The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  ‘Did you really know Stalin?’

  ‘I was introduced to him during the battle of Prokhorovka. I’d been wounded in the shoulder when my plane was shot down. He congratulated me on my bravery, decorated me with the order of Koutouzov, which he had just instigated, and decreed that I was a hero. Others were frightened of him. I didn’t fear him myself. He could sense this and it pleased him. I spoke to him as if to a friend, as I would to anyone else. He said to me: “Leonid Mikhaïlovitch, apparently nobody knows as many jokes as you do.” I’m not sure how he knew this. He asked me to tell him a few. I started off as I did every evening with my pals. He roared with laughter – not something that happened very often. His staff officers laughed too. We drank quite a lot, celebrating our victory. We were happy. We knew that we were going to win the war. He asked me whether I knew any jokes about him. They stopped laughing. What could I reply? My general was quaking. If I told him I did, I risked being shot on the spot or sent goodness knows where. If I said I didn’t, he wouldn’t have believed me. I didn’t get flustered. I told him that I only knew one. He asked me to tell it to him. That’s how we became friends.’

  ‘What story was it?… No, Leonid, don’t tell me it was the joke about the sun that rises in the daytime and goes over to the West.’

  ‘Yes, he loved it and asked me to tell it on several occasions. Each time, it produced the same effect. The staff officers were terrified. As for him, he had tears in his eyes. He said it along with me, he repeated it back to me, and he added details. He choked himself laughing. One day, a general informed him that he was shocked by this insolence and that it didn’t make him laugh. Stalin replied that heroes were entitled to small privileges and that one could make exceptions for them. It was said that he had infinite patience and that he was as wily as a fox. One day, he asked me who had told me the joke. I told him that it was a friend, a lieutenant who had died in battle. I could see he didn’t believe me, but he wasn’t angry with me. Thanks to him, I was made a colonel and I received the gold star of Hero of the Soviet Union. The decoration wasn’t given as a favour, but for an air battle in which I brought down three Messerschmitt 109s and a Junkers 87, one of their fucking Stukas, by causing a deliberate mid-air collision. That was fairly common in the Soviet air force. There were hundreds of them. We were fighting for our homeland and we weren’t afraid of dying. The Japanese kamikaze invented nothing new. My parachute opened. It was the highest distinction that a Russian serviceman can be given. I had the huge honour of being awarded it twice. The second time was after the battle for Berlin. That’s one I’m not so proud of.’

  My father never talked about the war. He spent forty months in a prisoner of war camp, bored to death. When Leonid Krivoshein told me about his war, it was like an all-action film. We jumped back twenty years into the past. Pilot’s licence at the Perm Air Academy, posted as a sub-lieutenant to the Garde air squadron, he achieved 278 missions, 91 accredited victories, of which 65 were individual and 26 in combination, as well as knocking out 96 tanks, 151 anti-aircraft guns and 17 locomotives on the ground, and 25 decorations and military awards. His rapid advancement was due to his courage and to the slaughter of the Soviet troops that had left him, at the end of the conflict, as the sole survivor of his year.

  To begin with, I found it hard to believe him. In spite of his dark, tired eyes, he seemed scarcely older than Franck. With his white skin, his tousled blond hair and his smooth cheeks, he looked more like a youthful English aristocrat than a Russian airman. I would have reckoned him to be about thirty when he was actually nearly fifty. Igor held him in high regard and confirmed that he was speaking the truth. As soon as he started describing the battle of Koursk, when he had destroyed two enemy planes before being shot down by a Henschel 129, or the terrible Polish campaign, though, the others jumped on him. Vladimir Gorenko was the harshest: ‘You can’t go on being such a pain in the arse, Leonid. You’ve won. You got a pack of medals. Stalin embraced you and decorated you. Ilyushin said you were the best pilot in the world and Tupolev thought of you as his son. Streets and school have been named after you. You were a hero of the Soviet Union. Bravo, comrade, but today you’re just an arsehole of a Parisian taxi driver. Stop boring us stiff with this fucking war. We don’t want to hear about it any more!’

