The Incorrigible Optimists Club (8 page)

11

T
he end of the year was gloomy and Paris imprisoned beneath grey skies and freezing weather. For the first time, we did not celebrate Christmas with the family. Something that held us together had become loosened. Franck, who was training to join the school of reserve officers, had been called up for a month. He was traipsing around in the snow in deepest Germany. Wild and contradictory rumours were circulating about Algeria. Grandfather Philippe had decided to go there himself to make up his mind. People said that the newspapers were all corrupt and that you could not trust any of them, apart from
L'Aurore
, and even that was unreliable. Despite being busy at the shop, my mother went with him, glad to be with her beloved brother again and to make the most of a bit of blue sky. Juliette joined them. I did not want to go. I made the excuse that I was behind with school work.

‘As you wish,' my mother said, without dwelling on the matter.

My father and I stayed at home like two bachelors. I looked after him, did the shopping and went to pick him up every evening from avenue des Gobelins where he kept an eye on the enormous building site that was going to affect the family business drastically. I would go with him to a little café in rue des Fossés-Saint-Jacques that he used to patronize. He would meet his mates for a game of tarot in the back room. To begin with, I found it hard to understand the rules. Suddenly, it all became clear. I was sitting behind him, and when he hesitated about what he ought to do, he looked at me questioningly to find out whether he should attempt a ‘take' or a ‘guard' and whether he should push the ‘small' to the end. The unpleasant comments of his partners didn't bother him: ‘At the Marinis, we play as a family.'

Together, we won frequently. Afterwards, we would go out. He loved Chinese food. Every evening, we used to go to a little restaurant in rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

For the first time, we skipped Christmas Mass at Saint-Etienne-du-Mont because it was so cold that the square outside the Panthéon had turned into a skating-rink. We spent the evening in front of the television, stuffing ourselves with Grand Marnier-flavoured Yule log, chocolates from Murat's and marrons glacés, and bursting out laughing whenever we imagined the people we knew in the neighbourhood who were going to get frozen stiff as they emerged from Midnight Mass. It's not very Christian to speak badly about good Christians, but it's fun.

‘We'll have to tell your mother that we did go. We stayed at the back of the church, the congregation was so big.'

‘Why not the truth?'

‘It'll avoid arguments.'

‘We can say that I was ill and that you were looking after me. There's a flu epidemic.'

Before Christmas, my father had given himself the very finest of presents: a Citroën DS19 Prestige. He had been talking about it for a year. My mother did not want one and preferred a sturdy 403, but he disregarded the maternal veto. One evening, he announced quite casually that he had bought it.

‘That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be.'

He had pulled out all the stops in order to have the delivery speeded up and he had managed to get it three months early. We went to collect the car from the dealers on boulevard Arago. At the ceremony of the handing-over of the keys, one might wonder whether the word ‘car' was appropriate. Priests celebrating the holy sacraments could not have behaved more ostentatiously. The car was a gleaming black, as shiny as a mirror, feline and alive. We walked around it, trying to absorb the fact that it was ours, not daring to touch it. The manager of the showroom explained to my father how everything worked. Papa made him go through everything several times and he repeated all the instructions so as to get them into his head. There were buttons everywhere, a stereo radio and cushions that were as comfortable as armchairs. To start with it was rather heavy going. My father had difficulties with the gear lever on
the dashboard behind the steering wheel. The car moved forward in jerks like a horse that rears up and won't allow itself to be mounted. My father kept stalling it and grew irritable. And then, he got the hang of it and the DS was off. The car drove itself, accelerated, braked, overtook. All you had to do was let it go. We set off along the outer boulevards. People turned round to watch it go by. We took the motorway at porte d'Italie and the DS flew along, free as a bird in the sky. No other car put up any resistance. She gobbled them up like mosquitoes. My father was the happiest man in the world. He began making fun of Grandfather Phillipe, adopting the cheeky, mocking accent of Jean Gabin, whom he imitated wonderfully. I burst out laughing, and the more I laughed, the more he carried on. I was given the full repertory of Pierre Fresnay, Michel Simon and Tino Rossi. I had tears in my eyes. He switched on the radio. We were treated to a Brassens song. We took up the chorus:

On Christmas evening, my father had arranged a surprise for me. He took me to the Opéra de Paris. Since he had only had the idea at the last moment, he had paid a fortune for tickets at an agency. He dressed up for the occasion, and when I arrived in my creased suit, he looked at me in bewilderment.

