The Accident on the A35

by Graeme Macrae Burnet

  ‘Do you not know who I am?’ said Raymond.

  ‘Of course, I do,’ she said, glancing towards Dédé. ‘You’re a dumb kid from Saint-Louis who can’t get it up.’

  Raymond rummaged in his satchel and brought out his knife. He pulled off the leather sheath and held the blade out in front of him. Dédé breathed a weary sigh. He had witnessed many such incidents. He stepped through the hatch and placed himself between the two protagonists.

  ‘Now, what are you planning to do with that?’ he said.

  He took a step towards Raymond. Raymond took a step back, knocking over the stool he had been sitting on.

  ‘I need to speak to Delph,’ he said. He pronounced each word as if it was a complete sentence. His eyes were smarting.

  Someone shouted: ‘Give him a smack, Dédé.’

  To general laughter, a second voice yelled: ‘Go for him, kid!’

  Raymond glanced at the faces around the room, eager for a bit of action. The young cop was peering through the door. If they wanted a performance, they were going to get it.

  Dédé approached Raymond with an outstretched arm, ready to shepherd him to the door. But the bartender did not appear unduly troubled by what was happening.

  Raymond was unable to retreat any further. He took a step forward and flapped the knife unconvincingly in front of him. Quite by chance he caught the bartender’s hand at the root of his thumb. Dédé recoiled. He examined the wound on his hand. There were half-hearted cheers from the onlookers. Raymond was horrified by what he’d done. Delph placed her hand on her forehead. Her tray of drinks fell to the floor. Dédé grabbed a cloth from the counter and wrapped it round his wounded hand. It was quickly soaked with blood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Raymond, but he continued to hold out the knife.

  Dédé threatened to break his arm.

  There was a lull, of no more than a few seconds, while those involved assessed their positions. Raymond, for his part, would happily have dropped the knife and walked out of the bar. Had it not been for the expectant crowd, and for the fact that he had not yet paid for his beer and cigarettes, he might have done so. He imagined their jeers as he left. Dédé would no doubt shout some abusive remarks at his back. Perhaps he would even pursue him to the door and give him a good beating. But, as it was, events had already escalated beyond his control.

  Delph stepped past Dédé. ‘You need to get out of here,’ she said. Then it struck Raymond. Her nose, jutting sharply outwards at the bridge then continuing down at an angle, was his father’s nose. The high cheekbones were his father’s cheekbones. Even her sardonic manner was a mirror of his father’s. It was astonishing that he had not seen it before.

  Raymond recalled her opening her shirt—his own father’s shirt—to display her chest in the backroom of Johnny’s. He now felt intoxicated by her scent. He raised his knife hand at a right angle to his body, his arm fully extended. Then, with a firm jerk of his elbow, he thrust it into the side of his neck. He felt the blade penetrate his skin, make some progress through the muscle, before his hand instinctively loosened its grip. The knife lodged there for a few seconds—no more than that—before dropping to the floor. Raymond was pleased the effect of his action. Delph stifled a scream. There were gasps from the onlookers. Chairs were scraped back as people rose to get a better view. Even Dédé appeared taken aback. Raymond imagined a great arc of blood spraying across the floor, but in reality only a small glug emerged from the wound. He grinned stupidly at Delph. Then his legs gave way beneath him. He fell face first to the floor, his arms hanging limply at his sides. After a moment, he was aware of the rough texture of the floorboards against his cheek. He suddenly felt tremendously foolish. What an idiotic thing to do! He wondered whether these were to be his final moments of consciousness. And if his final thought was to be that, he was an idiot. But it was not. He became aware of an assortment of footwear around where he lay on the floor. He recognised the black slip-ons of the pockmarked man. The toe of another man’s shoe was splayed open, and Raymond could see a patch of dried glue where he had attempted to repair it. He looked for Delph’s boots but they were not to be seen. He was hauled to his feet and deposited on a stool. Someone suggested calling an ambulance, but it was decided there was no need. Various derogatory words circulated. Someone asserted, with a hint of admiration, that he could have properly hurt himself. At a certain point, the young cop entered. He declared that he was a policeman, but in such an unauthoritative voice that no one paid him any heed.

