The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  He drank his café crème, blowing on it to cool it down. His fingers were stained yellow from nicotine.

  ‘I need money, Michel.’

  ‘I haven’t got any. I’ve got my savings bank book, but if I touch it, Mama will see and ask me why.’

  ‘I’m hungry. I’ve not had a bite to eat since yesterday morning.’

  ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘So how do you think I’m going to be able to buy anything to eat?’

  ‘I thought you had friends.’

  ‘My friends want to hand me over to the cops. I’m on my own. There’s only you and Papa.’

  He drew aside the flaps of his overcoat and I could see the butt of a revolver tucked into his belt.

  ‘I’ve got nothing more to lose.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Franck! I’ve got a bit of money I’d kept for… I’ve not spent my pocket money. I’m going to give you—’

  ‘That won’t be enough!’ he shouted irritably.

  He pulled himself together immediately. The owner glared at us and frowned.

  ‘I need cash,’ he continued in a low voice. ‘I’ve got to get away, and quickly. Otherwise, they’ll catch me.’

  ‘OK, I know where to get some. It’s not a problem. There are some people who’ll help me. Until Papa returns. You’ll have a bit tomorrow. Where can I find you?’

  ‘I’ve got no address. I sleep in cellars, mate. I swap around every night. I’ve really got no choice. If you borrow any money, no one must know it’s for me. If you need to talk to me, put your book under your left arm. If it’s urgent, under the right arm. And stop reading while you’re walking! Do you want to get run over or something?’

  ‘It’s funny, that’s exactly what Cécile said to me. Word for word.’

  ‘Do you still see her? Is she all right?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  He paused and let out a sigh.

  ‘No, not really. Got any fags?’

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘The money, can you bring me some this evening?’

  ‘I’m going to try.’

  ‘We’ll meet here after your classes are over. If you don’t see me, it means there’s a problem. I’ll get in touch again when I can. And above all, say nothing to Cécile, or to Mama. Or anyone. Leave me your money.’

  ‘Did you really kill someone?’

  He nodded his head in a continuous motion.

  ‘He was a bastard! I don’t regret a thing.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’d prefer not to talk about it.’

  I got to my feet, put my two francs fifty on the table and I left the bar. I had missed two hours of maths and I wouldn’t hear the end of it. How was I supposed to make progress under these conditions? There are some obligations you simply can’t escape from. It was like a sort of curse. I made a detour through Maubert and boulevard Saint-Michel so as not to risk bumping into Sherlock and I avoided the Luxembourg in case I met Cécile. I was going to have to come up with a cast-iron explanation to justify a day’s absence. The future of the boys in our family didn’t look very bright. I set off for Igor’s place. I had only been there twice before, the previous year, when he had decided to go and live in a small fourth-floor apartment not far from Werner’s home, overlooking the courtyard of a brick building on rue Henri-Barbusse. He had appealed for volunteers to help him move and to paint everything from the floor to the ceiling in white. I rang the bell for five minutes. I was on the point of going downstairs again when I heard the door open and Igor appeared, wearing pyjamas, with dishevelled hair and a crazed expression on his face.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock.’

  ‘In the morning! Oh shit! You’re crazy waking me up. Don’t you know I work nights? I went to bed at eight. And with the racket that bastard upstairs makes, I couldn’t get to sleep.’

  ‘I’ve got a problem, Igor.’

  He peered at me, his eyes asquint, rubbing his forehead.

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn, Michel. I need to sleep, do you understand?’

  ‘It’s a serious problem.’

  He turned around and made as if to go back into his apartment.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Come on in!’

  He slammed the door behind me. I went and sat down in the kitchen. I could hear the noise of the shower. Igor came back, dripping wet, wrapped in a bath towel like a Roman emperor. He was in a bad mood and made himself some coffee.

  ‘I hope for your sake that you’ve got a really serious problem,’ he grumbled.

