The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  ‘We could have a quick game? That would be fun, wouldn’t it? Here, I’ll let you play white. It’s an advantage. Your go.’

  Werner stared at the chessboard, not moving, not speaking. Igor waited. The others, at the neighbouring table, followed this game that took ages to begin, in religious silence. The shouting and yelling of the baby-foot players, and the ball slamming against the metal goals, could be heard in the background. It didn’t disturb them. Madeleine and Albert had pins and needles in their legs. Igor had a bad back. Nobody moved. They were waiting for Werner to move, but Werner didn’t move. He sat there with his eyes fixed on the chessboard, his eyebrows arched, face taut, rigid as a marble statue. Opposite him, Igor sat patiently, not fidgeting or showing any sign of irritation, a slightly knowing smile on his lips, as befits a player worthy of the name who allows his opponent to determine his strategy and to reflect a little before making his first move. Except that there wasn’t one. After two hours and countless glances between them, Igor could feel weariness gaining the upper hand, there was somewhat heavy sighing, much clearing of the throat and coughing, and the bench creaked beneath painful posteriors. He was convinced that nothing would happen. They might remain face to face for years without Werner reacting. This game was not a good idea, thought Igor, nodding gently, his lips clenched, his eyelids flickering. Then he made an unpremeditated move. He advanced his black pawn two squares on the board. It was an incongruity, an absurdity. No player since the game of chess was invented several centuries ago has begun a game playing black. It was a sacrilege. An impossibility. Something that couldn’t be done or imagined. Playing white first was an organic, integral aspect of chess. Werner sat up straight, astounded and perplexed. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide open, and he was staring at Igor. He shook his head and grunted, as if to point out that what he had done was unbelievable. Then, without further ado, he took his white pawn and moved it two squares so that it was opposite Igor’s black pawn. The game had begun. Igor followed with another black pawn. Werner responded similarly. When Igor continued with his third black pawn, Werner moved his knight. Any player will tell you, including beginners, that when you bring out your knight on the third move, it indicates hostile intentions. And everyone knows that when you are aggressive you can’t be feeling too bad. Werner took two pawns with this knight. They played another twenty or so moves and then, to everybody’s surprise, Werner castled and put Igor in a dangerous position.

  ‘I’ve got the feeling it’s not going too well,’ Igor admitted.

  ‘You’ll be mate in four moves.’

  ‘You’ve won and I’m delighted,’ said Igor as he toppled over his king.

  ‘May I be permitted an observation?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to open with black. It’s not allowed.’

  They were astounded by this memory that had come back like a flash of lightning. They surrounded him. They congratulated him. They embraced him. They plied him with questions. Werner now remembered almost everything. He remembered his life both before and after his recovery. But nothing about the assault of which he had been the victim, or about its perpetrators. Inspector Mahaut looked piqued. Igor tried to cheer him up: ‘The important thing is that it should end well.’

  ‘Werner’s not telling the truth. He knows his assailants.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The way he hesitates when he talks about it. He has thought carefully and invented this memory lapse.’

  ‘I’d be very surprised. He’s constantly searching for his words. A man doesn’t think of lying when he’s got his memory back.’

  Albert offered everyone some Clairette de Die that could easily be mistaken for the best champagne. Jacky, the waiter, opened half a dozen bottles and twenty or more customers made the most of them. Some thought that Albert must have won the lottery to behave so generously. He didn’t have a reputation for splashing out lavishly. Igor advised Werner against drinking sparkling wine. He followed his advice and ordered a glass of beer without any froth. Madeleine never stopped repeating that it was a sign from Heaven, where she was seriously in debt. As she grew older, she had returned to religion, though she never set foot in a church, Sunday mornings being taken up with her work at the Balto. She felt bad about her negligence and was convinced that sooner or later she would pay for her thoughtlessness and her casual behaviour. She promised herself she would light a large candle to thank St Anthony for his intervention. As far as Werner was concerned, the Good Lord had nothing to do with his cure, which was as speedy as it was miraculous. Werner was a poor prospect. Not the kind whom the Lord would reward.

