The Incorrigible Optimists Club (47 page)

10

W
e would see each other after lessons. To begin with, whoever came out first would go and collect the other. She avoided the area around Henri-IV in case she ran into her brother. She had advised me not to speak to him under any circumstances and not to be taken in by his friendly manner, which concealed dreadful hypocrisy. As for me, I kept my distance from the Fénélon so as to avoid the sidelong glances and the sniggering. We met halfway, at the Viennese cake shop on rue de l'Ecole-de-Médecine. We had a
café crème
and talked for two hours in front of an apple strudel. When the weather was nice, we wandered up and down boulevard Saint-Germain or beside the river. For reasons unknown, she refused to give me her phone number, but I got hold of it through directory enquiries. When I suggested ringing her, she begged me never to call her at home. It was complicated, she said. I didn't ask why. When Camille stated: ‘It's complicated', you had to accept it and not ask any questions, just accept that there was an insurmountable and inexplicable obstacle. I thought that her parents must be stern, with old-fashioned morals. I imagined an Irish mother, strict and puritanical, a stickler for principles; it's a slightly old-fashioned notion, but then the Victorian novel would not have existed had the education of young girls not been a problem. I was still bogged down in my naivety and my illusions.

When she could, that is to say when she was on her own, she would ring me at home. As usual, Juliette rushed to answer the phone, so it wasn't long before they got to know one another. Sometimes she talked more to Juliette than she did to me. Occasionally, Camille would cut short the conversation suddenly: ‘I must go now!' and hang up. I had to endure daily interrogations from Juliette, who wanted to know what she was like, what we did, where we went. Since I evaded these questions, she asked Camille. She wanted to meet her. I opposed the suggestion vehemently.

Apart from the evenings, it was complicated for us to see one another. Thursdays were difficult: there was always a brother hanging about and no way around this. Saturdays were very complicated. Sundays were impossible. Based on various crosschecks, deductions and suppositions, as well as the authoritative opinions of Leonid and Sacha, she came from a happy, close and intrusive family. The great inconvenience of united families is that the presence of all of them is required as proof of collective happiness.

One afternoon, we were walking side by side along rue Bonaparte when she dived between two cars, disappearing behind them in a flash. I noticed three young men walking past us. I recognized her elder brother whom I had met at the
Planète
conference. The youngest one stared at me with a questioning look. I seemed to have seen him before at Henri-IV. They went on their way, chatting. Camille reappeared, looking agitated.

‘Did they see me?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Did they see you?'

‘What's the problem?'

‘If they see us together, there'll be one hell of a fuss.'

I was unsettled by this attitude, but it didn't bother Sacha: ‘You shouldn't worry. Has she told you she doesn't want to see you again?'

‘No.'

‘Well, you're still alive. You'll have to sort it out. Relationships between men and women are destined to be complicated. Show me your efforts.'

I took a sheet of paper out of my pocket and gave it to him. He read it in three seconds.

‘Is that what you call a poem?'

‘I did warn you.'

‘You had no talent for drawing either. Your future in the arts seems to me to be in jeopardy.'

‘And what if I borrowed the words of a great poet?'

‘If she recognizes it, she may not be very pleased and you would look like an idiot. I've something better to suggest.'

This was how Sacha developed the strategy of the poems. He suggested that he should provide me with some, which I could recite to Camille. I wouldn't even have to lie and say that I was the author. The less I talked about them, the better it would be. Let her imagination roam. Give no explanation. An artist doesn't have to justify himself.

‘If, by any chance, she asks you an awkward question, don't answer. Smile. And if you can, take her hand and squeeze it tightly while looking straight into her eyes. Make the most of your smile, Michel.'

On the back of an envelope, he wrote a poem very quickly, without thinking, or looking up. It flowed from his hand like water from a fountain. He handed me the dozen scribbled lines. I had to learn them by heart – he refused to leave them with me.

‘If, in addition to not writing poems, you have no memory, then tough on you. You'll leave here once you know the poem. Don't rely on me to check it through. We're not doing a recitation exam.'