  7

  To hell with principles if a pill was all it took to lead a normal life. Once he had slept, Leonid regained his lost vitality and felt ten years younger. He went out with his friends once more and began to have fun again. He was the old pre-war Leonid, handsome and charming, who could enthral a gathering until the small hours with his funny stories. In the aftermath of wars, especially ones as brutal as this one, women are more numerous than men and this unmarried colonel, adorned with his prestigious decorations, was a good catch. Leonid had no intention of allowing himself to be led to the altar and made the most of his good fortune. His company was sought after. He was invited to the numerous parties that enlivened the Leningrad nights. The survivors needed to make up for lost time and get the most out of life.

  People devoted all their energy to the reconstruction of the city and its destroyed monuments. During a reception to mark the start of works at the Kirov, he met Sonia Viktorovna Petrovna, who was working on the restoration of the plasterwork at the Winter Palace. It was hard to imagine a more different couple, and no one understood how they had come to be attracted to one another. They shared no common tastes or ideas and disagreed about everything, but two things brought them close: Leonid admired Sonia because she drank as much as he did without getting drunk, and they had a perfect physical understanding. They got married two months later. The registrar and the guests were impressed by the warm message of congratulations sent to them by Stalin. It was a simple wedding in the Soviet style, washed down with vodka, with the traditional photograph in front of the equestrian statue of Peter the Great that had just been restored.

  Leonid was a pragmatic military man, a son of the revolution, a steadfast communist for whom the question of whether the party was right was as absurd as asking whether one and one made three. Sonia was an idealist who had seen her family and friends decimated by the war and the arrests, and who loathed the communists. For her Leonid was not like the others. There was a fragility and vulnerability about this colonel with his string of decorations that moved her deeply. He snuggled up to her and forgot his anxieties. She was always cold, even in mid-summer. He took her in his arms and he warmed her. He often fell asleep at daybreak. She didn’t dare wake him.

  Leonid knew that a technological revolution was under way and he wanted to be part of it. Since the end of the war, thanks to the German equipment reclaimed by the Red Army and the German research workers who were now part of the NKVD’s* department of scientific operations, Soviet manufacturers had been hell-bent on being the first to fly a jet plane. After lengthy prevarications, the Defence Board had selected two research consultancies to develop a fighter plane capable of attaining an altitude of 12,500 metres, achieving a flight range of at least 700 kilometres and flying at more than 850 kilometres per hour, a speed and specifications that were insane, but which would give the country a decisive advantage in the likely event of a war against its former allies. Leonid had to make a strategic choice. Which constructor should he apply to work for? To the well-established Yakovlev, or to the young engineers, Mikoyan and Gourevitch, who appeared to possess limitless means and connections? Wonderful things were said about their new Mig, but he had had no contact with them, whereas Leonid knew Alexander Yakovlev. He had flown all his planes, from the Yak 1 at the beginning of the war to the latest version of the Yak 3, and Leonid had given him valuable advice as to how they might evolve.
Yakovlev was not surprised by Leonid’s request. He knew his good qualities and agreed to include him in his team of test pilots. He showed him the prototype of the jet plane of the future, the Yak 15. Leonid gave no explanation to Sonia other than that his new duties called him to Moscow. She would not be allowed to accompany him. He expected reproaches, but she resigned herself to a long separation. He was preparing the administrative formalities for his departure when he received a phone call from Yakovlev: ‘There’s a problem, Leonid Mikhaïlovitch. I am obliged to cancel our project.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s an order from Timoshenko. I’m sorry.’

  The People’s Commissar of Defence had a dreadful reputation. Rovine advised Leonid against seeking clarification, but Leonid was furious, and was determined to disregard the decision and join Yakovlev’s team. He got an appointment and made the journey to Moscow, where Semyon Timoshenko received him politely.

  ‘It’s not possible to allow you to join the Mig or the Yakovlev teams. The death rate among test pilots is so high that there’s no question of a Hero of the Soviet Union risking his life in such a dangerous activity.’

