The Incorrigible Optimists Club

  ‘I’m German, but I’m not going back to Germany.’

  ‘We’re Hungarian, but we’re not going back to Hungary.’

  ‘Gentlemen, may I be allowed to invite you to dinner? We shall talk cinema.’

  Who could refuse such an invitation? When Tibor and Imré walked into the Balto, they sniffed the air. It was a long time since they had smelled anything so delicious. Igor was sitting on the bench, reading L’Express. Werner made the introductions. Igor took him at his word when he introduced Tibor to him as the greatest living Hungarian actor. He had not seen The Return of the Travelling Players, nor any Hungarian film, but Werner was never wrong. Hearing Tibor and Imré, Igor was reminded of himself four years ago, when he arrived in Paris. The same doubts, the same fears, the same story to tell. Within a few minutes, it was as though they had always known one another. The Marcusots joined them for dinner. Madeleine, who loved the cinema, seldom went, because of Albert. Just once a year, on 1 May, the one day the restaurant was closed. She had stood firm for the day in honour of working women, even when there was a lot of work on. Since she could not bring herself to waste such an occasion, she usually carefully made her selection from the romantic category, and watched films such as Gone with the Wind. She had loved this film so much that she had gone back to see it the following year. But she remembered that Werner had insisted she should come and see The Return of the Travelling Players. The fact that a movie star, even a Hungarian one, and such a handsome man too, should come to dine at her table filled her with joy.

  ‘It’s a sign from God that you’re here.’

  ‘Madeleine, please,’ Igor reprimanded her, ‘leave God out of it. If Tibor and Imré are here, it’s not thanks to God, but because of Monsieur Khrushchev, and I don’t think he’s acting on the advice of the Lord or thinking of him.’

  Jacky laid the table. The plates were steaming and full. They ate in silence.

  ‘It’s delicious. I love this. What is it?’ asked Imré.

  Good cooks are like movie stars. They love compliments. Generally speaking, when customers enjoyed her cooking, they were rather sparing with their praise. Imré won Madeleine Marcusot over.

  ‘It’s a daube à la provençale, cooked in my way.’

  ‘What do you put in it to give it that taste?’

  Madeleine lowered her voice, looked to left and to right. Nobody must discover her secret: ‘Some cloves and… some cumin.’

  ‘But that taste? Behind the cloves and the cumin.’

  ‘You won’t repeat it to anyone?’

  ‘I promise you.’

  ‘Everyone adds Gamay or Côtes-du-Rhône. In my case, I use a fruited wine. I marinate the beef in some Saumur-Champigny and, at the end, I add a little bit of kirsch.’

  ‘It’s divine. Do you know how to make goulash? The real one, in the Hungarian way?’

  ‘Have you got a good recipe?’

  ‘There’s one…’

  He stared at Tibor, who took a moment to understand.

  ‘It’s my mother, Martha’s recipe. She, who loved Paris so much, would be glad for you to give it to her.’

  ‘Real goulash is made with beef, never pork. It’s the poor or the Austrians who use pork. Shin or chuck. Five hundred grams of fresh onions, some sweet paprika, a large soup-spoonful of each, finely chopped fresh chervil, oregano, Cayenne pepper, two sweet peppers, five hundred grams of tomatoes. You need some galuska, a small Hungarian pasta. You make it with flour, water and salt. You fry the onions, you peel the tomatoes, you cut up the meat into small chunks—’

  ‘Imré,’ Madeleine interrupted, ‘come and make your goulash for us. For me, where cooking’s concerned, I have to see it. You’ve made my mouth water.’

  ‘You’d like me to come and cook goulash for you?’

  ‘Whenever you like.’

  Imré’s culinary gifts were limited to what it took for an ordinary bachelor to survive. Omelette, ham and spaghetti. He had gone a little too far with Madeleine and he found himself in the kitchen at the Balto feeling somewhat anxious. She had prepared everything according to his instructions. He had whispered the secret of Martha’s goulash in her ear: ‘You have to put in the paprika ten minutes before the end of the cooking. It mustn’t boil and mustn’t stick. It’s best when it’s reheated. Nobody knows why.’