  ‘It’s not good to blaspheme, Werner. God sees everything.’

  ‘If it’s true, Madeleine, he’s got no excuse. If I need to thank anyone, it’s Igor and him alone. He looked after me and he found the key. Thank you, Igor.’

  They hugged one another. Whether it was the effect of the Clairette or the emotion, Igor’s head was spinning slightly.

  ‘I’ve done nothing extraordinary. The credit is due to Inspector Mahaut.’

  This citation in despatches at the Balto brought him a round of applause and the eternal gratitude of those present. He was deeply moved. It was not every day that he was cheered. Usually, it was the opposite. In those days, the police and police officers were not liked. Igor proposed a toast. This suggestion pleased everybody. Jacky filled the glasses to the brim.

  ‘To Werner’s good health!’ Igor cried, before downing the contents of his glass in one and then hurling it to the ground where it shattered on the floor.

  Everyone imitated him; they all drank their glasses dry and threw them down in an infectious outburst, where they broke into a thousand slivers – with the exception of Albert, Madeleine and Jacky, who gazed in horror at the damage done to their glassware. Ever since that day, they continue to celebrate important events at the Balto, but Russian toasts are forbidden by the owners.

  Heated discussions took place in small groups. There were two opposing camps: the mystics who saw this as divine intervention and the unbelievers who regarded it merely as yet another mystery concerning the human body. Was this inexplicable cure to do with the supernatural? Or was it conclusive proof of our ignorance? Did physical, even bodily materialism exist in the way that historical materialism did? Voices were raised. People interrupted. They grew excited. None of them was short of edifying arguments and examples. It was sad to observe that not one of these magnificent outbursts had any effect. Our inability to convince others is absolute proof of the value, according to our means, of the scornful insult, the punch, the sharpened knife, the automatic pistol, the stick of dynamite tied to a detonator, or the nuclear aircraft-carrier. Our misfortunes have only one cause: our opinions are sacred. Those who change their points of view are idiots and so too are those who allow themselves to be persuaded.

  Seated on the bench, Igor and Werner were talking about their past lives and they remained uninvolved in this uproar.

  ‘It can’t have been easy for you,’ Igor said to him.

  ‘It can’t have been easy for you either.’

  ‘The important thing is to be alive, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, we have to think of the future.’

  ‘If we ourselves are not optimists, who will be?’

  The official launch of the Club dates from 30 May 1956. Apart from occasional headaches, Werner did not suffer any after-effects from the attack on him and he did not speak about it again. The following day, he resumed his job as a projectionist. Igor and he became friends; they got into the habit of meeting one another at the Balto for their games of chess and the only thing that ever kept them apart was the fact that Werner was an early riser and Igor a nightbird. Very soon, Igor became part of the family and acquired the habit of dining with Werner, the Marcusots and Jacky. He would get in touch with Victor Volodine, who allowed him to have the taxi for the night. He had arranged with Victor that from now on the handover
should take place at Denfert and no longer at Nation.

  The first time he went to the Balto, Victor set eyes again on the man whom he had picked up, half-dead, on the Rue de Tolbiac and taken to the hospital. He demanded repayment for the cleaning of his bloodstained white car seat. Igor thought he was joking. Victor was in earnest. Werner reckoned the bill was somewhat steep, but he made it a point of honour to repay Victor down to the last centime and refused to let Igor contribute. Each of us must pay our debts. This explains why Victor was not admitted as a member of the Club.

  When, four years later, Igor recounted this episode to me, I made a pathetically trite observation: ‘It’s unimaginable.’

