai de la Tournelle by a demonstration in support of the Rosenbergs. Milène told him their story. Outraged at their conviction, she wanted to park the car and join the demonstrators. The notion that one could march with placards and banners, yelling insane nonsense against the government, the police and a country that was an ally struck Leonid as incongruous, for he had only ever known official demonstrations in which one walked in neat and orderly rows.

‘What difference does it make to you French people that these two Americans have been convicted?'

‘They're innocent! It's a disgrace! A scandal!'

‘They're spies. They've betrayed their country. They deserve to be shot.'

‘How can you say such awful things? It's appalling!'

‘They've been convicted. That's proof. Especially in the United States.'

This was their first argument and a frequent subject of disagreement between them.

‘You don't know the Americans. You don't know what they're capable of!' she shouted.

‘Compared to us, they're choirboys.'

Leonid ought to have been more circumspect. His fate, through the most mysterious of coincidences, would be compounded with that of the Rosenbergs, whom he couldn't care less about.

*

Milène lived in a flat on the top floor of a fine building in avenue Bosquet. They rediscovered their London devotion to one another and marvelled that every day could be a Tuesday. She wanted him to feel at home, so she emptied a cupboard and fitted out an office for him. She showed him around Paris, taught him French, basic cooking, how to shop and how to watch out for the tradesmen in rue Clerc who forgot to give change. She took him along to the large stores, dressed him from head to toe, and bought him so many clothes that she had to give up another cupboard to him. These were months of carefree happiness. Milène worked long hours and Leonid waited impatiently for the evening. She told him in detail about how she spent her days and he asked her hundreds of questions to do with planes and airlines that she was unable to answer.

For several months, when Air France left Le Bourget airport to go to Orly, she left home early and returned at about midnight, and she would retire to bed, exhausted, without touching the meal he had prepared for her. He stood leaning over the balcony, smoking Gauloises, admiring the glass partitions of the Grand Palais and, with his nose in the air, the Eiffel Tower. He walked around Paris from morn till night, methodically visiting each neighbourhood, without ever managing to get used to the traffic or to cars that paid no attention to pedestrians. When he arrived, Leonid had a handful of roubles that were worthless, and fifteen dollars. Milène put some money in a purse. He took from it what he needed. When it was empty, she added more without his having to ask. He did the shopping and looked after the flat. She never criticized him. One day, she asked him to buy some mimosa. She loved this flower and its scent. He got into the habit of filling the flat with mimosa and he made it a matter of honour to find some even when it was out of season.

For the holidays, in August, they spent two weeks in Corsica, and Leonid fell in love with Bonifacio. On the evening before they returned home, they were dining at the port. He took her hand and squeezed it.

‘I can't go on, Milène. I'm bored to death. I'm useless. I need to work.'

‘If it's because of money, don't worry.'

‘A man must work, do you understand? Not wait for his wife to bring in the money and live off her.'

‘It doesn't bother me.'

‘It does me!'

They sought a solution but what job could a former Soviet pilot do? Through a friend who was one of the company's directors, she obtained an interview with the personnel manager who, impressed by his record of service, made him take the physical aptitude and accreditation tests. For six months, Leonid waited. When he phoned to find out what was happening about his application, he was unable to obtain an answer. He went along to the head office of Air France and asked to see the personnel manager. He was told he was unavailable. Losing his patience, Leonid kicked up a fuss. Without giving him any explanation, they informed him that his application was unsuccessful.

Milène kept to herself what her friend who was a director had told her: that the company could not risk being on bad terms with the Soviet authorities. She encouraged him to apply to other large airlines, but most of them only recruited their own nationals. Leonid got in touch with Sabena, BOAC and KLM, filled in a pile of applications, subjected himself to a string of exams, identity checks and interviews, and he waited.

To celebrate the first anniversary of their getting together again, she invited him to La Tour d'Argent and gave him a Lip watch that cost a fortune. It was an exact replica of the one created for General de Gaulle and given by him to President Dwight Eisenhower. She thought he would be pleased with this present, but quite the reverse.

‘I've got nothing to give you. I'm not going to buy you a present with your own money.'