‘I'm frightened of forgetting it.'

‘Think of her and you won't forget it. If you're incapable of doing that, then you don't deserve her. I'm only making one condition: you must not alter a comma. I trust you. If she likes it, I'll give you others.'

‘I could learn several of them all at once.'

‘A poet who produces too much is suspect. Poetry requires time. It can't be churned out. A writer can get up in the morning and say to himself: I'm going to write fifty lines, or five hundred or a thousand words. If a poet says that, he's an impostor. It's like diamonds. When you gather them by the bucketful, they're worthless: they're like bits of coal.'

I hadn't contemplated for an instant asking for time to consider it, or refusing, or seeing whether I liked the poems. He was rescuing me, so obviously, I accepted. I didn't ask a single question. I was frightened he might withdraw his offer and forget about me. Or that she might meet a poet, a real one.

A customer came into the shop. While Sacha served him, I read the poem. I was astonished by its clarity. I read it again. I recited it to myself with my eyes closed. I could see Camille. I was smiling, her hand in mine.

‘Is it all right?' Sacha asked.

‘It's a very beautiful poem.'

Sacha smiled. He took the envelope, tore it up and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.

‘Thank you for what you're doing, Sacha.'

As I walked across the Luxembourg, a doubt occurred to me. Supposing I forgot it? Shouldn't I keep a copy of it for safety's sake? I took out a sheet of paper to write down the poem. I hadn't promised not to do this. Then I thought of Sacha and recited it to myself again until I knew it was imprinted on my brain.

11

I
t was during this period that I adopted the style that would be mine for years to come: a slovenly look, shirt pulled out of baggy corduroy trousers, black gym shoes and that tousled hair that I miss so much today. I had to put up with my mother's comments: ‘Did you wash today? I don't often hear you taking a shower. What's this mop of hair? You're going to the hairdresser's!'

In her presence, I kept up appearances and avoided confrontation, but before setting foot on the pavement I would ruffle my hair and make my clothes look dishevelled, taking on the appearance once more of someone who has just got out of bed – at least as far as the lycée, where Sherlock was standing guard.

‘Where do you think you are, Marini? This isn't the circus. Does Monsieur like to think of himself as a Beatle, perhaps? May I remind you that gym shoes are intended for sport and that the
bac
includes an oral examination. What is this get-up?'

You had to be smart and use your imagination and wits in order to circumvent the edict of ‘nice and short above the ears'. I wasn't the only one. The epidemic had affected other pupils. We got together. We started to resist. We felt as though we were living inside a pressure-cooker and that they were preventing us from breathing. It was heating up, but the lid held firm. It was like an endless bout of arm-wrestling. We were gaining ground and each advance was a small victory, each defeat strengthened our determination. We knew we were going to win. We were the young ones, and every day there were more of us. They would kick the bucket eventually.

‘I've got a present for you.'

Camille stared at me in surprise.

‘What is it?'

I had been wondering where the most appropriate place might be. I couldn't see myself playing the poet in front of a cup of hot chocolate in the noisy back room of the Viennese patisserie, where people were pressed up against one another. I hesitated between the riverbank and place Fürstenberg. I should have thought about it. I hadn't planned anything. But our footsteps led us there. To the Médicis fountain. Like a magnet. We were beside the pond. I held my breath and… my mind went blank. Nothing came. My head felt as light and empty as a ping-pong ball. I made desperate efforts to remember this damned poem that had flown away. Perhaps I didn't deserve it. This gave me the idea for the title of a poem: ‘Plea for a vanished poem'. All I had to do was write it. Perhaps I was making progress. She noticed my tense expression.

‘What's the matter, Michel?'

I looked her straight in the eyes. My lips were trembling:

She looked at me in astonishment, her mouth half-open, her hand on the balustrade. A light breeze ruffled her hair.

‘It's marvellous, Michel.'

‘Yes.'

‘Is it yours?'