‘Haven't you got anything else to put on? We're going to the Opéra.'

‘It's all I've got.'

‘I'm going to tell your mother to buy you some things. Come on, we're going to be late.'

We found ourselves in the upper circle, at the side. Despite his protests, I let him sit in the proper seat. I took the folding one. You had to dislocate your neck to get a view of the stage. The Opéra was packed, the women in evening gowns and the men in dinner jackets. He was excited. Even the programme was exorbitant.

‘Your grandfather would have given anything to see
Rigoletto
.'

When the lights were dimmed, there was some coughing. The orchestra
started to play. The music was beautiful. Nothing happened. We waited in the dark before the curtain rose on the ducal palace at Mantua. Had I not read the programme I wouldn't have known what was going on. They sang in Italian. The audience appeared to understand what they were saying. My father was ecstatic and drank in the words. I watched him humming along with the Duke. In the darkness, I couldn't read the programme. I was bored to death. It was interminable.

‘Tell me, Papa, is it much longer?'

‘Make the most of it, my boy, make the most of it. Look, it's going to be marvellous.'

The problem was that I didn't know what I should be making the most of. I was confused by the characters who stood there like turnips, listening to the singing, and who then carried on themselves, with great fervour, for hours. I wriggled about in my seat, as if I had ants in my pants. ‘Sssh,' hissed the woman next to me in an aggressive voice. My father leaned over to me and whispered in my ear: ‘Close your eyes, Michel. Listen. Let yourself go with the music.'

He was right. It was better with your eyes closed. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the DS, being driven along, without knowing how I had ended up there.

‘Did you enjoy it?'

‘Oh, yes, very much. A bit long perhaps. Especially the end.'

‘For me, it could have gone on all night.'

For New Year's Day, we had planned to go to Lens, to Grandfather Enzo's house, but two days beforehand, he cancelled. Grandmother Jeanne was tired and had to rest. My father felt thwarted. It wasn't just that his mother was unwell. He was longing to show off the DS to his father and he had marked out the route we would take. He had planned to have drinks with his old friends in the area. He felt piqued to be left in the lurch. When my father's elder brother Baptiste telephoned, I was the one who answered, convinced it was my mother. I was surprised. He never rang up. My father and he did not get on. Caught unawares, my father accepted his invitation without thinking. One of them must have felt obliged to make
a gesture, and the other to accept it. There was a year's difference in age, but Baptiste gave the impression of being older. When you saw them side by side, you would never imagine they could be brothers, so different were they. My father had bought toys for his nephews and a fine briar pipe for his brother. My uncle had not bought anything and reproached my father for showing him up. He had not wanted any presents and he refused to allow his children to open them.

‘Should have warned me earlier. I would have bought some presents. You didn't say anything to me.'

My father kept a low profile. My cousins were dying to open the parcels and were awaiting paternal authorization.

‘Baptiste, we're not going to get all worked up on a day like this.'

‘Paul, you know I'm not well off. You wanted to upset me.'

‘It was for the children. You can't refuse my presents.'

‘You're making our lives a misery with your presents. We don't need them. What are you trying to prove, that you're rich? OK, you win. I reckon you've got a big problem with money.'

‘You're talking rubbish!'

‘You've forgotten where you come from, Paul, that's your problem.'

‘I move with the times. I make the most out of life and I try to help my family to do so. I want people to be happy. What's wrong with that?'

‘You've gone over to the other side! You're a bourgeois!'