  ‘I’ve taken greater risks every day of the war.’

  ‘Of the eighty pilots of your year, you’re the only one who survived. You’re among the 5 per cent of Russian military survivors to have begun the war. Imagine what would be said if there was an accident. We have to make way for the young. And test pilots are bachelors.’

  ‘I’ll get divorced tomorrow morning.’

  ‘No point.’

  ‘I can still serve my country.’

  ‘You shall have the opportunity to do so.’

  ‘I want to fly. I’m going to be forced to speak to you know who.’

  ‘He told me that he would hold me responsible if anything happened to you.’

  Leonid was offered command of an air squadron. It was an honour for a man of his age, but he was not overjoyed at the thought of this promotion. Obedience among military men is often merely resignation. He should have understood that the time had come for him to settle down. But in spite of his fame and his medals, he wanted to be at the controls of a plane and to fly, to find himself in solitary communion once more with the immensity of the sky. His friends told him he should move on to something else, give Sonia some children, start a family. He replied that he felt like a caged bird and would die of boredom if he were shut up in an office.

  In the autumn of ’46, Leonid heard that the civil aviation company Aeroflot was looking for pilots to operate the new routes that were about to be opened. He applied, convinced that he would be welcomed with open arms. He was turned down. He had no civil licence. He asked for leave and enrolled at the Civil Aeronautical Institute in Leningrad. The hardest thing was learning to speak English. He obtained his licence at the first attempt. The company rejected his application again on the pretext that it was draconian as far as the soberness of its pilots was concerned, a decision which made them all laugh heartily on the tarmac of Cheremetievo airport. This time, he applied to the proper quarters. Leonid Krivoshein then became one of the few pilots, the only one of this rank, to resign from the Red Army and join Aeroflot, where he was taken on as second in command on the new Ilyushin 12, which had just been put into service on the Moscow–London route.

  The following year, he was promoted to chief pilot. At the controls of his plane, he was the happiest man in the world. To his proud achievements, he added a justified reputation as a real charmer. Aeroflot used him as a symbol in its new campaign and a photograph of him, dressed in his fine navy blue uniform, adorned the company’s advertising posters. Leonid was a hero. All Russians knew his name and his brave deeds. Children imitated him when they played. His photo was in the schoolbooks. He was spoken of with the respect men pay to demi-gods and he would still be a hero of the people had he not, during a stopover at Orly, met Milène Reynolds.

  * The NKVD, the Soviet Security Service and Secret police, would be broken up into the MGB and MVD in 1946 and renamed the KGB in 1953. Tr.

  8

  It was midday. Igor had listened to me carefully, asked three questions and had finished the coffee in the pot.

  ‘You could have talked to me about it before.’

  ‘I tried to. It’s not easy to come in and pour out your problems like some sales rep. Is it serious, do you reckon?’

  ‘How can one tell? With the army, it’s the same in every country. Secrecy. Even when it serves no purpose. The main thing is to warn your father. If you ring him at his hotel, the police will know your brother’s in Paris. You’ve got to speak to him somewhere else.’

  ‘At my Uncle Maurice’s.’

  ‘Too risky. You have to be quicker than the police. Give me a bit of time. I’m going to ask an expert for some tips.’

  ‘I think I know who it is.’

  ‘If you know, forget about it.’

  He left the kitchen and came back with a wad of banknotes, which he laid on the table.

  ‘There’s seventy thousand francs.’

  ‘Seven hundred francs, you mean.’

  ‘I can’t get the hang of nouveaux francs.’

  ‘It’s a lot. I’ll take three hundred francs. That should be enough for him until my father returns.’

  ‘Take it all. You never know what may happen. If he needs it, it will be of some help.’

  ‘It’s a lot of money. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to pay you back and I can’t promise my father will.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s only money.’

  ‘I’m really grateful to you, Igor, for what you’re doing. I won’t forget it.’

  ‘You’re lucky, Michel, but it’s not for you that I’m doing this.’