‘I don't need one. You are my present.'

She took his hand but, because she was sitting opposite him, she took the wrong arm and put the watch on his right wrist. Leonid thought that this was the custom in France and he always wore it in this way. He gave her his pilot's watch with its eagle rampant, the insignia of the Chasseurs of the Guard regiment, the only one in the Red Army to have the imperial coat of arms engraved on the dial beneath the hammer and the sickle. She removed her watch. He attached his to her right wrist. She swore that she would always wear it.

She smiled at him and nothing else mattered. She asked him hundreds of questions about his war. He gave her secret information that he had never told anybody. He went on talking until daybreak. She listened to him in fascination, eager for precise details. She wanted to know everything about his life. When he questioned her about her own past, she refused to answer. In solemn tones, she said she had lived through hard times and did not wish to be reminded of them.

‘Let's think of ourselves and our own happiness.'

She took him in her arms, kissed him and made love to him as though every embrace were the first. When he woke up, she had left to go to work. He found himself wandering around this affluent area with nothing to do. He started to drink again. Nobody took any notice of him. How could you get away from booze in a city where there was a bar on every street corner and countless sympathetic ears that would listen to him, especially as he was the one paying for drinks? He had known hardship this Russian, even though few believed him when he described the hellish years of his patriotic war. His colleagues at the bar wondered which film he'd got the aerial battle scenes from.

After fifteen months of waiting, Leonid received a positive reply from KLM.

‘I'd stopped believing,' she confessed.

‘I've never stopped believing. Luck changes. You've got to learn how to be patient.'

They gave a memorable party with their friends and Leonid astonished a gathering of connoisseurs by downing a bottle of Dom-Pérignon as though it were a glass of water. Milène bought him a suit made of Prince of Wales check and decided they must leave nothing to chance. For two days, she worked on him, playing the role of the person doing the recruiting, asking him questions that were delicate, embarrassing or ambiguous, and making him learn the correct answers by heart.

On Saturday 22 November, she went with him to Amsterdam. She allowed him to drive the 203 and, during the journey, she made him revise. At the company's head office, Leonid froze and was unable to answer a question. He was recruited for Garuda Indonesian Airways and
told he would have to take up his post in Djakarta before the end of the month. The terms were favourable, and they were surprised by his refusal. The return journey was gloomy. Leonid didn't utter a word. Milène tried to lift his spirits: ‘It doesn't matter. We'll go on searching.'

‘We've tried all the European companies. I've had it.'

‘Perhaps you should have accepted.'

‘Would you have followed me there?'

Milène took her attention off the road for a second. The car swerved. They didn't say another word to one another until they reached the outskirts of Compiègne. Leonid started sniffing.

‘It stinks in this car.'

‘It's the tobacco. Open the window and let some air in.'

Leonid was the most precise man I've ever met. Diabolically precise. It was as though he kept a minutely detailed private diary. Every event in his life was engraved deep in his memory. He remembered each moment of every hour and day spent with Milène. What they had done together and where they had gone. What they had said to one another. And the following day. And every day of the two years and two months they spent living together.