My father reddened. He clenched his fists. I thought he was going to hit him.

‘To be the right sort of guy, you've got to earn a shitty salary, get bored to death in a lousy job and—'

He didn't finish his sentence. There was a strange smell. While they were quibbling, the turkey had continued to cook. Black smoke brought us back to reality. My father rushed over to the window to air the room. Baptiste burned himself getting the dish out of the oven. The bird was completely charred. The scorched chestnuts looked like jacks from a game of pétanque. By digging away at the ribs, Baptiste pulled out slivers that were grey and inedible.

‘If you had accepted these gifts without making a fuss about everything,
we would have eaten in peace. I'm sick and tired of your petty preaching. You're suffocating us!'

‘If you had remained like us, nothing would have happened.'

My father was chewing a recalcitrant chestnut. He spat it out onto the plate.

‘I haven't changed! It's the world that is changing. Are you incapable of understanding that with your tiny commie brain? That's it, I've had enough, we're leaving!'

He stood up, threw his napkin on the table, picked up his coat from the chair and went out without turning round. Baptiste rushed over and caught him by the arm.

‘Wait, Paulo, I'm going to make some spaghetti.'

‘Don't ever call me Paulo again! Do you hear? My name is Paul! Paulo is finished! You've spoiled my appetite! If you don't want the presents for the kids, throw them in the dustbin! This is the last time I set foot in your place.'

He left the flat in a fury. I followed close behind him. Baptiste pursued us down the stairs, the cousins behind him.

‘Come on, Paul, don't be like this.'

My father was not listening. We caught up with one another in the street. He was walking ahead very quickly. I pulled on his sleeve to restrain him. Behind us, Baptiste was trying to make amends, but to no avail. My father was searching for his car keys and couldn't open the door.

‘What is this banger?'

‘It would have given me pleasure to show it to you, and now I'm ashamed to.'

‘Do you know how long I would have needed to work in order to buy myself a car like that? Five years, at least.'

‘For me, it took three months. That's the difference between us. And if you saw the shop that I'm in the process of doing up, you'd die of jealousy.'

We climbed in. He slammed the door shut. He drove off, drew level with Baptiste, wound down the window and yelled at him: ‘This is no banger, it's a DS. If you're not capable of understanding that, you'll stay a bloody prole for ever!'

He set off at full tilt. My father was driving very fast. He did not seem very happy. We went to have lunch at the Chinese in rue Monsieur-le-Prince. Throughout the meal, he never spoke. When we were finished, he asked me: ‘Michel, was I wrong?'

‘The cousins loved the presents.'

‘Poor kids, Baptiste has always been a killjoy. I'm beginning to understand a lot of things.'

‘What about?'

‘Old stories. Best not to talk about them.'

‘Tell me.'

‘When you're grown up. By the way, what do you want to do later on? The future lies in television and household appliances. Think about it.'

One evening, Baptiste telephoned to wish him a happy birthday. When Juliette tried to hand the phone over to him, my father said in a loud voice so that he could be heard: ‘Tell him I'm not here. There's no point in him calling back.'

He did not invite him to the opening of the shop. They did not see one another again until the day of my grandmother's funeral and even then, they avoided one another.

12

I
didn't want to leave Paris. I just wanted to be with Cécile whom Franck had deserted to become an officer. Since she was on her own, I suggested she come to have dinner with us. She didn't want to meet my father. I insisted, but she refused to make her relationship with Franck official. She preferred to work on her thesis, which she wanted to submit the following year. She didn't mind solitude, quite the contrary. She liked to spend entire days without setting foot outside. I went shopping for her, bought her milk, instant coffee, gruyère, gingerbread, apples and chocolate. I don't know how she managed to eat so much without feeling ill. I tried to make her go out and suggested going to the cinema. But it was cold outside and she didn't want to budge from her home. She gave me a bunch of keys, but I didn't like to use them. I avoided coming round too early. Often, I would ring the bell for ages. She would appear at the door half asleep, dressed in one of Pierre's white woollen, cable-stitch sweaters that came down to the middle of her thighs, wrapped in a rug.

