The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  ‘It may well be that he’s a Swiss German.’

  ‘He’s a Boche!’ Mazerin fulminated. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘You haven’t the right to throw out a sick man!’

  ‘Physically, this fellow’s as fit as a fiddle. We don’t know how to treat amnesia. It can last ten years or for ever. This is a hospital, not a hospice. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. After that, I’m kicking him out. I don’t want to find myself with a strike on my hands because of this guy.’

  He went out, slamming the door. The stranger smiled. Hard to make him understand that they hated him because of what happened more than ten years ago, when all he could remember were the last five days.

  ‘Where to begin? How can I explain the war to you?’

  Someone knocked at the door. A black man with an athletic build came in and showed his police card.

  ‘Inspector Daniel Mahaut. Gobelins Police Station.’

  The policeman had come to question the injured man about the attack on him. He had asked to be informed before the man left the hospital. Igor told him about the general anger and the thoughtless deportation. The inspector leant over towards the seated man.

  ‘I’m from the police. We’re making investigations. Do you wish to bring proceedings?… Do you remember the assault on you, Monsieur?… Do you know who did this to you?’

  The man stared at him before replying, a faint smile on his face.

  ‘An assault, you say? I don’t remember.’

  ‘These people will never change!’ moaned the inspector. ‘If his memory does come back, he can drop by at the station. We’re behind the town hall of the thirteenth arrondissement.’

  A little later, Mazerin came by to tell him that he needed the bed and that he would have the patient thrown out the following morning. He would not countenance any delay and he turned round and walked away. The man said nothing. He stared at Igor with a trusting expression.

  ‘I earn barely enough to pay for my small hotel room. I won’t be able to look after you. Maybe you’re an absolute bastard, but that doesn’t matter any more. Don’t worry, I’m not going to desert you. You can move in with me. We’ll manage, and if the boss doesn’t like it, we’ll go somewhere else.’

  24

  ‘Not a word to our mother either. I don’t want to hear about her again. Do you understand? Work it out for yourself, otherwise…’

  Franck had left me no alternative. With Cécile, all I had to do was keep my mouth shut and behave as though I knew nothing. At home, it was different. Ever since he had left, slamming the door behind him, Franck was a taboo subject. It was as if he had never existed. And yet he was all around us. In the way we said hello and in the way we looked at one another, whenever we said: ‘How are you?’ or: ‘What did you do today?’ In a family you are attached to one another by invisible strings that bind you even when you sever them. Nobody explained the rules of the game to Juliette or me. We followed them instinctively. My father was fully taken up with the new shop. We did not see him any more. He spent his life there. We had dinner without him, not saying a word. He came home late and tired. I would find him in the kitchen reheating the remains of the meal. He ate in silence, a vacant expression on his face, pretending to listen to me, but with his mind elsewhere. I wanted to talk to him about Franck without the risk of my mother coming in, but it was impossible to do so in the flat and at the shop. I had to wait for the right moment. Time went by. I never managed to be alone with him. There were only two days left before Franck’s departure when, one morning at breakfast, my mother came in, all spruced up in one of the Chanel suits she brought out for important occasions. She was going on a three-day ‘Develop your leadership’ course. One of those American seminars recommended by Maurice.

  My parents at least had one cause for satisfaction. The opening of the new shop had earned us a photo on page eight of France-Soir, which my father had had enlarged, made into a prospectus and distributed to letterboxes in the fifth, sixth and eighth arrondissements. It did not take long to have an effect. The success far exceeded his most optimistic expectations. They had the greatest difficulty in supplying the orders and delivering to customers. My father managed his team effortlessly, keeping an eye on everything, smiling, relaxed, joking, settling disputes between the salesmen in their garnet-coloured jackets, suggesting to customers who did not have the means to pay cash that they spread out their payments by laying out a modest sum each month. He had had to insist in order to foist this idea on my mother who, in spite of her seminars, remained attached to the old-fashioned principles of commercial trade.

  ‘Since the poor are more numerous than the rich, if you want to sell a lot, you have to sell to those who have no money and who long to buy what they can’t afford to give themselves. You have to provide them with credit accounts.’

  Philippe Delaunay had rejoined the firm and was giving a helping hand because of the demand. Among his acquaintances, he shamelessly claimed credit for the success of the venture. But you could sense his bitterness about certain aspects. He was conscious of the total immorality and deep injustice of commerce: that an idiot such as Paul Marini, a self-made man without any education could make a fortune with a good idea. Business was not what it once was. People no longer needed to have read the classics in order to succeed. Tomorrow’s world would belong to the parvenus and the wily. My father never missed an opportunity to remind him of his dire predictions and took pleasure in turning the knife in the wound by pointing out that he had increased the turnover tenfold and the profit by fifteen. My mother did the accounts. The electronic calculator crackled away and never stopped producing lists of figures that left her flushed with happiness. There was talk of opening another shop. My father had found premises in avenue du Général-Leclerc. When he mentioned the selling price, my mother had backtracked, terrified by the magnitude of the investment, and they began arguing. He had not given up and he had an eye on a place in rue de Passy too, in the fashionable district, while he waited to be able to realize his life’s dream: opening a shop in Versailles.

