Free Happy Are the Happy by Yasmina Reza Page B

hotel in Le Cannet, God only knows what image she had in her head. I should have said no and I said yes, like every man who’s growing old. The drama occurred at the seventeenth hand. North-South had reached a contract of five spades. My opening lead is the two of diamonds, dummy plays low, Hélène lays down the ace, declarer plays low. Hélène trots out her ace of clubs, North plays low, I have three clubs to the king, I play the nine, dummy plays low. So now what does Hélène do? What does a woman I’ve taught everything, a woman who’s supposed to have become an elite player – what does such a woman do? She continues in clubs. I played the nine of clubs on the previous trick, and Hélène led another club! We had three sure tricks, and we made only two of them. At the end of the game, I showed her my king of clubs and cried, now where am I supposed to put this? Shall I eat it? Do you want to kill me, Hélène? Doyou want me to have a heart attack right here in the middle of the Palais des Congrès? I waved the card under her nose and then stuffed the thing in my mouth. As I began to chew, I croaked at her, you saw my nine of clubs, you idiot, I played the nine, did you think I was playing it to pass the time? Hélène was petrified. Our opponents were petrified. That galvanized me. When you eat cardboard, the urge to vomit comes over you quite soon, but I worked my jaws aggressively and concentrated on mastication. I felt movement around us, I heard someone laugh, and I saw my friend Yorgos Katos’s face coming my way. He was, like me, a veteran of the games in Place Clichy. Yorgos said, what the hell are you doing, Raoul, old boy, spit that crap out of your mouth. I said–with a great effort, because I was intent on getting that king of clubs down my gullet – I said, where did she put her white cane? Eh? Let’s see that white cane, my poor girl! Raoul, Yorgos said, or so it seemed to me, you can’t let yourself get so worked up over a bridge tournament, a bit of fun at the beach. Those are the last words I remember. I heard someone call the referee, the table was swaying, Hélène stood up, she extended her arms, I tried to catch her fingers, I saw her floating with the others in a circle above my head, I felt bodies close against mine, I retched, I puked on the card-table cover, and then everything stopped. I woke up in an anise green room that I didn’t recognize and that turned out to be our hotel room. Three persons were whispering in the doorway. Yorgos, Hélène, and a stranger. Then the stranger left. Yorgos looked toward the bed and said, he’s coming back to life. Yorgos has the same kind of hair as the novelist Joseph Kessel. A sort of lion’s mane that appeals to women and makes me jealous. Hélène rushed to my bedsideand said, are you all right? She gently stroked my forehead. I said, what’s happening? —Don’t you remember? You got a little hysterical yesterday evening at the tournament. Yorgos said, you ate a king of clubs. I ate a king of clubs? I asked, making what seemed like an immense but only partly successful effort to sit up. Hélène arranged my pillows. A ray of sunlight struck her face, she was as pretty as always. I said, my little Bilette. She smiled and said, the doctor gave you a shot to calm you down, Rouli (Bilette and Rouli are our private nicknames for each other). Yorgos opened the window. We heard children’s cries and the music of a carousel. I don’t know why, but deeply buried memories suddenly came back to me: the empty carousel in the seaside resort where my family used to go when I was a child, the barrel organ, the gray weather. We’d camp on the campground. I’d sit under the awning of the pump room, watching the animals go round and round and waiting for the end of the day. A violent sadness overcame me. I thought, uh-oh, what did that crazy doctor give me? I’ll be going, Yorgos said. You have to stay in bed today. Tomorrow you can take a walk. A