The Incorrigible Optimists Club (4 page)

4

I
hated wasting my time. The only thing that seemed worthwhile to me was reading. At home, nobody really read. My mother took all year to read the ‘Book of the Year', which enabled her to talk about it and to pass for a great reader. My father did not read at all and was proud of the fact.

Franck had some political books in his bedroom. The only writer Grandfather Philippe respected was Paul Bourget, whose novels he had adored when he was young.

‘They can say what they want, but literature was a damn sight better before the war.'

Grandfather bought sets of books from the shops in rue de l'Odéon. He had a bookcase built for them, but he did not read them. But I made up for the rest of the family. I was a compulsive reader. In the morning, when I switched on the light, I picked up my latest and never put it down. It annoyed my mother to see me with my nose in a book.

‘Have you nothing else to do?'

She could not bear me not to be listening to her when she was speaking. On several occasions she snatched the book out of my hands to force me to reply. She had given up calling me for dinner and she had discovered an effective solution. From the kitchen, she switched off the electricity in my bedroom. I was then obliged to join them. I read at the table, which exasperated my father. I read when I cleaned my teeth, and in the lavatory. They hammered on the door for me to let them have their turn. I read while I walked. It took me fifteen minutes to reach the lycée, but reading stretched it out to half an hour or more. I took account of this additional time and left home earlier. But I would often arrive late, especially when some thrilling passage brought me to a standstill on the pavement for an unspecified period of time, and I picked up masses of detentions for being unpunctual three times without a valid excuse. I had given up trying to explain to the idiots who were supposed to be
educating us that this lack of punctuality was justified and unavoidable. My guardian angel protected me and guided me. I never bumped into a lamppost, nor did I get run over by a car when I crossed the road with my nose stuck in my book. On several occasions, I missed my turn at a pedestrian crossing and the hoot of a car's horn brought me back to reality. I avoided the piles of dog shit that spattered the Paris pavements. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I walked on automatic pilot and reached school safe and sound. Throughout most of the lessons, I continued my reading with the book propped open on my lap. I was never caught by a teacher.

In due course, I came to classify writers into two categories: those who enabled you to arrive on time and those who caused you to be late. The Russian authors earned me a whole string of detentions. When it started to rain, I would stand in a doorway in order to carry on undisturbed. The Tolstoy period had been a bad month. The Battle of Borodino led to three hours of detention. A few days later, when I explained to the school porter, a student who was supervising us, that Anna Karenina's suicide was the cause of my being late, he thought I was making fun of him. I made my position worse by admitting that I had not understood her motive for committing suicide. I had been obliged to turn back in case I had missed the reason why. He gave me two Thursday detentions: one for being late for the umpteenth time, the other because Anna was a bloody bore who did not deserve such attention. I bore no grudge against him. It allowed me to finish
Madame Bovary
.

When I was drawn to certain authors, I read every word they wrote, even though some books were difficult to get hold of. In the town hall library, opposite the Panthéon, the librarians looked sceptical when I brought back the five books that I was permitted so soon after having taken them out. I couldn't give a damn and continued to persevere with my author of the moment, resolutely tackling everything on the shelf. I devoured classics that had commentaries explaining the links between the work and the life. The more heroic or illustrious the life, the better the novels; when the fellow was vile or a nonentity, I was reluctant to take the plunge. For a long time, Saint-Exupéry, Zola and Lermontov were my favourite authors, and not merely on account of their books.
I loved Rimbaud for his dazzling life, and Kafka for his quiet, anonymous life. How were you supposed to feel when you adored the novels of Jules Verne, Maupassant, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Simenon and loads of others who then turned out to be complete bastards? Should I forget them, ignore them, and not read them any more? Pretend they did not exist even though their novels were tempting me? How could they have written outstanding books when they were such appalling human beings? When I put the question to my classmates, they looked at me as if I were an Iroquois Indian. Nicolas maintained that there were enough writers who deserved to be read that you didn't have to waste your time with those who had failed to live up to their books. That was wrong. There were repulsive skeletons in every cupboard. When I put the question to my French literature teacher, he told me that all the writers mentioned in the encyclopedia of French writers deserved my consideration; he explained that if you were going to apply these criteria of morality and public spiritedness, you would have to purge and eliminate at least 90 per cent of the authors who featured in the book. Only the most extreme cases had been excluded from the anthology, and only these were unworthy of being studied and should be shunned.