  ‘There is no adjective that describes this story, no words that can portray what doesn’t exist and what can’t be imagined. Werner’s recovery was inconceivable a few seconds beforehand,’ Igor explained to me. ‘On the contrary, the story causes us to put our imaginative capacity, which we think is infinite, into context and to question ourselves about the frailty of our imagination, which we often confuse with understanding. There is nothing unimaginable about the gulag, genocides, death camps or atomic bombs. They are human creations, rooted within us, and it is only their enormity that overwhelms us. They go beyond our understanding, destroy our willingness to believe in man, and reflect our own images of monsters back at us. They are, in reality, the most accomplished forms of our inability to convince. The apex of our creative ability. We can imagine such unimaginable things as travelling in space-time, or discovering what the lottery numbers are in advance, or meeting the ideal or perfect man or woman, for after all, people have invented abstract painting and concrete music; we can imagine everything, but not that. Not a miraculous cure. That is purely a matter of chance or luck.’

  As I was walking along rue Champollion, I spotted Werner. The projection room looked out onto the sloping street, and he was opening the door to air the room. His boss had acquired the cinema next door and he was looking after both theatres. He had twice the amount of work, but since the screenings were staggered, this did not bother him. When he had a moment of quiet in between changing reels, he would smoke a cigarette on the doorstep. We exchanged pleasantries. He offered to let me see the films free of charge. Usually I declined his invitation. At the Club, he occasionally informed us about a masterpiece that shouldn’t be missed under any circumstances. But it wasn’t very comfortable in his narrow room and the projectors made a noise. When the cinema wasn’t full, he arranged for his friend the usherette to give us a folding seat. The foreign, subtitled films that were shown at his cinema were long-winded and deadly dull. He went into raptures as he talked about them. I didn’t dare tell him that they bored me stiff and I avoided rue Champollion. He must have been aware of this and kept his distance. There are books that we ought to be forbidden to read too early. We should avoid them or pass them by. And films too. They ought to carry a label: Not to be seen or read before one has lived.

  26

  As I arrived at Cardinal-Lemoine métro station, I bumped into Sherlock, who was standing there reading Le Figaro. Hard to find a plausible excuse. He looked me up and down with his eagle eye.

  ‘Haven’t you a maths class, Marini?

  ‘I’ve a very bad back, Monsieur. I’m going to the Cochin Hospital.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, my lad.’

  ‘I may be there all afternoon.’

  ‘I hope it’s nothing serious. Bring me a note from your parents. In fact, for Cochin, it’s not the right métro line, you’d do better to catch the bus. The 27. You’ll get there quicker.’

  He was obliging enough to wait for the bus with me. When I reached the Terminus, Franck wasn’t there. Two conscripts were fooling around by one of the baby-foot tables. I inserted my coin and found them standing opposite me.

  ‘Are you playing on your own?’ the elder of the two asked.

  ‘Does that bother you?’

  I pulled out all the stops. Like Samy. I hadn’t practised for three weeks, but I felt more energetic than I’d ever felt before. I passed them at will. A real pro. There was a respectful silence as the balls slammed in. I thrashed them without even giving them a glance. Others followed the same path. I strung together seven successive games. My powers were fading. A hand was laid on my shoulder. Franck was standing in front of me, his head shaved.

  ‘Looks like you’ve improved.’

  We sat down on the terrace. It was a quarter to four. He put his large bag down on the ground and ordered drinks: ‘A beer and a really weak lemonade shandy.’

  ‘Well, they certainly did a good job on you.’

  ‘It’ll grow again.’

  ‘Papa will be here soon. Do you know where you’ll be posted?’

  ‘That’s the army for you. We don’t know a thing. We may find ourselves in Algiers, in Djibouti or in Berlin. We assume it’ll be Algeria. That’s where they need non-commissioned officers.’

  ‘Will you let me know where you are?’

  Franck considered the matter.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t want Mama to know where I am. I’ve cut all ties with her.’

  ‘You promised to write to Cécile.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘If you want to know about her, you only have to ask her!’