  Werner, Igor, Albert, Jacky and Madeleine tasted it. Tibor and Imré awaited the verdict.

  ‘I think it’s delicious. What about you?’ asked Madeleine.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Werner remarked.

  ‘Nothing need be said,’ added Albert, the expert.

  From his lips, this single observation amounted to a compliment. He looked questioningly at his wife. She turned to Imré.

  ‘Would you mind if I included this on the menu? The customers are fed up with blanquette.’

  ‘On behalf of my country, I should be honoured,’ Imré replied.

  ‘For you,’ said Albert, ‘Thursday lunches will henceforth be free. I’d like you to put in a little less paprika. It’s too spicy for the neighbourhood. And I’d thicken the sauce with a bit of flour.’

  The goulash made its appearance the following Thursday as the dish of the day and, by twenty past one, there was no more left. Imré and Tibor became regulars at the Balto. The Club doubled its membership. Over the weeks, a new clientele appeared. Exiled Hungarians had passed on the good news. There was a bistro at Denfert where they served a goulash like that in Budapest, plentiful and not expensive, even if it was not spicy enough, but you couldn’t have everything. After lunch, they got into the habit of staying behind in the restaurant. They had the time and they loved playing chess. This was how the little business got under way. By word of mouth.

  4

  Life and survival are dependent on unforeseeable details. On a bout of flu, for instance. I had recovered from my cold but, in that dismal winter when the rivers overflowed their banks and floods paralysed the country, the ghastly virus struck. Not me personally. I would have preferred that it had, but I was spared. Nicolas, who was as strong as an ox and who hadn’t been ill since his first year at primary school, caught it. Like millions of others. With Nicolas absent, the door to disaster was opened. Without him, I was lost. Lachaume, our maths teacher, whom we called ‘Shrivel-face’, and who, with his eternal black scarf wrapped around his neck, elicited more pity than envy, avoided the epidemic.

  I went to call on Nicolas, who was touched by my thoughtfulness and my concern for his health. I didn’t dare speak to him about the fateful moment that was approaching, inexorably and menacingly: the maths exam. Philosophers, psychiatrists and ministers of education have never been concerned about the primitive fears, the traumatic nightmares and the irreversible damage caused by exams in general and by maths exams in particular. I was perched over the chasm and the world cared not a damn. I had spent a fortune at Mère Bonbon’s in the Luxembourg. I took Nicolas an assortment of the sweets that he loved. An enormous packet of liquorice whirls, caramel bars, Coco Boers, boiled sweets, Mistrals, gingerbread bears and chocolate cigarettes. And Malabars, which he adored because of the transfers that went with them. I hoped this would buck him up and help towards a speedy recovery. Instead he felt queasy. I didn’t want to bother Cécile, who was doing her housework and spent her time changing her mind about whether to go on with her thesis or to study psychology.

  I worked like a lunatic, but the more I crammed, the less I understood and the more depressed I became. I had to confront the mother of all ordeals on my own and without a safety net. For we French, Berezina and Waterloo are synonymous with bitter and painful defeats. But at least there had been battles. We had been crushed. But we had fought with bravery or desperation and our enemies, even the English, recognized our courage. Here, I felt total shame. I stared uncomprehendingly at the wording of the exam question as though it were in Chinese. Shrivel must have chosen the wrong subject. I watched my classmates slogging away, heads down, without any qualms. I spent an hour st
aring into the infinite space of my incompetence. The lamb arriving at the abattoir must be in this state of mind. It awaits the knife as deliverance from its torment. I handed in a blank paper, unsullied by any mathematical reasoning. Shrivel could criticize me for many things, except having given him work to do.

  We can try to escape from reality, put on a front, hide behind the mask of virtue, bury our heads in the sand, make up excuses and pretexts, prevaricate and postpone, yet our future depends on the way we cope with life’s greatest dilemmas and our good fortune in controlling our own lack of courage. The truth comes back with the speed of a boomerang. If you decide not to run away, you’re on the edge of the abyss. If you don’t jump, you’ll have to pay the price.