  Leonid stood up to the rebuffs without getting annoyed and countered immediately: ‘If I don’t speak about it, Vladimir, if I don’t talk about what we went through, who will know?’

  From time to time, he suffered from bouts of sniffing, as if an unpleasant smell were bothering him, and he peered at his colleagues to see whether they were aware of it. He took a small opaque glass phial from his pocket and poured five drops onto a handkerchief then used it to dab at his nostrils. I didn’t dare ask him questions and so I asked Igor.

  ‘It’s nothing. He’s got a slight medical problem with his nose. He’s sniffing some medicine.’

  Summer and winter, he wore the same black cashmere pullover with a loose-fitting polo neck, and a worn Burberry bought in London when he was at his peak. On his right wrist he wore his Lip Président watch, which, in over ten years, had kept perfect time with the talking clock. It was his most precious possession. Every day, Leonid took away two sandwiches, one made with ham and one with Gruyere cheese, lovingly prepared for him by Madeleine, who gave him double portions. She wrapped them in a cloth bag which he slipped into the inside pocket of his raincoat. More than once, Madeleine discovered an entire sandwich and told him off for not eating it. Leonid smiled as if to apologize. He wasn’t hungry. The alcohol was enough for him. He was renowned for his exceptional ability to hold his drink, and more than one idiot who had wanted to test his stamina had slumped beneath the counter while Leonid had walked nonchalantly away, shrugging his shoulders, then climbed into his taxi and driven off without swerving an inch. Even when he was in an awkward position or had drunk a lot, he managed to extricate himself by playing for a stalemate. His fame had spread, and more than one player would push open the door of the Club to take him on. Students from the neighbouring grandes écoles, Centrale or Polytechnique would turn up hoping to beat him. Leonid wouldn’t agree to any game without a bet on either a bottle of Côtes-du-Rhône, drinks all round, or an apéritif. Those who took him on would frequently stagger away again, having made fools of themselves. Apart from his best friends, Igor and Werner, and Virgil, who longed to defeat him, the others in the Club had given up challenging him. The losers had to endure his sarcastic comments: ‘You’ve made progress, Tibor, but backwards’, or ‘You’re just a small-time player from the suburbs, Imré’, or, to Gregorios, who had no sense of humour: ‘On the scale of 1 to 10, you’re minus zero.’

  The worst chess insults were reserved for those who dared contest his supremacy, whom he treated as pathetic idiots. I had tried on several occasions to get him to take me on. He evaded the matter with a smile:

  ‘In ten years’ time, when you know how to play, we’ll discuss it again. Practise with Imré or Vladimir. When you beat them every time, come and see me.’

  I spent hours observing him, noting down his moves and asking him questions. Leonid was a fanatic and had no need of a board or of pieces. He played in his head. He claimed to know two hundred and eighty-seven games by heart, the most useful ones, as well as several hundred of the best openings and endings. He had not counted them, which was amazing for he was always absolutely precise. He would memorize each move and describe a series of identical exchanges, comparing them with a particular sequence in a well-known tournament, and then wonder what Alekhine, the complete master, who knew more than a thousand games, and against whom he had had the honour of playing on three occasions without beating him, or Botvinnik, the champion of champions, who had always thrashed him, would have done in this situation. I followed him as best I could. I only understood about half of what he said. One day, seeing me looking downcast, he set out some pieces: ‘This one’s easy. You’ve got to checkmate in four moves.’

&n
bsp; He left me feeling useless. The pieces shifted around in a pointless ballet. Pavel and Virgil joined me. We thought long and hard before coming to the obvious conclusion that this time he had got it wrong.

  ‘Did he say in four moves?’ asked Virgil.

  ‘There aren’t thirty-six solutions. We’re not idiots,’ Pavel declared. ‘He’s taking the piss out of you.’

  ‘Go and ask the champion how he does it in four moves,’ Virgil suggested. ‘I maintain it’s not possible. In five perhaps, but not four.’