‘What time is it, little bro'?'

‘Eleven o'clock.'

‘It's not possible!'

She took a shower while I prepared her breakfast. She gulped down endless cups of café au lait throughout the day. Every evening, she wrote me a little list of the things she needed; she gave me money for them and refused to accept any change. She felt the cold, so we would make up a log fire and spend our afternoons in the vast drawing-cum-dining room that overlooked the Palais de Justice. From time to time, she would give me a book and urgently demand to know what I thought of it. When I talked to her about it two or three days later, she no longer remembered or hadn't the time. I spent a lot of time slumped in the armchair, reading. As soon as there was a glimmer of sunshine, Cécile had to get out. We would go for a walk. She searched the bookstalls for the rare bargain, for a book no one
had heard of. We talked as we paced up and down the banks of the Seine or did the full circuit of the Luxembourg. The park drew her like a magnet. We sat beneath the plane trees by the Médicis fountain. That was her spot, the place where she liked to hide away and work. We looked for somewhere out of the way, by the pool, and preferably on the right so as to catch the sun. For her, it was by far the most beautiful monument in Paris. She could spend a long time there, peering at it as if it held a hidden secret. For me, it was a pretty fountain. She murmured in a dreamy voice: ‘This fountain is an impossible dream made up of water, stone and light. It serves no purpose except to please the eyes. You can walk past it without noticing it. As soon as you spot it, you are captivated. It's a Florentine goddess who casts her spells and enthrals you. Her proportions are ideal, her perspective perfect. She makes you romantic, even if you are not. Observe Acis and Galatea, the separated lovers, never to be reunited. It's a landmark for lovers and poets, the guardian of secrets and the witness of eternal vows. One day you will bring the person you love here and you will recite a poem to her.'

‘I'd be surprised.'

‘It would be a pity if you didn't come.'

‘You're not going to tell me that Franck recited a poem to you?'

In response she gave me an enigmatic look.

‘He wrote one for you? No, I don't believe you. Not Franck.'

‘Don't forget. This fountain has a power. It makes us better people.'

I took photographs of the fountain. From close up, from afar; details; columns; carvings. I took a considerable number. It cost me a fortune. All for nothing. I wasn't able to capture the view of the pond, which was blurred without my realizing why.

She read piles of books for her thesis and she took notes. Sometimes we spent a whole day, each of us in our corner, without speaking to one another. I spent a great deal of time observing her work, scrutinizing her every movement. As soon as she stirred, I dived into my book. I tried to imagine what she was reading, what she was thinking, what she was going to write. She was capable of spending an afternoon with her nose stuck in her photocopied notes. Occasionally, she would glance up, deep in thought, appear to notice me then smile at me.

‘Supposing we made ourselves a café au lait?'

Each day she waited impatiently for the postman. I had a key to her mailbox and checking it was the first thing I did every morning. Was there a letter? Pierre wrote once a week. In one month, Franck had sent a black-and-white postcard from Mayence on the Rhine, with ‘Love, Franck' on the back.

‘You wouldn't say he's over-exerting himself.'

‘Franck hates writing.'

She concealed her anxiety behind a smile.

‘What if we did a bit of maths today?'

‘Do you think we should?'

We immersed ourselves in
The Principles of Algebra and Geometry
. We tried to do the exercises. This pair of torturers had boundless imagination and Cécile had particular requirements. Among the pile of possible exercises, she chose one involving a cyclist.

‘We'll feel as though we're in the countryside.'

‘I didn't think you liked the countryside.'

