The Incorrigible Optimists Club

by Jean-Michel Guenassia

  She gave me back my card. I got to my feet and left, accompanied by the doctor.

  ‘Without betraying the medical oath,’ he continued, ‘I can assure you that this man needs looking after following his operation. There are various medicines he must take. He has a temporary splint and some stitches. There’s a risk of infection. If you see him, tell him to call in so that he can be treated. We won’t ask him anything. We also have the results of his blood tests and there’s a problem. He must seek advice. It’s urgent.’

  From the way he spoke to me, I sensed that he did not believe my story. I was probably unconvincing. In any case, there was nothing they could prove. François Gauthier did not exist.

  I went to the Balto, but not a single member of the Club was present and the new people did not know him. I questioned Jacky and Madeleine half-heartedly.

  ‘Sacha?’ said Jacky. ‘I couldn’t care less what his name is. That one, he’s Samy. The other boozer at the bar, he’s Jean. And you, you’re Michel. Do you want to know my name?’

  ‘Sacha?’ said Madeleine. ‘He’s Sacha. He’s Russian. With a Russian surname, I imagine. We called the others by their first name, too. They’ve all got names that are tough to pronounce.’

  I told them about his disappearance and how important it was that he should be looked after. They promised to speak to him if they saw him. To set my mind at rest, I ended my search at Fotorama. His boss had not seen him for a fortnight.

  ‘He’s an exceptional laboratory assistant. In a career of thirty years, I’ve never seen someone more gifted. Since he’s been here, the turnover has risen. I should very much have liked to put him on a salary and have his situation sorted out. He was the one who didn’t want that. Why? I don’t know. His surname?… Strangely enough, I never asked him.’

  I didn’t know how to explain his disappearance. He must have gone to some quiet place to recover and get some peace. He would come back when he wanted to. It was just like him to appear and disappear in an unpredictable manner, when it was least expected. He would not let me down. Sooner or later, I’d hear from him.

  We had been talking for a while about spending a fortnight at Bar-le-Duc, but my father still didn’t have a flat big enough to accommodate both of us. As a reward for my bac results, I was allowed to choose my own holiday.

  ‘What would make you happy, Michel?’ my mother asked me. ‘England? Spain? Greece?’

  ‘I’d love to go to Israel.’

  ‘What an extraordinary idea! Why?’

  ‘I want to know about life on a kibbutz. It must be thrilling to meet people who make tomatoes grow in the desert. There aren’t many pioneers around nowadays.’

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’

  I could sense that this was taking an awkward turn. I knew how to convince her.

  ‘I should also like to go to Nazareth and to Bethlehem. I’d love to visit the holy places.’

  Maurice made enquiries and discovered that it was expensive. It wasn’t the right time given that business wasn’t going too well. Eventually, in August, we would go back to Perros-Guirec.

  24

  Patrick Bonnet did not hang about. He was teeming with ideas. He spent his time redesigning the plans with the architect, looking for the perfect solution. In the latest version, he separated the bar and the restaurant and gave them their own entrances, enlarged the café and bar area by getting rid of the present kitchen, reclaimed the Club premises and converted them into a kitchen open on both sides. He also renewed the benches and decorated the restaurant like a brasserie, like his cousin’s at the Bastille. He was pleased with himself and asked us our opinion. Madeleine did not show overwhelming enthusiasm. She was going to have to give up her territory before she had intended.

  ‘If you demolish everything, it’s going to cost you a lot.’

  ‘We’ll do one hundred sittings a night.’

  ‘Only the regulars dine here. People prefer to go to Montparnasse. We do well at lunchtime.’

  ‘The clientèle exist, we’ll go and find them. You’ll be able to take holidays.’

  He stood drinks all round for Madeleine’s farewell party. At the same time, we celebrated the start of the building works. The Balto would close in August for the first time and everything would be finished by the time everyone returned from holiday in September. The workmen arrived the following day. Samy and I gave them a hand dismantling the old benches and loading them into the lorry. The foreman wasn’t able to open the Club door. The small key didn’t fit the lock. I tried, but it was jammed. He went to look for Patrick, who banged on the key with a screwdriver handle without success.

