Aleksandar Hemon - Best European Fiction 2013

– Your reasons don’t matter, Monsieur. Your name, please?

– Traumont, Michel Traumont.

– You want to leave our show. Very well—follow us, Monsieur Michel Traumont. I beg you, my friends, put your weapons away and sit down again, she added, addressing the extras, who immediately obeyed: Monsieur Traumont will follow us without your assistance, I’m certain of that.

– But I mean, I…

– Follow us, Monsieur Traumont. This way.

Accompanied by the violinist, who hadn’t ceased his playing for a moment, and followed by Michel Traumont, who didn’t dare protest, the woman once again traversed the theater, stepped back into the street, and approached the old streetcar.

– Halt! Where are you going?

This time the violinist’s bow stopped short, and that sudden cessation of music ran like a shock through the audience. One of the streetcar’s pursuers had left the line formed by his companions, and advanced a few steps. He brandished his revolver at Traumont.

The young woman stepped between them:

– Monsieur Michel Traumont has expressed the desire to leave our show. It’s my role to show the exit to whoever does so.

A burst of applause rang out from the extras in the theater, and the pursuer holstered his pistol, took his place once again in the line.

– This play is truly curious.

– And you’re sure Traumont isn’t an actor?

– Impossible.

– My nose is going to freeze.

– Cold blood—you would’ve done better to stay at home. Much warmer.

– You don’t find all of this a touch unsettling?

In the first row of the audience, a man, still young but with a severe expression, rose with evident haste, as if propelled by too stiff a spring. One might have imagined he’d only just realized what role he had to play—unless, of course, it was all just a part of the show. In a voice marked by emotion—unless, of course, it was merely a sign of that nervousness that attends a first performance, and particularly a performance for which one hasn’t prepared—he delivered his line:

– It is my role, this evening, to administer the exit exam. Take the violin, Monsieur Traumont.

Traumont looked down at him with an indecisive air. Then he glanced at the young woman, who waited, still smiling. Then at the musician, who was offering him the violin. Then, once more, at the man who had called out from the first row. He addressed himself to the latter:

– Look, this whole thing is completely insane. I was cold, I just wanted to go home…

– Cher Monsieur, the young woman broke in, I told you, your reasons don’t matter at all. Don’t speak anymore, don’t say a single thing, you can be sure that nobody here is interested.

And as if to emphasize these last words she gently shook her head, communicating as she did a particularly graceful motion to her long black hair, which cascaded down upon the brilliant white of her fur coat.

– I told you to take the violin, repeated the man in the first row, in a slightly more confident voice.

– But I don’t know how to play, stuttered Traumont.

– Go on, it’s not so hard, added the violinist, smiling and pressing the instrument on him a little more insistently. A bit of good will and the job is half done.

– Take it and play: those are the rules, said the man from the first row, who seemed more and more at ease.

– And if I refuse?

– I’d advise you not to refuse, Monsieur Traumont. I wouldn’t advise that at all.

The extras in the auditorium seemed to titter in unison. The spectators whispered to each other:

– But why are they laughing?

– I don’t see anything funny about it, myself.

– Well, you know Damploune’s sense of humor…

The young woman took a step in Traumont’s direction, smiling at him with an almost angelic expression:

– If you don’t take the violin, you won’t leave, believe me, Monsieur Traumont.

Traumont raised his hand to take the violin, then snatched it back.

– What a fantastic actor! Look, he seems more and more indecisive.

– But I’m telling you, I know that Traumont isn’t an actor. He’s the one who audited my brother’s tax returns last year. Made him pay through the nose, the swine!

– He doesn’t look like a bad guy.

– Sure, but just wait till he gets his claws into you.

The man from the first row had stepped into the street, and now seemed perfectly at ease. In an almost threatening tone, he once again repeated:

– Play, Monsieur Traumont. I’m telling you to play.

– But I’ve explained, I don’t know how. This whole thing’s absurd. Besides, it’s too cold, my fingers are completely numb.

– Play!

– Well… since you insist…

With a resigned, a timid gesture, Michel Traumont took hold of the violin and bow offered by their owner. He placed the instrument against his left shoulder, imitating as best he could the standard pose, and then, with his right hand, lowered the bow toward the strings. But he paused, and lifted his head again, looking around with a grimace, as if to say: No, this is too stupid, don’t ask me to do what I don’t know how to do.

– Come on, Monsieur Traumont, play!

This time it was the young woman who insisted. With elegance and vivacity, she indicated the theater, to make him understand that everyone was waiting. Whether he liked the idea or not, he was part of the show now, wasn’t he?

So he played. Or rather, produced a frightful screech, as anyone would who was scraping a bow across the strings of a violin for the very first time in his life. All the extras seated in the auditorium burst out laughing, and then loudly booed, before once again ceasing abruptly in unison. As if an invisible conductor had given the signal.

– That wasn’t brilliant, said the man from the first row.

– But I told you, stuttered Traumont.

– Make a bit of an effort, insisted the young woman in the fur coat, her smile still seraphic.

– But what do you want? responded Traumont, in a despairing voice. I’ve never played, I never learned how.

– Come, come, just a little effort, Monsieur Traumont, repeated the young woman. We aren’t asking the impossible.

– But that’s precisely what you’re doing! protested Traumont. Stop this nasty joke! Let me go home.

Once more, as if with a single breath, the laughter of the extras rang out, and cut off.

– Do you want to try one more time? asked the man from the first row, who now seemed to have his role by heart.

– It’s no use, you can see that.

– Is that your last word?

Traumont acquiesced with a nod of the head.

– Pity. We would have loved to see you board the tram without our assistance. Bon voyage all the same, Monsieur Traumont!

A gunshot rang out, causing a number of audience members to jump. It was impossible to say straight off just where the report had come from, for, apart from Traumont, who crumpled to the ground, everyone in the auditorium, everyone in the street, remained perfectly still. A moment afterward the applause crackled out, then stopped dead, replaced all at once by the music of the violin. But it wasn’t the musician who was playing anymore: they could all see Traumont stretched out impassive on the ground, his left hand still clutching the instrument’s neck. It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, this music, from the depths of the theater, from the receding walls of the houses in the street.

– It’s impossible…

– I don’t understand this business at all.

– To be forced to play an instrument you don’t know! To be shot right down!

– Wait! You don’t actually believe… They’re actors! They’ve shot him with a blank!