Grandfather Enzo's advice clinched it. One Sunday when we were strolling around the Louvre, I told him about my concern. I had just discovered that Jules Verne was a hysterical anti-Communard and a fanatical anti-Semite. He shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the canvases that surrounded us. What did I know about the artists whose work we admired? If I really knew Botticelli, El Greco, Ingres or Degas, I would close my eyes so as not to see their paintings any more. Ought I to block my ears so as not to hear the music of most of the composers or those rock singers I liked so much? I would be condemned to live in a world above reproof in which I would die of boredom. For him, and I could never suspect him of complacency, the question did not arise, the works were always what was most important. I should take men for what they did, not for what they were. Since I appeared unconvinced, he gave me a little smile and said: ‘Reading and loving a novel written by a bastard is not to absolve him in
any way, to share his convictions or connive with him, it's to recognize his talent, not his morals or his ideals. I have no wish to shake Hergé's hand, but I love Tintin. And after all, are you yourself above reproof?'

5

W
e also played baby-foot at the Narval, a bistro in the Maubert district. We went there after school. Nicolas lived nearby. Denfert was a long way away from him. The standard was not so high, but there was more atmosphere, thanks to the students from the Sorbonne or Louis-le-Grand. They feared us. We broke all endurance records, clinging to the handles for hours on end. Certain spectators did not play, but instead placed bets on us and paid for our round. The Narval was the haunt of Franck and his mates. As soon as he set eyes on me, he would tell me to go home and get on with my work. For a long time, I complied, but shortly after my twelfth birthday, I told him to get lost. I wonder how I had the courage to stand up to him. We had just started our game. We were playing with the blue team. On this baby-foot table it was a slight handicap as the front rod was stiff. I managed a shot that rebounded and went in, which prompted a roar of congratulation from the spectators. One of them could think of nothing better to say than yell out to Franck, who was sitting in the café area with his friends.

‘Hey, your brother's getting along brilliantly.'

I knew that he was going to come over, put his hand on the edge of the table, and shout at me in front of all the other players. I continued knocking in goals without looking up. There he was, glaring at me. I could see him drumming his fingers irritably. I was playing unusually well. I was slamming in the goals and the experts had fallen silent. I ended on a whirl from the inside left that left them speechless. I was on the point of picking up the coin left by the players who were due to play next when he grabbed me by the hand.

‘Michel, go home!'

I saw them all there, with their mocking grins, convinced that the kid would obey his big brother and return to the fold as usual. All of a sudden, I yelled out: ‘Never!'

He was surprised by my reaction: ‘Did you hear me? At once!'

I heard myself yell out: ‘Are you going to hit me? Are you going to squeal on me?'

Franck was not expecting this. He gazed at me in astonishment. He could sense that I was not going to be pushed around. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to his friends. I glanced over at him furtively. He ignored me. We had been kicked out by a pack of idiots who thought they were the champions. Nicolas, who had inserted the first coin, wanted to have his turn again. But I was flat broke. He set off home grumbling. I went and sat down on the bench beside Franck. He continued talking as if I were not there. I was about to go home when he asked me in the most natural way: ‘What are you having?'

I was not expecting this. I wondered where the trap lay.

‘I've got no money.'

Sitting opposite him, Pierre Vermont intervened: ‘It's my round, you little bugger. Have what you want.'