‘It would be more fun, wouldn't it? The leaking bathtubs, that's depressing, and the trains that pass one another, there's no point unless you work for the rail company. You'll see, it's easy: “A cyclist sets out on a journey consisting of 36 km over flat ground, 24 of them uphill and 48 downhill. When he is climbing, his hourly speed decreases by 12 km an hour; on the descents, it increases by 15 km an hour. Knowing that the length of the journey over flat ground is one third of the total duration of the trip and that the circumference of the wheel is 83 cm: 1) find out the hourly speed of the cyclist over flat ground; 2) what is the total duration of the trip, the average speed achieved and the number of times the wheels revolve.”'

We were in a slight panic. We weren't told the age of the cyclist, nor the time of his departure, nor whether he had a three-speed or pedalled on the downhill bits.

‘Perhaps if we took a Michelin map, it would be easier.'

We both worked away, lined up the numbers, thought hard, and weighed up the pros and the cons. We agreed about the method. We
were pleased. This cyclist was not going to give us any difficulty. We were going to win our bet and become wizards at maths. Cécile left the multiplication and division to me. I'm good at calculations. I worked out the numbers easily.

‘He's travelling at… 4645 km per hour!'

‘You must have forgotten to divide by a hundred. There must be a rule of three method somewhere.'

We searched. We didn't find it. We started again. We arrived at the same result. She wanted to do the calculations once more. She came up with 4316 km per hour. I suggested to Cécile that we should bring the decimal point forward. She refused. I didn't see the point in persisting with the same mistake. It seemed that this wretched cyclist was pedalling at 46.45 km per hour even when he was climbing, which demonstrated his exceptional athletic abilities and a certain mathematical perversity.

‘No one will know.'

‘I'll know!'

‘The important thing is the result.'

‘The important thing is to work it out properly!'

‘They're the same thing.'

‘They're the very opposite!'

I couldn't see the difference. As far as she was concerned, there was just one way and it had to measure up. Cécile seemed worried.

‘That's where there's this barrier between men and women, do you see, little bro'. We don't reason in the same way.'

Traditional processes having shown up their limitations, Cécile decided to experiment on me with a new teaching method which would revolutionize education and transform idiots like me into mathematical geniuses. She developed a personal theory of learning mathematics based not on reflection and progression, but on analytical memory and subconscious work. We had to allow our intelligence to work in its own way. If mathematics were logical, there must be a different approach to it that would pass through the subconscious. We needed to find the right path. Cécile based her ideas on an American study on learning languages while you sleep, in which a tape recorder repeated sentences that fixed
themselves in the recesses of the memory. One ought to be able to do the same with mathematics. I made her read aloud from the book, which she learnt by heart as if she were reciting it. After several readings, it was my turn. And so we went on. We ended up learning the theorems mechanically like a calculus table. I have to admit that, in part, it worked. My maths teacher, the ghastly Lachaume, would have been amazed to hear me casually describing: ‘The product of the symmetry in relation to a figure P and the symmetry in relation to a point O of this figure is the symmetry in relation to the straight line D perpendicular in O to figure P.'

But basically, this method produced no results. Cécile maintained that our subconscious was blocked, which frequently happens, and that education could be reduced to the basics of plumbing, which consists of unblocking obstructed canals. But after a few weeks of repeating the same things, we had to face up to the facts: the method was useless. This did not mean to say that it was wrong, it might eventually have succeeded with other people, but rather that mathematics, and any method derived from psychoanalysis for learning maths, was a closed book to me. She was insistent, convinced that we needed time for our subconscious to appropriate the theorems and that they would re-emerge sooner or later like a resurgence or a bright flash. But nothing was ever triggered nor was any connection made. After two weeks, even though I deluded myself by being able to recite my maths book by heart, I was downright incapable of doing an exercise. Worse, and incomprehensibly, the speed of the cyclist had risen from 4645 to 4817 km per hour! We started again. But now he was going along at 4817 km per hour. We spent a long time searching for the doorway to psychological mathematics. We did not find it. Cécile, who was so convinced by this method, felt piqued. I comforted her as best I could, though I never was much good at comforting. Psychology has nothing to do with mathematics, any more than faith can move mountains.

‘You must have a problem with your father, no?'