  ‘They must have forced it. Too bad about the lock.’

  He picked up a pair of pliers, applied them to the screw and, with a swivelling movement, freed it from the door. He went in, switched on the light and let out a yell. We followed him inside. Sacha was hanging in the middle of the room. His body, suspended at the end of a short rope, had begun to revolve on its own. His feet were barely thirty centimetres from the ground. We thought he was still alive and rushed over to take him down, but he was as stiff as a piece of wood. I heard Patrick’s voice shouting to call the police. Sacha’s face was grey, almost black. His open eyes were staring at the ceiling. His neck looked huge. He had a splint on his nose and his jaw was twisted. An overturned chair lay by his feet. Within a few moments, the room had filled with workmen and customers, all of them panicking and shouting. Jacky put his hand on my shoulder. I took hold of Sacha’s legs and lifted him. I stood back. His body slumped down a few inches. I couldn’t stop staring at his hands and his clenched fingers. Samy made everyone leave the room. I stayed there with Patrick and Jacky.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘The one who was beaten up the other day,’ Jacky replied.

  ‘Why did he do this here? It lands us in the shit as far as the refurbishments are concerned.’

  I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t know whether from anger or sorrow. I kept on saying to myself: I don’t believe it! Sacha, please. Not that. Stop fooling around! A police siren grew louder and louder until it became unbearable. Sacha, why? We would have sorted things out. There’s always a solution. Why didn’t you say anything to me? Didn’t you trust me? Wasn’t I your friend? Why? Bloody hell, Sacha, why did you do this? Then some policemen made us leave the room.

  Sacha’s death was like something out of a thriller. Nobody knew how he had entered the Club, when both keys to the room, the one for the door and the one for the padlock, were on the chain that never left Patrick Bonnet’s belt. Who had opened the door? Who had closed it? Since the keys used were not in the room, where were they? The police were unable to cast any light on the puzzle. They interrogated us, but nobody had seen or heard anything. They discovered a shoelace behind the stacked stools, but we didn’t know whether it belonged to Sacha or to someone else, or whether it had been there for years. According to one police officer, Sacha had picked the lock with a piece of wire or a hairpin (although none was found) and had locked it again by tying the shoelace to the half-opened door. Apparently, it’s one of the devices burglars use. We all tried it, but it was impossible. They also found a bent nail on the pavement on boulevard Raspail, close to the window. He could have used this nail to pick the main lock, and then locked the one inside, thrown the key out of the window and hanged himself. We tried this too, but no one managed to do it, not even Samy, who had mixed with bad company in his youth. No one thought this scenario, worthy of a third-rate thriller, credible. The logical explanation was that someone had helped Sacha to die or had killed him, and had then left, closing the lock and the padlock from the outside. But this hypothesis was discounted.

  ‘The mystery of the hanged man at Denfert-Rochereau’. That is how France-Soir announced the case the following day at the bottom of page five: a man known only by his first name, which they were unsure about, and who lived a secret life. The following day, there was no further mention of it. It
was forgotten, like a receding wave that washes away all traces from the shore. His death remained unexplained. Many thought he had been murdered by the KGB or another secret service. The police were incapable of deciding whether the bruises on his face and body dated back to his brawl with Igor or were inflicted just before his death. Perhaps he had had a fight with someone else? He had a scar on the back of his skull. Had he fallen while escaping from Cochin Hospital? Or had he been beaten up before he hanged himself? It was established that his death had occurred two days ago and had coincided with his disappearance from the hospital. His medical file established that he had no other injuries. The police classified the case as unresolved. As though they did not wish to discover the truth. I was convinced, and I was not the only one, that he had been got rid of by people from whom he had always been fleeing. When they took his body down, they laid him on the tables. A policeman closed his eyes. The key that he carried with him and which he was never without had vanished. This seemed to me proof that his death had been faked to look like suicide in order to rob him and steal whatever he kept in his hiding place. But I couldn’t talk about any of that.

