The Incorrigible Optimists Club (49 page)

14

I
thought I'd get away with it, but I had overrated my powers. I held out to the very limits of what was possible. But there comes a point beyond which no man can go. Our will is ineffectual in the face of the laws that govern the world. My fate was sealed somewhere in the remotest corner of the universe, near the galaxy of Andromeda, between Orion and Aldebaran. Camille wanted to draw up my astral chart and needed the exact time of my birth. I thought this request was ridiculous, but I couldn't tell her so to her face. She believed in astrology utterly and she was very touchy about such matters. I came up with the excuse that pain had caused my mother to lose all memory of my birth, that she was alone, in a deserted hospital, abandoned by her family and her husband.

‘You were born in the Port-Royal hospital, right in the centre of Paris!'

Because of the break-up, the matter was not resolved. Divorce, as is well known, harms the memory. Without the exact time, it was impossible to establish the map of the sky at the moment of my birth, so no horoscope, no lunar node, no chart of the Houses nor associated signs. I thought I would be rid of her ridiculous questions.

My relationship with my mother improved spectacularly from one day to the next. We discovered an equilibrium. I observed three rules, a sort of legal minimum: I had to look after my appearance, achieve average marks at school and be present at family meals, especially Sunday lunch with the entire Delaunay family, at Grandfather Philippe's home. In return, she would not bother me about anything else. It was after attending the course ‘Negotiate successfully using win-win solutions' that this unexpected change occurred. My father should have gone with her to these training courses that he made such fun of. It might perhaps have avoided the present Berezina disaster. One evening, during dinner, I got an unpleasant surprise.

‘By the way, Camille telephoned,' said my mother as she passed me the grated carrots.

‘Oh, really?'

‘She's a nice girl. Do bring her home, if you want to, I'd be delighted to meet her.'

‘I left her ten minutes ago. Why did she ring?'

‘She wanted to know the time of your birth.'

‘What did you tell her?'

‘Five thirty in the afternoon precisely. I didn't understand what she was talking about. There were no problems with the birth. With your sister, it was ghastly. Girls do more harm to their mothers. I'd like her to draw up my astral chart. I was born on 28 January at ten past four in the morning.'

‘And what about me, what time was I born?' asked Juliette.

Camille may have had a few faults, but she did not bear grudges. She was not angry with me for lying, for she was excited that she would soon have my birth chart. A friend of her mother's ran a fortune telling service in a flat overlooking Montsouris park. She was going to compare our horoscopes and we would then be able to decide on our future.

‘Don't you believe in it? I'm going to convince you.'

‘Camille, we can't foresee what's going to happen. It would be too easy.'

‘There are people who know, who are initiated and who can guide us.'

‘Personally, I'd prefer not to know.'

A few days later, she informed me that there was an unexpected hitch that was preventing my chart from being set up. Materializing suddenly out of space after a journey of millions of kilometres, Holmes's comet had just appeared between the constellations of Cancer and Taurus, a tiny, brilliant splash with a fan-like tail, and as long as it remained visible, certain lives would be drastically affected because of it.

‘She says it's the comet of people who love one another and find each other again because of it.'

‘Camille, you can't really believe in this nonsense?'

‘She says that you are going to be affected.'

‘We haven't lost one another. Can your friend, the seer, not tell us if we're going to pass our
bac
?'

‘She determines the trajectories. Not the episodes along the way. Soon, you'll have proof.'

She displayed not the slightest doubt or hesitation. Her enthusiasm swept away my certainties. Cartesian folk are boring. Her fantasy was beautiful.

We very rarely saw each other on Sundays. She had family commitments that she could not get out of. When I asked her why, she replied: ‘Don't ask me why! If I could, we'd see each other. I can't.'

