The Incorrigible Optimists Club (51 page)

17

T
he countdown had begun. Thirty days to the
bac
. I wasn't bothered. I had not the slightest anxiety or doubt as to the outcome. Ever since I had moved to the literature stream, I had become good at maths. If I had had a teacher like Peretti beforehand, with his unique teaching methods, everything would have been different. He never made fun of anyone. He wasn't sarcastic, contemptuous, arrogant or irritating. When we had not understood something, we dared tell him so. He began again with a smile. He didn't mind. On the contrary, he liked it. He wasn't in a hurry. Camille, on the other hand, was worried sick. I tried to reason with her: ‘Did your clairvoyant say you were going to get through?'

‘Yes.'

‘If she says so, there's no need to worry. You'll pass. And if you don't, what will happen? Nothing. You'll repeat the year. You won't be the first. It's not a disaster.'

‘My father would be furious with me.'

‘This pressure you're under is ridiculous. He should be doing the opposite and putting you at your ease. I'm going to give him a piece of my mind.'

‘Don't, whatever you do! Please recite a poem for me.'

‘Right now I'd better be getting on with revising, don't you think? She smiled and nodded. I was exhausted. What sort of poet doesn't write poems? I thought I had got myself out of trouble, but every time I took up a pen and a sheet of paper, nothing happened – no outpouring. However much I tried to force myself, to shake my head, close my eyes, go for intensive sessions by the fountain and summon up my emotions, I remained dull and unproductive. I had almost come to the conclusion that my creativity was limited to this one poem. Once again, I was obliged to resort to Sacha's compositions, even though Camille found them gloomy and melancholy. I drifted around between ‘
la méprise'
and ‘
le mépris
', between
contempt and misunderstanding. I loathed myself for lying to her and deceiving her. After one last, useless attempt, I decided to come clean with her. Whatever the price might be.

We met as we did every evening at the Viennese patisserie in rue de l'Ecole de Médecine. I ordered two hot chocolates.

‘Camille, I've something important to say to you.'

‘So have I. I must talk to you.'

‘All right. Would you like me to begin?'

‘What I have to say to you is vitally important.'

I wondered what could be more serious than my lies. Her clairvoyant must have told her about the arrival of another comet.

‘I'm listening.'

She didn't speak. Her eyes were cast down. She looked as though she had a weight on her mind and didn't know how to get rid of it. I began to feel anxious.

‘I haven't told you the truth, Michel.'

She stopped. I dug my fingers into the bench. I was prepared for the worst. I would never have believed it possible. It had to be faced. There was somebody else.

‘I've got two bits of bad news.'

‘Why don't we go outside. It's hot.'

We made our way towards the Seine. We walked along the riverbank and sat down on a bench. She must have been searching for the appropriate words, rather like a doctor who tells you that you're going to die soon, that it's sad and you need to be brave.

‘I didn't mention it because I didn't think it would become an issue between us…. I'm Jewish.'

‘That's not bad news.'

‘It is in my family.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Things are not possible between us, Michel.'

‘Because you're Jewish? I couldn't care less. We're not very religious at home.'

‘In our home, it's the opposite.'

‘We're not in the Middle Ages any longer.'

‘You don't know my family.'

‘We get along well together. We're taking the
bac
. You're the first girl I've met who means something to me. You're not obliged to talk to your parents about it. We can wait and see how it works out.'

‘We won't see a thing, Michel. In July, we're leaving France.'

‘What?'

‘We're emigrating to Israel.'

‘I don't believe it.'

‘They don't like it here. My father says that our place is over there. They're waiting for us to pass our
bac
. It's really bad news. That's why I just wanted us to be friends.'

‘You're not obliged to go there. They can't force you.'

‘I'm a minor, Michel.'

‘You've got family here. You can say you have to do your studies in France. You can live at one of your uncle's homes. You can go and see your parents during the holidays.'

‘The whole family is leaving together. The tickets are booked.'

‘What if you failed your
bac
? Nobody is sure of passing. That way, you'd be here for another year.'

‘I want to pass for my parents' sake. It's a dream they've had for a long time. Before I knew you, I was happy to go there. A new land at last, where everything is possible. Living in a kibbutz: doing away with property, social classes, salaries, removing the children from the family dwelling, working for the community, taking decisions together. You should understand.'

‘They're bloody stupid ideas! They'll never work!'

‘It's best we don't see one another any more, Michel.'

‘What?'

‘It would be best for us to stop. I don't want… I don't want to…'

‘You should have said you were leaving right away! We could have broken up immediately!'

‘I wanted us to be friends, nothing more.'

‘I couldn't give a damn about your friendship! I believed in us.'

‘I didn't want there to be any complications between us. It's your fault.'

‘Oh really? And what did I do? Eh? Can you tell me that?'

‘I hadn't anticipated that I would meet a poet.'

