The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

by Graeme Macrae Burnet

  The two other parties still eating had obligingly agreed to have their coffee brought at the same time as their desserts. The tables by the window were occupied in the main by local people. Lemerre, Petit and Cloutier were naturally in their place at the table by the door, the pack of cards in the centre of the table in readiness for the game that would soon begin.

  Manfred was not at his place by the bar and a man Pasteur believed to be a travelling salesman had taken his place. He lunched at the restaurant on an irregular basis. Pasteur was not surprised at Manfred’s absence given some of the rumours that had been circulating. It made sense for him to keep his head down for a few days, but Pasteur was sure he would soon be back. The hubbub of conversation emanating from the tables by the window and from the crowd of customers gathered at the counter drowned out even Lemerre’s voluble pontifications on the day’s developments. Pasteur was in no doubt that the sudden popularity of the Restaurant de la Cloche was due entirely to its central role in the recent goings-on. He would be loath to admit it, but he gleaned a certain pleasure in his establishment’s sudden notoriety and place at the centre of local life. Of course, things would quickly return to normal, but the publicity would not do business any harm.

  Only the focal point of the day’s drama seemed oblivious to the commotion. Adèle took the main courses to the group in the corner of the dining area at her usual languid pace and with her customary sullenness. She betrayed no sign of being aware that all eyes in the room were following her every move and that her reappearance was the subject of the most lurid speculations. When she had turned up shortly before lunchtime service, Marie had taken her upstairs for a talk. Pasteur was not privy to what had been said and nor would he ask. If Marie chose to divulge what had passed between them, she would do so in her own good time. Later, the cop, Gorski, had turned up and Adèle had again been summoned to the apartment. All Pasteur knew was that it had been agreed that Adèle would return to her former place on the rota. In addition, Marie had decided to keep her niece on to assist at lunchtime service. Pasteur had looked askance at this suggestion, but Marie had brushed off his objections. It would hardly be fair to dismiss the girl when she had so obligingly stepped into the breach caused by Adèle’s absence. In any case, they were often short-handed at lunch and Dominique had only just learned the ropes. Pasteur had shrugged. Sometimes things changed. It couldn’t be helped.

  At the appointed hour, and despite the large number of customers still to be served, Pasteur joined Lemerre, Petit and Cloutier at their table. His participation in the weekly game had already assumed the weight of tradition.

  FIN

  Translator’s afterword

  That this is the first appearance of The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau in English is remarkable. In France, the novel has been almost continuously in print since its publication in 1982 and, since Claude Chabrol’s screen version of 1989, it has achieved the status of cult classic. Certainly it is a novel in a minor key. Its protagonist, Manfred Baumann, is an ill-at-ease outsider, an observer of life rather than a participant. The novel is set in the unremarkable town of Saint-Louis on the French-Swiss border, a place where, as the opening pages make clear, few visitors wish to linger. And yet for thirty years readers have chosen to spend a little time there and to pass a few hours in the company of the maladroit Baumann.

  Raymond Brunet was born in Saint-Louis, Haut-Rhin, on 16 October 1953, the son of a successful family lawyer. His mother, Marie, was barely out of school when she married Bertrand Brunet in 1948. He was forty-two. Marie was an exceptionally pretty girl from a family of shopkeepers. Childhood photographs show a smiling, vivacious girl often in the company of her pet terrier. Bertrand Brunet – undoubtedly the prototype for Manfred Baumann’s grandfather in the novel – was a strict Protestant who disapproved of frivolity and did not enjoy socialising. It must have been a grim life for his young wife and it seems likely that, confined to the family home, Marie succumbed to what we would now call depression. Certainly, she frequently retired to bed for days on end. Like a flower deprived of water, she wilted. It is no surprise that Raymond remained an only child.

  Despite these unpromising circumstances, Raymond seems to have been a cheerful little boy. The grand family house on the outskirts of the town provided an excellent playground. He enjoyed hiding away in the nooks and crannies of the wood-panelled passages and, in summer, building dens among the trees at the bottom of the large gardens. For company he would hang around the kitchen, getting in the way of the housekeeper as she went about her chores. There was also a succession of maids to follow around, but they never stayed long enough for him to become attached. Like many an only child, Raymond could often be heard talking to himself or in earnest dialogue with his toys. At school he was well behaved and always close to the top of the class.

  As a teenager, though, he became surly and withdrawn. Young children accept whatever situation they find themselves in as normal. As they grow older, however, they begin to see that not all families are like their own. Perhaps Brunet began to resent the austere atmosphere at home. In addition, he was lanky, socially awkward and suffered badly from acne, a condition that left his face scarred into adulthood. He was expected to follow his father into the legal profession, something he had no interest in doing, and the feeling that his destiny was not in his own hands weighed heavily on the young man. He began to read voraciously. In the summer he would go off on his bicycle with a packed lunch and a satchel of books, often to the woods of the Petite Camargue to the north of the town.