  At dinner that evening, I waited apprehensively for the dreaded question. My mother seemed to have forgotten. My father had had bad news about grandmother Jeanne, who had just had to go into hospital for the second time because of her heart condition. He was planning to drive up to Lens the following Sunday and wanted someone to go with him. Juliette had to go to friend’s birthday party and I gave the excuse of having to revise for the history-geography exam.

  ‘By the way, Michel, how did that maths test go?’ asked my mother as she served the vegetable soup.

  She was expecting the usual answer: ‘Didn’t seem too bad, we’ll have to wait and see.’ Don’t claim victory and be modest: two virtues that are rooted in the Delaunay family.

  ‘It was… a disaster.’

  ‘Why?’

  I had prepared an explanation that had to do with resounding defeats, with Trafalgar and the Maginot Line, with famous thrashings and with great men, well-known dimwits whom their parents had despaired of, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize and had been buried in the Panthéon. I got into a muddle. I drew a blank. No excuses. The truth. Judgement Day.

  ‘Einstein… in his youth… during the battle… with Pasteur… Churchill too… like Nicolas… It’s not serious, a bad dose of flu… I’ve been copying from him for years.’

  My mother dropped the ladle into the soup bowl. The tablecloth was spattered with soup. She stared at me open-mouthed, transfixed, not knowing whether I was being serious or playing my usual silly jokes.

  ‘I handed in a blank sheet. I didn’t even understand the question.’

  ‘About Nicolas, you’re joking?’

  ‘I’ve been cheating for years. I’m fed up with lying.’

  If I had told her that I was a prostitute or that I was planting bombs for the FLN, it would have had less of an effect on her. She walked round the table and came up to me, blazing with anger. I saw her right hand rise up. I didn’t move, didn’t try to avoid it or to protect myself. I knew she hit hard. The slap was part of the payment. Her arm remained in the air, quivering.

  ‘Hélène! That’s enough!’ my father yelled as he rushed over.

  She should have hit me. That would have wiped the slate clean. This was a matter between the two of us and it had now become a family affair. He intervened. Her raised arm was a threat to my father. He stared at her impassively. Eventually, she lowered it.

  ‘It’s not a reason to hit him,’ said my father in a tone that was intended to be persuasive.

  She was shaking feverishly and was having difficulty controlling her mounting exasperation.

  ‘Your son admits he’s a cheat and a liar and you think that’s normal!’

  They usually argued in private, in their bedroom. They were keen to keep up appearances and we would pretend we hadn’t heard anything.

  ‘You say nothing! You do nothing! You don’t react. You let them get away with everything. My father wouldn’t have tolerated this disgrace for a moment. He knew how to run his house. People were afraid of him. And woe betide you when he brought out his belt. At the Delaunays’ house there were standards. Children obeyed their parents. We’ve seen the results. My brother Daniel behaved like a hero, Maurice succeeded in—’

  ‘Come off it! He married the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in Algeria.’

  ‘And you, what have you done? Didn’t you marry the boss’s daughter?’

  ‘What you’re saying is disgraceful.’

  ‘Maurice looks after his children. Yours behave badly. They have no respect for anything. They’re not afraid of you.’

  ‘In my house, we don’t beat children. When they do something stupid, we discuss it, we talk to one another. My father always said—’

  ‘Education is a wonderful thing at the Marinis!’ she interrupted. ‘We’ve seen what it did for Franck. Michel’s going the same way.’

  ‘You muddle up everything.’

  ‘I know what you’re like. One must understand, forgive. Perhaps he’s entitled to congratulations?’

  ‘I’ve never hit my children and I’m not going to start today.’

  ‘I don’t agree.’

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

  She went out, slamming the dining room door. Juliette was frightened and got up and followed her. My father sat down beside me and put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry, son, she’s upset. She’ll calm down.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Never mind, I’m here. What’s going on at school?’

  ‘It’s the maths. I’m absolutely hopeless.’

  ‘You used to get good results before.’

  ‘My good marks were thanks to Nicolas.’

