The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  Pierre’s possessions were inside the cardboard box: a bundle of letters from his lovers, several of which had not been opened, his wallet containing an address book and a few banknotes, and inside a flap with a shiny clasp were some coins; a page torn from a spiral notepad, folded in eight, with the recipe for a Molotov cocktail, and, jumbled together, some photographs, his army record, his student cards, some exercise books filled with notes and pasted-in press cuttings, his Algerian notebooks, his letters and Cécile’s replies, the first six chapters of her thesis on Aragon, and a dozen or so photographs of her that I had taken in the Luxembourg, with an elastic band around them. I knew her. This was no coincidence. It was deliberately staged. I sat down and lit a cigarette. I tried to decode the message she was sending me. And then, I understood. She was leaving everything to me, letting me have it, giving it to me. It was a present to make up for her silence and her disappearance. Or an exchange. She was telling me that with these photos of the fountain, I had come back to her, and that she was keeping the others as evidence of our pact. I took the box along with its contents. I left the books on the table and, propped up against them, once I had signed it, the picture of the fountain so that she would know that I had called by and that we would see each other again one day. Whenever she decided we should.

  Who remembered Pierre nowadays? What remained of him? Of his huge smile, his impassioned ideas, his determination to change the world by killing all the bastards? Did the frail hearts he had conquered still think of the man who rejected them so that they would not become too attached to him? He lay, forgotten, in some provincial cemetery. In my arms I was carrying a box weighing four or five kilos, his life’s work, rather like a blackboard rubbed out in a hurry. All of a sudden, I heard his voice: ‘Hey, little bugger!’

  It was definitely him. I turned around. I knew there would be no one there, just anonymous passers-by and my battered memory. I put down the box on a car bonnet.

  ‘You really have become a little bugger! Is that what I taught you? Go on like that and you’ll become a little shit like the others. Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Look at yourself in the mirror and you’ll want to be sick. You’re not allowed to change like this. Not you. Otherwise, I shall have been of no use at all.’

  I didn’t need to ask him any questions. I knew. There are some dangerous words in the French language. For example: méprise, which means an error or a mistake. A méprise is amusing. It’s comic. Except when it changes and becomes the verb mépriser: to scorn or despise. Pierre was right. I could not lie to Camille any longer and let her think I was a poet and an artist when I was merely an imposter. I had made up my mind to tell her the truth. I would live a life of transparency with her and not a lie, neither error nor scorn. I phoned Camille. It was late. A man with a strong pied noir accent answered.

  ‘Good evening, I’d like to speak to Camille. It’s important.’

  There was a groan and a long silence. Down the phone, I heard: ‘Camille, there’s someone who wants to talk to you.’

  I recognized Camille’s voice in the background, asking who it was.

  ‘I don’t know. This is not the time for phone calls, my girl.’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me. I’m ringing you because…’

  ‘You’re crazy! Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘We must see each other tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ve classes until six o’clock. I can’t.’

  ‘It’s very important, Camille. I’ll wait for you.’

  She hung up. It was a weight off my shoulders. I went home with Pierre’s box. I left it in a corner of my bedroom. On it, I wrote in large letters: ‘Do not open’.

  I waited by the fountain. It was half past six. From the Lycée Fénelon to the Luxembourg takes less than ten minutes, without hurrying. She would not come. She must have had a problem or she had not appreciated my late phone call and was annoyed with me. We might never see each other again. My heart was thumping, I had a lump in my throat and my shoulders sagged. I was gazing at Polyphemus with his raised arm and that restrained motion that broke the perspective. At that very moment, I felt a strange sensation. A sort of cleaving in two, and an unaccustomed lightness, as though there were another person inside me. It took me completely by surprise. I would never have believed that this would ever happen to me. I took out a scrap of paper. I held my breath. I shuddered and out it came. In a burst. Without me pausing for a moment to ask myself what I was doing, I wrote eight verses. At speed. Like Sacha. I didn’t have time to read them again. I looked up, my pen in the air. Camille was standing there.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was kept back by the philosophy teacher.’

  I handed her the sheet of paper. She took it and read it.

  Supreme in a marble palace

  Gazing at the darkened chandeliers and the flaming candles

  I wish only to ponder myself and my extended shadow

  In the captive towers buried passion

  Suddenly explodes and takes possession of my soul

  As an intoxicated bird flies into its tree

  I search for you, I lose you and my sadness flees

  I wait for you, distraught, by the foot of the fountain.

  ‘Michel, it’s very beautiful.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I love it. It’s not as sad as the others.’

  I stood up. I took her in my arms. She closed her eyes. I kissed her. She didn’t protest. On the contrary, she clasped me to her tightly. We remained there, intertwined, each of us overwhelmed by the other.