  When Brunet was sixteen, his father was killed in a car accident. Late one night his car left the A35 from Strasbourg and hit a tree. Mostly likely the lawyer had fallen asleep at the wheel. There were no suspicious circumstances, but nobody knew what he had been doing in Strasbourg that evening. It was a minor mystery which merited a few lines in L’Alsace newspaper. For Brunet, however, his father’s death meant only a reprieve from the obligation to become a lawyer. Freed from parental pressure, he left school at the earliest opportunity and took a job in the office of a local insurance company. It was mundane clerical work, but according to his employer, he showed no signs of dissatisfaction. He arrived punctually and carried out his work diligently. He did not take much part in office banter; indeed, his predominantly female colleagues regarded him as somewhat aloof and superior. It was at this time that Brunet began to frequent the Restaurant de la Cloche, which was to become the principal setting of La Disparition d’Adèle Bedeau.

  BRUNET’S FIRST LITERARY EFFORT was a play in the absurdist tradition, based entirely in the restaurant. Many of the characters of the later novel appear in the play. Au Restaurant de la Cloche is a highly stylised, somewhat pretentious piece in which snatches of dialogue are repeated by different characters, mundane actions recur rhythmically and the ever-present proprietor comments on the action directly to the audience. It’s a mish-mash of Beckett, Brecht and Robbe-Grillet and of interest only as an insight into Brunet’s influences at the time. In the autumn of 1978, Brunet sent it to the Paris theatre producer Max Givet, who rejected it as dated and derivative. The playscript was found among the producer’s papers after his death in 1997. Aside from the present novel, it is Brunet’s only surviving work.

  Brunet continued to live in the family home, as he would for the rest of his life. His father’s death had not altered the routine of the household much. As often as not, Brunet took his evening meal alone in the dining room, while his mother remained in bed. Afterwards, he would go upstairs and chat to her for a few minutes before retiring to what had been his father’s study to read or write. Sometimes he went out and wandered around Saint-Louis, stopping off in one or other of the town’s bars for a glass of wine or a pastis.

  Brunet’s awkward character made it difficult for him to form normal relationships and it is possible he remained a virgin throughout his life. As far as we know, he never had a regular girlfriend. He may have visited establishments like the one depicted in Chap
ter Four of the present novel, but other than the accuracy of the description, there is no evidence that he did so. Later, when he spent some time in Paris, some speculated or assumed that he was gay, but apart from his apparent lack of interest in women, this too is without foundation. His reported disinterest in the opposite sex should probably be more correctly ascribed to chronic shyness.

  Brunet first submitted La Disparition d’Adèle Bedeau in March 1981. It was rejected by a number of publishers before being accepted by Éditions Gaspard-Moreau and appearing without great fanfare in the autumn of 1982. A number of favourable, though not rapturous, reviews were enough to justify a second and then a third edition. The book sold steadily for the next couple of years, but with no prospect of a follow-up on the horizon, it was allowed to fall out of print.

  Around this time, Claude Chabrol, doyen of the cinematic New Wave of the early 1960s, came across a copy in a second-hand bookshop in Paris. The director was very taken with the novel’s portrayal of provincial life and contacted the publisher. After a brief consultation with Brunet, the rights were sold to the famous director for a nominal sum. For both Gaspard-Moreau and Brunet it was a no-lose situation: the novel was out of print and if a film were ever made, it would provide the book with a second wind. A script was swiftly written, but French cinema was at that time in thrall to the flashier talents of Luc Besson and Jean-Jacques Beineix, and the downbeat realism of La Disparition d’Adèle Bedeau was hopelessly out of step with the times. It was only when Chabrol passed the script to Isabelle Adjani, star of Subway and One Deadly Summer, that the project got off the ground. The then queen of French cinema agreed to play the role of Alice Tarrou, whose part in the story was greatly expanded. Adjani’s involvement was enough to secure the necessary funding and film went into production in the summer of 1988.

  Gaspard-Moreau prepared a new edition of the novel with an afterword by Chabrol to tie in with the film’s release. The film was a far greater critical and commercial success than the original novel had ever been and, aside from some minor changes, is a largely faithful adaptation, with the Saint-Louis setting impeccably realised by Chabrol. Predictably, Brunet hated it. Following a specially arranged screening at Gaumont’s headquarters in Paris, he locked himself in a toilet cubicle and could be heard sobbing loudly for fifteen minutes. In addition to the narrative changes, he felt that Manfred Baumann had been portrayed as a somewhat comic and pathetic figure. It was the reaction of a naive young man from the provinces who too closely identified with the protagonist of his book. It was not a fictional character he was watching on screen, but a projection of himself. Eventually, it was Chabrol himself who persuaded Brunet to emerge from the cubicle. The two men went to a nearby café and the director managed to convince him that he had not intended to ridicule his protagonist – only to humanise him somewhat. The cinema audience, he told Brunet, was not as sophisticated as his literary readership – they required a little sugar in their coffee.