  ‘It’s not for my brother, you don’t know him.’

  Igor poured the last dregs of coffee into his cup, stood up and started making some more.

  ‘You see, when I left the USSR, ten years ago, I hadn’t planned my departure. I had to get out very quickly. I abandoned my wife, my children, my job. It took me a minute to decide. Either I left immediately, or else it was the firing squad. I had nothing. I left with a loaf of bread. I was lucky. On the way, I met someone who helped me. A peasant from a forestry collective in Karelia. He knew I was on the run. He could have shot me or handed me over, but he showed me the way to Finland, avoiding the frontier guards. He gave me some biscuits and some dried herrings. When I asked him his name in order to thank him, he told me that I didn’t need to know it, that had he been able to do so he would have come with me, and he asked me to remember him back there.’

  ‘You never talk about your family.’

  ‘I don’t, and neither do the others. We think about them every day, every hour. We haven’t any hope of seeing them again. It’s impossible, unrealistic and dangerous. We say nothing. We keep them deep in our minds. There’s not a moment when I don’t wonder what my wife and children are doing. I know they’re also thinking of me. And it’s unbearable.’

  He remained silent, his eyes lowered.

  ‘Take this cash and stop boring me stiff with your moods. We’ll leave a message for one another at the Balto.’

  There was no point in turning up at school without a letter of explanation. I couldn’t imagine what I could possibly say to Sherlock to account for this unjustifiable absence. Without a note from my father, I would need a convincing excuse or a medical certificate. Two things that were impossible to produce. I would have to keep an eye on the post over the coming days in order to intercept the letter from school. I went to the Balto. I waited in my corner. I was unable to concentrate on L’Arrache-coeur, the book I was reading. At about three o’clock, Igor arrived.

  ‘Don’t worry. I know how we’ll go about it.’

  ‘How?’

  He took from his coat pocket a sheet of paper that was filled on both sides with small handwriting.

  ‘I took some notes. Come on, let’s give it a try.’

  We went to the post
office on the Avenue du Général-Leclerc. Igor asked the telephone operator for a number in Algiers. We got through after a quarter of an hour.

  ‘Hotel Aletti, good afternoon.’

  ‘I’d like to speak to Monsieur Marini, please.’

  ‘He’s gone out. His key’s hanging up.’

  ‘Do you know when he’s due back?’

  ‘He hasn’t told us anything. He often goes to the Amirauté restaurant for lunch.’

  ‘Is that far from you?’

  ‘One kilometre.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll call back.’

  Igor put the phone down.

  ‘You could have asked for the number of the restaurant.’

  ‘It’s not possible. I’ve got the number of a bar five minutes from his hotel. He’ll have to go there. The police won’t have time to tap the phone.’

  We tried every twenty minutes. The operator knew the number by heart and the hotel receptionist shortened his response to ‘Sorry, sir, still not back’. We waited anxiously as the time went by. Igor had to pick up his taxi. I had to meet Franck at six o’clock and be back before my mother. At a quarter past five, we tried again.

  ‘He’s here. Hold the line, I’ll put you through.’

  We waited for a few moments. I could hear my father’s voice: ‘Paul Marini here.’

  ‘Monsieur Marini, I’m a friend. I have some news for you.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m with someone who was with you at the time your son Franck was conscripted. You arrived late because your DS broke down. You came back on foot and the rain was bucketing down. Do you know who I’m talking about?’

  ‘Yes. What do you want?’

  ‘You must go immediately to the Grand Café. Let’s allow ten minutes. We’ll meet there. At the bar. OK?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  Igor hung up and asked the operator to put him through to the Grand Café in Algiers, but for some unknown reason it was impossible to connect him. The lines were jammed. Or else there may have been a bomb attack. No need to get worked up, the operator reassured him, it happens twenty times a day. Time passed and we became increasingly anxious. It was twenty to six. I could see that I was going to have to leave Igor without being able to speak to my father.