  ‘Why did you ring yesterday evening?’

  I hesitated. Should I reveal the truth? It is quite clear that women love poets. I looked into her eyes and I smiled. In the end, I said nothing.

  17

  The countdown had begun. Thirty days to the bac. I wasn’t bothered. I had not the slightest anxiety or doubt as to the outcome. Ever since I had moved to the literature stream, I had become good at maths. If I had had a teacher like Peretti beforehand, with his unique teaching methods, everything would have been different. He never made fun of anyone. He wasn’t sarcastic, contemptuous, arrogant or irritating. When we had not understood something, we dared tell him so. He began again with a smile. He didn’t mind. On the contrary, he liked it. He wasn’t in a hurry. Camille, on the other hand, was worried sick. I tried to reason with her: ‘Did your clairvoyant say you were going to get through?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If she says so, there’s no need to worry. You’ll pass. And if you don’t, what will happen? Nothing. You’ll repeat the year. You won’t be the first. It’s not a disaster.’

  ‘My father would be furious with me.’

  ‘This pressure you’re under is ridiculous. He should be doing the opposite and putting you at your ease. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Don’t, whatever you do! Please recite a poem for me.’

  ‘Right now I’d better be getting on with revising, don’t you think? She smiled and nodded. I was exhausted. What sort of poet doesn’t write poems? I thought I had got myself out of trouble, but every time I took up a pen and a sheet of paper, nothing happened – no outpouring. However much I tried to force myself, to shake my head, close my eyes, go for intensive sessions by the fountain and summon up my emotions, I remained dull and unproductive. I had almost come to the conclusion that my creativity was limited to this one poem. Once again, I was obliged to resort to Sacha’s compositions, even though Camille found them gloomy and melancholy. I drifted around between ‘la méprise’ and ‘le mépris’, between contempt and misunderstanding. I loathed myself for lying to her and deceiving her. After one last, useless attempt, I decided to come clean with her. Whatever the price might be.

  We met as we did every evening at the Viennese patisserie in rue de l’Ecole de Médecine. I ordered two hot chocolates.

  ‘Camille, I’ve something important to say to you.’

  ‘So
have I. I must talk to you.’

  ‘All right. Would you like me to begin?’

  ‘What I have to say to you is vitally important.’

  I wondered what could be more serious than my lies. Her clairvoyant must have told her about the arrival of another comet.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  She didn’t speak. Her eyes were cast down. She looked as though she had a weight on her mind and didn’t know how to get rid of it. I began to feel anxious.

  ‘I haven’t told you the truth, Michel.’

  She stopped. I dug my fingers into the bench. I was prepared for the worst. I would never have believed it possible. It had to be faced. There was somebody else.

  ‘I’ve got two bits of bad news.’

  ‘Why don’t we go outside. It’s hot.’

  We made our way towards the Seine. We walked along the riverbank and sat down on a bench. She must have been searching for the appropriate words, rather like a doctor who tells you that you’re going to die soon, that it’s sad and you need to be brave.

  ‘I didn’t mention it because I didn’t think it would become an issue between us…. I’m Jewish.’

  ‘That’s not bad news.’

  ‘It is in my family.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Things are not possible between us, Michel.’

  ‘Because you’re Jewish? I couldn’t care less. We’re not very religious at home.’

  ‘In our home, it’s the opposite.’

  ‘We’re not in the Middle Ages any longer.’

  ‘You don’t know my family.’

  ‘We get along well together. We’re taking the bac. You’re the first girl I’ve met who means something to me. You’re not obliged to talk to your parents about it. We can wait and see how it works out.’

  ‘We won’t see a thing, Michel. In July, we’re leaving France.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re emigrating to Israel.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘They don’t like it here. My father says that our place is over there. They’re waiting for us to pass our bac. It’s really bad news. That’s why I just wanted us to be friends.’

  ‘You’re not obliged to go there. They can’t force you.’

  ‘I’m a minor, Michel.’

  ‘You’ve got family here. You can say you have to do your studies in France. You can live at one of your uncle’s homes. You can go and see your parents during the holidays.’

  ‘The whole family is leaving together. The tickets are booked.’

  ‘What if you failed your bac? Nobody is sure of passing. That way, you’d be here for another year.’

  ‘I want to pass for my parents’ sake. It’s a dream they’ve had for a long time. Before I knew you, I was happy to go there. A new land at last, where everything is possible. Living in a kibbutz: doing away with property, social classes, salaries, removing the children from the family dwelling, working for the community, taking decisions together. You should understand.’

  ‘They’re bloody stupid ideas! They’ll never work!’

  ‘It’s best we don’t see one another any more, Michel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It would be best for us to stop. I don’t want… I don’t want to…’

  ‘You should have said you were leaving right away! We could have broken up immediately!’

