The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  ‘If, by any chance, she asks you an awkward question, don’t answer. Smile. And if you can, take her hand and squeeze it tightly while looking straight into her eyes. Make the most of your smile, Michel.’

  On the back of an envelope, he wrote a poem very quickly, without thinking, or looking up. It flowed from his hand like water from a fountain. He handed me the dozen scribbled lines. I had to learn them by heart – he refused to leave them with me.

  ‘If, in addition to not writing poems, you have no memory, then tough on you. You’ll leave here once you know the poem. Don’t rely on me to check it through. We’re not doing a recitation exam.’

  ‘I’m frightened of forgetting it.’

  ‘Think of her and you won’t forget it. If you’re incapable of doing that, then you don’t deserve her. I’m only making one condition: you must not alter a comma. I trust you. If she likes it, I’ll give you others.’

  ‘I could learn several of them all at once.’

  ‘A poet who produces too much is suspect. Poetry requires time. It can’t be churned out. A writer can get up in the morning and say to himself: I’m going to write fifty lines, or five hundred or a thousand words. If a poet says that, he’s an impostor. It’s like diamonds. When you gather them by the bucketful, they’re worthless: they’re like bits of coal.’

  I hadn’t contemplated for an instant asking for time to consider it, or refusing, or seeing whether I liked the poems. He was rescuing me, so obviously, I accepted. I didn’t ask a single question. I was frightened he might withdraw his offer and forget about me. Or that she might meet a poet, a real one.

  A customer came into the shop. While Sacha served him, I read the poem. I was astonished by its clarity. I read it again. I recited it to myself with my eyes closed. I could see Camille. I was smiling, her hand in mine.

  ‘Is it all right?’ Sacha asked.

  ‘It’s a very beautiful poem.’

  Sacha smiled. He took the envelope, tore it up and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket.

  ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, Sacha.’

  As I walked across the Luxembourg, a doubt occurred to me. Supposing I forgot it? Shouldn’t I keep a copy of it for safety’s sake? I took out a sheet of paper to write down the poem. I hadn’t promised not to do this. Then I thought of Sacha and recited it to myself again until I knew it was imprinted on my brain.

  11

  It was during this period that I adopted the style that would be mine for years to come: a slovenly look, shirt pulled out of baggy corduroy trousers, black gym shoes and that tousled hair that I miss so much today. I had to put up with my mother’s comments: ‘Did you wash today? I don’t often hear you taking a shower. What’s this mop of hair? You’re going to the hairdresser’s!’

  In her presence, I kept up appearances and avoided confrontation, but before setting foot on the pavement I would ruffle my hair and make my clothes look dishevelled, taking on the appearance once more of someone who has just got out of bed – at least as far as the lycée, where Sherlock was standing guard.

  ‘Where do you think you are, Marini? This isn’t the circus. Does Monsieur like to think of himself as a Beatle, perhaps? May I remind you that gym shoes are intended for sport and that the bac includes an oral examination. What is this get-up?’

  You had to be smart and use your imagination and wits in order to circumvent the edict of ‘nice and short above the ears’. I wasn’t the only one. The epidemic had affected other pupils. We got together. We started to resist. We felt as though we were living inside a pressure-cooker and that they were preventing us from breathing. It was heating up, but the lid held firm. It was like an endless bout of arm-wrestling. We were gaining ground and each advance was a small victory, each defeat strengthened our determination. We knew we were going to win. We were the young ones, and every day there were more of us. They would kick the bucket eventually.

  ‘I’ve got a present for you.’

  Camille stared at me in surprise.

  ‘What is it?’

  I had been wondering where the most appropriate place might be. I couldn’t see myself playing the poet in front of a cup of hot chocolate in the noisy back room of the Viennese patisserie, where people were pressed up against one another. I hesitated between the riverbank and place Fürstenberg. I should have thought about it. I hadn’t planned anything. But our footsteps led us there. To the Médicis fountain. Like a magnet. We were beside the pond. I held my breath and… my mind went blank. Nothing came. My head felt as light and empty as a ping-pong ball. I made desperate efforts to remember this damned poem that had flown away. Perhaps I didn’t deserve it. This gave me the idea for the title of a poem: ‘Plea for a vanished poem’. All I had to do was write it. Perhaps I was making progress. She noticed my tense expression.

  ‘What’s the matter, Michel?’

  I looked her straight in the eyes. My lips were trembling:

  … Sheer glimmers and rekindled smiles

  The watchtowers of our hearts endlessly extend

  Over the ruined temples, the muffled words,

  The doubtful returns and the timid desires

  Our bleeding, sleep-filled shadows

  And the howls stifled

  By belated memories

  The expressions embellished by uncertainty

  The diverging paths all awry

  The pale gleams, the interrupted beats,

  Our breathing heavier than a mountain…

  She looked at me in astonishment, her mouth half-open, her hand on the balustrade. A light breeze ruffled her hair.

  ‘It’s marvellous, Michel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it yours?’

  For once I was prepared. I put my hand on hers. I smiled, my thoughts lost in the magic fountain. We stayed there until closing time.

