The Dreamers (4 page)

Théo and Matthew, meanwhile, decided that they would take the metro to Trocadéro at six o'clock as though nothing were amiss. There was still the
possibility
, no matter how remote, that the situation had returned to normal. They were hoping to catch fate unawares.

A cool, overcast afternoon lay before them.

‘We might take in a film,' said Matthew.

‘There's nothing to see,' Théo answered. Moodily removing the pink paper parasol that protected his ice cream from the rays of an imaginary sun and shunting its tiny webbed canopy up and down, open and shut, he drew an inkstained copy of
L'Officiel des Spectacles
from his jacket pocket and tossed it over to Matthew. ‘Look for yourself.'

It was Théo's practice, on Wednesday morning, when the magazine went on sale, to scribble a star opposite the title of any film he'd already seen. On its every page, as Matthew discovered, there was an almost unbroken sequence of stars.

‘Anyway,' Théo went on, ‘we'd have to go to a four o'clock show and that means we'd be late for the
Cinémathèque
.'

Isabelle's derisive voice interrupted them.

‘You're mad.'

Théo reddened.

‘What's eating you?'

‘Don't you realise how ridiculous you are? Both of you. The Cinémathèque is closed. Closed. Going to Chaillot this evening is a waste of time and you both
know it. If you weren't such cowards, you'd buy a newspaper and save the price of a metro ticket.'

‘In the first place,' was her brother's reply, ‘a
newspaper
costs more than a metro ticket. In the second place, it was you yourself who swore Langlois would be reinstated no later than today. In the third place, no one I know of has invited you to come with us, just as no one invited you to come out with me in the first place.'

His anger at Isabelle allayed by the number, force and serendipitous circularity of his arguments, Théo lapsed into silence and began to fidget with the parasol again.

She stepped up the pressure.

‘Oh, I'm coming. If only to see your face when you find out it's closed. What a picture it was last night. You looked as if you were going to blub. Didn't he revolt you, Matthew? Weren't you ashamed to be seen with him? Have you ever known anyone so abject? I'm sorry to say, my brother is just as pathetic as the others. As Peplum. As Jacques. He's a born loser.'

Matthew dared not intervene. He never felt more of an outsider than during these scenes. His silence was that of a pyjama-clad infant standing alone in the middle of the night, listening at his parents' bedroom door,
behind which insults are being traded that cannot be taken back.

Théo had said nothing during Isabelle's tirade. Instead, he had tugged so violently on the lever of the parasol that it ended by flip-flopping inside out, like an umbrella on a gusty day.

‘What are you saying?' he finally asked. ‘You don't think we should go to the Cinémathèque?'

‘Of course we're going to the Cinémathèque,' Isabelle replied. ‘There's never been any question of not going. What I can't stomach is the sight of you two drooling over the
Officiel
just like your awful chums.'

‘So what do you propose?'

‘What do I propose?' she said, doing her famous
imitation
of Peter Lorre. And she leaned forward, speaking in an almost inaudible whisper, exactly as in those film scenes which fade out just as the conspirator-in-chief is about to unveil his scheme for holding the world to
ransom
.

What Isabelle proposed was this. In the free time that he was able to snatch from attendance at classes and at the Cinémathèque, Théo would draw up inventories of his favourite films in loose-leaf folders which he
purchased
at Gibert Jeune and which, when they were
filled, he shelved in rigorously chronological order. In one of these folders, he would list his hundred favourite films of all time; in another, his hundred best films of each successive year. He had been filling them up since he was ten years old, but there was a film to which he had stayed forever loyal, Godard's
Bande à part
, in one of whose scenes the three leading characters race through the Louvre's salons and corridors in an endeavour to break the record – nine minutes and forty-five seconds – for viewing, or squinting at, the museum's collection of treasures. And it was Isabelle's proposal that they attempt the feat in their turn.

The idea enchanted Théo. It would be a gesture of resistance, an act of defiance against the Cinémathèque's closure. If films couldn't be screened there, very well, very well, they would take them into the streets. Into the Louvre itself. Giggling like children embarked on a private mischief, he and Isabelle tore off a corner of the café's paper tablecloth and plotted the best itinerary.