‘It was after Thursday 27 November 1952, on our return from Amsterdam, that I went off the rails. I didn't realize what I was doing. I moaned from morning till night. I no longer looked for jobs that I was certain I wouldn't get. I spent my time in bars, boozing. In Leningrad, there were no repercussions, and I had no one to vent my anger on. In Paris, I became odious. I ruined her life with my foul temper. She said nothing. Not one word, not one complaint. She should have put me in my place. She let me belch and curse, and I never realized just how impossible I was to live with. The more I drank, the worse I became. I blamed her for having dragged me into this disastrous state, I heaped my bitterness on her and she took it without saying a word. Perhaps if she had yelled at me and put me in my place, that might have saved us, but she endured it in silence. I could no longer sleep. I had nightmares. I woke her up at night. I opened the windows wide to get rid of the smell that pursued me. I refused to
look after myself. On Saturday 18 April, over a dinner with eight of her friends and her cousin from Nantes, I started to insult her because the roast was overcooked, telling her she was incompetent and useless. One of her friends, an air steward, intervened. I gave him a clout. His nose started bleeding. Not only did I not apologize but I threatened to smash in the face of all the arseholes like him who bored me stiff. She didn't comment. On Tuesday 12 May, I took her car without telling her. She didn't want me to drive it. Later I never understood what had happened. Somehow I braked too hard and got stuck under a lorry. But I escaped without a scratch. I wrecked the lovely white 203. In those days, they didn't prosecute drink-drivers. I expected Milène to blow her top, but she didn't hold anything against me. The only thing she said was: “It doesn't matter in the least, the main thing is that you're not injured…” Look, Michel, you have before you the biggest fool of all time. I had the best and most beautiful woman in the world. I messed up my chances with my arrogance and my stupidity. Not to mention the shitty life I made her lead. I'm not proud of it. And then, on Friday 19 June 1953, she came home. She looked distraught. I was slumped on the sofa, in the process of tackling another bottle of Muscadet. She sat down on the edge of the cushion and poured herself a glass of wine, which she drank in one gulp. Her eyes were gleaming. I hadn't noticed she was crying. “They've killed the Rosenbergs,” she announced.

‘“They did the right thing.”

‘“What you're saying is horrible!”

‘“They're traitors. They got what they deserved.”

‘“Get out!”

‘“What?”

‘“Out! I don't want to see you ever again!”'

18

F
or a week, I hadn't dared ring Cécile. I hoped I might bump into her at the Luxembourg, but I didn't spot her there. I regretted having given her that letter. If I had had the courage to open it, I would have burned it. She would have been left in a state of uncertainty, which would have been preferable to this wreckage. He, who never ever wrote, had written just one fucking letter in his life and it would have been better if he had died that day, because then he would still have been the person she loved. He destroyed our illusions with his lies, his mistrust and his hypocrisy. If he had told the truth: I'm in love with someone else and we're going to have a child, it would not have altered anything and we would have helped him, even Cécile. It was the deception that was unforgivable.

Almost two weeks went by. I rang her home morning and evening. She didn't answer. At lunchtime, I waited for her by the Médicis fountain. I tried to read Kessel's
Fortune carrée
. I couldn't concentrate. For a change, I took some photographs of the sculptures that were illuminated by the sun filtering through the foliage. Suddenly, as I was staring at the statue of Acis and Galatea, I understood. She hated me. She was angry with me. I had brought her the bad news and I was the brother of a complete shit. I needed to tell her that I had nothing in common with him, that we were different, and that he was a nonentity who didn't deserve any respect. That she had to forget him, dump him, think of him not as a treasured memory, but as a rotten bastard; that he was no longer my brother, and that I was disowning him and eliminating him from my life and my mind. I wanted to persuade her that we should live as though he had never existed and promise each other never to utter his name, that she deserved a thousand times better, that she should turn over a new leaf and think of her future. I ran over to her apartment. I rang the bell for ten minutes, then opened the door with my bunch of keys. It was
dark inside the flat, and impossible to tell whether Cécile had gone away for a long time or not.

Lessons continued, as boring as ever. I finished
Le Lion
and
Fortune carrée
and returned them to Igor, who lent me some other novels by Kessel, all of them inscribed. These books were precious to him. He thought that I read too quickly and didn't get the most out of them. We had to negotiate. For the time being, he lent them to me two at a time. We discussed them passionately. We disagreed about their strengths: he liked Kessel's lyricism and the books' mysterious atmosphere whereas I admired his very pure documentary style and his psychological analysis. I read during lessons, with the book propped up on my lap. I was quite sure I was not wasting my time. Nicolas warned me with a thump on the elbow or knee if the teacher had just moved or if my posture looked odd.

A bell rang out, chiming at regular intervals. Not the school bell. The bell on the Clovis tower. The school porter came in and whispered something in the ear of the Spanish teacher.

‘Gentlemen, put away your things,' said the latter, getting to his feet. ‘We are going down to the courtyard. And in silence!'