  ‘It’s a strange thing. I would have thought that… It doesn’t matter. In life, once you know how to read, write and count, it’s enough. Maths, physics, philosophy, they’re a load of rubbish. I got my school certificate. At school, I was bottom of the class. Always last, except at gym. Have I needed the baccalaureate or diplomas to succeed?’

  *

  We walked around the neighbourhood for an hour. He had his hand on my shoulder. I’d been roaming around the area for years and no one had ever noticed me, whereas he knew everybody, shopkeepers, concierges, passers-by. He greeted them, said good evening to them, smiled, joked, chatted, introduced me as his second son who had grown up too quickly and was already taller than him, but isn’t it typical of that generation. Anyone would have thought he was a member of parliament in the market square.

  ‘Have you had any news of Franck?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And his girlfriend, has she heard?’

  ‘She’s no longer his girlfriend, Papa. They separated before he left.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you don’t let people have news now and then.’

  ‘Franck doesn’t like to write. When he went away on holiday, he never used to send postcards.’

  ‘This isn’t the same, there’s a war on.’

  A couple asked him what was happening with the installation of their bathroom, which was two weeks overdue. He explained to them that these days, things weren’t like they used to be. It was due to the flu and to workers being ill. He promised to look into it personally. They thanked him as they set off again.

  ‘We’ve got so much work on that I’m not going to be able to send anyone to them before goodness knows when. Later on, you could go to a business school.’

  ‘You always say that business is not something that can be learnt.’

  ‘Business is easy, what’s complicated is the accountancy, the law, the taxes and the paperwork.’

  ‘You didn’t study and yet you’ve succeeded. You could teach me what you know.’

  ‘It’s true, business can’t be taught. It’s a game, nothing but a game.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re the cat, and the customer is the mouse. A mouse is cunning. A cat is patient. And above all, since he wants to eat the mouse, the cat puts himself in the mouse’s place. In order to think like a mouse. The cat must have a great deal of imagination to catch the mouse. It’s up to you to know whether you want to be a cat or a mouse. And imagination is not something that can be taught in business s
chools. What’s your view?’

  ‘If there’s no maths involved, then I’m all for it.’

  ‘Wonderful! You’ll have a great life, believe me. I’ve got some major projects in mind. Together, we’ll make a killing.’

  When I spoke about this to Igor, he told me that I was a little arsehole and that I’d continue to be one.

  ‘My father’s got a point, you can earn a lot of money in business.’

  ‘And you’re going to spend your life slaving for money? Is that your dream?’

  ‘’What do you expect me to do? I’m hopeless at maths!’

  ‘I’ll tell you, Michel, being a taxi driver is the best job in the world.’

  Igor was persuasive. But there were three of them at the Club who were taxi drivers and they did not share his view. It was a fine occupation as long as your back didn’t hurt. They had sciatica and slipped discs, they breathed in exhaust fumes from dawn till dusk, got irritated in traffic jams, were terrified they might have their throats cut by some crook who wanted to steal their takings, and were harassed by policemen who were lying in wait so that they could give them fines.

  ‘You’ve got to work at night. There aren’t many of us. You don’t have your boss on your back. You feel free. No traffic. No cops. And crooks have more lucrative jobs than assaulting taxi drivers. It’s different at night.’

  Igor had built up a clientele of regular customers; night owls, restaurant and club owners, or performers whom he drove home in the early hours.

  ‘People who stay out late at night know how to live. They’re not stingy. The tips are often larger than the price of the journey. At night, you make friends. Real ones. In the daytime, people don’t have time to talk or listen to one another.’

  A few months after he had started, shortly before midnight, Igor had picked up a passenger in rue Falguière and had taken him to Franklin-Roosevelt. During the journey, the man hadn’t uttered a word. Some passengers are not very talkative. When the time came to pay, the man asked him: ‘Are you Russian?’

  Igor stared at him. He had never seen him before. The man was impressively tall, had thick hair, and the chiselled features of a convict on the run. He nodded suspiciously. The man continued in Russian: ‘Where are you from?’