French Rhapsody

by Antoine Laurain

  ‘You’d like the government to be made up of businessmen?’ JBM asked, smiling awkwardly. ‘I can’t see the French getting behind that idea.’

  ‘You’re trying to dodge the question, but seriously, I mean, who is François Larnier? He went to the École Nationale d’Administration, and then what? He’s a member of parliament and leader of his party; he’s only been a minister once, fifteen years ago; but really, take him out of the political machine, take him away from his constituents, and who is he? What does he know about the world we live in?’ Aurore raged. ‘He has thirty-five years in politics behind him; he should be thinking about retiring, but no, he’s going after the biggest job of his career. It’s unbelievable when you think about it! And he doesn’t even speak English.’

  In the Land of Smiles

  ‘You must boost your intestinal flora,’ Alain had just told his patient who was nodding seriously, when Maryam knocked.

  ‘Come in!’

  Maryam popped her head round the door. ‘Monsieur Lejeune is here.’

  ‘Perfect. Ask him to wait; I’ll see him in five minutes.’

  That’s what Alain had suggested. That Frédéric should come to his consulting room when he arrived in France, make himself known to the receptionist and Alain would see him between two patients without him having to wait his turn in the waiting room.

  When he accompanied his gut patient to the door, Alain did not recognise the man sitting in the hall who rose as he appeared. Bald on top, with quite long grey-white hair on either side, like Léo Ferré, he wore little glasses with red plastic frames and a large puffa jacket. He looked like an old left-wing maths teacher. They shook hands. ‘Hi there,’ said Frédéric. As Alain greeted Lejeune, he studied his face, trying to find the features of the blond young man who had played the melody of ‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’ on the synthesiser. In vain. If he’d been waiting for the bus beside this fellow, he would never have recognised his old friend. I hope I haven’t aged as much as that, he thought, showing him into the surgery.

  ‘Good flight?’ Alain asked, just to say something.

  ‘Yes, I arrived yesterday. It’s been six years since I was last here. They’re always long, these flights, but I take sleeping pills and just sleep, so they go quickly.’

  Alain nodded. ‘You’re here for the week, is that it?’

  ‘Yes, to sell my parents’ apartment. I lost my parents ten years ago.’

  Alain considered it was a bit too late to offer condolences so instead he frowned sympathetically.

  ‘After they died, my sister and I had a tenant,’ Frédéric explained. ‘He was really reliable and stayed for five years, but when he left we had tenant after tenant and sometimes there was no one for months. My sister lives in Strasbourg, and I’m in Koh Samui, you see, so it was getting a bit complicated to manage.’ He paused for a moment, scratching his neck. ‘We decided to sell it last year. It’s taken us a year to find a buyer. Can you believe it? A year! And we didn’t get the price we wanted, even though it’s a great flat in a modern building with bay windows. The estate agent says it’s not easy to sell that kind of property, that people don’t want to live in those areas now. It’s true, La Garenne-Colombes does make you want to kill yourself. Thank goodness I don’t live in France any more! I tell you, everyone here looks miserable; everyone is unpleasant. I’m staying with my sister in a little hotel near Gare du Nord until the papers are signed for the sale. The receptionist is about as cheery as an undertaker and no one even offered to carry our bags. We went out for dinner in a brasserie, and it was €38 each just for an egg mayonnaise and a vile steak with soft fries. Honestly, that’s 230 francs, which is 1500 baht. For that amount at my hotel, you can have a marriage banquet! A whole fish, with drinks included, is 300 baht, €7.50, and it will be brought to your straw hut on the beach with a smile and a flower on the fish! Seriously, I tell you, you have to be mad to live here.’

  Alain nodded. He had no opinion on the matter, had never been to Thailand, nor anywhere else in Asia.

  ‘In Thailand, everyone smiles at you,’ Frédéric continued. ‘It’s known as the Land of Smiles, and there’s a reason for that. All the Thai people are so kind, but it’s difficult to imagine that here. Here everything is dirty and ugly, the streets are disgusting. Aren’t there any street cleaners in France or what? Or maybe people have become pigs … In Thailand you don’t drop things in the street like that; people have respect, respect for nature and for each other.’