  Three days later, I received an envelope wrapped in brown paper and reinforced with sticking tape. I recognized Sacha’s handwriting. Inside, rolled up in a sheet of white paper, was the key he kept on his cord. There was no note or signature. On the flap, a red fingerprint was visible. Probably blood. The postmark was illegible and it was impossible to determine, even with a magnifying glass, the date on which it had been posted. If it was Sacha who had posted it, as one assumed from the bloodstain, the package would have arrived the next day or two days afterwards at the latest. Why had it taken five days to travel one kilometre? I put the question to the postman, but he had no answer.

  That evening, I waited until everyone was asleep and left the flat at about eleven o’clock. I went to rue Monge. The building was completely quiet. I made no noise. Like a cat, I walked across the courtyard and up the backstairs in the dark, using the banisters to guide me. On the top floor, I went into the toilets, closed the door behind me and switched on the light. I clambered up the wall, supporting myself on the window-ledge, as Sacha had shown me. I took the key and slid it into the lock of the manhole cover behind the standpipe. The heavy metal panel toppled over. I put my hand inside the cavity and started to empty it. I was surprised by the amount it contained. A bulky loose-leaf ledger full of old photographs, cardboard files held together with a strap, three large exercise books written in Cyrillic characters and two dozen notebooks of various sizes; a short book by Hemingway, a Leica reflex camera and a small suitcase containing lenses, and a thick white envelope addressed ‘For the attention of Michel Marini’. I made sure that there was nothing left inside before replacing the panel. I used a vegetable crate that was lying around in the courtyard to carry everything and I left the building. I went back home and, in my bedroom, I started to delve into Sacha’s treasures. I opened the letter. There were twenty or so pages written on both sides in careful handwriting…

  Michel,

  When you read this letter, I shall have found peace at last…

  LENINGRAD 1952

  1

  The lighted candles of the two candelabras placed on the mantelpiece were reflected in the drawing room mirror. Irina glanced for a moment at her wrinkled features and her white hair and, feeling tired, let out a sigh. This was a very special evening. She had laid out the embroidered, Hungarian-stitch tablecloth, the Baccarat crystal glasses and the Limoges porcelain dishes bought for her by her husband before the Revolution. In the middle of the fully-extended table she had placed the huge gilded and beaten bronze dish acquired at the souk in Istanbul in the days when you could travel there by taking the train from Odessa. Fifteen places had been laid. Each guest would have two glasses, even the children who didn’t drink wine. In another era, she would have placed cut flowers in a third glass, but it had been ages since there were any florists in this frozen, ice-bound city. She had cut flowers out of coloured paper and made garlands and spiralling bouquets from them. They looked as though they were real. In the cupboards she had found forgotten objects, bought to be looked at, that had become useless and dangerous. She wondered whether there was any point in going to so much trouble, in taking so many risks. But she couldn’t be blamed for anything. She had done what had to be done. With her sister, her sister-in-law and her cousins, she had prepared the matzo crackers, even though this was forbidden nowadays. It was not the first time that a woman had to defy this edict. It was simply not possible to celebrate the flight from Egypt without these flat biscuits that you did not allow to rise in the oven. This year once again, she had had to use age-old ingenuity to procure the flour, the chickens, the herbs, the cucumber, the celery, the black radishes and the knuckle of veal. They had prepared the broth with kneidels, the stuffed carp and the entire feast taking precautions worthy of the secret service. None of the neighbours had seen, heard or smelt anything. She remembered what Emile, her husband, had said before he had disappeared, during the siege, when they celebrated their last Passover together, with only stale bread and hard-boiled eggs to eat: ‘During the Inquisition, the Marranos of Seville had adopted the somewhat suicidal custom of preparing sumptuous Seders. Whereas they should have been discreet, merged into anonymity and disappeared. They would say, “May this Seder be the most beautiful of our lives, since it may be the last we observe together.”’ Ever since, she had made it a point of honour to celebrate it according to the rules.