  ‘I wanted us to be friends, nothing more.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a damn about your friendship! I believed in us.’

  ‘I didn’t want there to be any complications between us. It’s your fault.’

  ‘Oh really? And what did I do? Eh? Can you tell me that?’

  ‘I hadn’t anticipated that I would meet a poet.’

  She started to gasp for breath and began crying. She stood up. She ran away. I tried to order my thoughts. Everything was in turmoil inside my head. She had got it wrong. It was a misunderstanding, a mistake, an error. I felt washed out. I stood up and I yelled: ‘I’m not a poet! Do you understand? I’m not a poet!’

  She was a long way off. She couldn’t have heard.

  I began talking to myself. Kicking out at invisible enemies. I cursed the Jews, the kibbutz dwellers, socialism, comets, poets and women. I wanted to scream. A pleasure boat crammed full of tourists went by. They were taking photographs. I yelled insults at them. They didn’t understand. They laughed and waved. I swore to myself that I would change and that I would never be trapped again.

  It was the last day of fine weather. A depression emanating from the Arctic took us back into winter. The sky was dark. The rain poured down. This weather suited me perfectly.

  18

  It all came back to me. Pins and needles all over the body. Lungs gasping for air. I found Pierre’s old shorts and his PUC rugby shirt. I went back to the Luxembourg and it wasn’t in order to swoon in front of that wretched fountain. I started to run again. For the first few days, I hitched on to a group of firemen who were doing their training. I found it hard to keep up, but I made it a point of honour to match them stride for stride. And then I left them all behind me. I completed the circuits at a steady pace, and as soon as I saw one of the firemen, I accelerated to overtake him. What with the rain, the muddy track looked like a swimming pool. I loved the drumming sound, this thud of footsteps on the drenched earth. I kept smashing my previous record. I no longer counted the circuits. I would run for two hours without pausing, stopping at closing time or at the point of exhaustion, when my pulse was thumping in my temples at top speed, and my legs were starting to wobble.

  I went home soaked to the skin. I replied in onomatopoeic grunts. I took a boiling hot shower and shut myself in my bedroom. Juliette would sometimes come and sit on my bed. She talked about this and that and she didn’t ask a single question about Camille. But I never stopped thinking of her. It’s not easy to reason with oneself. You can’t control your own brain. More than once, I wanted to go along to the Lycée Fénelon to set eyes on her, to talk. But I decided against it. It would be pointless. You can’t change the way things are or force the hand of fate. When it became unbearable, I accelerated until I was out of breath. There’s an actual moment when your mind eventually gives up and leaves you in peace. Can you have a heart attack aged seventeen? The more I exerted myself, the more I thought of her. I wept for her as I ran. There was no need to hide away. No one can tell the difference between tears and raindrops. How many circuits did I need to do in order to forget?

  *

  I was bent double. My lungs were bursting. I had a stitch in my side, and I was panting and spitting, trying to get my breath back. It was drizzling. Anyone would think it was November, rather than June. I was by the deserted tennis courts. I straightened up. There she was. In front of me.

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘I was looking for you.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Listen… ever since the other day… I’ve… I…’

  Her clothes and her hair were dripping wet, she looked strained and her eyes were red. Her lower lip was quivering.

  ‘Michel, I can’t bear it any longer.’

  ‘Things aren’t too good with me either, let me tell you.’

  ‘Michel… let’s run away.’

  I didn’t understand what she meant. I opened my mouth to say ‘What?’ but no sound emerged.

  ‘Let’s leave immediately. Both of us.’

  ‘Where would we go?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Far away.’

  ‘Where are you thinking of?’

  ‘To a country where no one will find us, where no one will look for us.’

  ‘A country like that doesn’t exist.’

  ‘To India. America. To the end of the world.’

  ‘Do you mean: go away for ever?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. We’ll never come back.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘We’ll always be together. Don’t you want to?’
r />   ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  ‘Camille, it’s not possible. There’s the bac. Next week.’

  ‘It’ll be too late. I won’t be able to. I won’t have the guts. We have to go now.’

  ‘People do that in dreams. Not in reality.’

  ‘If you love me, Michel, take me away. Don’t let me go there.’

  ‘Running away on a sudden impulse is not a good idea.’

  ‘Let’s go to your grandfather’s house, in Italy. You told me he was—’

  ‘We’re minors. We’d be stopped at the border! We don’t have enough money to buy tickets.’

  ‘We can try hitch-hiking. Some people go round the world like that.’

  ‘Let’s take the bac. That’s the important thing, for you and for me. Afterwards, we’ll find a solution, in our own time.’

  ‘So, it’s not possible?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  She nodded several times, as though to let the notion sink in. I wanted to take her hand. She withdrew it.