  Once it was decided that Raymond was not seriously hurt, the regulars drifted back to their tables. The chess players reset their clock and resumed their game. The young cop enquired if there was a telephone on the premises and was directed to the kiosk in the street outside.

  Dédé pulled a stool up in front of Raymond and instructed him to tilt his head to the side. He deftly cleaned the wound on Raymond’s neck. Delph appeared from behind the counter and silently handed him a roll of gauze and some sticking plaster. She did not look at or speak to Raymond. Dédé applied a dressing with some dexterity and stuck it down. Then he got up and brought Raymond a shot of brandy and indicated that he should drink it.

  Raymond thanked him and apologised for the trouble he had caused. Dédé shrugged. ‘No harm done,’ he said. He made Raymond empty his pockets and took what money he had to cover the cigarettes and the beer he had drunk.

  Raymond felt weary. He was ready for home. He drank the brandy he had been given. It was as if nothing had happened. Someone must have picked up his knife and Raymond did not ask for it back. The blood that had been spilled on the floor had been mopped up. At the table adjacent to the door, a pack of cards had been produced. A fat man in braces slowly dealt out the hands. The chess players finished their game and packed up the pieces in their usual fashion. The pockmarked man finished up his drink and left, bidding good evening to Dédé. Delph reappeared from somewhere behind the counter and collected a few glasses. No one made any comment about what had occurred. She did not look at Raymond. He had no desire to speak to her. Perhaps none of it even mattered. He looked up at the clock on the wall. Barely half an hour had passed since he entered the bar.

  Outside, he stopped and looked at his reflection in the darkened window of a butcher’s shop. He put his fingers to the dressing of his wound. A little blood oozed through the gauze. He pushed his hair back behind his ears. He now had a bluish lump on his forehead from where his head had struck the floor. This to add to the graze and torn trousers from falling down the stairs. Behind him, the young cop followed on the opposite side of the street. Raymond walked to the station. A train arrived as soon as he reached the platform. He boarded without buying a ticket. What was the worst that could happen? If a conductor came along, he would only put him off at Bartenheim.

  Twenty-four

  Gorski had to ask directions several times before he found Rue Saint-Fiacre. It was an unremarkable street, a little run-down, but respectable. Gorski parked and walked from one end to the other. Roland was nowhere to be seen. He walked back along the opposite pavement, pausing to look in the window of a philatelist’s. The cluttered array of goods reminded him of his father’s pawnshop.

  He went into the little café on the corner. It was the sort of place that depended on a clientele too idle to walk more than the most minimal distance from their homes. The floor was polished concrete, an arc etched into it where the metal door opened and closed. Next to the door was a refrigerator bearing illustrations of various ice creams. There were four round plastic-topped tables, each with a single cone-shaped metal leg, these arranged along the wall to the right of the door. A metal rack held the day’s newspapers. Behind the counter was the usual assortment of cigarettes and lottery tickets. On the far wall next to a door to the WC, a series of yellowed clippings from L’Alsace were pinned. A small television was attached to the wall above the door by an ugly metal stanchion. It was not switched on. There were no other customers.

  The
proprietor was a mild-looking man of around sixty. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and fastened with clasps above the elbow. His tie was neatly knotted and secured with a silver clip. Gorski asked if a young man had been in to make a telephone call. The proprietor confirmed that he had. Gorski asked in which direction he had left. The man looked at him questioningly. If he did not answer immediately, it was not because he wished to be unhelpful, but rather because he was the type that respected the privacy of his customers. Gorski showed him his ID.

  The man looked at it carefully and inclined his head in apology for his reticence. ‘I’m afraid I did not pay sufficient attention,’ he said.

  A fat man with a terrier was sitting at one of the two metal tables on the pavement outside. There was no drink on the table and it appeared that he had merely stopped for a breather. Gorski went outside and repeated his enquiry about Roland. The man mulled over the question then shook his head slowly. He bent to tickle the back of his dog’s ear. Gorski went back inside and asked for a jeton. He called the station. Schmitt answered. Roland had not called again.

  ‘If he does,’ said Gorski, ‘tell him I’m in the café he called from earlier.’

