Happy Are the Happy Page 6

  Raoul Barnèche

  I ate a king of clubs. Not all of it, but almost. I am a man who reached such an extreme that I was capable of putting a king of clubs in my mouth and chewing part of it to pieces, munching and swallowing it the way a savage would munch and swallow raw flesh. I did that. I ate a card that had been handled by dozens of other people before me, and I did it in the middle of the annual bridge tournament in Juan-les-Pins. I admit only one error, the original mistake: playing with Hélène. Letting myself be taken in by the sentimental little song-and-dance women do. I’ve known for years that I shouldn’t play with my wife as my partner anymore. The period when Hélène and I could play as a team, in a spirit of harmony – the word’s an exaggeration and doesn’t exist in bridge, let’s say indulgence then, on my part in any case, or in a spirit of, I’m looking for the right word, of conciliation – that period is long gone. One day, by a stroke of luck, we won the French mixed open pairs championship together. Since then, our alliance has produced not a single spark and ruined my blood pressure. Hélène didn’t know how to play bridge when I met her. A friend of hers brought her to a café where there were games at night. She was taking a secretarial course at the time. She sat down, she watched. She came back. I taught her everything. My father was an automotive toolmaker in a Renault plant and my mother a seamstress. Hélène came from the North. Her parents were textile workers. Nowadays things have become democratized, but in former times people like us wouldn’t have been allowed into the clubs. Before I left everything for bridge, I was a chemical engineer at Labinal. I spent my days working in Saint-Ouen, my evenings at the Darcey in Place Clichy, and then in the clubs. Weekends at the racetrack. Little Hélène followed along. The passion for cards can’t be communicated. There’s a box in some brains, a box separate from the rest. It’s the Cards box. Those who don’t have it don’t have it. You can take all the lessons in the world, there’s nothing to be done. Hélène had it. In the short run, she played quite decently. Women can’t concentrate for long periods of time. After thirteen years of playing bridge separately, one fine day Hélène woke up and suggested we go back to the Juan-les-Pins tournament and play together. Juan-les-Pins, the blue sky, the sea, the memory of a hotel in Le Cannet, God only knows what image she had in her head. I should have said no and I said yes, like every man who’s growing old. The drama occurred at the seventeenth hand. North-South had reached a contract of five spades. My opening lead is the two of diamonds, dummy plays low, Hélène lays down the ace, declarer plays low. Hélène trots out her ace of clubs, North plays low, I have three clubs to the king, I play the nine, dummy plays low. So now what does Hélène do? What does a woman I’ve taught everything, a woman who’s supposed to have become an elite player – what does such a woman do? She continues in clubs. I played the nine of clubs on the previous trick, and Hélène led another club! We had three sure tricks, and we made only two of them. At the end of the game, I showed her my king of clubs and cried, now where am I supposed to put this? Shall I eat it? Do you want to kill me, Hélène? Do you want me to have a heart attack right here in the middle of the Palais des Congrès? I waved the card under her nose and then stuffed the thing in my mouth. As I began to chew, I croaked at her, you saw my nine of clubs, you idiot, I played the nine, did you think I was playing it to pass the time? Hélène was petrified. Our opponents were petrified. That galvanized me. When you eat cardboard, the urge to vomit comes over you quite soon, but I worked my jaws aggressively and concentrated on mastication. I felt movement around us, I heard someone laugh, and I saw my friend Yorgos Katos’s face coming my way. He was, like me, a veteran of the games in Place Clichy. Yorgos said, what the hell are you doing, Raoul, old boy, spit that crap out of your mouth. I said–with a great effort, because I was intent on getting that king of clubs down my gullet – I said, where did she put her white cane? Eh? Let’s see that white cane, my poor girl! Raoul, Yorgos said, or so it seemed to me, you can’t let yourself get so worked up over a bridge tournament, a bit of fun at the beach. Those are the last words I remember. I heard someone call the referee, the table was swaying, Hélène stood up, she extended her arms, I tried to catch her fingers, I saw her floating with the others in a circle above my head, I felt bodies close against mine, I retched, I puked on the card-table cover, and then everything stopped. I woke up in an anise green room that I didn’t recognize and that turned out to be our hotel room. Three persons were whispering in the doorway. Yorgos, Hélène, and a stranger. Then the stranger left. Yorgos looked toward the bed and said, he’s coming back to life. Yorgos has the same kind of hair as the novelist Joseph Kessel. A sort of lion’s mane that appeals to women and makes me jealous. Hélène rushed to my bedside and said, are you all right? She gently stroked my forehead. I said, what’s happening? —Don’t you remember? You got a little hysterical yesterday evening at the tournament. Yorgos said, you ate a king of clubs. I ate a king of clubs? I asked, making what seemed like an immense but only partly successful effort to sit up. Hélène arranged my pillows. A ray of sunlight struck her face, she was as pretty as always. I said, my little Bilette. She smiled and said, the doctor gave you a shot to calm you down, Rouli (Bilette and Rouli are our private nicknames for each other). Yorgos opened the window. We heard children’s cries and the music of a carousel. I don’t know why, but deeply buried memories suddenly came back to me: the empty carousel in the seaside resort where my family used to go when I was a child, the barrel organ, the gray weather. We’d camp on the campground. I’d sit under the awning of the pump room, watching the animals go round and round and waiting for the end of the day. A violent sadness overcame me. I