  That is how my career as a poet began. It wasn’t a glorious beginning, but I had succeeded in avoiding the worst: not pretending to be anyone other than who I was. Let he who has always told the truth, who has never said yes when he thought no and has never covered up a shred of his incompetence, his ignorance or his arrogance throw the first stone. Likewise those who smiled when they didn’t feel like doing so or who appeared interested when they couldn’t care less about what they were being told. I’m the first to regret my behaviour. But did I have any choice? I didn’t like the deliberate ambiguity, but I told myself that the important thing was the poetry and the fact that emotions were genuinely felt and shared. I made other vague attempts, but I had a leaden weight at the end of my pen and my scribbles ended up in the waste-paper basket. Should we accept our limitations as inevitable? We fight with the weapons we have and the dream justifies the means.

  ‘Really, did she like it?’

  ‘She loved it. And I’m not just saying that to please you.’

  ‘I’m very glad, Michel. You can’t know what this means to me. They’re poems from another era. I had a slight doubt. I wondered whether she would appreciate them.’

  Sacha broke off from developing photographs and hung up the most recent ones so that they could dry.

  ‘We must go and celebrate this.’

  We walked over to a small cubbyhole which was used as a kitchen area. He picked up a bottle of pastis and poured out two large glasses.

  ‘That’s a lot for me.’

  ‘My dear Michel, all poets drink. The more they drink the better they write.’

  ‘Do you think so? Is it obligatory?’

  ‘The poets I like drank a lot. Or they suffered. If there’s no pain or if your head’s not spinning a little, the poetry is dull. The best ones suffered agonies and drank too much. There are few exceptions to this rule.’

  We drank to poets and to poetry. I had never seen him so cheerful and jolly.

  ‘I’d really like another.’

  ‘I did warn you, Michel. In small doses. Each poem must give the impression of having been a struggle. You’re not giving her a pair of shoes. A
bit of mystery.’

  He picked up an envelope, turned it round and, as he did the first time, wrote a poem in a minute, without difficulty, or hesitation, or alteration. It was impossible for him to be composing it on the spot. How many did he have in his memory? He held out the envelope to me.

  ‘I’m going to learn it by heart.’

  At home, after dinner, I experimented with Sacha’s theory. I poured myself a whisky. My father loved drinking some on Saturday evenings. It made him merry. But this concoction had a medicinal taste and burnt my throat. I wanted to finish the glass, but I didn’t manage to. I threw half of it down the sink. My stomach was on fire. I sat in front of a blank page and waited. My head was spinning and I wanted to be sick. It was wonderful: I felt the confusion of drunkenness; I suffered; I felt rotten for much of the night. But Sacha must have had more precise recommendations in mind because it did not produce the promised results. Inspiration did not come. I was expecting to see the pen run over the page and fill it with magical verses. It remained glued to my hand, while the other hand clutched my stomach. I can personally vouch for the fact that whisky is ineffective and was of no use to me for poetry. The mystery of creation must lie elsewhere.

  The Pont des Arts at dusk. The lamps were switched on. For a long while, we had been contemplating the Pont-Neuf clinging to the tip of the Île de la Cité, the top of the towers of Notre-Dame, the smooth perspective of the plane trees over the silvery water, the silent barges. We were beyond the city there, in a miraculous and sheltered space. It was the perfect moment.

  What has become of the birds of our souls?

  Flown away into the long plain

  With their pitiless cries

  And their madness like a spinning-top

  Frantic are the reasons for our love

  Yellow and red the eyes

  From the healing of our hatred

  The silent birch trees

  I speak once more to the night

  To the fleeting mist

  Eternity is a single day…

  She looked at me with a strange intensity. There was clarity, a kind of excitement. I was expecting her to cross-question me, but she said nothing. She took my hand and squeezed it. We didn’t speak. We had no need.

  This is what’s known as a snare. Once you have inserted a finger, the hand, the arm, then the whole body goes through. There’s no way of retreating, of pulling back. To begin with, you don’t think about it. Later, you realize that you’re a prisoner. Recognizing your mistake, saying ‘I deceived you’, is easy. But admitting ‘I am merely an illusion. I have no virtues; there is nothing remarkable or original about me’ is impossible. It is to deny your very self. So, you say nothing. You persevere. It was at quarter to seven that evening that I understood what a vicious circle meant.

  12

  We went to the Cinémathèque for a change. In memory of our falling flat on our faces, we observed a few moments’ silence, heads bowed towards the pavement. The first one to laugh had lost and would pay for the tickets. I paid. It was raining. We took shelter in the cinema without checking the programme. There were few people there. The lights went out. The credits went up. It took me a few minutes to realize that I knew the star of the film. Tibor Balazs had gone completely out of my mind. He had lost his wrinkles, as well as a few kilos, and he looked ten years younger. The man known as the Hungarian Marlon Brando played the part of a heroic and resolute freedom fighter who blew up a train, cut the throat of a Gestapo officer, sacrificed himself to save the members of his network, refused to confess when he was tortured and ended up by being shot after he had let out the heartrending cry: ‘Long live free Hungary!’ The censors had allowed it through.