I ordered a really weak lemonade shandy and raised my glass to Pierre, who was celebrating his departure for Algeria. His call-up deferment had just been revoked. He was relieved to have passed his medical as he had feared he might be declared unfit for service. He was a student supervisor for the older pupils at Henri-IV. Built like a house, he played prop for the PUC rugby team. He addressed the pupils as ‘silly bugger' almost automatically. It was his way of speaking. To begin with, it slightly took you aback. During the two months before he was called up, we saw one another every day. We became friends. I was surprised, given our age difference, that he should consider me worth spending time with, but I suppose I was the only one who paid attention to him. I have always liked listening to other people. After Sciences Po, he had failed the Ecole Nation ale d'Administration entrance examination on two occasions. He had got through the written exam twice, but he had also failed the important oral exam on two occasions. He was, apparently, the only one to do so. He did not conceal his radical views and had decided to devote his life to the revolution. Looking at him with his long hair, his moth-eaten beard and his eternal black velvet suit worn over a thick white woollen
pullover, it was hard to imagine how Beynette, the principal of Henri-IV could have accepted him as a supervisor, when he was so fussy about how the pupils dressed. Pierre had just given up the idea of becoming a senior civil servant. It was a clever old system and it had rejected him. He had a deep-seated resentment of all organized structure and, even more so, of the family, state education, trade unions, political parties, the press, banks, the army, the police and colonialism. For him, the bastards should all be killed. And he didn't use the word ‘killed' lightly. It meant eliminate them, actually get rid of them. This meant a vast number of people had to be slaughtered. This did not frighten him. His hatred of religion and of priests was boundless.

‘We pay them too much respect, bowing and scraping at all their antics. You might as well talk to a wall. What is sacred to them is just an invention of their own uneasy minds. Priests and religion have to be done away with. Don't tell me they do good deeds. We don't need a commandment from Jesus to justify moral behaviour.'

What he loathed most of all, saw as mankind's absolute worst enemy, were feelings. And, worse still, flaunting them.

‘If you show your feelings, you've had it. People shouldn't know what you're feeling.'

Once he got going, there was no way of stopping him. No one could interrupt him and argue against him. He spoke quickly, switched subjects all of a sudden, set off in one direction without anyone having any idea of where he was heading, launched into unexpected digressions, and landed on his feet again. Some said he liked the sound of his own voice, but he had a very good sense of humour and never took anyone or anything seriously, least of all himself. Except the Tour de France, that is, which he loathed. I never understood that.

He was Franck's best friend in spite of their being fierce political opponents. They spent their whole time squabbling, splitting hairs, having rows and making up. They tore into one another with unbelievable verbal violence and you thought that this time they had fallen out with one another for good, but then, a moment later, they were laughing together. I did
not understand the reasons why the Communists hated the Trotskyites who loathed them in turn, even though they were standing up for the same people. Pierre asserted that he was no longer a Trotskyite and that he abominated them just as much as Franck did. From now on he was a free and unattached revolutionary. I listened to their dialogues of the deaf without daring to join in, embarrassed that they should confront one another with such hatred. I had a long way to go. I spent hours listening to Pierre. I was sufficiently in agreement with him about the necessity of destroying this rotten society in order to rebuild it on sound foundations, even though many details of the destruction and reconstruction remained obscure. And I enjoyed listening to him. He was clear and convincing. But when I interrupted him with a question, for instance: ‘Why is this war cold?'

He replied impatiently: ‘Oh, it would take too long to explain, little bugger,' leaving me none the wiser.

His chief hatred was reserved for monogamy.

‘This aberration that has to be got rid of, because it's bound to become extinct.'

He had decided in quite an arbitrary fashion that no loving relationship should last for more than a month or two, maximum three, except in ‘special cases'. I was brave enough to ask him to explain this to me.

‘It depends on the girl. One day, you'll understand. Never let it go on for more than three months. After that, you'll be the one who gets fucked up.'

He dumped his girlfriends for the sake of their future happiness.

‘It's unhealthy, don't you see? We're making a prison for ourselves.'

Pierre was always surrounded by two or three girls who followed him and listened to him as though he were the messiah. It took me a while to realize that they were his exes. Perhaps they hoped that he would change his mind? They did not seem to be jealous of the newest girl who had no idea that her time was limited and that she would soon be joining them on the wrong side of the bench. To listen to him, love was bullshit, marriage an ignominy and children just a dirty trick. In China, a spectacular revolution was taking place that would shatter the way mankind behaved by abolishing the dictatorial laws of the market and destructive
male-female relationships. The elimination of feeling, the sweeping away of love had begun. We were going to be free of the secular tyranny of the couple. But even though he proclaimed the contrary, I believe he preferred women to revolution – and by a long way.