  Alain listened calmly to this anti-France diatribe. Lejeune was expressing the view often held by those who have chosen to go and live somewhere hot (Morocco, Tunisia …) or else in the land of Asian Zen (Thailand, Bali …) He had a retired patient who had gone to live in Senegal with other French people who had grouped together in a sort of residential ghetto. He also raved about the good temper of the Senegalese and the blue skies.

  ‘Were you able to find the cassette?’ asked Alain, putting an end to the subject.

  ‘No,’ replied Frédéric. ‘I even went to the trouble of looking in my parents’ cellar for you yesterday, just in case, but I don’t have it any more – I must have thrown it away.’

  Alain nodded.

  ‘Do you still muck about on electric guitar?’ said Frédéric, suddenly animated.

  ‘No. I still have the Gibson at the back of a cupboard, but I don’t play it any more. And you?’

  ‘From time to time I get out the synthesiser in the evenings,’ replied Frédéric enthusiastically. ‘After dinner, I have guests who like to dance under the stars.’

  Alain pictured him dressed in a sarong, his bare feet in sandals, standing in front of a Bontempi organ playing old favourites like ‘My Way’ or ‘Petite Fleur’ as his French guests undulated under the Chinese lanterns. A pathetic image.

  ‘My son disappeared three months ago,’ Frédéric said suddenly. ‘He converted to Islam last year. Sometimes I wonder if he went to Syria, and one day I’ll see the little bugger’s photo on CNN with a beard and a Kalashnikov … I’m going to remarry, a Thai girl; I’ve been separated from my wife for two years. She went off with a guy from the embasssy.’

  Alain nodded again. He had no idea what to say to this person whom in fact he didn’t know at all and who did not have the Holograms cassette. ‘So why don’t you show me your boil?’

  Frédéric needed no second bidding to take his trousers down and show Alain the boil. The protuberance had indeed worsened.

  ‘Why do you want to listen to our songs again?’ Frédéric asked, his trousers round his ankles.

  ‘No particular reason. It’s for my children – they asked me – and because I remember our songs fondly. I’m going to give you some antibiotics and two different creams.’

  ‘You know, they can’t have been that good, our tracks, otherwise we would have had a response and a meeting with one of the record labels. Don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘And the others?’ asked Frédéric, sitting back down. ‘Do you have any news of them?’

  Alain looked at him. What good would it do to explain that France was wondering if JBM would be their next president and that his brother had staged The Death of Marat in his own shop window? ‘No news,’ he said, beginning to write out the prescription.

  Maybe it was Frédéric who had the right idea: rather than exhausting oneself for nothing over here, why not go and live in a beautiful country surrounded by lovely people?

  ‘What do I owe you?’ asked Frédéric, as he rose to leave.

  ‘Are you joking? Nothing, of course,’ replied Alain in a comradely tone. Then he accompanied him to the door. ‘Good luck, Frédéric, and look after that boil.’

  ‘Let me know if you’re ever in Koh Samui.’

  Alain was about to say that he would when Frédéric touched his arm and said with a knowing air, ‘We’re really looking our age now, aren’t we? Good to see you.’

  Alain was left speechless. Slo
wly Maryam looked up at him, but he had already gone back into his surgery and briskly closed the door.

  ‘The Black Billiard,’ said the voice.

  ‘Hello,’ replied Alain, ‘I’d like to speak to Sébastien Vaugan.’

  Silence on the other end. ‘And you are?’ the voice eventually asked condescendingly.

  Alain could well imagine the well-heeled young person, most likely from the Groupe Union Défense, who was patronising him as some unknown wanting to be put through to the boss, just like that, on the telephone.

  ‘If he’s there, tell him that Alain Massoulier would like to talk to him.’

  ‘Alain Massoulier,’ repeated the voice. ‘And you are what, a political journalist? Why are you calling?’

  Alain controlled himself but could not prevent himself from shooting back, ‘I am Alain Massoulier, an old mate of Sébastien Vaugan; we used to call him “Fat Séb” before he took up weights. Will that do?’

  There was silence again, until the voice said, ‘I’ll go and see if the Commander is free.’

  Alain heard the receiver being laid down. ‘Commander …’ he murmured.

