The President's Hat (3 page)

In his account of the evening, Daniel allowed himself just one slight alteration – the seafood platter now featured no more than twenty-four oysters, half a crab and a few winkles. He knew that if he gave the full details of his sumptuous dinner, there was a danger Véronique would concentrate solely on the expense. Comments like ‘Well, you certainly look after yourself when we're not around,' or ‘I see, dining in solitary splendour!' would interfere with the re-telling of his adventure. In Daniel's version of the story, the arrival of the head of state assumed near-biblical proportions, and the phrase accompanying the vinegared oysters, ‘As I was saying to Helmut Kohl last week', rang out like a divine commandment from the cavernous halls of heaven.

‘Still, I'm shocked.'

‘Shocked? Why?' said Daniel.

‘That you stole the hat. It's not like you.'

‘I didn't steal it as such,' he objected, irritated, although
much the same thought had occurred to him as well. ‘Let's just say I didn't give it back.'

Véronique seemed to accept that. He managed to convince her that he had, in fact, done the right thing by holding on to the hat because the moustachioed maître d' would probably have kept it for himself. Worse, if he hadn't spotted it, another customer might have taken it, unaware of the identity of its illustrious owner.

When they'd finished supper and Jérôme had gone to bed, they returned to the sitting room. Véronique carefully picked up the felt hat and sat stroking it, as if seized by a sudden melancholy. She regretted that Daniel hadn't been quicker to spot that François Mitterrand had left it behind: he could have called after the President and given it back to him with a smile.

‘There would have been an understanding between you,' she remarked, sadly.

‘Yes, but he was too far away,' Daniel pointed out. He still preferred the real-life version of the story, the one that ended with him wearing the presidential hat on his own head.

‘I don't share your point of view at all, Monsieur Maltard,' said Daniel, shaking his head. He touched the hat that he'd placed in front of him on the big conference-room table.

Jean Maltard and the ten other members of the finance department summoned to the eleven o'clock meeting stared at him dumbfounded. Daniel allowed a few moments of silence to pass, a sphinx-like smile playing on his lips, then heard himself refute, point for point, the arguments put forward by the new departmental director.

With unprecedented confidence, he watched himself negotiate the complex layers of diplomacy with the ease of a dolphin leaping through the waves. When he had finished stating his case, a great silence fell upon the room. Bernard Falgou stared at him open-mouthed. Michèle Carnavan ventured a small cough, then, despairing of her spineless male colleagues, spoke out.

‘I think Daniel has summarised our concerns perfectly.'

‘Brilliantly,' added Bernard Falgou quickly, as if prodded by a tiny electric shock.

Maltard gazed impassively at Daniel. ‘Nice work, Monsieur Mercier,' he announced icily.

Jean-Bernard Desmoine, head of Finance, had travelled up specially to attend the meeting, called to put the finishing touches to SOGETEC's new objectives for the Paris-Nord section. He kept his eyes fixed on Daniel as he made his case, scribbling a few brief notes when he explained with perfect clarity, and the figures to back him up, that they couldn't sensibly split the department into three divisions, but two at the very most.

‘Thank you for coming, everyone,' said Jean-Bernard Desmoine. ‘I'll let you get back to your desks. I'd like a word, Monsieur Maltard.'

Maltard agreed with a meek, insincere smile, then glared at Daniel. Only Bernard Falgou caught the look of cold hatred directed at his subordinate by the new departmental director. As soon as they had left the conference room, Falgou took Daniel by the arm.

‘You slaughtered him, you slaughtered Maltard!' he said.

‘Not really,' protested Daniel, blinking.

‘But you did!' insisted Françoise. ‘He's out on his ear, no doubt about it. That's what Desmoine's telling him right now. You demolished every one of his arguments.'

They gathered round him, excited to discover in their colleague a man of quiet strength, capable of defending their interests better than the most radical union representative, the best, most articulate lawyer. They praised his calm demeanour, his air of assurance, the extraordinary way he had of saying the unpalatable with the utmost tact.

‘True class,' said Michèle Carnavan.

Back in his office, Daniel settled into his swivel chair, stroked his hat, which he had placed on the desk in front of him, and savoured the quiet of the room. He closed his eyes. He had got through the meeting without being assailed by one of the waves of anxiety that had plagued him since early childhood. On the contrary, he had experienced a sense of serene calm. Just a few days ago, the very idea of a confrontation with Jean Maltard would have raised his blood pressure and brought on an attack of heartburn with the last bite of lunch. Tense as a bowstring, he would have played back their exchange over and over again in his mind, castigating himself all afternoon for some clumsy phrase, some word or point that had, unquestionably, caused him to hand the argument to Maltard. Daniel would have emerged ashen and drained at the end of the day.