  ‘Boyfriend stood you up, has he?’ said Schmitt. He started to say something else, but Gorski hung up. He approached the counter and perched on one of the three stools there. He lit a cigarette and asked for a beer.

  The proprietor carefully placed a bottle on a paper doily in front of him. Then he lit a cigarette himself. Usually in such a situation, the proprietor of a bar will busy himself with some menial task—polishing glasses or wiping down surfaces—so that his customer does not feel self-conscious about drinking alone. Or he will feel the need to make some banal remarks. But the proprietor of the café on the corner of Rue Saint-Fiacre did neither of these things. He simply stood behind the counter, watching Gorski with a placid expression. Once in a while he stepped forward to tap his cigarette into the ashtray on the counter. Gorski felt quite comfortable. There was no point chasing round the streets of Mulhouse looking for Roland. It was well over an hour since he had called from the kiosk outside Weismann’s apartment.

  An old woman with a pug entered the bar. She was carrying a canvas bag of vegetables. The dog struggled to climb the single step into the bar. The woman sat down at the table nearest the door. The proprietor greeted her by name and brought her a measure of brandy. The woman gazed fixedly at the drink for some minutes, as if to demonstrate the extent of her willpower. Then she raised the glass to her lips and took a tentative sip as though testing to see if it was poisoned. She set the glass back on the table and waited. Then, seemingly satisfied that the drink was uncontaminated, she picked up the glass for a second time and knocked back the remaining contents with a sharp twist of her wrist. She remained there for some minutes more, as if the brandy was merely incidental to the purpose of her visit. Then she placed a coin on the table and left. The proprietor collected her glass and, though it was quite unnecessary, wiped down the table. When he returned to his post behind the counter, Gorski ordered another beer.

  Outside, there was a scraping of metal on concrete. The fat man with the dog was getting to his feet. He gave a little salute to the proprietor through the window and ambled off. Gorski liked it here. It was the sort of place he could happily get used to.

  Later that evening, Gorski put his suitcase gently down in the vestibule. He had not told his mother he was coming, but there were two places set at the table by the window.

  ‘Ah, good, you’re here. I was just going to call you again,’ she said as he pushed open the door.

  ‘It’s me, Georges,’ he said.

  She looked towards the door.

  ‘Ah,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ll have to set another place.’

  She made her way ponderously across to the sideboard where the placemats and napkins were kept.

  ‘There’s no need, Maman,’ said Gorski. ‘It will just be the two of us.’

  A confused expression clouded his mother’s face, but it quickly passed and she took herself off to the kitchen, where a pot of bouillon was simmering. Gorski sat down at the place Mme Gorski had set for her husband. It took her an age to ladle out two bowls of soup and carry them to the table, but Gorski did not intervene.

  When she sat down, Gorski asked if there was any wine. He already knew there were a number of bottles in the cupboard beneath the sink. Mme Gorski replied that she rarely bothered with wine now, but he was welcome to look. Gorski fetched a bottle and uncorked it. He poured a little for his mother.

  ‘It’s good for you,’ he said. ‘Keeps the blood clean.’ This had been one of his father’s sayings. He filled his own glass to the brim. Gorski broke up the bread that his mother had placed in the centre of the table. He buttered a piece and put it on his mother’s side plate, but she did not eat it. They ate their soup in silence. When they were finished, Gorski cleared away the bowls and washed up, taking his time in the kitchenette. When he returned, his mother was back in her chair by the fire. Gorski poured himself another glass of wine. The silence was oppressive. He did not know how to bring up that he intended to stay the night. He went out into the vestibule and took his suitcase into his old bedroom, carefully leaving the door ajar.

  He had not set foot in this room for twenty years or more. It was tiny. There was space only for the small desk at which he had once sat doing his homework, the oversized wardrobe and the narrow divan. The room smelt of old books. He opened the small window. Gorski laid his suitcase on the bed. Above, there were two shelves of the detective novels he had been fond of reading as a teenager.

  When he returned to the living room, he paused in the doorway. His mother smiled sadly at him from her chair. There was no need to explain anything. Gorski raised his fingers to the mezuzah attached to the jamb.

  ‘You know, Maman, I’ve often wondered about this little box,’ he said.