  I told Camille how I had come to know him, and about his escape and return to his own country. She thought he was handsome and had ‘an animal-like virility’. The cinema is the art of lying and illusion. I didn’t tell her about Imré, about their impossible love affair, or about the chicken. Stars have a right to boundless esteem in women’s hearts.

  ‘One day, if you like, we could go to the Club, and I’ll introduce you to my friends.’

  ‘I find chess boring.’

  As we left the Cinémathèque, we came across William Delèze. His woolly sheep’s hair was dripping wet. He shook himself. I didn’t manage to avoid the expression of his delight at seeing me again, which took the form of a great slap on the back.

  ‘You vanished. Where have you been? I can’t keep your place for you any more.’

  ‘Camille, this is William. He’s a friend from the movies.’

  ‘Do you make films?’

  He couldn’t resist. The urge to talk about them was stronger than the desire to see one. We went and had a coffee in the café next door.

  ‘Michel told me about how you met. It started off well and after that I thought it dragged a bit. It needed new developments. People were going to get bored in my film. I had a better idea. It starts the same, but then he bumps into another girl whom he confuses with the first one. She’s Dutch. They set off together and they’re going to discover the world on bicycles. I wrote the script in a month. It’s called Summer Promises. Everyone who reads it adores it. I’m waiting for a reply from the people who provide producers with loans against future takings. I’m quite hopeful. My future producer is pals with one of the members of the committee. We’re waiting for an answer from Jean-Claude Brialy. He’s not able to shoot a movie and read at the same time. I’m going to try and be an assistant on his next film. I’ll be able to talk to him about it. Hang on, here’s the script, you must tell me what you think of it. It’s the seventh version.’

  He put down a 150-page manuscript on the table in front of Camille. On several occasions, I had asked him to give me a script to read, to see how it was done. I leafed through it. Sometimes, in between two passages of dialogue, they got off their bicycles but continued to chat as they walked on side by side. His idea, which was revolutionary, consisted in shooting just one long, single, shot without cutting or continuity, and in real time. It was a genuine technical innovation.

  Once William started, there was no stopping him. He knew everything about French cinema, the actors, the producers, the directors. He gave us masses of fascinating detail which you couldn’t read in the press. You would never have thought it was so complicated to create a film. It was the story of our cinema as it was happening. He took Camille’s hand and gazed into her eyes.

  ‘You’re much prettier in real life.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked.

  ‘Michel drew an identikit picture. He gave you a funny-looking head.’

  I aimed a kick at him under the table. I missed.

  ‘Did you do a drawing of me?’

  ‘It was just an idea. So as to find you,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’d love to see it.’

  ‘It wasn’t really you. I tore it up.’

  ‘You haven’t missed anything,’ William went on. ‘It was rather cubist.’

  This time, I did not miss.

  ‘It’s a pity,’ Camille said. ‘I should have loved to see it.’

  To relieve the tension, William started giving an imitation of a fly dive-bombing. It buzzed around in circles, which he followed with his head, and he managed to trap it in mid-air. But as soon as he opened his fist, it escaped and the whole thing began all over again. Camille burst out laughing.

  ‘Can you ride a bike?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like to be in my film? You’d be wonderful.’

  ‘I haven’t the time. I’m studying for my bac.’

  ‘Afterwards. This summer. It’s a marvellous part.’

  ‘It won’t be possible.’

  ‘I’ll leave you my phone number. Read the script. Ring me whenever you like and we’ll talk about it.’

  He got to his feet and picked up his newspapers.

  ‘By the way, Michel, I went to see your photos at Saint-Sulpice. They’re not at all bad.
’

  ‘Did you like them?’

  ‘For a beginner, you manage pretty well. Your friend, the photographer, he couldn’t develop a few films for me, could he?’

  ‘You only have to ask him.’

  ‘I find him expensive.’

  ‘I haven’t had to pay him. He reimburses himself through the sales.’

  He was in a hurry to leave and forgot to pay for his drinks.

  ‘Do you take photos?’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me. Can we see them?’

  ‘If you really want to.’

  ‘Was your friend William trying to chat me up?’

  ‘You mustn’t take any notice. He can’t stop himself.’

  *

  Through the window of Fotorama, I could see the manager of the shop laying out rolls of film on the shelves. On display in the right-hand window were black and white photographs of a stormy sea-front, with particles of foam spraying up against the jetty and passers-by bent against the force of the wind.

  ‘Are they your photos?’ Camille asked.

  ‘Mine are inside. They were displayed in the window for a month. They sold several of them.’

  I pushed open the door and we went in. When he saw me, the owner gave a big smile as though he were pleased to see me. He came over to us.

  ‘How are you…?’

  He searched for my name and couldn’t recall it.

  ‘May I show my photos to my friend?’

  ‘That’s what they’re there for. Did you want to see Sacha?’

  ‘He doesn’t work on Thursdays.’

  ‘At the moment, he works every day. We had a nice order from the Ministry for Cultural Affairs. The first prints of Chagall’s ceiling. Sacha, your favourite photographer is here,’ he shouted through the door.

  We went into the display room. Camille stood in the middle of the room and spun round. Her gaze swept over the photographs hanging on the wall. She paused at the right-hand corner.