  ‘Please, Michel, talk to me about her. What’s she up to? Has she gone back to uni? Has she made any progress on her thesis?’

  ‘She wants to quit.’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? She doesn’t know where she is. She’s not sure whether to go on. She likes the idea of psychology. She’s good at that.’

  ‘What is all this nonsense? With her thesis, she’ll be able to teach literature. It’s a fine job, it’s what she loves and it means security. Psychology’s a leap in the dark. There are no jobs. You’ve got to stop her doing such a crazy thing.’

  ‘If you’re so keen, go and tell her yourself. She won’t listen to me.’

  Franck was furious. Head bowed, he considered the matter. His right hand drummed on the table feverishly.

  ‘The only person who can do anything is Pierre. I’m going to write to him.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He’s based in Souk-Ahras. Psychology’s not his thing.’

  ‘When he writes to her, he mustn’t mention you, or me. She’s become oversensitive. As soon as you give her any advice, she jumps on you.’

  ‘You’ve become her friend. Has she… has she confided in you?’

  ‘She doesn’t want to hear about you any longer. Don’t ask me about her any more.’

  ‘You’ll have to look after her.’

  ‘Don’t worry. She doesn’t need anybody.’

  ‘We share the same views. She’s even more outspoken than I am, on a mass of things. Rather like Pierre. This war’s not going to last long. De Gaulle’s going to deal with Algeria. I’ll be back home soon and we’ll sort it out. She’ll be proud of what I’ve done. It’s far from being over between us.’

  ‘She won’t forgive you for having deserted her. If you’d had the courage to tell her to her face, she would have understood and she would have waited for you. You stabbed her in the back. She wasn’t expecting it. She’s erased you from her life. Don’t delude yourself, you won’t find her again when you return.’

  ‘I’m sorry Michel, but you know nothing about women. They say one thing in the morning, another in the evening, and the following day they’ve changed their mind. Right now, she’s feeling livid. When I get back, we’ll discuss it all again.’

  Franck glanced at the clock. Twenty-five past four.

  ‘Did you really tell Papa?’

  ‘He won’t be long.’

  ‘I have to be there at five.’

  We had two more drinks. He offered me a Gitane.

  ‘I don’t smoke. May I ask you a question?’

  He didn’t answer, but allowed me to continue:
‘Why are you going there? What with self-rule, we know how it’ll all end. What’s the point? The game’s over.’

  ‘You’re wrong. The game is over if you play by their rules. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘How can you treat us this way?’

  Franck paused. He was searching for words. It seemed too complicated to explain or impossible to get to grips with.

  ‘If I say to you… revolution, what does that mean to you?’

  ‘You want there to be a revolution?’

  ‘I haven’t time to explain. We can never fill the gulf between the profiteers and those who get screwed. It’s the one and only question: what side are we on? There’ll be no peace on earth and no settlement, no progress, no dialogue and no social breakthrough. The time has come to act.’

  ‘We can improve things, bit by bit. Try to understand one another, even when we don’t agree.’

  ‘Respect is what the bourgeoisie has invented to achieve its ends. No one respects the proletariat.’

  ‘You’re going to fight for people who couldn’t give a damn.’

  ‘The world’s moving on. People are fed up. And not just in France, everywhere. The Third World War has begun. This time they’re not going to steal our victory from us.’

  ‘You’re either dreaming or indulging in wishful thinking: the vast majority of people wouldn’t go along with you.’

  ‘We don’t think in the same way. That’s why there’s no point in discussing it.’

  It was as though there were a brick wall between us. We sat there not knowing what to say to each other. I heard the door open. Franck’s face lit up. I looked round. Richard was coming in, carrying a large bag. My brother stood up.

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  He paid for the drinks. The three of us left. We set off towards Fort de Vincennes. Some young conscripts were there, showing their call-up papers to one of the soldiers on duty who was allowing them in. I was watching out for my father, but there was only a crowd of anonymous people. We arrived at the small drawbridge.