‘We get along fine.'

‘Mathematics represents authority. When people have a blockage in maths, it's because they have a problem with their father and with authority.'

I tried to fix this reasoning firmly in my mind, but the more I thought about it, the less clear it became.

‘At home, it tends to be my mother who represents authority.'

‘You mean she's the one who wears the trousers?'

‘My father isn't someone who's authoritarian. She's the one in charge. He couldn't care less. Quite the opposite: for him the important thing in life is to make the most of it. He tells jokes, he smiles and he can sell anything. If what you say is true, I shouldn't have any problems with maths.'

‘Have you got problems with your mother?'

‘Things haven't been great for some time.'

‘She represents authority instead of your father. She has substituted herself in his image. That's why you are blocked. You'd do better to choose a creative path. What would suit you?'

‘Maybe a photographer. When did you know what you wanted to do?'

She did not answer. She remained silent. She screwed up her eyes as though she were searching her memory.

‘I don't know.'

‘It's not bad being a teacher.'

‘All of a sudden, it bothers me. Can you imagine, little bro', an entire life confronted with idiots like us? You bust your guts for them and they loathe you.'

‘It's strange, on Sunday my father asked me the same question. He wants me to go to business school. He says the future is in household goods.'

‘How awful! No one can enjoy selling baths and washing machines.'

‘He earns a lot of money.'

‘Is that what you want?… I can't believe it, Michel! Not you!'

The following day, Cécile told me that she was stopping her studies. She couldn't see herself being a literature teacher all her life.

‘Psychology studies, perhaps.'

I wasn't sure whether that would be a good idea. I said nothing.

‘It's thanks to you, little bro'.'

‘What have I done?'

‘It's because we talked to one another. You're the only person I really speak to.'

‘And to Franck?'

She looked at me with that sad smile that did something to me and she shrugged her shoulders as though nothing were of any importance. Then her expression altered. In a flash, that bitterness had disappeared and she was radiant.

‘Cécile, may I take your photo?'

‘If you like. You don't know how relieved I am not to be dragging around that thesis any longer.'

‘You seemed to believe in it.'

‘My supervisor is a communist and wants to please Aragon, whom he bumps into from time to time. Had he supported Maréchal Pétain, he would have suggested I did Claudel. It's literature I love, not teaching. One has to have a vocation and I don't have one.'

Then she received a card from Franck, still on the Rhine at Mayence, who in his telegraphic style announced that he would be returning home shortly. There was also a long letter from Pierre. She unsealed the flap of the envelope without tearing it and carefully removed the two sheets of paper. I could hear Pierre's voice as I watched her lips:

My dear Cécile,

We've not heard or seen a fellagha for two weeks now. Our detection and interception system is so efficient that we stop virtually a hundred per cent of the attempts at break-in. They go along the coast or via Tébassa, further north, but with us and in the Souk-Ahras region, it's quiet. We've had one wounded, a stupid fellow who fell from a roof trying to connect a radio mast. Our main job consists of removing the mines in the area around the Challe line. We find two or three mines occasionally. However much we suffocate ourselves, that is to say keep ourselves hidden for two days at a stretch, we never manage to catch the fellaghas. Obviously, they avoid us like the plague. When they fire at us, it's from so far away that we're not aware of it. We don't complain. We prefer to be here than trying to maintain order in Algiers or in Oran. If the government gave us permission to cross the frontier, we would already have made mincemeat of them. They're on the other side,
facing us, and they know we're not allowed to go after them. We feel as if we're tucked away behind our barbed wire fences and our watchtowers when in actual fact we're hemmed in by a frontier, by a simple line in the desert, which separates us from Tunisia where they calmly go and take refuge. These guys are cowards, capable of torturing and murdering defenceless farmers or peasants. As soon as they see us, they scuttle away like rabbits. We used to say that with the arrival of De Gaulle, it would change, that we would set about them and crush them like flies once and for all, but nothing happens. Nobody understands anything.