  ‘Being poor and not having money is not too bad, being rich and having a bit is better.’

  *

  When I entered the shop, my father spotted me and left his customers with a salesman.

  ‘It’s lovely to see you here.’

  ‘I must speak to you. It’s important. Come.’

  I dragged him outside. We walked down avenue des Gobelins. I found it hard to explain things to him. He never stopped interrupting me and asking me questions. I lost the thread of what I wanted to say. We sat down on a bench, close to Saint-Médard church.

  ‘Why should we wait till tomorrow?’

  ‘That’s what he asked.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s he playing at? Eh? He had a deferment. It’s because of his girlfriend, is that it?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. She’s desperate. She tried to commit suicide!’

  ‘What? I’m your father. Do you know what that means? I’m the only person you can trust and you treat me like a stranger!’

  ‘I’ve only known for two days. Before that, I thought he had another girlfriend.’

  ‘I don’t believe it! You don’t enlist like that! Me, I was obliged to. It was a general call-up. We had no choice. If I could, I wouldn’t have gone. No one’s so bloody stupid to enlist out of idealism. He doesn’t know what war is. It’s not a game.’

  ‘If you knew Cécile, you’d say he’s completely crazy.’

  ‘I’m going to call Philippe, he knows people at the Ministry of Defence.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be any point. He’ll refuse.’

  ‘So we can’t help him?’

  ‘He’ll be waiting for us tomorrow at four o’clock at the Terminus, it’s by the exit from the Château-de-Vincennes métro… Oh, by the way, he doesn’t want you to talk to Mother about it.’

  ‘Because of that row about the op
ening?’

  ‘Because of… I’m not too sure. You must ask him.’

  ‘I’ve got a massive amount of work tomorrow, but I’ll come to give him a kiss.’

  25

  After his night’s work, Igor went back to the hospital to take the man home with him. He stopped by to see Suzanne to ask which medicines he should take to treat him or whether he could have a prescription, but she shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘There are no medicines!’

  She left the nurses’ area, grabbing him by the arm.

  Igor was in the process of putting the things he had bought for the man into a plastic bag when there was a knock at the door of the room. Inspector Mahaut appeared, with a sheet of paper in his hand.

  ‘I was bothered by this business. I put in a search request at the missing persons department at police headquarters. I’ve a West Indian friend who works there. He’s from Martinique, but when we can, we do favours for one another. He spent the night there. In the file containing descriptions of people who had disappeared but who were of no cause for concern, he came across a landlady who had reported that her lodger, a stateless person of German origin, was missing. That’s all we have.’

  ‘You think that…’

  ‘I thought we might go and call on her. It’s not far. It would be quicker than summoning her to the station. At least we’d be certain.’

  ‘Let’s go. What’s his name supposed to be?’

  Inspector Mahaut put on his spectacles and read the scribbled name on the paper.

  ‘Wener Teul… Werner Toller.’

  Igor took the man’s hand and smiled at him.

  ‘Are you Werner Toller? … Is that your name?’

  The man considered the matter.

  ‘Werner Toller?… It means nothing to me. I don’t know any Werner Toller.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not him,’ the inspector opined.

  The month of May was dreadfully dreary, with leaden skies and drizzle. They got on the métro at Saint-Marcel. The inspector did not have his police car. During the short journey, he questioned Igor, appearing sceptical: ‘If I’ve understood correctly, you were a porter when a Russian taxi driver brought in this injured man to the hospital, and you took a liking to this fellow countryman of yours. Now, you work for him as a night driver.’

  ‘He has French nationality. I don’t. Yes, that’s what happened.’

  ‘It’s a bit odd, don’t you think?’

  ‘That’s life. I’ve been obliged to adapt.’

  ‘Why are you taking care of him?’

  The inspector jutted his chin at the supposed Werner Toller who, with his nose pressed to the window, was making the most of the elevated railway line to store up images of the strange city that was flashing past.

  ‘He was alone. I was alone.’

  ‘You’re…’

  ‘Homosexual? Oh no, not in the least. In Russia, I had a family, and I still would if I had not had to escape in order to save my life.’

  ‘Really, you didn’t know him beforehand?’

  ‘I swear to you.’

  ‘If it’s true, he was lucky to come across you.’

  They got off at Denfert-Rochereau. The man seemed unfamiliar with the area. The woman who had reported the missing person was supposed to live at 110 avenue Denfert-Rochereau, but the name Toller did not figure on the list of residents of the building and the concierge was out.

  ‘You’ve no idea how much time is wasted searching for information,’ Mahaut observed. ‘It’s only in films that it happens quickly. Come on, we’ll ask in the bistro and I’ll buy you a café crème. We’ve deserved it.’

  He pushed open the door of the large café that stood at the corner of the two boulevards. It smelled of boeuf bourguignon and fried onions. At this hour of the morning, a few regulars were chatting at the counter. Four students were battling away around the two baby-foot tables. A man of about fifty with a paunch rushed over towards them.