  Mme Gorski appeared surprised by the question. Gorski pointed more clearly to the decorative casing.

  ‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gorski. ‘But I wondered how it came to be here.’

  Mme Gorski gave a little shake of her head. ‘It was there when your father and I moved in,’ she said. ‘Either that or your father put it there. I can’t remember. He was always bringing knick-knacks up from the shop.’

  Gorski nodded. He sat down at the table, facing his mother. Her eyes were beginning to close. After a few minutes, she announced that she was going to bed. She would leave Gorski to turn off the lights. He bid her good night. He sat at the table for some time. It felt strange to be alone in his parents’ apartment. He found himself picturing Lucette Barthelme sitting in his mother’s chair. The fact that there now was nothing to prevent him from calling on her saddened him. Perhaps he should go down to the Restaurant de la Cloche for a beer or two. What could be more natural than that? Maybe one evening he would even take up Lemerre’s offer to join his cronies for a game of cards. But he did not want his mother to hear him go out, and she might be alarmed if he returned late at night. Instead, he waited until he was sure she was asleep before fetching a second bottle from the cupboard beneath the sink.

  Translator’s Afterword

  When L’Accident sur l’A35 appeared in France in the spring of 2016, the press coverage focused less on the merits of the book than on the question of to what extent it was a work of fiction. Raymond Brunet himself invited this response, teasing the reader with the novel’s epigraph—What I have just written is false. True. Neither true nor false—itself taken from Jean-Paul Sartre’s notoriously unreliable memoir. In their shrewd marketing of the book, Éditions Gaspard-Moreau also encouraged readers to see the work as thinly veiled autobiography. Rather than issue a conventional press release, rumours of the existence of the new Brunet manuscripts were leaked in late-night conversations in bars around the Latin Quarter where the publisher is based. Gossip began to appear on Twitter and in a number of obscure
blogs, but Gaspard-Moreau refused to make any official comment. Eventually, an article entitled Le retour de l’étranger? appeared in the weekend edition of Le Monde, which in turn generated further coverage. Aside from the free publicity, these articles served to return Raymond Brunet to the consciousness of a reading public that had largely forgotten him. No review copies were sent out in advance of publication. This naturally gave rise to speculation that the novel was substandard, but paradoxically increased the level of interest in the book among the French literati. Gaspard-Moreau, often regarded as one of France’s most conservative publishing houses, then released the book in a modest first edition of a few hundred copies. Not surprisingly, this sold out in a few days and the demand for the book was such that Gaspard-Moreau then felt confident enough to undertake a considerably larger print run. Within a few months, L’Accident sur l’A35 had clocked up as many sales as Brunet’s previous novel had in thirty-four years.

  So to what extent is The Accident on the A35 ‘true’? Raymond Brunet, it will be recalled, was born in Saint-Louis in 1953. Aside from a short stay in Paris following the release of the successful film of La Disparition d’Adèle Bedeau in 1989, he lived a life of obscurity in his home town until his suicide in 1992. He was by all accounts a likeable but withdrawn man, who, like many of his characters, seems to have found the everyday interactions of life unduly traumatising. He was a misfit.

  A great deal of The Accident on the A35 is clearly autobiographical. Raymond Brunet, like his fictional surrogate, Raymond Barthelme, was the son of an austere lawyer, also named Bertrand. He was brought up in an imposing house on the leafy outskirts of Saint-Louis, although in what was perhaps a rather half-hearted attempt to protect his mother’s privacy, there is no such street as Rue des Bois. Most of the locations in both Saint-Louis and Mulhouse were, however, closely based on real places. Saint-Louis, it should be said, is by no means as dismal as it is described in the novel. Unremarkable, perhaps, but neither the town nor its inhabitants deserve Brunet’s venomous portrayal; a portrayal that undoubtedly says more about the author’s self-loathing than about the town itself. Crucially, however, the central event of the novel occurred almost exactly in real life as it does in the novel. On the night of the 9th of October 1970—a week before Brunet’s seventeenth birthday—Bertrand Brunet’s Mercedes left the southbound carriageway of the A35, a few miles north of Saint-Louis. He was killed instantly. His whereabouts on the evening of the accident were, noted L’Alsace, a ‘minor mystery’.