  Valentina, her sister, who had difficulty moving, put a log in the grate and stoked the fire. Vera, her cousin, lay a plate with herbs on the table. Anyone would think they were in an old people’s home. The war and the purges had meant that there were only old people left to look after the children, who chased one another round the flat and hid beneath the table and behind the armchairs, laughing uproariously.

  ‘Quietly, children, you’re making too much noise. Don’t run around. We’ll attract the neighbours’ attention.’

  Irina pricked up her ears. She had heard the familiar sound of the key in the lock. Igor came in with Nadejda. She walked over to them, but the two children overtook her in the corridor. Little Ludmila hurled herself at Igor, who picked her up, threw her in the air, caught her and then did it again. Piotr snuggled in Nadejda’s arms.

  ‘How are you, my darling?’

  ‘We’ve done some drawings, Mama.’

  ‘Have they been good?’ Nadejda asked.

  ‘As they always are.’

  ‘It’s nice in your home,’ Igor said to Irina as he kissed her on the forehead. ‘There was a strike on the underground. We walked for two hours. There’s never been so much snow at this time of year.’

  ‘Come and warm yourselves.’

  ‘Irina Viktorovna,’ said Nadejda, as she too embraced her mother-in-law, ‘I’ve left you all the work. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve got the time. Everything’s ready.’

  Irina went over to Igor who was warming his hands by the chimney.

  ‘Sacha’s coming to dinner with Anna.’

  ‘What? You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘He rang up two days ago to ask how I was. I couldn’t do other than suggest that he joined us.’

  ‘It’s unbelievable! He never comes. How could you have invited him?’

  ‘I was convinced he’d refuse. He accepted.’

  ‘He’ll ruin our celebration.’

  ‘Igor, he has an important job. You must be diplomatic.’

  ‘He didn’t move a finger for Lev. And what did he do for Boris?’

  ‘He’s not the one who decides. He’s like us. He does what he can.’

  Igor uncorked a bottle of Crimean wine and placed it next to a silver beaker. He looked at his watch slightly impatiently.

  ‘We’re not going to wait all night for them. Why don’t we begin?’

  ‘With this foul weather, there must be problems,’ Irina explained.
‘The canals are frozen over again.’

  The doorbell rang. The children sat stock-still and did not say a word. With an automatic gesture, Nadejda pushed her plaited hair up from her neck, walked somewhat anxiously over to Igor and put her hand on his shoulder. Ludmila rushed over to Igor’s legs. He took her in his arms.

  ‘It’s nothing, my darling. Nadia, will you answer the door?’

  She walked to the end of the corridor and opened the door, which was concealed behind thick brown material.

  ‘Welcome,’ she said to Sacha and Anna, as she kissed them.

  ‘The underground stopped running. We had to walk through the snow,’ said Anna.

  ‘And the children?’

  ‘We left them at home. My sister’s looking after them.’

  Nadejda helped her take off her soaked shawl and parka. Anna, who was pregnant, had difficulty turning round in the narrow corridor. Irina joined them.

  ‘How are you getting on, Anna Anatolievna?’

  ‘As well as possible. My legs hurt. We’ve walked for too long.’

  ‘With a wind like this, you’re bound to have a girl,’ Irina remarked. ‘Come and rest.’

  Nadejda and Anna moved away. Irina took Sacha’s black leather coat and his blue cap with its red headband, dripping with wet snow. He kissed her on the cheek and smiled at her.

  ‘It’s nice here. Outside, you’d think it was December. How are you?’

  ‘I’m glad to see you. It’s good that you’ve come. Oh, your hands are frozen.’

  ‘Is everyone there?’

  ‘We were only waiting for you.’

  Sacha did not hurry as he entered the dining room. He embraced Valentina, Vera and the children. He spread out his hands over the fire in the hearth. Igor came up to him.

  ‘You could have changed! Fancy coming to a Seder in uniform!’

  ‘I’ve come from the Ministry. You could at least say hello!’