  Brunet was sufficiently placated to attend the premiere. In order to capitalise on the attendant publicity, his publishers put Brunet up in a hotel on Boulevard St Germain for a month or so. He was subjected to numerous interviews and, under strict instructions from his publisher, he kept his reservations about the film to himself. This was to be the only significant period of his life that Brunet spent away from Saint-Louis. He appeared to revel in the attention. For the first time, people wanted to be in his company and to listen to what he had to say. And if he behaved eccentrically…well, he was a writer – it was only to be expected. What he did find hard to deal with, however, was the constant stream of questions about his next book. In Paris, he discovered, everyone had a project on the go, or more likely a whole slate of projects in various states of development. Brunet took to enigmatically deflecting such queries by saying that he preferred not to discuss his work before it was completed, a strategy which only served to increase speculation.

  After the premiere, a small party of cast and crew went for a late supper at a restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Some members of the cast, who were all too aware of Brunet’s reaction to the film, spent much of the evening earnestly questioning him about his book, one or two of them promising to join him sometime for lunch at the Restaurant de la Cloche. Brunet was, of course, quite flattered by their attentions.

  In all he spent about six weeks in Paris. He seemed to enjoy his flirtation with celebrity and the company of the other writers and actors he met through Chabrol. He telephoned his mother every day, however, and these conversations often left him feeling morose. She complained of missing him and told him that his absence left her drained of all energy. Both Chabrol and his editor at Gaspard-Moreau, Georges Pires, tried to persuade him to move to Paris, arguing that it would be more conducive to his writing. Brunet was tempted, but in the end his mother won out and he returned home.

  After his sojourn in the capital, Saint-Louis must have seemed drearier than ever. The royalties from the sales of his novel allowed him to give up his job at the insurance office and concentrate on producing a second novel, for which his publisher had now paid an advance. Georges Pires telephoned regularly for progress reports. At first, Brunet spoke enthusiastically about his new project, but deadline after deadline passed and eventually Pires lost patience, telling him simply to get in touch when he had something to show him. Having given up his job, Brunet’s days and weeks lacked structure. He lacked the self-discipline to follow a regular work schedule. He stayed in bed into the afternoon and then wandered from bar to bar until it was time to return for dinner. Ironically, the Restaurant de la Cloche was now off-limits. Many of the regular customers had by then read his book and did not take kindly to the way they had been depicted. Nor, in general, did the people of Saint-Louis approve of the portrayal of their town as a nondescript backwater. Rather than making him a local celebrity, Brunet’s novel had made him an outcast. The last two years of his life were uneventful. He occasionally managed a short burst of activity, but he was unable to sustain it. He never sent a single page to Georges Pires. Then, on 24 August 1992, he went to the railway station in Saint-Louis and threw himself in front of the 17.35 to Strasbourg.

  His death merited a mere two sentences in L’Alsace:

  The novelist Raymond Brunet, 38, of Saint-Louis yesterday threw himself under a train. He is survived by his mother, Marie.

  He left no note. The desk in his father’s study was entirely empty. Clearly, Brunet had prepared the way for his suicide by destroying his notebooks. As is often the case with such incidents, no one who knew him had any inkling of his state of mind. Raymond Brunet was not in the habit of unburdening himself and even if he had been, it is hard to imagine to whom he would have spoken. Throughout his life he found it impossible to form the kind of relationships, either passing or profound, which come naturally to most people. It would be futile to speculate on whether he suffered from a diagnosable mental condition – we shall never know. The tragedy is that, as the short period he spent in Paris proved, he was capable of happiness. Had he found the courage to leave Saint-Louis, his life might well have turned out differently. And we might have more than one Raymond Brunet novel to enjoy.

  As it is, we have The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau. It is not for a translator to offer a critique. Those who are making their first acquaintance with the novel deserve to do so unencumbered by the opinions of others. However, one thing is worth making clear – while there are many parallels between the novel and the life of Raymond Brunet, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau is a work of fiction. The Restaurant de la Cloche and Saint-Louis itself are exactly are they are described in the novel (and remarkably unchanged) and a few of the characters are clearly based upon real people. The events of the novel, however, are entirely invented. Brunet became tetchy when interviewers suggested that his novel was autobiographical, construing this as a slight upon his powers as a writer. In the preface to his autobiographical novel Pedigree, Georges Simenon wrote that ‘Everything is true while
nothing is accurate’. It is as fitting a formulation for The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau.

  GMB, February 2014

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to express my deep gratitude to Victoria Evans for her support, encouragement and wise counsel throughout the writing of this novel.

  Thanks also to David Archibald, Craig Hillsley, Sara Hunt, Sonia Hurel and Thomas Stofer for invaluable editorial advice. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Scottish Book Trust through its New Writers Awards scheme.

  Finally, this book would not have been written without the unstinting patience, love and understanding of my girlfriend, Jen Cunnion. Thank you.

  About the Author

  ‘This intriguing debut is written with the kind of subtlety and expertise that draws you in from the opening paragraph. A strikingly singular talent, Graeme Macrae Burnet blends a gripping story with compelling characters and surprising sweeps of the imagination. This is an accomplished, elegantly written and exciting first novel.’ – WILL MACKIE, Scottish Book Trust

  Copyright

  Contraband is an imprint of Saraband