By the end of the following school week I’d come to accept that Marie had nothing to do with the mathematical miracle. I even began to think I might have written down the answer myself without realizing it. History tells of even stranger things than that happening – I can’t think of any examples right now – but I know it’s a thought that came to me at the time.
On the day the teacher handed back our papers, all my doubts disappeared and everything became clear, because Marie had a lower mark than me. And that was out of the question: it was scientifically impossible, with or without divine intervention. A big deal was made of congratulating me and I even felt quite choked: it was very touching. In the end I took the praise seriously, as though I’d actually deserved it, with all the stress that went with it. The whole class was looking at me and I was struck that no one seemed to suspect anything. Even Haisam had roused himself so as not to miss this important moment. A very sweet smile was spreading across his great face, which radiated calm and trust. My heart was beating double fast from the emotion. The teacher kept on and on: it was turning into a real awards ceremony, as though I’d won some geometrical Oscar. I thought she was going a bit over the top, but it was good to stack up some praise, since it was a long time since I’d had any. She even compared me to Marie when she gave her back her work. It was the first time I’d ever heard the teacher trying out a bit of humour.
“You see, you did even better than Marie, who made a big error right at the end. That’s how I know you didn’t copy her work!”
But then things began to go wrong, because after the lesson the teacher came limping up to me and said, “No more excuses now! You’ve proved that you can do perfectly well if you put a bit of effort into it. So I’m counting on you, OK?”
She looked me straight in the eyes. And then she added solemnly, as if she was presiding over some age-old ceremony, “Everyone’s counting on you!”
I got out of there with the feeling that I was balancing the fate of the world on the end of my pen, and all I could think was that I was completely screwed. It would have been good to talk to Marie, but she’d dashed off and disappeared. As I walked down the corridor, I felt like I’d just been in a boxing match. I looked out for Etienne and Marcel, who were the other two members of the rock band I’d founded, but they must have been out in the playground already, kicking their ball around.
Downstairs, trying to sneak as quietly as possible past his office, I bumped into Lucky Luke and that was the final straw, because he started banging on about it as well.
“Good sprint, young man, an excellent breakaway, as they say in the Tour de France! I’ve heard about your achievements. It’s the yellow jersey for you! Bravo! Worthy of a musketeer!”
He put a hand on my shoulder, as though he was really proud of me.
“I hope you’re pleased!”
“Yes, sir, very pleased…”
“I knew we could count on you and that all our educational efforts weren’t in vain.”
He gave me the thumbs-up.
It was too much to bear. I ran to the toilets, because I felt completely overcome and didn’t want to show myself up in front of everyone. I had my dignity to think of. Shutting myself in one of the cubicles (there were always plenty free since I’d been hiding the toilet paper) I burst into tears. I felt much better after that.
I decided to think things over a bit, right there on the toilet. I’d often dreamed of receiving such a torrent of compliments, but it was a bit like getting a Christmas present that was far too expensive. Now it had actually happened I was in shock. But it wasn’t only a question of my emotions. I also had to address the problem the situation had created: now I was saddled with a responsibility. Before, I didn’t need to measure up to anything at all, and that was quite relaxing, whereas now the whole world was expecting results from me. There was a risk of upsetting everyone, and frankly it’s really stressful when you’re weighed down with other people’s disappointment, because it doesn’t leave much room for hope. I wanted to admit defeat, go find Lucky Luke and tell him the whole story: that it was a scam, that I’d cheated disgracefully and that he could expect nothing from me. My career as a good pupil was getting off to a really bad start, with nothing but worry and regret. I flushed the toilet, wondering why everything I had anything to do with always ended in confusion.
In the playground, I spotted Etienne and Marcel. They were both playing right wing, because they were both left-footed. They were brothers, and I’d started calling them “the Metro” when I learned that there’s a Metro station in Paris called “Etienne Marcel”. They played bass guitar and drum extremely badly but I wasn’t very picky about performance quality and I’d allowed them to join the band. To celebrate the band’s birth, we’d cracked a bottle of apple juice over the old electric guitar that Dad had bought me. He’d suggested a brilliant name for us, “The Rattletraps”. What’s more he’d also given us permission to practise in the workshop at the back of the yard. I don’t know what gave him the idea of the name “The Rattletraps”, and I did wonder whether it was much of a compliment to our performances, but anyway… One day we’d given our music teacher a demo of our best pieces. He appreciated our efforts, but he said there was a technical problem, because all he could hear was metal being hit and whooshing sounds.