The pupils surged down the corridors and staircases. The monitors split us into two groups: the
lycéens
in the main courtyard and the
collégiens
in the cloister. When the bell rang for a general assembly, it was a bad sign. It had happened only once in the past four years. That time, Beynette, the headmaster, surrounded by the teachers, had announced with great reverence the name of someone who had died for his country. The choir had sung the
Marseillaise
. There was a minute's silence and we went back to our classrooms.

The bell stopped chiming. The microphone crackled and the voice of the headmaster echoed through the loudspeakers: ‘My children, it is with great sadness that I have gathered you together on the day before the start of the holidays. I had hoped I would never have to summon this sad assembly again. I have just learned that Lieutenant Pierre Vermont was killed the day before yesterday in a skirmish with enemy forces. This death is a great sadness for us. He spent his schooldays in this establishment. He
was a brilliant young man and a remarkable student who, shortly before he joined up, had told me of his desire to become a member of the teaching staff. Pierre Vermont had only friends here…'

He continued, but I no longer heard him. It took me a moment to understand, to realize that he was talking about my Pierre. I left my row and went up to a monitor.

‘He's not talking about Pierre Vermont, is he?'

‘Go back to your place, there's about to be the minute's silence.'

I stood stock still. I could visualize Pierre jiving. I could hear him laughing and raging against the holy trinity of the couple, the flag and money, or proving with conviction and passion that every priest, religious leader and rabbi on earth ought to be killed, and that the only concession he would make was that their deaths should be quick and gentle. But I couldn't imagine him lifeless and bleeding. I felt no emotion, no sadness. His death was a mere statistic. It was the absurdity that shocked me. Not so much that he was dead, but that he should have been killed four days before the end of the war. As though the last death should be any more idiotic than the first. His dying should have shattered me. I was alarmed at my own indifference. I thought of Cécile. Who would inform her of her brother's death? How would she react? The
Marseillaise
rang out. I had goosebumps all over my body. I set off at a run and the school porter, who wanted to prevent me leaving, was pushed back unceremoniously. I shot down rue Saint-Jacques like an arrow, down to quai des Grands-Augustins. I tore up the stairs four at a time and hammered at the door. No one answered. I sat on the bottom step and I waited in the dark for a long time. She didn't come. As I left, I knocked at the concierge's lodge.

‘Excuse me, Madame, do you know where Cécile Vermont is?'

‘She left a fortnight ago. I'm collecting her post.'

‘Is she at her uncle's, in Strasbourg?'

‘She didn't say anything to me. Are you not feeling well, young man? Do you want to sit down? You're white as a sheet.'

I went to Denfert. I didn't go into the Balto. Through the window, I could see Samy playing baby-foot and, at the bar, Imré was chatting with
Werner. I didn't feel like talking to anyone. It was late when I got home. They were having dinner, watching the television news.

‘Do you know what time it is?' my mother called out. ‘Go and wash your hands before sitting down at the table.'

‘I'm not hungry.'

My father came up to me in the corridor.

‘What's the matter, Michel?'

‘Do you remember Pierre Vermont? Cécile's brother.'

‘The one who gave you those records?'

‘No, he lent them to me. He's dead. In Algeria. In a skirmish.'

‘Shit! How old was he?'

‘I don't know.'

‘How did the poor girl react?'

‘She doesn't know.'

‘That's terrible. At the end of the war, it's so crazy.'

‘And now she's on her own.'

‘She's unlucky.'

‘You know, they say it's the shits who come out alive and the brave guys who die there. It's true. It's Pierre I would have liked to have as a brother. A guy who behaves like a hero and who everyone talks about with respect.'

‘You've no right to judge Franck. You don't know what he's been through.'

‘I haven't got a brother any more. For me, he's dead!'

I went to my bedroom and slammed the door. I wanted to be left alone. Nobody came to look for me. I got into bed and switched off the light. I wasn't able to sleep. I could hear Pierre's laughter in the Maubert bar. He had given me so much and I, for my part, had given him nothing. I felt frustrated by this debt. And then I saw him, in a halo of sunshine, on the ramparts of his fortress, on the edge of the desert, peering into space. In his shabby uniform, his collar turned up, the flaps of his tunic open and blowing in the wind. His hair was white and his face was lined. He was smiling.