In vain Matthew advised caution. He was concerned that he, a foreigner, an alien, risked finding himself in an awkward situation if they were caught. He saw himself sent back home to San Diego in disgrace, his studies abandoned, his future compromised. For him the
beauty 
of the cinema was that it confined its insidious
potency
to the charmed rectangle of the white screen. He was like one of those people who visit the funfair as amused and passive onlookers, all the while secretly dreading the moment they'll be hustled aboard the roller-coaster by their more boisterous companions.

But Théo and Isabelle had established a front against him. Like every couple, in whatever manner conjoined, they formed a two-headed eagle, now pecking each other's eyes out, now fondly nuzzling each other's beaks. Two against one – or, rather, two against the world – they brushed his objections aside.

‘Can't you see?' said Matthew. ‘If we got caught, I'd be deported.'

‘Don't worry, little man,' Isabelle replied, ‘we're not going to get caught.'

‘You don't know that.'

Isabelle had a reply to everything.

‘They weren't caught in
Bande à part
and if we beat their record we won't be caught either. Stands to
reason
.'

‘Look, Isabelle, it's a fun idea and I really wish -'

‘Matthew,' said Isabelle, looking him straight in the eyes, ‘this is a test. Are you going to pass it or fail it?'
And, before he could speak, she added, ‘Be careful. Alot depends on how you answer.'

On the place Saint-Germain-des-Prés a sword
swallower
was performing in front of the Café de Flore. Across the square, waiting his turn to go on stage, a young gypsy, clad in a scruffy Harlequin's costume, propped high on stilts, leaned against the railing of the church. As they passed him, he crossed his stilts as
nonchalantly
as though he were crossing his legs.

Now too demoralised to offer any further protest, Matthew followed his friends into the rue Bonaparte and down the rue des Beaux-Arts. On their right, as they approached the quai Voltaire, was Degas's ballerina in her rusty metal tutu; on their left, directly opposite her, a statue of Voltaire himself, watching their progress with his wrinkled stone eyes.

Two hearts as light as cork, one as heavy as lead, they walked along the Seine embankment and crossed the river at the pont du Carrousel. As they strolled over it, a
bateau-mouche
, gliding beneath them, its upper and lower decks as gaily lit up as a miniature ocean liner, disappeared from one side and reappeared, magically intact, on the other.

In the distance, just beyond the spruce symmetry of the Louvre gardens, was an equestrian statue, that of Joan of Arc, her chain mail gleaming in the sunlight. Matthew found himself thinking of her charred remains catching at the nostrils with the acrid smell of a burntout firework.

Suddenly, without warning, Théo and Isabelle shifted gear into a sprint. They were limbering up for the main event.

Slightly out of breath, they arrived at the Louvre.

‘Now!' cried Théo.

They skidded round corners with a leg in the air like Charlie Chaplin! They caused snoozing watchmen to rouse themselves with startled snorts! They scattered groups of tourists on guided tours! Masterpieces flashed past them! Virgins alone or with Child!
Crucifixions
! St Anthonys and St Jeromes! Fra Angelicos wrapped in gold leaf like chocolate liqueurs!
Impertinent
, snub-nosed putti plumping up the clouds like
pillows
and pummelling each other as in a dormitory after lights out! The Mona Lisa! The Victoire de Samothrace! The Venus de Milo, whose arms they broke off as they tore past her, Isabelle ahead of Théo, with Matthew,
after a slow start, steadily advancing on the inside! Rembrandt self-portraits! El Greco monks! The Raft of the Medusa! Then, coming down the straight, now neck and neck, all three of them together, for a photo-finish in front of those centaur-like ladies of
La Grande Jatte
who take shelter from the pointillism beneath their frilly parasols!

Not once did they collide, not once did they lose their footing, not once did they pitch into the arms of a watchman. They were miracle-prone as others are said to be accident-prone. And they broke the record by
fifteen
seconds!

Three abreast, they ran out of the Louvre and didn’t stop running until they had left the gardens behind and arrived on the quay, bent double, holding their sides, gasping for breath.