“It’s odd,” he said, a little awkwardly, “it sounds like you recorded it in … a blacksmith’s forge … or … on an airport runway!”
We took back the tape and we never forgave him after that, because artists are sensitive.
Just before the bell rang, I asked Etienne and Marcel what they thought about my predicament. Obviously, I avoided telling them that Marie was undoubtedly behind the whole thing, because I already felt enough of a fool. Etienne suggested that I should actually become the Escape Artist that the Honourable Egyptian had talked about and continue to cheat to maintain the high standard I’d reached.
“That’s impossible, I’m too dumb to cheat properly. I tried last year and it was a total failure. I got a detention and I had to clean all the school toilets. So no thanks. And anyway I’ve got principles. Haven’t you?”
“No.”
Marcel raised his eyes to the sky and recommended quite simply that I work hard enough to succeed honestly. Of course, when I was thinking things over on the toilet, I’d also considered this option.
“I’m too far behind. However hard I try, I just get into a complete muddle. For example, this morning’s biology lesson with those wrinkled peas and smooth peas that show whatever it is they show – if I go over it again this evening, I’m sure I won’t understand a thing!”
“All great rock musicians are famous for having disastrous school careers,” said Etienne, pompously.
There was a long respectful silence.
“And you are a great rock musician,” he added as an afterthought.
After school, I warned Haisam that I wouldn’t be coming to watch them play chess, because there was something more urgent I needed to do.
“That’s a shame,” he said, “because I was planning to introduce you to the secrets of the Sicilian Defence.”
It was obvious that the whole school was now conspiring to make a fool of me but I pretended not to notice. “Maybe tomorrow,” I suggested.
“Impossible. Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“So?”
“So it’s the Sabbath. And on the Sabbath you’re not allowed to do anything.”
“But you’re an Egyptian, an Honourable Egyptian. And your father’s a Turk, a Turk from Istanbul.”
“From Galata, actually. And anyway what’s that got to do with it?”
I couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer, and in any case my mind was on other things. Haisam opened the door to the lodge. Inside, his father, wearing his fez, was kneading bread. Before shutting the door on me, my Honourable Egyptian said, “I have the feeling that your haste to leave school has something to do with your triumph today.” He looked at me with his X-ray eyes. I felt sure he could see through to my skeleton.
“What if it has?” I replied, just like that, without thinking.
He nodded slowly, as if to say it was a good answer, and it sent shivers down my spine, because he made me feel taller.
I ran all the way to the village to be sure I wouldn’t miss her. I didn’t have the patience to wait all weekend to get this thing sorted. I felt like going back into the church to pray that she would be on her own, but twice in such a short space of time would undoubtedly have looked suspect, up there on high, where they can be touchy about etiquette. I crossed my fingers instead. When she appeared, on her own, with her foamy mop of hair, I practically threw myself at her. She jumped, startled.
“Hey, you frightened me. Are you OK?”
“No.”
“Oh, why’s that? You’ve had a good day, what with all the compliments you got.”
“That’s just the trouble.”
“What on earth’s the matter with you? Explain yourself.”
I felt irritation creeping over me, but I was anxious to rein it in, because there was nothing to stop her dumping me right there and heading straight home. Also, it was important to explain the situation with precision and clarity – two essential qualities you need to have in life, so Dad had told me. I noticed she’d taken off her big ring.
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. You know exactly what kind of a mess I’m in.”
She sat down on the bench in front of the church.
“Tell me then, but make it quick. Because I’ve got to go home.”
“All right, well then, today I got a better mark than you…”
“Yes, I made a mistake in the last step.”
“Don’t give me that… Everyone’s ganging up on me today… I know perfectly well that it was you who gave me the answer and that you made a mistake on purpose to cover it up…”
I crossed my arms to show I was serious, and then I crossed my legs too because I was in a panic.