He maintained that, given what a mess the species had made of things, virtually all of mankind should be forbidden to reproduce. He hoped that scientific and biological progress would put an end to the reproductive anarchy of the foolish masses. On this point, his theory was in the process of elaboration. He had found a name for it. It would be called ‘Saint-Justisme' in homage to the revolutionary and to his celebrated ‘No freedom for the enemies of freedom'. According to his fevered explanations, our ills stemmed from democracy, from the idiotic multitude being given the right to vote. He wanted to replace the republic of the masses by that of the wise. Individual liberty must be suppressed and replaced with a collective order in which only the most competent and the best educated could decide society's future. He was counting on the free time he would have in Algeria to write an important and seminal book on the subject. He would use the opportunity given him by national service to try to find an alternative solution to the physical elimination of opponents, though he felt it might be difficult to achieve his aims without becoming another Stalin.

‘There may be other solutions to how to deal with the majority. But we won't be able to avoid killing a whole load of them. To set an example.'

Pierre's collection of rock'n'roll albums was unique. He owned records of all the American singers, without a single exception. Priceless imports. He was generous and would lend them without any hesitation. He had an advantage over us. He understood the words of the songs. In our case, we loved the music and the beat. We picked up one or two words here and there, but the meanings were lost on us and we couldn't care less. While we listened to the songs he translated the words for us. At times, we found it hard to believe him: ‘Are you sure he's talking about blue suede shoes?'

We were disappointed by the lyrics, and preferred for him not to translate them any longer. One day he talked to me about a new disc by Jerry Lee Lewis, his favourite singer. I went to his home to collect it and record it. I was expecting an attic room on the seventh floor without a lift, but
he lived in a huge apartment on quai des Grands-Augustins, with a view over Notre-Dame. His drawing room alone was the size of our flat, and there were labyrinthine corridors which he strode along with perfect ease. When I went into raptures about the furniture, he told me: ‘It's not mine, little bugger, it's my parents'.'

He had a Schimmel grand piano, which he played wonderfully well. He put on the record, hurried over to the piano and had fun reproducing Jerry Lee's trills at the same speed and with the same flair, but he didn't sing as well as Lewis did.

Pierre had all the attributes bar one. He didn't know how to play baby-foot and he was determined to learn. On the evening he bought me a shandy after my altercation with Franck, he insisted we should play a game. I teamed up with my brother. It was the first time we had played together. Pierre copied what his opponent did, which is a mistake. If you want to block your opponent, you move as little as possible. Franck played to the rules whereas Pierre played any old how and also used the rods to perform windmills, which is forbidden. He burst out laughing. The more I asked him to stop, the more he went on, and the more irritated I got, the more excited he became. He was beyond redemption as a player.

On the evening prior to his call-up, Pierre organized a surprise party with his pals. When he invited me, Franck responded for me: ‘The parents wouldn't hear of it.'

I protested as a matter of form. That evening, I gave it a try. My mother looked at me in alarm.

‘Michel, you're twelve years old!'

I tried the classic arguments: I would go and come back with Franck, I would return home early, before midnight, before eleven o'clock, before ten, I'd just go and come back. But there was nothing doing. My father, who usually supported me, made things worse. He had not been allowed out until he was eighteen. And what's more in Baptiste's day they were working. Seeing my disappointment, he comforted me: ‘Soon you'll be able to, when you're older.'

I did not press the point. After dinner, we sat down in front of the television. I pretended to be enjoying a ghastly variety programme.
Franck left us at nine o'clock. My mother told him not to come home too late. I went to bed as though nothing were the matter. My mother came in to see me. Néron was asleep, rolled up in a ball against my leg. She glanced at my book, Zola's
La Faute de l'abbé Mouret
. I began to talk to her about it enthusiastically. She was tired. She did not remember having read it. She advised me to go to sleep. I obeyed and switched off the light. She kissed me affectionately and left the room. I waited in the darkness. I got dressed again. I got back into bed. I waited, alert to the slightest noise. Silence reigned. Néron looked at me with his enigmatic expression. I got up, my ears pricked. The parents were asleep. From their bedroom, at the end of the corridor, I could hear my father snoring. I tiptoed past the kitchen. With the utmost care, I unlocked the door to the service stairs. I locked it again with the key. I put on my shoes on the landing. I walked down the staircase in the dark, crossed the deserted courtyard, then, like a cat, I slipped through the entrance hall, without the caretakers noticing me. I opened the entrance door. I waited for a few seconds. I left without looking back.