  ‘Werner! Where were you?’

  He took him in his arms, glad to have found him, and gave him a warm hug. Werner remained impervious to this outburst. He clearly did not recognize him. The man eventually relaxed his grip, turned round and announced in a loud voice: ‘Madeleine… It’s Werner! He’s come back!’

  Igor and Mahaut watched as a large woman in a white apron appeared. She stood stock still at the kitchen door, behind the counter, her face lit up.

  ‘Werner! It’s you!’

  Thrilled and moved to tears, she clasped him in her plump arms and raised him off the ground as she hugged him.

  ‘Well, what’s the matter with him?’ she said.

  Inspector Mahaut introduced himself. The owners of the Balto recognized the man known as Werner Toller without a moment’s hesitation and explained they had been renting a studio flat in rue du Val-de-Grâce to him for over ten years. They all sat down in the backroom of the Balto. Werner sat on the bench, a little further away, uninvolved with the conversation. Igor told the Marcusots about his amnesia and his disturbing condition.

  ‘It’s not like him to leave without warning,’ Madeleine pointed out. ‘We suspected something odd. At the Edgar-Quinet police station, they didn’t believe us. They said he’d gone back to Germany. We knew that was impossible. By the way, is he going to regain his memory?’

  ‘No one can answer that question,’ replied Igor. ‘He suffered a cranial trauma during his attack. As to how deep the injury is, or whether it is serious or irreversible? Nobody knows. His memory may return tomorrow morning when he wakes up, or in six months, ten years, or never.’

  Igor described how Werner had been thrown out of the hospital because he was German. Albert Marcusot turned red, and he declared loudly: ‘I don’t believe it! It’s crazy! Tell me I’m dreaming! Werner Toller is a German who’s anti-Nazi! In the Monnaie network, he specialised in infiltrating German intelligence. He’s been decorated by the Resistance and his Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur card was signed by Kriegel-Valrimont himself. What country are we living in?’

  ‘I didn’t know there had been any Germans in the Resistance,’ said Mahaut.

  ‘At the beginning of the war, there were Austrians and Germans here, at least three or four thousand of them, who had fled their countries in the thirties. Many of them did an enormous amount of work providing information, they served as liaison officers, as translators, they recruited deserters from the Wehrmacht, they provided a mass of information to the resistance movements, and they were turned in by the French police. Most of them were Jews or Communists. But there were also Christians and Social Democrats, or ordinary people who disagreed with the Nazis. Before the war started, Werner had already had experience in resisting. He knew what was going to happen to us. We didn’t. You could write a book about what he did and how he slipped through the net. He disowned his country. After the war, he didn’t want to go back there. It’s not easy to have next door neighbours or office colleagues who denounced you or arrested you and cheered on the oppressors. He refuses to speak German. He still has that wretched accent. He hasn’t managed to get rid of it. It sticks to his tongue. When he tries, he can get by. We were once stopped by a patrol. I heard him speaking to his fellow countrymen in a Parisian accent. He’s no longer German, he’s not French; he’s what’s called a stateless person.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’ Mahaut asked.

  ‘He’s a projectionist at a cinema in rue Champollion,’ replied Albert Marcusot. ‘The owner knew him in the Resistance and, with a job like that, he doesn’t speak to anyone. After his work, he comes and has supper with us. He’s almost one of the family. Every evening we play draughts together.’

  ‘Did Werner have any enemies?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Before he went missing, did he have a quarrel or a disagreement with anyone?’

  ‘He said nothing to me. What about you?’

  ‘He’s a quiet, very ordinary man,’ Madeleine confirmed.

 
; ‘And yet he was beaten up and left for dead.’

  ‘That really frightens me. You see motiveless acts nowadays that didn’t happen before. It may have nothing to do with the war or Werner’s past.’

  ‘I’d like to believe you, Madame. But in our job, there are never coincidences, or very seldom.’

  During this time, Werner sat there, beside them, on the bench, as though not involved. It was hard to believe that he was the man the Marcusots were talking about. Igor went and sat down opposite him.

  ‘How are you, Werner?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Are you glad to be back in this bistro? You’re at home here.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t you recognize them?’

  He shook his head. His gaze fell on the nearby table where several games – a chessboard with pieces in a box, a game of draughts with black and white counters, a game of tarot and a Yams / 421 board – were all piled up in a jumble.

  ‘Do you want to play?’ Igor asked.

  His eyes glued on the table where the games were, Werner did not answer.

  ‘A round of belote?’

  Igor waited for a reply which was slow in coming.

  ‘Or 421? Do you know the rules? Could you show me? We can play for the apéritif, if you like?’

  Werner remained silent.

  ‘Or a game of chess, perhaps? I haven’t played for four years, but I used to get by reasonably well.’

  Werner continued to gaze at the table, in silence. Igor turned round, unsure what to do. Madeleine nodded in agreement. Igor took the chessboard and placed it between them. He laid out the pieces in the box.