I spent my Sunday afternoons at the Club. Some new faces were appearing, from the USSR, from the Baltic countries, from Yugoslavia and Romania, with their rolling accents, their pre-war clothes, their features furrowed by mistrust and anxiety. The carry-on about papers and files was beginning all over again; the need for proof that you were a fugitive and that you had escaped urgently and in a great hurry so as to avoid arrest and imprisonment. The older ones took care of these people, gave them shelter and put them in touch with the suppliers of authentic-looking false documents. These were expensive and they had to moonlight in restaurants and building sites to pay for them. Several of them had used an emigration network to go to Canada, which was more welcoming than France. On Sundays the Club was crowded. The Club room was no longer large enough and, gradually, the adjoining restaurant had been colonized. The obligatory rule of speaking French had been forgotten, and almost every language could be heard. Maybe it was because they had spoken in hushed voices for so long, but they certainly let their hair down now. There was just as much of a din as there was in the rest of the Balto, and those who wanted peace and quiet sighed as they remembered the good old days, when the members of the Club could be counted on the fingers of two hands.

‘Given the good will of our providers, there's no risk of a lack of customers,' Igor insisted. ‘We're doomed to increase.'

Sacha dropped by occasionally. I observed him carefully. Aware of their hostility, he enjoyed provoking them. He appeared noiselessly. People looked up and there he was, watching us, rather like Big Ears. The others controlled themselves, tried to look contemptuous and ignore him.
You looked up again, and he had gone, without anyone having heard him leave. I took care to keep up appearances and to display indifference towards him. He insisted that I did so and he did not want me to intervene or become involved.

I had made serious progress at chess and was becoming a sought-after player.

‘Being a good player is a relative notion,' explained Leonid, who agreed to play a game only when no one else was available. ‘The new lot are really useless.'

I was following an endless revenge match between Imré and Pavel. The former was making the most of the absence of a clock to win by wearing his opponent down. Igor appeared, in a state of high excitement.

‘My friends, you'll never guess who I've been talking to for a couple of hours.'

From his animated behaviour, we concluded that it was a well-known name. We guessed at pop singers or film stars, television presenters, politicians and famous sports personalities. We listed half of Paris without success.

‘Is he French?' Gregorios asked.

‘No. He hailed me on boulevard Malesherbes. I said to myself: Igor, this is your lucky day. I watched in my rearview mirror. I couldn't believe my eyes. Him in my taxi! I waited for a few moments and then I took the plunge. I spoke to him in Russian.'

‘Was it Gromyko, incognito?' Pavel suggested.

‘He's a living god!'

Then we all said ‘Nureyev' at the same time.

‘To begin with, I didn't want to come out with commonplace remarks such as: I'm one of your great admirers, which he must hear twenty times a day. He was slightly on his guard. I mentioned
La Bayadère
, which we saw in 1961 with Leonid and Vladimir. He remembered that magical evening and the crowd on its feet clapping and yelling bravos as though they would never stop. He sensed just how moved I had been. He opened his heart. I dropped him at the Opéra, by the artists' entrance. He was in a
hurry and yet he continued talking and laughing. He's the handsomest man in the world and the greatest artist. We stayed in the car. We remembered the Kirov and Leningrad. He had tears in his eyes. He was late. I didn't charge him the fare. He invited me to follow him inside where he was appearing with the Royal Ballet. I watched part of the rehearsal. It was extraordinary. The others stop in order to watch him. It's as if an angel has come down to earth. When I left, he came over to thank me. Can you imagine? Him! Saying thank you to me! For having reminded him of home.'

‘What a wonderful coincidence,' Imré said.

The word made me prick up my ears. It was clearly preordained. I wondered whether I ought to mention Holmes's comet, but I didn't have time.

‘My friends,' Igor continued, ‘today is a very special day. Rudolf Nureyev is going to join us!'

This produced a chorus of exclamations, astonishment and incredulity.

‘In the taxi, I told him about the Club. He asked me masses of questions. He shook my hand and asked me for the address. He's coming this evening, after the rehearsal.'

There was a hubbub of panic and consternation. The members rushed about in every direction, put their coats back on, did up their shirt collars, adjusted their ties, brushed the cigarette ash and specks of dandruff from their clothing, and combed their hair in the mirrors. They queued to go for a pee and wash their hands.