  ‘Hey, Massoulier!’ cried Vaugan into the phone. ‘You coming for your glass of wine? Haven’t seen you for ages – what is it, four years? Five years?’

  ‘It’s six,’ Alain corrected him. He wasn’t likely to forget their last encounter in a hurry. Alain had been dining in a restaurant at a table with twenty other GPs. They were already on their main course, and the conversation was turning to the latest generic drugs, when Vaugan made his entrance to the brasserie, surrounded by ten of his men, shaven-headed in black polo necks and leather coats. ‘Look, it’s Vaugan,’ murmured one of the doctors, leaning towards his colleagues. Vaugan’s gaze swept the brasserie in imperious fashion before resting on Alain, who paled as he saw him approach, hand outstretched. ‘What a surprise. Are you well, my friend?’ The handshake had been firm and virile. ‘I’m fine and you …?’ Alain had muttered. ‘Really good, as usual. You’ll have to stop by one of these days and we’ll have a glass of wine together.’ ‘Yes, I’ll give you a ring,’ Alain murmured. Vaugan had taken his leave with an ‘Enjoy your meal, Messieurs,’ that sounded like a command, and gone to join his bodyguards at the far end of the restaurant. When Alain looked round, his colleagues were staring at him. ‘We … we were at school together, a long time ago,’ lied Alain in a tone he hoped was casual, and that seemed to satisfy the assembled company. ‘I seem destined to keep running into him about once every six years, totally by chance – don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it is.’ The matter was closed and the talk turned again to drugs.

  This time, it had again been six years, but it was Alain who was asking for the meeting.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I just wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘Something? That’s a bit vague.’

  ‘I could come and see you at your …’ Alain wasn’t sure what the correct word was … ‘Bar? Billiard academy? Headquarters?’

  ‘At my campaign HQ,’ supplied Vaugan proudly.

  ‘You’re running a campaign?’

  ‘Very soon. Everything is changing. Come whenever you like; I’ll tell my staff to let you in.’

  And he hung up.

  Roosevelt vs. Louis XV

  ‘An airport runway?’ suggested a young man with longish hair.

  ‘Too elitist, too cryptic,’ replied Domitile Kavanski.

  ‘Fields, vineyards, the countryside …’ threw in another man with a hipster look: huge beard, undercut, and tortoiseshell glasses.

  Domitile tutted irritably.

  ‘And a Romanesque church in the background perhaps?’ she asked. ‘You’re not getting it. That screams “Mitterrand”.’

  ‘How about the sea then?’ put in someone else.

  ‘No, the sea’s too scary, too big, too powerful.’

  Domitile sat back in her leather armchair to take a good look at her team, puffing all the while on her electronic cigarette.

  ‘The sky?’ hazarded another young man.

  ‘No!’ Domitile fumed. ‘We need some kind of man-made construction, something that embodies the future, something symbolic, recognisable to the masses. Use your brains, for the love of God!’

  For the past hour, they had been putting forward ideas for the double-page photo spread that would open the piece on JBM in Paris Match. Domitile had landed six pages in the weekly magazine and was putting in place her CCP strategy (Connection/Confidence/Policies). On the last two points, JBM was always ranked very highly. There was work to do on the ‘connection’ side of things. In the opinion polls she had commissioned, JBM was described as enigmatic, reserved and aloof. He would have to lose that image. When it came to the ‘fun’ questions, many of those surveyed replied that if JBM was an animal, he would be a cat. It was tiresome, this cat thing. As far as Domitile was concerned, a cat was an overly complicated animal: it wouldn’t come when you called it; you couldn’t find it when you looked for it; it ran away when you tried to stroke it. In short, cats were a pain in the arse.

  ‘The Eiffel Tower?’ suggested a young woman with a ponytail.

  Domitile closed her eyes.

  ‘Get out, Priscilla,’ she said. ‘Get out. I can’t bear listening to such tripe.’

  The woman stood up and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.

  ‘Now, let’s think,’ Domitile said coldly. ‘Let’s get our neurons working. There are seven of us left in this room. There are a hundred billion neurons in every person. I’ll let you work out the brain power we’re drawing on.’

  ‘A motorway …?’