She started to gasp for breath and began crying. She stood up. She ran away. I tried to order my thoughts. Everything was in turmoil inside my head. She had got it wrong. It was a misunderstanding, a mistake, an error. I felt washed out. I stood up and I yelled: ‘I'm not a poet! Do you understand? I'm not a poet!'

She was a long way off. She couldn't have heard.

I began talking to myself. Kicking out at invisible enemies. I cursed the Jews, the kibbutz dwellers, socialism, comets, poets and women. I wanted to scream. A pleasure boat crammed full of tourists went by. They were taking photographs. I yelled insults at them. They didn't understand. They laughed and waved. I swore to myself that I would change and that I would never be trapped again.

It was the last day of fine weather. A depression emanating from the Arctic took us back into winter. The sky was dark. The rain poured down. This weather suited me perfectly.

18

I
t all came back to me. Pins and needles all over the body. Lungs gasping for air. I found Pierre's old shorts and his PUC rugby shirt. I went back to the Luxembourg and it wasn't in order to swoon in front of that wretched fountain. I started to run again. For the first few days, I hitched on to a group of firemen who were doing their training. I found it hard to keep up, but I made it a point of honour to match them stride for stride. And then I left them all behind me. I completed the circuits at a steady pace, and as soon as I saw one of the firemen, I accelerated to overtake him. What with the rain, the muddy track looked like a swimming pool. I loved the drumming sound, this thud of footsteps on the drenched earth. I kept smashing my previous record. I no longer counted the circuits. I would run for two hours without pausing, stopping at closing time or at the point of exhaustion, when my pulse was thumping in my temples at top speed, and my legs were starting to wobble.

I went home soaked to the skin. I replied in onomatopoeic grunts. I took a boiling hot shower and shut myself in my bedroom. Juliette would sometimes come and sit on my bed. She talked about this and that and she didn't ask a single question about Camille. But I never stopped thinking of her. It's not easy to reason with oneself. You can't control your own brain. More than once, I wanted to go along to the Lycée Fénelon to set eyes on her, to talk. But I decided against it. It would be pointless. You can't change the way things are or force the hand of fate. When it became unbearable, I accelerated until I was out of breath. There's an actual moment when your mind eventually gives up and leaves you in peace. Can you have a heart attack aged seventeen? The more I exerted myself, the more I thought of her. I wept for her as I ran. There was no need to hide away. No one can tell the difference between tears and raindrops. How many circuits did I need to do in order to forget?

*

I was bent double. My lungs were bursting. I had a stitch in my side, and I was panting and spitting, trying to get my breath back. It was drizzling. Anyone would think it was November, rather than June. I was by the deserted tennis courts. I straightened up. There she was. In front of me.

‘What are you doing there?'

‘I was looking for you.'

‘What's happened?'

‘Listen… ever since the other day… I've… I…'

Her clothes and her hair were dripping wet, she looked strained and her eyes were red. Her lower lip was quivering.

‘Michel, I can't bear it any longer.'

‘Things aren't too good with me either, let me tell you.'

‘Michel… let's run away.'

I didn't understand what she meant. I opened my mouth to say ‘What?' but no sound emerged.

‘Let's leave immediately. Both of us.'

‘Where would we go?'

‘Doesn't matter. Far away.'

‘Where are you thinking of?'

‘To a country where no one will find us, where no one will look for us.'

‘A country like that doesn't exist.'

‘To India. America. To the end of the world.'

‘Do you mean: go away for ever?'

‘Yes. That's right. We'll never come back.'

‘I don't know what to say.'

‘We'll always be together. Don't you want to?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘Then let's go.'

‘Camille, it's not possible. There's the
bac
. Next week.'

‘It'll be too late. I won't be able to. I won't have the guts. We have to go now.'

‘People do that in dreams. Not in reality.'

‘If you love me, Michel, take me away. Don't let me go there.'

‘Running away on a sudden impulse is not a good idea.'

‘Let's go to your grandfather's house, in Italy. You told me he was—'

‘We're minors. We'd be stopped at the border! We don't have enough money to buy tickets.'

‘We can try hitch-hiking. Some people go round the world like that.'

‘Let's take the
bac
. That's the important thing, for you and for me. Afterwards, we'll find a solution, in our own time.'

‘So, it's not possible?'

‘I don't think so.'

She nodded several times, as though to let the notion sink in. I wanted to take her hand. She withdrew it.

‘You mustn't—'

‘I was joking, Michel. It was just to see what you said.'

‘I'm going to see you home.'

She shook her head and walked away.

‘Camille, we'll think about it.'

They say that good fortune only knocks once and that when she knocks you have to seize her. Afterwards, it's too late. She's gone elsewhere and won't come back. Only amnesiacs have no regrets. I've thought about this scene a million times. Each time, I've come to the same conclusion: I was a complete idiot. A coward. A man with no ambition. I belonged to the category of those who stood on the quayside and watched the ships depart. You need courage to go away. What had she thought of me? Where would we be now if I had said yes? In which African country? In Aden? In Pondicherry? In the Marquesas? In deepest Montana? It is in the heat of adventure that a rebel's strength is measured.

