by John Boyne
We had met in Brussels in 1888, where I was living comfortably off the proceeds of an operetta I had written and produced for the Belgian stage. It was entitled The Necessary Murder, and although it does not appear to have lasted the test of time – I was recently surprised to find a brief mention of it in an academic text concerning little-known European operas of the late nineteenth century, but have never heard anyone refer to it outside of that – it was something of a popular success at the time. The second most important opera critic of the time, Karpuil – who was an ignorant drunk most of the time but could write beautifully – described it as the ‘sublime reflection of a generous talent towards a disturbing subject matter’, although I must admit that the leading critic was not quite so generous in his praise. He considered it transient and derivative; in retrospect, his perceptiveness probably explains his premiership. Celine was a guest at the opening night, and sat in a box with her older brother Pierre, Baron de Coubertin, and some of their friends. She sought me out after the show and complimented me on the performance, singling out a libretto in the second act, performed by a young girl to her lover, for particular praise.
‘I found the whole thing quite chilling,’ she said, her brown eyes darting back and forth at the cast as they ran around behind us in a state of post-show excitement. The atmosphere behind a stage always excites those who are not used to the theatre. ‘The music is so beautiful and yet these two young people have just committed a terrible crime. Taking the two together makes the whole thing seem quite chilling, but surprisingly moving none the less.’
‘A necessary crime, however,’ I pointed out, ‘as the title suggests. The boy is forced to kill the man to prevent the attack on his beloved. Otherwise, the consequences would have been -’
‘Oh, certainly,’ she said quickly. ‘I understood that perfectly. But it’s the manner in which they dispose of the body and then simply continue on their way that disturbed me. It made me wonder what end would lie in store for them. I knew from that moment that it would all end in tragedy. As if the cover-up necessitated a balancing end for one or both of them. It was a sad story.’
I nodded slowly and considered inviting her to join some friends and me for dinner after the show. Although I am not a man who thrives on the praise of others, it was my first (my only) great success in the theatre and, for a brief time, I became intoxicated with the idea of myself as a talented artist. Little did I realise then that my true calling was not to be a creator but rather to be a benevolent patron of the arts; in truth, I was born in the wrong century. Had I lived a few hundred years earlier, I would no doubt have challenged Lorenzo de Medici for his position. I was not immediately attracted to Celine – at the time, the Belgian style was to wear the hair pulled back harshly from the face and hanging in strands at the side, and it drew attention to her forehead which protruded slightly – but I found her company more and more intoxicating as the evening wore on. She had an intelligent grasp of many subjects in which I myself was interested. We had both discovered Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, which had only recently been published as the first of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and had each read it over and over again, waiting with anticipation for the next tale to appear. When she returned home that night, we said as one that we would like to meet again and within about eight months we had married and settled down in a townhouse in the heart of the city.
For a time we were happy, but I must admit to damaging our marriage when I entered into a misguided alliance with a young actress – a girl whom I hardly cared for at all, truth to tell – and Celine discovered my infidelity. For several weeks she could not bring herself to talk to me, and when she eventually did it was some time before we could even hold a conversation without her bursting into tears after a few moments. I had truly hurt her and was sorry for it. I discovered, during our months of trouble, that I had been a fool for behaving in such a manner for it was clear that Celine loved me and our life together and, until that point, we had been getting along pretty well. As I was an old hand at both relationships and marriage by then, I should have known a good thing when I saw one, but I admit that I am not a man who has always learned from his mistakes.
Eventually, we tried to patch up our differences and to return to our former state of happy wedlock, agreeing not to discuss the matter again, but it was clear that the affair still hung over us like a rain cloud. Even as we continued with our day to day lives, never daring to discuss it, it seemed that our every conversation was tinged with an awareness of that of which we did not dare speak. Celine became distracted, I became unhappy, as a couple we found that our intimacy had been damaged by my actions and the whole relationship seemed almost irreparable, which saddened me. I had never been in a situation before where I had behaved badly, been completely forgiven for my actions, and yet left absolutely aware that what had taken place had scarred our union too deeply ever to be mended. I could find no way to atone for my crime.
‘Perhaps,’ I suggested one afternoon over a quiet game of fantan, ‘we could think about children.’ It was a foolish suggestion, designed to wed us closer together even as I knew that we should be drifting apart.
Celine looked at me in some surprise and placed two spades over my heart before shaking her head. ‘Perhaps,’ she echoed, ‘we should consider a small holiday together instead.’
And so it was set. Without saying it in so many words, it became clear that this holiday would be our last attempt to keep our marriage together without any hidden enmity or hurt feelings. We chose Madrid as our destination and it was Celine who suggested meeting her brother for a few days in Paris as we travelled, a decision which was to define a period of my life during the early 1890s and bring me into contact with the final, most extraordinary event of the nineteenth century.
