Wu Ming - 54

Angela felt a thump inside her, like something breaking, and her eyes filled with tears once more.

Pierre went on. ‘Thinking about the revolution, taking up arms. All those things that other people have done in the past, during the war and before, when we were children. But when they brag to their friends, they know they’ve lost. I’ve got a Party card as well, but I don’t want to see the world through the eyes of Montroni or the editor of L’Unità .’ He turned to her. ‘I want to go and see and judge for myself. I want something else.’

Angela wiped her eyes. ‘I was starving before I married Odoacre, and Ferruccio. you know. Life isn’t like it is in the films, you don’t bump into Cary Grant on the train, he doesn’t fall in love with you and take you to America. Go to Yugoslavia if you want, then come back and tell me if it’s that much better than it is here.’

Pierre went over and hugged her and held her tight. They settled into the sofa, and he cuddled her gently, trying to make her go to sleep. ‘Shhhh. Let’s pretend we’re two hares in our lair, and it’s snowing outside and very cold and we’ve got loads of food set aside for the winter, and we’re going to keep each other warm with our fur.’

As he talked and ran a hand through her hair, he heard her breathing more heavily.

She was right, there was something strange about him. And it certainly wasn’t easy to understand.

His father, Yugoslavia, the Tito fascists.

Sleep finally extinguished his thoughts.

Chapter 28

Palm Springs, California, 15 March

Jean-Jacques Bondurant forced himself to look at the screen.

He was having trouble keeping his eyelids open, he was sweating, Nom de Dieu! If he had so much as arched his eyebrow, his toupee would have fallen over his eyes. God, it was hot in there.

Now he ran the fingertips of his right hand over his forehead, keeping his thumb pressed into the hollow of his temple to prevent the imminent migraine. Just before he did that, he ran his index finger across the damp zone above the top of his nose. Until the previous day, a tuft of hair had connected his eyebrows. ‘Thin it? Thin it? It’s going to take more than a little bit of retouching!’ the beautician had told him.

Even stranger was the flat surface left by the removal of his mole. He was having trouble getting used to it.

What else? His teeth had been whitened, his gold ring removed (with some difficulty).

If anyone had seen them there, sitting side by side, two replicas of a single face in the shimmering light: Bondurant, exhausted by the interminable matinee of Cary Grant comedies; Grant very attentive, his arms lying loosely on his thighs, his buttocks perched on the edge of the little sofa. But there was no one else there in the sitting room.

At that moment, in the black-and-white film, a third (younger) version of Cary Grant sat with legs crossed and arms folded, a beatific smile on his face, the expression of a man savouring his own triumph to the last drop.

‘Freeze!’ One of the two full-colour versions, raising an arm, the one who wasn’t perspiring.

A frozen frame, one of the scenes from the denouement of The Awful Truth , 1937.

‘You try that now!’ Cary ordered his double. ‘But first of all compose yourself, for heaven’s sake! You’re drenched in sweat!’

Bondurant mopped himself dry with his handkerchief, and straightened the hairpiece on the top of his cranium.

‘There’s no need to be so agitated, I’ve told you you’re making progress! Keep at it, I want to see you in this pose, the same smile, the same air of self-satisfaction.’

Bondurant crossed his legs, took his elbows in his hands, then arched his spine backwards and tried to imitate the smile.

‘We’re not quite there, Mr Bondurant. The attitude is missing. In fact I’ll go further than that: the feeling is missing. I’ll try to put you in the right frame of mind. You’re forty-three, isn’t that right?’

Bondurant nodded too vigorously, and had to rearrange his perruque . Grant noticed and exploded: ‘Christ almighty, where on earth did they find that little wig that does nothing but slip around all over the place? In a joke shop?’

He took from his pocket a black leather-bound notebook, scribbled a note, then continued. ‘Let’s get back to us: in your forty-three years of life, has there ever been a moment when you’ve said to yourself, “The worst is past”?’

In what sense. Oh! Of course! Le plus gros est fait! He had understood. Grant was referring to a moment of complacency, in which il se la coula douce .

‘But yes, of course, when the war was over and I returned from the Italian front.’

‘Fine, Mr Bondurant. When you got back to Montreal I expect they threw a party for you, or am I mistaken?’

‘Of course, and I was delighted. I saw my fiancée, Charlotte, again for the first time in five years.’

‘Fine. Shut your eyes.’

Bondurant did so.

‘Imagine you’re at that party. You’ve just been dancing with your Charlotte. You’re sitting down on the edge of the dance floor. In your chest you feel the warmth of the community congratulating you. You’ve done your duty. Finally you feel a certain lightness after years that seemed they would never end, you think of the days to come. Your whole body is filled with expectation, and the ambition of a happy life.’

While Grant spoke, the double breathed deeply. A new smile started to form.

‘That’s good, Mr Bondurant. Now, from this position of strength, think about Hitler!’

‘Pardon?’ Bondurant opened his eyes again.

‘That’s right, Hitler. You’ve won the war, Mr Bondurant, and the Nazis have lost. You’re alive while that son of a bitch with the moustache is dead. The good people have won, and you’ve made a contribution to that. You and Charlotte have blue skies above your head, Hitler and Eva Braun are six feet under. You’re part of the future, you’ve dreamed of the enemy, and you’re happy, yes, Mr Bondurant, you’re happy, touch the sky with a finger. The war is over. The bad people have been defeated. I want to see you smile, because you have the right! Who more than you? You’re at that party, and you’re smiling!’

‘Oui, je suis aux anges! Zut! Je suis aux anges, et je souris!’

Bondurant opened his eyes in triumph. The war was over. Hitler was gone.

Grant was staring at him.

Not bad.

‘Fine, Mr Bondurant. As my wife said, you’re a quick learner. And now it seems appropriate to me to show you a sequence from I Was a Male War Bride , in which. ’

Bondurant fell back on to the sofa. How long was this going to go on?

Chapter 29

Naples, 16 March

He chose a bar on the other side of the city. Perhaps it was a pointless precaution, but neglecting the details wasn’t a good habit to fall into. Experience tells us that it’s the insignificant things that trip you up. He had known so many clever men who had been ruined by blunders. One word too many to a prostitute, a fuck that would have been better postponed, a forgotten ticket in a jacket pocket, a worn tyre that had popped. You would have bet on them 100 per cent, but they had all made one small mistake. And found themselves staring into the blue lights, or keeping company with the fishes at the bottom of the bay. He had caught some of them out himself, surprised with themselves for having coming up with such shrewd and meticulous plans. And then they’d been fucked over a detail. Perhaps it was the universal law of chance, which applied to anyone who put all his eggs in one basket, knowing that he risked losing. That there wouldn’t be another chance.