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