  ‘No, pollution, noise – doesn’t work. The road idea is good – it carries the values we want to convey – but motorways are horrible.’

  ‘A bridge?’

  Domitile took a drag of electronic smoke. The young man almost thought he had it, when she shook her head.

  ‘Too loaded. People will recognise the bridge. It’ll be linked to some provincial backwater. What the hell would JBM want with the Pont du Gard or the Millau viaduct? It makes no sense. Seems like a good idea, but it isn’t.’

  ‘A station platform? Or railway lines?’ suggested a young woman. ‘Railway lines coming out of a big station, without showing which one it is.’

  Domitile slowly looked up and stared at the woman for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, that’s it. A railway line towards the future. That’s the killer image! Trains are the transport of the masses, but they also have a whiff of luxury. They’re a symbol of industry serving the people. You, you and you,’ she said, pointing at various people, ‘and you, of course,’ she added, addressing the girl whose idea it was, ‘take your phones and go to every train station in Paris. Get me pictures of railway lines and platforms. I want you back here within three hours. Jump to it!’

  The four chosen ones grabbed their bags and left the room.

  ‘Railway lines …’ she murmured, ecstatic, rocking back and forth in her chair, ‘blurred out in the background of the image, amazing … A man on the go, in the driving seat. It’s pure harmony: he’s the man driving France’s train, he’s the locomotive; he’s the driver, the machine, and the man serving others.’

  The remaining members of her audience were furiously taking notes.

  ‘It’s magnificent!’ she cried, leaping to her feet.

  A young man tried to interject.

  ‘He does give Pepe Mujica as his answer to the question on—’

  ‘Who cares what he said?’ Domitile cut him off. ‘It’s not his answers we’re interested in, it’s ours. He’s Roosevelt. Roosevelt vs. Louis XV. Our Roosevelt travels by train, Louis XV by horse-drawn carriage. Can’t you see we’re writing a new history here?’ She laid her hand gently on the desk. ‘With new ink, a new sheet of paper and a new pen.’

  All those nodding their heads knew exactly where Domitile was going with her curious allusion to the A
merican president and his New Deal, in contrast to the last king of pre-revolutionary France: to the most highly spun presidential election of all time, that of François Mitterrand in 1981. For the first time, admen had led the campaign. There were three of them: Gérard Colé, Jacques Pilhan and Jacques Séguéla. The last of these became the French publicist most often seen in the media, but behind the scenes Colé and Pilhan were finessing the key points the election would turn on, as summarised in a secret note code-named ‘Operation Roosevelt vs. Louis XV’. Their aim was to usher in a new social era and demonstrate that Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was a man of the past, a smooth talker who looked the part abroad, but no longer understood France, and was perhaps past caring, so sure was he of continuing to enjoy his favourite dish of warm foie gras at the table of the Élysée for a long time yet: he was Louis XV. At the other end of the scale, Mitterrand was supposed to symbolise renewal, dynamism, the future, and above all the image of a humble man with simple tastes, with principles, ideas and a vision – in the mould of the iconic president of the USA. The imagery created by Jacques Séguéla under the slogan ‘La Force Tranquille’, with the Socialist leader pictured calmly gazing ahead to the future with a little village church behind him, was the crowning element of the plan. François Mitterrand would go on to be president of France for fourteen years.

  Domitile drew on her cigarette and announced her strategy in a single line.

  ‘JBM, the man we didn’t dare to expect, versus the men from whom we no longer expect anything.’

  There was one small detail left to deal with. It was time to break down JBM’s elusive image. Domitile had a plan: cookery.

  A Beautiful Russian

  Bubble had received good coverage in the press and on social media, but Lepelle had been disappointed by the public’s reaction. Wrapped up in their own problems and worn down by the economic crisis, the fact was that Parisians had greeted the work with indifference. There had been a few modest demonstrations – never more than thirty people each time – at which there were placards reading ‘This is where our taxes go!’, ‘IQ of Bubble = 0’ and other such phrases painted on cardboard. These little groups came mainly from traditionalist Catholic associations – the children of those who used to rail against posters showing models revealing too much for their taste, or priests kissing nuns in adverts twenty-five years earlier. Killjoy nitpickers and quibblers.