I first met my brother-in-law on the same night that I had met Celine in 1888 but, through the rigours of distance and a lack of familial intimacy, we had not maintained a close relationship in the intervening years. Although quite wealthy from his inherited title of Baron de Coubertin, Pierre worked for the French government, taking on various projects which interested him, more often than not those of an aesthetic nature, designed to improve the cultural life of a nation as opposed to the financial health of the civil purse. His relationship with his sister was distant but cordial and on the evening we arrived in Paris – 24 November 1892 – they had not actually laid eyes on each other in some eighteen months. Celine had written several letters to her brother, telling him of the life that we were leading in Brussels, the continued success of The Necessary Murder and the stunning failure of its successor The Cigar Box, which put an end to my creative desires once and for all. The previous Christmas we had received a card from him with a short note wishing us well and informing us that he was very happy and busy in France and, outside of that, we knew nothing of him or his work. However, as we would be staying in Paris for a few days, an arrangement was made to meet for dinner and it was during that meal that he informed us of the great plans that he was then setting in place.
A middle-aged man by now, Pierre wore his dark, wiry moustache long at the sides, its ends teased into a fine twist that stood out from his face, much like Salvador Dali would do during the mid-twentieth century. He was quite tall at six foot two, but lean and strong, due to the physical regimen he had been religiously following.
‘Every morning,’ he told me over an indifferent sole as we dined in an expensive restaurant where all the waiters appeared to know his name and acknowledge his presence with some deference, ‘I rise at half past five exactly and plunge myself immediately into a cold bath, which revitalises me and prepares me for the morning’s activities. I do one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, and various other muscle toning exercises before cycling my bicycle for fifteen miles around the city. Upon my return, I take a long hot bath to ease any muscle strain, finish my ablutions, and by nine O’clock I am ready to start my work for the day. I cannot begin to explain how much better each d
ay is when one has followed a schedule like that. And what of you, sir?’ he asked me. ‘What physical activities do you prefer?’
I considered a polite answer over the obvious one but it took me a moment to decide. ‘I have been known to play a game of tennis,’ I offered eventually. ‘I’ve been told that my backhand is passable but my serving is an embarrassment to behold. Team sports have never quite been my thing, I have to admit. I’ve always preferred to test my own abilities, either alone or competing singularly against others. Athletics, fencing, swimming, that kind of thing.’
Once begun on his pet subject, there was no stopping him. As I would later learn, he could speak for hours about the benefits of a good sporting life, the advantages not just to oneself but to society as a whole that energetic activities of a competitive nature could provide. I found his passion both entertaining and unusual, for it was a side of life that I had never taken much interest in myself. Although generally fit, having been blessed with a good constitution and surely the most reliable body in the history of mankind, I have never found it necessary to adopt a regimen of my own. Indeed, the only exercise I constantly receive is walking, for I have owned a car only once in my life and even then couldn’t get the hang of the thing, and find public transport generally disturbing.
We chatted briefly about Celine and our trip to Madrid, not detailing the dalliances which had caused this necessary effort at marital unity, before he grew weary of the subject and began to appear preoccupied over the brandy. When we asked him whether anything was the matter, he explained that he was due to give an important lecture at the Sorbonne the following day, and he was worried about it.
‘It’s the culmination of the last few years of my life,’ he said, putting down his cigar briefly and allowing his hands to become animated as he talked. ‘I have an idea which I want to put to the people at the lecture tomorrow and, depending on the response which I receive, I believe I will be undertaking the most extraordinary project of my life.’
I looked at him with some interest. ‘Well, can you tell it to us now?’ I asked. ‘Or is it to be kept secret until tomorrow afternoon? Remember, we will be halfway to Madrid by then and may never hear of it otherwise.’
‘Oh, you’ll hear of it, Matthieu,’ he said quickly. ‘I have no doubts on that score. Assuming others believe it to be as good an idea as I do. You see -’ He leaned forward on the table and Celine and I did likewise, forming a conspiratorial troika which seemed appropriate to the moment. ‘A couple of years ago, one of our government departments commissioned me to study various physical culture methods, with a view to the reintroduction of a sporting curriculum to our schools. It was not a difficult task but it was one which intrigued me, fascinated as I was by the different methods for health preservation practised by different countries around the globe. Upon its conclusion my research had led me around Europe where I met various different people whose ideas were almost at one with my own and which eventually brought me to the point I arrive at tomorrow. To this lecture. You have heard, of course, of the Olympic Games?’
I looked at Celine, who clearly had not, and shrugged my shoulders non-committally. ‘I know a little about them,’ I offered cautiously, for my knowledge of their history and ideals was slight. ‘They took place in ancient Greece, am I right? Around AD 100 or 200?’