Not so now. He felt fine, as one might at the seaside, walking in the sand, late on a summer's afternoon. This new state of affairs came as no great surprise. It was as if the real Daniel Mercier had finally stepped out into the light of day. The earlier model was just some unfinished prototype, a work in progress. He raised the Venetian blind on his office window, letting the winter sunshine stream in, and immersed himself in his SOGETEC files once more.

It was well past seven o'clock when Jean Maltard pushed open his deputy's glass door, without knocking.

‘Staying the night?' he asked drily. ‘There's no overtime for deputy departmental managers …'

Daniel looked at him, unruffled. ‘I'm just finishing the SOFREM file, then I'm going home.'

‘Finish it tomorrow,' Maltard cut him off. ‘Close of play. Department's all cleared off home. You do the same.'

Without a word, Daniel put the top back on his Parker pen, engraved with his initials, a present from Véronique on their fifth wedding anniversary. He got to his feet, switched off his computer and his Minitel terminal, and put on his felt Homburg. Wearing a hat gives you a feeling of authority over someone who isn't, he thought to himself.

Sure enough, Jean Maltard suddenly looked a great deal smaller. He seemed to be shrinking before Daniel's very eyes. A bug shrinking down into the pile of the carpet, buzzing furiously. Daniel had only to tread it underfoot …

‘You're not going to get away with this!' said Maltard suddenly. ‘You're waiting for a call from Desmoine, aren't you?' he added, with a venomous smile.

‘He's already called actually.'

That was a shock to Maltard, who stared at Daniel dumbfounded. ‘He's already called you?' He pronounced each word slowly and carefully.

‘Yes,' replied Daniel evenly, putting on his coat.

‘What did he want?' demanded Maltard.

‘Breakfast. On Friday.'

‘Breakfast with you,' said Maltard under his breath, as if muttering a spell that must not be spoken aloud for fear of the consequences.

‘Yes, that's what he said.' Daniel bent down to slip a folder into his briefcase. There was a long silence, then
he shut the clasps, the metallic snap signalling that it was time to leave.

The two men rode down in the lift without speaking, and parted in front of the entrance without shaking hands. Maltard watched as Daniel walked away, then went into the nearest café and ordered a double rum. The departing figure of his deputy in his coat and black hat haunted him for a good part of the night.

The secretary brought croissants and eggs which looked as if they were wearing woolly winter hats. Daniel supposed the crocheted accessories were there to keep the eggs at the right temperature. I'll have to tell Véronique, he thought. Jean-Bernard Desmoine sat opposite him. Both men were installed in large white leather armchairs near a window on the eighteenth floor of the SOGETEC building, overlooking Paris. Having such an elevated office must surely give its occupant a feeling of superiority.

‘Tuck in,' said Desmoine, snatching the knitted hat off his egg. ‘I'm very particular about how my eggs are cooked,' he added, smiling.

So that was it, thought Daniel, remembering at the same time that the correct way to break the top of a
soft-boiled
egg was with the back of a spoon, not a knife, as he did at home. He lifted the hat from his egg and rapped the top of the shell.

‘Daniel, I won't beat about the bush. I was very
impressed by your analysis of the plans for the finance department.'

Daniel embarked on a suitably humble reply, but was interrupted before he could finish.

‘No need to say anything,' said Desmoine. ‘No false modesty, please. I'm not one for false compliments. Coffee?'

The director poured him a cup. If someone had told Daniel, just a few days before, that Desmoine himself would be serving him coffee, he, Daniel, the man who stood in line at the seventh-floor coffee machine, waiting for his plastic cup to drop …

Desmoine dipped the tip of a croissant in his coffee and chewed, at the same time proceeding to outline Daniel's future with wondrous precision and clarity: ‘You see, I know a thing or two about people,' he announced with the confidence of those who have their own offices on the upper floors of tall buildings. ‘People and business,' he mused. ‘You don't get many surprises in our line of work. People are judged on their first year in the post; after that, they either develop or they don't. But no surprises. Do you get my drift?'

Daniel nodded, his mouth full of croissant, indicating that he did indeed get Desmoine's drift.

Desmoine took it upon himself to pour Daniel another cup of coffee. ‘Important to drink coffee,' he added. ‘Balzac drank litres of the stuff. You've read Balzac, of course.'

‘Of course,' Daniel confirmed, never having read Balzac in his life.

‘You really are a resourceful fellow. Why hasn't
SOGETEC got you in a more important post? You should have a position better suited to a man of your quality.'

‘A position …' muttered Daniel. ‘You mean …'

‘Maltard's a complete arse,' interrupted Desmoine. ‘Anyone can see that. But for reasons that are no concern of yours and which give me very little pleasure, I can assure you, I am obliged to keep him where he is. On the other hand, I want to promote you to director.'

Daniel stared at him, his croissant suspended over his cup.