‘We can't greet him in this mess!' Vladimir pointed out.

They cleared the tables, wiped them with dishcloths, emptied the ashtrays, put away the crates that lay around, dusted the benches and swept. Madeleine directed procedures and she took the opportunity to have the windows cleaned by Goran and Danilo, two of the newcomers. All of a sudden, Igor noticed Sacha, who was polishing the bar with a white duster. He hurried over.

‘What the hell are you doing here?'

‘I'm making my contribution to—'

Igor didn't allow him the time to finish his sentence. He jostled him
and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat. They were the same height, but Sacha was slimmer. He could have stood up for himself, but he offered no resistance. Igor shoved him outside forcefully.

‘That's the last time! I've warned you!'

Sacha walked away without replying. Igor came back inside. He was furious.

‘What are you waiting for? Get to work!'

The Balto looked like a brand new café. Tomasz borrowed an Instamatic and a new roll of film from a pinball player who lived upstairs. We all went outside. It was a sunny day. We formed a welcoming committee on the pavement on the corner of boulevard Raspail and place Denfert-Rochereau. We kept an eye on the taxis, but they passed by without stopping. We waited quite happily. After a while, some went back inside to have a rest and a drink.

‘What time is he meant to be coming?'

‘They're running late,' Igor explained.

Vladimir displayed his decisiveness. He got hold of the phone number of the Opéra's administration office from directory enquiries. We all gathered around him. But on this Sunday in May, there was no reply. Hopes of Nureyev's anticipated arrival turned as flat as a cold soufflé. The members left one by one. Nobody made any unpleasant comments. Tomasz returned the camera. We were left with the members of the original group.

‘Maybe he's forgotten,' Pavel said.

‘Or else he couldn't find a taxi,' added Gregorios. ‘That can happen on Sundays.'

‘Or he was tired and went home to bed,' Imré suggested.

Madeleine joined us.

‘In my view, he's not going to come now. It's kind of you to have tidied up, in any case. Drinks are on the house.'

I stayed with Igor, who was not giving up hope: ‘Something unexpected must have happened. Rehearsals can take ages. He'll turn up.'

We had not found ourselves together in a long time

‘How are the studies going?'

‘They seem to be all right.'

‘And your girlfriend?'

‘We can't see each other on Sundays. She stays with her family.'

‘Put yourself in her parents' position. They work during the week. If they don't make the most of their children on Sundays, they'll never ever see them.'

‘How long will it go on? She's not going to spend her life with them.'

‘You young people, you're all the same.'

‘May I ask you something? Why are you like that with Sacha?'

‘It's ancient history. Don't involve yourself. He doesn't deserve the slightest attention… Shall we still wait for him or not?'

‘Supposing he arrives and there's no one here to greet him, what would he think?'

‘You're right. We'll wait for him. Artists turn up when it suits them. He spoke to me as he would to a friend. He won't forget me. Do you know what his dream is?'

‘No.'

‘Do you promise not to talk to anyone about it? It's a secret he's entrusted to me. He wants to put on Prokofiev's
Romeo and Juliet
. Can you imagine? It's the most beautiful opera in the world. Do you know it?'

‘I'm not very well up in opera. My father adores Verdi and
Rigoletto
.'

‘Then he'll love it. Ask your parents to buy the record for you. ‘The Knights' Dance' is my favourite bit. You listen to it and you're transported to heaven. Do you know why Prokofiev is the Russians' favourite composer?'

‘Because he's talented.'

‘Not just that.'

‘He's composed great operas and beautiful music.'

‘That wouldn't have been enough.'

‘He's kind and generous.'

‘They're not virtues in our country.'

‘I give up, Igor.'

‘Prokofiev is adored in Russia because he killed Stalin.'

‘What?'

‘On 5 March 1953, they woke Stalin up to tell him about Prokofiev's death. The news devastated this man who had murdered millions of people, particularly since he had traumatized him, treated him badly and had humiliated him. For the first time in his life, Stalin felt remorse. He had a stroke and died that same day. Because of Prokofiev.'