“Why would I have done that? But let’s say I did. What’s the problem, since you got the highest mark in the class?”
I searched for words that would match the strength of my feeling. My eyes were drawn to the church’s weathervane, which kept changing direction. I was just thinking that meant a storm was on the way when all of a sudden Marie stood up. I followed close on her heels and trotted along behind her.
“Everyone knows I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m the only one, except for you, who knows I didn’t do it on my own and that it’s been a complete con from beginning to end. Even Lucky Luke congratulated me, and I’m sure my father’s been told.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I’m now going to disappoint everyone and I’m really stressed about it. It’s hopeless. I’ll never be able to do it again. As soon as we get the next test I’ll be back to the bottom of the class and I’ll be found out…”
“Unless…”
“Unless nothing. I’m going to stop you right there. Whatever you do, don’t suggest I cheat again… And by the way, that shows it was you who—”
“Let’s say. But I wasn’t going to suggest…”
She slowed down and I realized we’d got to her place. But there was no way I was going to let her slip through my fingers like that. I stood in front of the door to her house and crossed my arms again.
“So let’s be clear about this: was it or wasn’t it you?”
Her curly hair hid her face while she calmly looked for the keys in her bag.
“OK. It was me.”
Oddly, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. She was smiling at me, with her lips pressed together.
“And why did you do that? You see what you’ve got me into? It’s like starving people in Africa: if you give them a feast straight away, well, they croak pretty much pronto. It would have been better to take it more slowly with me as well.”
“I didn’t think of that. It’s not really my thing – cheating, I mean… Not thinking isn’t really my thing either.”
For a few seconds I thought about whether I ought to find this a good enough excuse or not. My head was pounding, as though an army was marching through it in formation.
“I’ve got to go home to practise my cello … but if you want you can come and listen to me.”
I almost said that I was a musician too, but I held back. I was curious to see her cello. Dad would be worried. Then I’d be worried about him being worried, and it was a pain when we were both worrying about each other. But I followed Marie anyway. We walked through the big garden on a gravel path that weaved between a great many trees of all different varieties. At one point she whispered to me, “By the way, thank you for putting the loo paper back in the girls’ toilets.”
I thought it all over later that evening. I had a splitting headache and Dad didn’t think I looked too good. I just about had the energy to take my temperature and head off to bed. When Dad asked what had got me into such a state I simply replied, “I was given too much to digest in one go.”
Since this didn’t mean much to him, I added, “I got the best mark in the class.”
He knew that anyway, because he’d bumped into Lucky Luke out training on his bike and they’d discussed my case together, agreeing that all was not lost.
In any event, he seemed to find it odd that I was torturing myself about a good mark; but there were things he needed to do with the Panhard, so he stomped off, saying that I was never satisfied and that complicating everything wouldn’t bring me happiness. But then I hadn’t given him the full story.
I thought again about the time I’d spent at Marie’s house. I’d got lumbered with an hour and a half of cello with Vivaldi, Bach and a composer called Marin something, who I’d never heard of.
At last she’d put down her bow and asked, “Do you like music too?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Classical or baroque?”
“Baraque? What’s baraque?”
“Baroque. Not baraque.”
I blushed bright red because of my old enemy, ignorance. I didn’t know the difference, but baroque meant absolutely nothing to me and I even wondered whether it was some kind of a trap. Classical seemed to me to be more … classical.
“Classical. Because the other one, well…”
“Who’s your favourite composer?”
My brain started whizzing. It wasn’t the moment to try and be clever. I don’t know why, but I thought about the food we used to give to my rabbit that died last year. It was called “Mozart Mix”.
“Mozart. My favourite’s Mozart.”
I smiled broadly with relief. I could look him up later.
“Any particular piece?”
“Oh … pretty much all of them. I’m a big fan.”
She went back to rubbing her bow with some weird stuff that looked like wax.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying to show some interest.
“It’s rosin. It makes the bow grip the strings better.”
It looked as though she was giving the bow a long, slow stroke.