The euphoria of having let herself go made Isabelle’s eyes sparkle. She clasped Matthew’s neck with both hands.

‘Oh, Matthew, my little Matthew, you were
marvellous
! Marvellous!’ And she kissed him lightly on the mouth.

Théo, for his part, had suspected that Matthew would
funk it, that at the last minute he would be caught
standing
, petrified, at the starting post. Delighted that he’d passed the test, that he hadn’t been disgraced in Isabelle’s eyes, he extended a fraternal hand.

Matthew, though, pre-empted him. Perhaps because he was still drunk on the capricious animal energies which the race had released in him, perhaps, as well, because he sensed an opportunity which wouldn’t soon recur, he raised himself on tiptoe and impulsively kissed Théo.

Théo recoiled. He seemed about to blush, to say something irrevocable. But he was interrupted by Isabelle, who began to murmur in a low voice, ‘One of us … One of us …’

Her brother instantly recognised the allusion.
Smiling
, he joined in the refrain. ‘One of us! One of us!’

Who, having heard it, can ever forget the sinister
rallying
cry of the dwarfs, pinheads, bearded ladies and writhing, limbless monstrosities at the wedding feast of the midget Hans and the voluptuous trapeze artist Cleopatra in Tod Browning’s
Freaks
?

On the horizon, as inescapable as the moon itself, the lighthouse of the Eiffel Tower was already drawing
them into port. Rashers of bacon streaked the sky.
Fortified
by her nine-minute-and-thirty-second course in art history, Isabelle mused aloud. ‘Why, when nature
imitates
art,’ she said, ‘does it always choose the worst art to imitate? Sunsets by Harpignies, never by Monet.’

An unpleasant surprise was in store for them at the Cinémathèque. It was impossible to enter the garden by the avenue Albert-de-Mun. Beneath its leafless trees were parked the squat granite-grey vans of the
paramilitary
police force, the CRS. Leather-jerkined policemen lounged on the pavement, absent-mindedly stroking their riot guns. The barred windows of the vans, as
airless
as casements in a castle tower, framed the
occasional
twitch of a shoulder, the only movement visible from outside, suggesting a playing card slapped down on a table.

Uncomprehending for the moment, Théo and Isabelle darted across the place du Trocadéro and headed for the esplanade. Matthew followed them. Minute by minute, he felt the exhilaration of the Louvre draining away from within him.

Not an inch of the esplanade was unoccupied. Demonstrators had scrambled up on to the fountains to
get a better view of the event and crazily sprayed those beneath them. Others, arms linked, swayed back and forth, humming ‘Yesterday’. From time to time a famous face drifted in and out of focus. Wasn’t that Jeanne Moreau? And Catherine Deneuve, surely, behind those dark glasses? And, over there, Jean-Luc Godard, a
handheld
camera poised on his shoulder?

Dominating the crowd from one of the esplanade’s highest parapets was the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, who declaimed in a hoarse voice the text of a photocopied tract which was also being distributed among the demonstrators below.

The tract had as its title
Les Enfants de la Cinémathèque
and this is how it ended: ‘The enemies of culture have reconquered this bastion of liberty. Don’t let yourself be duped. Liberty is a privilege that isn’t given, it’s taken. All those who love the cinema – here in France and elsewhere in the world – are with you, are with Henri Langlois!’

Langlois’s name was a signal. The demonstrators waded into the garden and surged towards the
Cinémathèque
. At the same time, in a cacophony of
high-pitched
whistles, truncheons erect, metal shields raised in front of their faces, the CRS leapt out of their vans and
ran across the avenue Albert-de-Mun, unplayed hands of poker left behind them.

Forced into immediate retreat, the crowd made a
confused
scramble to the esplanade, those in the vanguard collapsing on to those in the rear, until, frenzied and directionless, half marching, half running, their legs buckling under them like card tables, they backed into the place du Trocadéro and began to spread out along the avenue du Président-Wilson.

It was at the intersection of that avenue and the avenue d’Iéna, where yet another barrier of shields, impenetrable and three-deep, stretched from one pavement to the other, that the demonstration was finally brought to a halt and the esplanade abandoned to its fauna.