‘Close,’ he said with a smile. ‘Actually, they began around 800 BC, SO you’re only about a thousand years off. And they only came to a definitive end around the close of the fourth century, when Theodosius I, who was the Roman Emperor at the time, issued a decree prohibiting their taking place.’ His eyes grew animated as he began his delivery of a stream of names and dates clearly etched into his consciousness. ‘Of course, the Olympiad has not been entirely forgotten in the fourteen hundred years since,’ he said eventually, his erudition shining through and eclipsing both our ignorance and our presence at the table. ‘You will of course know the references to the games throughout Pindar.’ I did not, but took his word for it. ‘And there have been others who have been discussing a contemporary form of late. I met a man in England, a Dr William Penny Brooks – you may have heard of him – who founded the Much Wenlock Olympic Society which generated a little interest here and there but nobody was interested in funding it, it seems. And there have been others, of course. Muths, Curtius, Zappas in Greece. But they have not been international projects and that is where their failing has come about. And this is what I intend to speak of at the Sorbonne tomorrow afternoon. I intend to propose a modern-day Olympiad, with international participation and funding, which can be seen not only as a triumph of personal excellence and sporting achievement, but which can also help to reunify the countries in the world and provide a source for positive collaboration. Matthieu, Celine,’ – here he positively glowed with the excitement of his convictions – ‘I intend to bring back the Olympic Games.’
The marriage failed. We were not long in Madrid before it became clear that we would be unable to get past the matter of my indiscretion and Celine and I – amicably but with regret – decided to part. It grieved me to see the end come to this marriage, which I had finally decided was one to which I wished to devote if not my, then at least the rest of Celine’s, life, and I cursed myself for my apparent inability to remain faithful to one woman or to maintain a healthy, successful relationship. I begged for another chance but her disappointment in me was as obvious as her sense of betrayal. When we parted, I became disconsolate and drifted from Spain to Egypt where I invested for a time in a project aimed at building low-cost housing around Alexandria, a rare departure from the artistic world for me. I made a lot of money in my time there for the city was prosperous and in need of more dwellings and when I sold my share of the buildings, I made a profit of almost two million drachma, a fortune at the time. The kind of money one could live off for ever if one was careful with it.
Although it was to be three years after our dinner together before I again met Baron de Coubertin, I had followed his continuing story in the newspapers with some interest. The initial lecture at the Sorbonne had met with a positive response from his audience, although it was barely reported in the media, but eventually I heard that he had travelled to America with Celine by his side to meet with representatives of the Ivy League universities, among others, to stir interest in a modern Games. It seemed that she had taken on the position of his secretary and had become almost as involved in his work as he was himself. He returned to the Sorbonne in 1894 where the definitive decision to hold the Games was made, with representatives from twelve countries in attendance, and he himself was appointed secretary-general, under the presidency of a Greek man named Demetrius Vikelas.
‘I wanted to hold off the Games until 1900,’ he told me some years later. ‘I thought it would make sense to see in the new century with a new Olympiad, but I was outvoted, eleven to one. Most of the delegates from the individual countries, having got the bit between their teeth, were pushing for quicker action. Of course, I had been planning this for years. I didn’t want to rush into it without due preparatory time. Not after devoting so much of my life to the endeavour anyway.
He had also favoured holding the Games in Paris, but Vikelas overruled him and insisted that they be held in Athens where the Games had originally taken place. It was agreed that they should be held every four years and the date for the first of the modern era was set for April of 1896. Elaborate plans immediately got underway.
Visiting Paris again, I was attending a reception to welcome the flautist Jure back home from his triumphant American tour when I saw Pierre locked in conversation with a couple of acquaintances of mine outside on the lawn. Going out to join them, I extended a hand to Pierre, who shook it warmly as if we were old friends.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met, sir,’ he said, however, introducing himself to me as if for the first time. ‘Pierre de Fredi.’
I laughed, a little embarrassed and surprised that he did not remember our one-time familial relationship
. ‘Indeed we have,’ I replied. ‘Do you not recall a dinner we had in Paris a few years ago, on the night before your first lecture to the Sorbonne?’ He looked a little unsure and stroked his moustache nervously. ‘I was with your sister,’ I added.
‘My sister?’
‘Celine,’ I reminded him. ‘We were ... well, we were married at the time. I was your brother-in-law. I still am, I suppose, as we have never divorced.’
He clapped his hands together suddenly, a slight affectation I observed in him from time to time, before grasping my shoulders tightly. ‘Of course,’ he shouted, his face breaking into a broad grin. ‘Then you must be Mr Zéla, that’s it, isn’t it?’ His uncertainty testified to me the fact that Celine did not speak of me often.
‘Matthieu,’ I insisted. ‘Please.’
‘Indeed, indeed,’ he said, nodding slowly, his face growing reflective as he looked at me and took me aside gently. ‘Actually, I remember that night quite well. I believe I told you both about my plans for the Games, am I right?’
‘You did,’ I acknowledged, remembering his enthusiasm with pleasure. ‘And I must admit that at the time, while intrigued by your ideas, I thought they were a little too far-fetched to be realised. I never believed you could bring things as far as you have. I’ve followed your adventures quite avidly in the newspapers, you know. You are to be congratulated for your work.’
‘Have you really?’ he asked, laughing. ‘Have you indeed? Well it’s kind of you to take an -’
‘And what of Celine?’ I asked quickly. ‘You see her often, I presume.’