For once I was prepared. I put my hand on hers. I smiled, my thoughts lost in the magic fountain. We stayed there until closing time.

That is how my career as a poet began. It wasn't a glorious beginning,
but I had succeeded in avoiding the worst: not pretending to be anyone other than who I was. Let he who has always told the truth, who has never said yes when he thought no and has never covered up a shred of his incompetence, his ignorance or his arrogance throw the first stone. Likewise those who smiled when they didn't feel like doing so or who appeared interested when they couldn't care less about what they were being told. I'm the first to regret my behaviour. But did I have any choice? I didn't like the deliberate ambiguity, but I told myself that the important thing was the poetry and the fact that emotions were genuinely felt and shared. I made other vague attempts, but I had a leaden weight at the end of my pen and my scribbles ended up in the waste-paper basket. Should we accept our limitations as inevitable? We fight with the weapons we have and the dream justifies the means.

‘Really, did she like it?'

‘She loved it. And I'm not just saying that to please you.'

‘I'm very glad, Michel. You can't know what this means to me. They're poems from another era. I had a slight doubt. I wondered whether she would appreciate them.'

Sacha broke off from developing photographs and hung up the most recent ones so that they could dry.

‘We must go and celebrate this.'

We walked over to a small cubbyhole which was used as a kitchen area. He picked up a bottle of pastis and poured out two large glasses.

‘That's a lot for me.'

‘My dear Michel, all poets drink. The more they drink the better they write.'

‘Do you think so? Is it obligatory?'

‘The poets I like drank a lot. Or they suffered. If there's no pain or if your head's not spinning a little, the poetry is dull. The best ones suffered agonies and drank too much. There are few exceptions to this rule.'

We drank to poets and to poetry. I had never seen him so cheerful and jolly.

‘I'd really like another.'

‘I did warn you, Michel. In small doses. Each poem must give the impression of having been a struggle. You're not giving her a pair of shoes. A bit of mystery.'

He picked up an envelope, turned it round and, as he did the first time, wrote a poem in a minute, without difficulty, or hesitation, or alteration. It was impossible for him to be composing it on the spot. How many did he have in his memory? He held out the envelope to me.

‘I'm going to learn it by heart.'

At home, after dinner, I experimented with Sacha's theory. I poured myself a whisky. My father loved drinking some on Saturday evenings. It made him merry. But this concoction had a medicinal taste and burnt my throat. I wanted to finish the glass, but I didn't manage to. I threw half of it down the sink. My stomach was on fire. I sat in front of a blank page and waited. My head was spinning and I wanted to be sick. It was wonderful: I felt the confusion of drunkenness; I suffered; I felt rotten for much of the night. But Sacha must have had more precise recommendations in mind because it did not produce the promised results. Inspiration did not come. I was expecting to see the pen run over the page and fill it with magical verses. It remained glued to my hand, while the other hand clutched my stomach. I can personally vouch for the fact that whisky is ineffective and was of no use to me for poetry. The mystery of creation must lie elsewhere.

The Pont des Arts at dusk. The lamps were switched on. For a long while, we had been contemplating the Pont-Neuf clinging to the tip of the Île de la Cité, the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, the smooth perspective of the plane trees over the silvery water, the silent barges. We were beyond the city there, in a miraculous and sheltered space. It was the perfect moment.

She looked at me with a strange intensity. There was clarity, a kind of excitement. I was expecting her to cross-question me, but she said nothing. She took my hand and squeezed it. We didn't speak. We had no need.

This is what's known as a snare. Once you have inserted a finger, the hand, the arm, then the whole body goes through. There's no way of retreating, of pulling back. To begin with, you don't think about it. Later, you realize that you're a prisoner. Recognizing your mistake, saying ‘I deceived you', is easy. But admitting ‘I am merely an illusion. I have no virtues; there is nothing remarkable or original about me' is impossible. It is to deny your very self. So, you say nothing. You persevere. It was at quarter to seven that evening that I understood what a vicious circle meant.