‘We shall see what we shall see.’
What? I didn’t dare ask. But, that Sunday evening, 17 June, his brash enthusiasm had melted away. Sitting in the carriage of the Vincennes-Neuilly métro, he ripped the pages from his notebook one by one, and tore them into minute scraps which he tossed like handfuls of confetti. He worked with the detachment of a sleepwalker and a painstaking fury I had never seen in him before. I tried to calm him. I told him that it was a great pity to destroy such an important work on a whim, that I had every confidence in his talents as an organizer. He fixed me with a glassy eye. We got out at the George V station. We were waiting on the platform. My father stood behind me, sulking. The station gradually filled, as if it were rush-hour. People were coming back from the cinema or from strolling along the Champs-Élysées. We were pressed against each other. I found myself at the front, on the edge of the platform. Impossible to draw back. I turned towards my father. His face was dripping with sweat. The roar of a train. Just as it came into sight, someone pushed me roughly in the back.
Next, I find myself lying on one of the station benches surrounded by a little group of busybodies. They are whispering. One bends down to tell me that I’ve had ‘a narrow escape’. Another, in cap and uniform (a métro official perhaps) announces that he is going to ‘call the police’. My father stands in the background. He coughs.
Two policemen help me to my feet. Holding me under the arms. We move through the station. People turn to stare. My father follows behind, diffidently. We get into the police van parked on the Avenue George V. The people on the terrace outside Fouquet’s are enjoying the beautiful summer evening.
We sit next to each other. My father’s head is bowed. The two policemen sit facing us but do not speak. We pull up outside the police station at 5 Rue Clement-Marot. Before going in, my father wavers. His lips nervously curl into a rictus smile.
The policemen exchange a few words with a tall thin man. The commissaire? He asks to see our papers. My father, with obvious reluctance, proffers his Nansen passport.
‘Refugee?’ asks the commissaire. .
‘I’m about to be naturalized,’ my father mumbles. He must have prepared this reply in advance. ‘But my son is French.’ In a whisper: ‘and a bachelier. .’
The commissaire turns to me:
‘So you nearly got run over by a train?’ I say nothing. ‘Lucky someone caught you or you’d be in a pretty state.’
Yes, someone had saved my life by catching me just in time, as I was about to fall. I have only a vague memory of those few seconds.
‘So why is it,’ the commissaire goes on, ‘that you shouted out “MURDERER!” several times as you were carried to the bench?’
Then he turns to my father: ‘Does your son suffer from persecution mania?’
He doesn’t give him time to answer. He turns back to me and asks point-blank: ‘Maybe someone behind pushed you? Think carefully. . take all the time you need.’
A young man at the far end of the office was tapping away at a typewriter. The commissaire sat behind his desk and leafed through a file. My father and I sat waiting. I thought they had forgotten us, but at length the commissaire looked up and said to me:
‘If you want to report the incident, don’t hesitate. That’s what I’m here for.’
From time to time the young man brought him a typewritten page which he corrected with a red pen. How long would they keep us there? The commissaire pointed towards my father.
‘Political refugee or just refugee?’
‘Just refugee.’
‘Good,’ said the commissaire.
Then he went back to his file.
Time passed. My father showed signs of nervousness. I think he was digging his nails into his palms. In fact he was at my mercy — and he knew it — otherwise why did he keep glancing at me worriedly? I had to face the facts: someone had pushed me so that I would fall on the tracks and be ripped to shreds by the train. And it was the man with the south-American appearance sitting beside me. The proof: I had felt his signet-ring pressing into my shoulder-blade.
As though he could read my mind, the commissaire asked casually:
‘Do you get on well with your father?’
(Some policemen have the gift of clairvoyance. Like the inspector from the security branch of the police force who, when he retired, changed sex and offered ‘psychic’ readings under the name of ‘Madame Dubail’.)
‘We get on very well,’ I replied.
‘Are you sure?’
He asked the question wearily, and immediately began to yawn. I was convinced he already knew everything, but simply was not interested. A young man pushed under the métro by his father, he must have come across hundreds of similar cases. Routine work.
‘I repeat, if you have something to say to me, say it now.’
But I knew that he was merely asking me out of politeness.
He turned on his desk lamp. The other officer continued to pound on his typewriter. He was probably rushing to finish the job. The tapping of the typewriter was lulling me to sleep, and I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open. To ward off sleep, I studied the police station carefully. A post-office calendar on the wall, and a photograph of the President of the Republic. Doumer? Mac-Mahon? Albert Lebrun? The typewriter was an old model. I decided that this Sunday 17 June would be an important day in my life and I turned imperceptibly towards my father. Great beads of sweat were running down his face. But he didn’t look like a murderer.
The commissaire peers over the young man’s shoulder to see where he’s got to. He whispers some instructions. Three policemen suddenly appear. Perhaps they’re going to take us to the cells. I couldn’t care less. No. The commissaire looks me in the eye:
‘Well? Nothing you want to say?’
My father gives a plaintive whimper.
‘Very well, gentlemen, you may go. .’
We walked blindly. I didn’t dare ask him for an explanation. It was on the Place des Ternes, as I stared at the neon sign of the Brasserie Lorraine, that I said in as neutral a tone as possible:
‘Basically, you tried to kill me. .’
He didn’t answer. I was afraid he would take fright, like a bird when you get too close.
‘I don’t hold it against you, you know.’
And nodding towards the terrace of the bar:
‘Why don’t we have a drink? This calls for a celebration!’
This last remark made him smile a little. When we reached the cafe table, he was careful not to sit facing me. His posture was the same as it had been in the police van: his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. I ordered a double bourbon for him, knowing how much he liked it, and a glass of champagne for myself. We raised our glasses. But our hearts weren’t in it. After the unfortunate incident in the métro, I would have liked to set the record straight. It was impossible. He revisited with such inertia that I decided not to insist.
At the other tables, there were lively conversations. People were delighted at the mild weather. They felt relaxed. And happy to be alive. And I was seventeen years old, my father had tried to push me under a train, and no one cared.
We had a last drink on the Avenue Niel, in that strange bar, Petrissan’s. An elderly man staggered in, sat down at our table and started talking to me about Wrangel’s Fleet. From what I could gather, he had served with Wrangel. It must have brought back painful memories, because he started to sob. He didn’t want us to leave. He clung to my arm. Maudlin and excitable, as Russians tend to be after midnight.