  ‘He’s playing at the moment.’

  ‘We don’t care a damn,’ Pavel replied. ‘Who does he think he is, after all?’

  I dared go and disturb him while he was playing a game with a student. Leonid had just made his move and pressed the button on the time clock.

  ‘Hey, Leonid, are you sure you didn’t get it wrong? Mate in four moves is impossible. We all agree.’

  ‘Can’t you wait? I’ve told you that you should never disturb a player except if there’s a fire in the Club. In the past, we would add: or if the Germans are attacking. There’s no danger? Then get the hell out of here!’

  I followed the game. To judge by his tense expression, his young opponent could not see a way of extricating himself from the position he was in. From time to time, he glanced at the minute hand of the clock which was approaching the fateful XII. Then he let out a long sigh, shook his head as though it were weighing him down, and toppled over his king.

  ‘Bravo,’ he murmured sharply.

  He reached out his hand to Leonid, who shook it with his fingertips.

  ‘Jacky,’ Leonid called, ‘bring a bottle of Côtes. The gentleman is inviting us. Won’t you have a drink, young man?’ he added.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Whenever you want,’ said Leonid as he poured himself a large glass of Côtes-du-Rhône.

  He knocked it back in one gulp and filled the glass again.

  Then, rubbing his back, he dragged himself to his feet and deigned to move over to our table.

  ‘They’re weird, these kids from Polytechnique. Good at maths and not great at chess. That guy could make it, but he plays with a tight ass. He’s too frightened of losing.’

  ‘Are you offering us a drink?’ asked Pavel.

  ‘I’ll buy you one when you’ve improved. And it’s not going to happen in a hurry.’

  ‘This time, you’ve got it wrong!’ announced Virgil, coming over to the table.

  ‘You’re just a load of wet blankets,’ said Leonid as he made four moves with the black and white pieces. ‘Mate. Not even my cat would want to play with you lot.’

  Virgil and Pavel slipped away without saying anything.

  ‘As for you,’ Leonid told me, ‘you’re going to finish the game and try to understand why this dumb ass gave in. He at least saw what was coming.’

  I leant over his chessboard and stood the king up.

  ‘He was in a reasonable position, wasn’t he?’

  ‘It’s not complicated. Not obvious, but fairly straightforward. I’ll give you a clue. We had an identical set of moves last week, but there was one knight fewer.’

  I stood staring at the chessboard for twenty minutes as though I was trying to discover the secret of some hieroglyphics.

  ‘You’re a great guy, Leonid. But I’ll never understand it. Chess is like maths, I just don’t get it.’

  ‘The day you start using the brain you’ve got in your head, you’ll get better.’

  ‘That’s all I ask for. How do I do it?’

  ‘If I knew the answer, I’d give up the taxi. And my pockets would be full of dough.’

  ‘Have you ever been really drunk?’

  He thought about it, recalling distant memories.

  ‘Dead drunk, you mean? Two or three times, when I was young, I felt a bit dizzy. During the war, I had quite a few. I stayed on my feet.’

  Madeleine and Igor were scheming to make him eat the dish of the day, but he hardly ate any of it. He was polishing off the bottle of Côtes, and woe betide anyone who refused to serve him when he asked for another one.

  ‘I’m paying. I’m not drunk. I’m not making a scene. Do your job and give us something to drink.’

  ‘Leonid,’ Igor would say, ‘You’re not eating anything. You’re getting thin and people no longer recognize you. I wonder how you manage to go on. One day, you won’t have the strength to drive.’

  ‘I’ve never had an accident in my life.’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ Madeleine went on doggedly. ‘But you’re all skin and bone. You’re a good-looking man, Leonid. If you go on like this, no woman will want you.’

  ‘That’s one thing less to bother about.’

  ‘I think you have a problem with alcohol.’

  ‘Madeleine, it’s when I have no alcohol that I have problems. As my father used to say: as long as your hands don’t shake, life is fine. It’s when you start to fall over that things get serious. Vodka warms the heart. It’s the only alcohol that doesn’t freeze… Did I tell you the joke about Lenin and Gorky?’