‘Daniel, I'm offering to make you director of one of SOGETEC's regional finance departments. I know you're based in Paris, but it's all I can offer you. Pierre Marcoussi heads the Rouen department, but he's leaving for health reasons. It's not official for the moment. You'll start in January.'

The hat. It was the hat that was responsible for the events that had turned Daniel's existence on its head in the last few days. He was convinced of that. Since he had taken to wearing it, the hat had conferred on him a kind of immunity to the torments of everyday life just by being there. Better still, it sharpened his mind and spurred him to take vitally important decisions. Without it, he would never have dared speak to Maltard as he had at the meeting. He would never have found himself on the eighteenth floor sharing a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs with Desmoine. In a strange way, he felt that something of the President was there in the hat. Something intangible. Some microscopic particle perhaps. But whatever it was, it had the power of destiny.

‘Thank you,' Daniel muttered, addressing the hat as much as his superior.

‘So you accept?' asked Desmoine, swallowing his last mouthful of croissant.

‘I accept,' said Daniel, looking him straight in the eye.

‘We'll be seeing each other again then,' said Desmoine, holding out his hand before bending over a third, hatless egg. ‘This one's for me.' He smiled. Desmoine tapped the top with the handle of his teaspoon, making a small hole, then did the same at the other end, and threw his head back to swallow it down in one.

‘Every morning. A raw egg. My little treat,' said Jean-Bernard Desmoine apologetically.

Less than a month later, Daniel, Véronique and Jérôme were back on the platform at Gare Saint-Lazare, this time waiting for train 06781 bound for Le Havre, first stop Rouen. Their five suitcases bulged; the furniture had been despatched in a removal van. Daniel, his black hat firmly on his head, gazed down the track, looking out for the train that would take them to their new life in a new place. Véronique squeezed his arm, and Jérôme sulked because he wouldn't be seeing his friends from school again.

Throughout the journey, Daniel thought back over his Paris years on the third floor of the SOGETEC building. His colleagues had clubbed together to buy him a leaving gift: a year's subscription to Canal +. For the past two years, the new pay TV channel had revolutionised office conversation. In the accounts department, Daniel couldn't fail to notice the sudden irruption of ‘Canal' into the collective consciousness. Canal was ‘
un must
' as Florence, the communications manager, would say. Bernard Falgou and Michèle Carnavan swore by programmes that Daniel
could only see as a hissing blur. The talk at the coffee machine was of feature films that had been in cinemas barely a year ago and were already on Canal. People who ‘had Canal' could talk about them. The others could only listen in silence.

‘Didn't you see it?' the sect of set-top box subscribers would exclaim.

‘I haven't got Canal +.' The reply sounded like an admission of impotence, a fate to be endured.

Now, Daniel would have Canal +. He had received the channel's welcome letter to new subscribers, with its letterhead emblazoned with the slogan
‘Canal
+
, c'est plus.
' All he had to do was visit one of their official distributors in Rouen, show them the letter and his subscriber number, and he would be presented with the hallowed decoder. From now on, at the coffee machine, Daniel would be able to talk to his new colleagues about last night's programmes, or the 8.30 film. He might even allow himself the wicked pleasure of asking some of them, ‘You haven't got Canal? Oh, you really should …'

From what he had been told, the new apartment had one room more than their old one in the fifteenth
arrondissement
, their home for the past twelve years. The landlord had protested at their sudden departure, as had Jérôme's headmistress. Each time, Daniel had used the phrase: ‘I'm so sorry, but in life there are some circumstances …' He took care to leave his words hanging, pregnant with meaning, a black hole absorbing any and all objections. What can you say to a man compelled by such mysterious, irresistible forces? Nothing, of course.

When they reached Rouen, the capital of Normandy, Daniel told the taxi driver their new address in the centre of town. After barely quarter of an hour in the car Véronique turned to him with that little frown that her husband was so fond of.

‘Where's your hat?' she asked.

Time stood still for Daniel.

A long, icy shiver ran down his spine, as if someone had just walked on his grave. With horrible clarity, he pictured the hat on the luggage rack on the train. Not the rack where they had put their suitcases, but the one opposite. The hat was on the rack. His hat. Mitterrand's hat. In his haste to get off the train, Daniel, still unaccustomed to wearing a hat, had left it behind. He had just made the same mistake as the President of the Republic.

‘We'll have to turn round,' he said in shock. ‘Turn round immediately!' he yelled, from the back seat of the taxi.

The Peugeot 305 did an about-turn and accelerated back towards the station. Daniel leapt from the car and ran. But it was no good. The train had left. No one had taken the hat to the lost property office.

Days, weeks, months went by. Daniel called the central SNCF lost property office. When he realised he knew the number by heart, he knew, too, that he would never see Mitterrand's hat again.