thought, uh-oh, what did that crazy doctor give me? I’ll be going, Yorgos said. You have to stay in bed today. Tomorrow you can take a walk. A little nature will do you good, a few breaths of sea air, he said. The bar where we’d met, Yorgos and I, was on the corner of Place de Clichy and Boulevard des Batignolles. We were twenty years old. When the Darcey closed at two in the morning, we’d hurry over to Pont Cardinet. We lived our lives entirely without troubling ourselves about the light of day. From the club to the bed, and from the bed back to the club. We played all the games, poker, backgammon, we plucked quite a few pigeons in the back rooms. We amused ourselves with bridge and participated in big international championships. Yorgos was the last guy who should have been recommending nature and walks. Might as well prescribe the grave. I said, what happened? Is it serious? You don’t remember anything, Rouli? Hélène asked. I replied, not very clearly. Yorgos said, good luck, dear girl. He kissed Hélène and went out. Hélène brought me a glass of water. She said, you lost your temper at the end of a hand. —Why aren’t we at the tournament? —We’ve been kicked out. I don’t know what it is about carousel music, but that hurdygurdy sound can really give you a terrible case of the blues. I said, close the window, Bilette, and the curtains too, I’m going to sleep a little more. At around noon on the following day, I woke up for good at the moment when Hélène came back from the town with some packages and a new pink straw hat. She declared that I looked very well. She herself seemed enchanted with her purchases. She said, what do you think, it’s not too big, is it? They also had some with plain ribbons, so I could exchange it, and in any case we have to go back to that store and buy you a hat too. I said, a straw hat like old men wear? What next? The sun’s really beating down, Hélène said, you’re not going to get a sunstroke on top of everything else. One hour later, I was sitting on the terrace of a café in the old town, wearing new glasses and a plaited hat. Hélène was perusing the tourist guide she’d bought, getting carried away at every page. Meanwhile I discreetly checked off the horses I liked in a copy of Paris Turf (I had permission to buy it, but not to consult it). She was the one who brought the matter up again. Out of the blue, she said to me, I didn’t much appreciate your calling me an idiot in public, in front of everybody. —Did I call you an idiot, my Bilette? —In front of everybody. She made a little face like a vexed child. That really wasn�
�t nice, I said. —And the white cane, that was truly hateful, you can’t say, let’s see that white cane, my poor girl, you can’t say that to your wife, and in front of five hundred people. —Five hundred people, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. —Everyone knows about it. —I wasn’t myself, Bilette, you could see that. —All the same, it was pretty disturbing when you ate that card. I shrugged my shoulders and pulled in my neck the way a man who felt ashamed would do. It was hot. Various people passed by, adults wearing loose clothes and carrying canvas bags, children eating ice cream, girls covered with trinkets. I found I had nothing to say to Hélène. I watched the colorful, dismal parade. Hélène said, suppose we go and have a look at the Fort Carré? Or the archaeological museum? —All right. —Which one? —The one you prefer. —Maybe the archaeological museum. They have objects that were found in sunken Greek and Phoenician ships. Vases, jewels. —Fabulous. As we were walking down a nearby street, I spotted a bar where they showed the races on live television. I said, Bilette, suppose we separate just for an hour? Hélène said, if you step inside that bar, I’ll go back to Paris like a shot. She snatched the rolled-up Paris Turf out of my pocket and started shaking the roll in all directions. —What’s the use of being married if we don’t do anything together? What’s the use? —The Phoenicians bore me, Bilette. —If the Phoenicians bore you, you shouldn’t have ruined the tournament for us. —I’m not the one who ruined the tournament. —It wasn’t you? It wasn’t you who went crazy? It wasn’t you who insulted me and vomited? —It was me. But not without cause. We’d inadvertently drifted into the roadway, and a driver blew his horn at us violently. Hélène struck his hood with the racing form. The guy told her off through the window, and she screamed, shut up! I tried to take her arm and pull her back onto the sidewalk, but she prevented me. —You led the deuce of diamonds, Raoul, I thought you had a diamond honor. —If I need you to lead back diamonds, I play the deuce of clubs. —How am I supposed to know you have three clubs to the king? —You don’t know it, but when you see me play the nine, you have to think that’s a signal. What do you call it, Hélène, when your partner plays a nine? You call it a sig-nal. —I interpreted it wrong. —You didn’t interpret it wrong, you don’t look at the cards, you stopped looking at the cards years ago. —How do you know, you don’t play with me anymore! —And with good reason! A small group had formed around us. Hélène’s pink straw hat was too big for her (she’d been right about that), and I felt rather ridiculous with mine. Her eyes were moist and her nose was turning red. I noticed that she must have bought herself some Provençal earrings. I suddenly felt a surge of affection for that little woman, the love of my life, and I said, my Bilette, I’m sorry, I get upset about nothing, come on, let’s go to your museum, it’ll do me good to see amphorae and stuff like that. While I was leading her away (and directing a little good-bye wave to the onlookers), Hélène said, if the old stones bore you, Rouli, shall we go somewhere else? They don’t bore me at all, I said, and watch this. With a solemn gesture, I took the copy of Paris Turf away from her and threw it in a trash bin. As we walked along the crowded streets with our arms around each other’s waist, I said, and then afterward we’ll pass by the casino. It opens at four o’clock. If you don’t want to stay with me at the blackjack table, you can go and try your luck at little roulette, my Bilette.