I stood up because I had pins and needles in my legs. I looked at all the books, lined up alphabetically in the bookcase. I noticed immediately that there were a lot of books about eyes, which was strange: Anatomy of the Optic Nerve, Pathology of the Human Eye, Learning about Blindness, and so on. And others with titles so complicated that they might as well have been books about wizardry.
“That’s strange,” I said, “all these books about eyes. How come you’re interested in that?”
“It’s for my project.”
“What project?”
“You know, I suggested to the form teacher that I should give a presentation to the class about Helen Keller’s life story, based on the book she wrote.”
“So, what’s that got to do with eyes?”
“Well, Helen Keller was an American girl who lost her sight when she was eighteen months old. She became very knowledgeable and very well-known, thanks to her teacher who did everything she could to help her… That’s what it’s about – in a nutshell – obviously. If you want, I could lend you the book.”
“No thanks, I’ve got enough to do with The Three Musketeers. Later, perhaps, when I’ve finished it … in ten years’ time. By the way, something that’s been bothering me… Do you know if it’s true that Alexandre Dumas was mostly interested in, you know, stuffing his face and chasing girls?”
“I think it is true.”
I was a bit disappointed. I’d rather hoped that Haisam was wrong. But the Honourable Egyptian is never wrong.
“So you need all these books for your presentation?”
“I like to have all the facts when I take on a task.”
“Mind you, it’s not surprising you’re interested in eyes and blind people…”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because a lot of blind people are also very talented musicians. You’ve got something in common with them.”
She said nothing and her face clouded right over. I had the impression I’d made a real blunder. Although to be honest that’s not an unusual feeling for me.
The house was quiet, and occasionally you could hear the wood creaking.
“Are you all on your own here? Where are your parents?”
“They’ll come home later. I’m often on my own. My parents are art experts and auctioneers, so they go away a lot.”
“What are auction ears?”
“You know: going … going … gone!”
She hit the table with an invisible hammer. I’d seen that in films.
Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. I needed to find a topic of conversation quickly. I immediately dismissed anything to do with music, because the truth is, I wasn’t up to it. And that made me think I should tell the Metro to keep shtum about our own lousy musical performances. Of course, the more I tried to think of something to say, the harder it was to come up with anything. In the end I felt it would be best to leave, because it was going to get awkward. She put away her cello, sat down on her bed and stared hard at me.
“I’ve got something I want to put to you…”
I felt my head shrink down into my shoulders. I smelt a rat.
“Yes, what?”
“Well, look. I’ve got you into a mess by trying to help you…”
“Yes, but it’s my fault as well. I’m too complicated to take this sort of thing lightly.”
“You know I’m a good student.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“My parents had me tested. I remember the result. The psychologist’s words are engraved on my brain: ‘Very high IQ.’”
“IQ? What does that stand for? Incredible quality?”
“Intelligence quotient, you dummy. You know, what you have in your brain… And mine is well above average, with an astonishing memory and an exceptional aptitude for conceptualization.”
I tried to look as though I understood, but I didn’t know what the word “conceptualization” meant. I wasn’t too sure about “aptitude” either.
“So what?” I said. “I couldn’t care less. Do you want to give me your CV as well?”
“I couldn’t care less either, that’s not the point. The point is that if you want, I can help you study.”
“Study?”
“Yes. Revise with you. Explain things you haven’t understood. Help you catch up.”
My mouth dropped open and all the colours of the rainbow must have passed across my face. My brain was completely scrambled and everything was getting jumbled up: Reshevsky, Alexandre Dumas, Mozart, Marin what’s-his-name, the lady with the Camellias and d’Artagnan, even Lucky Luke and the Tour de France. I barely had the strength to reply.
“I’ll have to think about it. I need to get used to the idea.”
To be honest, it didn’t really tie in with how I thought of myself: as a kind of subversive guitar hero.
I picked up my coat, but just before leaving I asked her, as a sort of challenge, “What if I asked you to name the technical innovation that was introduced in Panhard cars in the 1901 Paris–Berlin motor race? Hmm? Would you be able to find that out?”
“I’ll find it out.”
That’s it, you have a good look, brainbox, I said to myself on the way home, savouring my victory in advance. Look as hard as you like…