I needed to talk to Sacha, to ask his advice and get him to make me feel better. At Fotorama, the owner told me that he was ill. A bad bout of flu. What with this lousy weather, it was hardly surprising. I went to his place. I hadn't been back there for almost a year. I had forgotten that the service staircase was so filthy, with its crumbling steps, its blistered walls and its dangling electric wires. On the top floor, one out of every two light bulbs was missing. I no longer knew which his door was. I assumed it was the one with no name. I knocked a few times. I heard his voice inside: ‘What is it?'

‘It's me, Sacha. It's Michel.'

After a minute, the door was unbolted. In the crack, I could glimpse Sacha's eye.

‘Are you alone?'

‘Yes.'

He opened the door. He was wearing nothing but a blue woollen dressing gown. He looked like death warmed up, his hair was dishevelled and he had a week's growth of beard. He glanced left and right down the corridor.

‘What do you want?'

‘I came to see how you were getting on.'

‘You're the only person in Paris who remembers my existence. Would you like to come in?'

He stood back. I walked into the servant's room. He shut the door and bolted it. He was shaken by a fit of coughing. The ashtray was full of cigarette butts. A standard lamp cast a pale glimmer and a book in Russian lay on the small table beside the unmade bed. There were patches of damp on the walls.

‘It's freezing cold!'

‘That's why I caught this lousy cold. The landlord doesn't want to switch on the heating in June.'

‘You should have a little radiator.'

‘Yes, I should.'

‘I think there's one at home. I'll go and get it for you.'

‘It's not worth the trouble. The bad weather won't last. Would you do something for me, Michel?'

‘Of course, Sacha.'

‘It would be good if you could get some medicine for me. I haven't the strength to go downstairs. Something for bronchitis and a cough. Something strong.'

‘I'll ring your doctor.'

‘I don't have one! Ask the man at the chemist's in place Monge, the one with a brush cut and an English scarf. Tell him it's for me; he knows me. Thanks to me, you'll meet an unusual person. A chemist who gives credit!'

‘Would you like me to do some shopping? I could call in at the grocer's shop. I think you've got thinner. You must get your strength back.'

‘I'm not very hungry. It's kind of you, Michel. Really.'

Given the condition he was in, I didn't want to bother him with my problems. I called by at home. They had switched on the central heating in our apartment. We had an oil-filled electric radiator lying around in a cupboard, which was never used. I was careful. Nobody noticed me taking it out of the flat. I pushed it down the street on its wheels. The chemist on the square gave me a bag of medicines and wrote the dosage on the packets. He jotted down the total in a notebook. I bought apples, some ham and some gruyère cheese at the grocery shop. I had a hard time taking the radiator up to the seventh floor. We plugged it in. The temperature rose rapidly. The feeling of being inside an ice box vanished.

‘It's going to use a lot of electricity,' I told him.

‘Don't worry about that.'

He told me he had made a minute hole in the electricity meter, no bigger than the head of a needle. Through it, he had threaded an unfolded paperclip that blocked the motion of the serrated wheel.

‘My neighbour showed me how. They all do it upstairs. In Russia, we would never have dared. It's fraud. It's not the same here. We remove the paperclip a week before the official from Electricité de France is due so the meter works a bit. Apparently the man knows, but he doesn't say anything. Tell me, have you taken some good photos of Camille?'

‘At the moment we're getting ready for the
bac
. You should take your medicine and you must stop smoking.'

‘That's what I forgot to ask you for. Some cigarettes.'

The next day, the central heating in our building broke down. The temperature dropped to fourteen degrees. The oil-filled radiator had disappeared from the cupboard.

‘It can't just have vanished into thin air!' my mother exclaimed suspiciously.

‘It was there last week. I'm sure of it,' Maria protested.

‘I find that strange.'

‘I swear to you, Madame.'

‘Michel, did you touch the radiator?'

‘What do you expect me to do with it?' I objected, with obvious sincerity.

The puzzle of the vanishing radiator preoccupied us for weeks. My mother showed the family the cupboard where it was supposed to be kept. We searched for it everywhere. We asked the neighbours and the concierge. She suspected my father of having sneaked in and taken it away to the chilly part of the countryside where he lived. There are mysteries that give rise to incomprehension and fuel discussions and controversies such as the abominable snowman, the Loch Ness monster, or flying saucers. But there are no such things as mysteries. Simply liars, two-faced bastards and idiots.

‘I'd like a bit of warmth!' I moaned. ‘It's incredible how freezing it is in this place. Anyone would think we were in Siberia. It's impossible to work. Don't be surprised if I fail my
bac
!'