  They tried to remember and shook their heads one after the other.

  ‘One day, Gorky is visiting his old friend Lenin and invites him to drink a rouble’s worth of vodka. Lenin reminds him of the restrictions imposed by the revolution and refuses to drink more than half a rouble’s worth. Gorky knows him well. He had invited him to Capri before the war. They had had one hell of a time. He insists and points out that two people with their level of eminence can give themselves a little extra. No one would dream of saying anything to them. Lenin is determined to resist and Gorky asks him the real reason why he is so obstinate. Lenin puts his head in his hands: “You see, Alexis Maximovitch, the last time I shared a rouble of vodka with a friend, it had such an effect on me that as I left I felt obliged to make a speech to the workers who were waiting there for me and, at this moment, I’m still trying to understand what I could have said for them to have behaved so bloody stupidly.”’

  3

  Often I didn’t have time to go to the Club after school, and I didn’t feel like going home. I would call by at the city library, especially after Christiane started working there. Her husband had been transferred by his firm from Toulouse to Paris, where she knew nobody. The transition had been sudden. She hadn’t managed to adapt to the city and its grim weather, nor to Marie-Pierre, the chief librarian, who didn’t like her, she wasn’t sure why, and made her do the least pleasant jobs such as sorting out the books or fining readers one centime for every day they were late with their returns. Christiane complied without making a fuss. As soon as she spoke, you noticed her accent. The first time, I thought she was being funny. And she didn’t simply stamp the cards as Marie-Pierre did; every loan came with a comment: ‘A very good choice’, or ‘You’ll love it, it’s one of his best novels.’ And when she did not like a book or an author, she would merely remark: ‘It’s a book about which there’s a great deal to say.’

  I got to know her at the beginning of my Dostoevsky period. After The Gambler, I had felt so moved that I decided to embark on his entire oeuvre. It was the least I could do to show my gratitude. There were twenty-nine of the forty novels by the great Fyodor on the shelf, as well as some other writing. I took five of them and put them down on her table.

  ‘Ah, Poor Folk, not bad for a first novel,’ Christiane remarked. ‘But I’ve never liked epistolary novels. You should read Notes from Underground. It’s the sequel, twenty years later. It’s a dreadful tragedy, about cynicism and self-hatred. One of Nietzsche’s favourite novels.’

  She carefully stamped the cards and then stamped the yellow sheets that were glued to the flyleaf with the date four weeks later, which was the last day for the books to be brought back.

  ‘The Double? I haven’t read it.’

  ‘Why doesn’t the public library have the entire works of Dostoevsky? Something must have happened. Why are eleven missing?’

  ‘I don’t really kno
w. I agree something must have happened. I’ll find out.’

  About ten days later, I brought back the five books and took out five others.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that you’ve read five novels in eleven days?’ she asked in her sing-song accent.

  ‘I read all the time, even in class.’

  ‘In class?’ she repeated incredulously.

  ‘I put the book on my lap. I pretend to be listening and I manage to read in peace. The lessons are so boring.’

  Almost every evening, we discussed books. She tried to persuade me to give up this habit of reading an author’s entire works in one burst.

  ‘It’s silly. You’ve got to stick to the best, go for the classic ones. At least half of what Balzac, Dostoevsky, Dickens or Zola wrote is of no interest. You’re wasting your time reading their bad books.’

  ‘How will I know if I don’t read them? You might praise a novel to the skies, and I wouldn’t. I loved White Nights and you’re telling me it’s Dostoevsky’s worst book. Who’s right?’

  But then I followed her advice and gave up reading writers systematically. She urged me towards contemporary novels, but we didn’t share the same tastes.

  ‘You should read Portrait of a Lady,’ she suggested to me one evening when I had mentioned the mysteries of Anna Karenina’s suicide. Before I could reply, she had got down from her platform, disappeared between two sets of shelves and returned with a book in a beige cover.