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  Praise for The President’s Hat:

  ‘Like Cinderella’s glass slipper or Aladdin’s lamp, the hat is a talisman that makes its wearers’ dreams come true.’

  RTL

  ‘An inspired and delicious fable’

  Version Femina

  ‘Effortlessly combines a skilfully woven story and the emblems of the eighties’

  L’Express

  ‘Clever, revealing, funny and caustic, this novel charmingly paints a cast of characters and brings the eighties vividly back to life.’

  Télé Loisirs

  ‘We’re in safe hands with Antoine Laurain, the man behind this sweet, lively, nostalgic tale.’

  Livres Hebdo

  ‘Subtle, inventive, and often funny’

  L’Avenir

  WINNER OF THE PRIX LANDERNEAU DÉCOUVERTES 2012

  WINNER OF THE PRIX RELAY DES VOYAGEURS 2012

  The President’s Hat

  Antoine Laurain

  Translated from the French by Gallic Books

  Wearing a hat confers undeniable authority over those without one.

  Tristan Bernard

  Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  The President’s Hat

  Epilogue

  Reading Group Questions

  Interview with Antoine Laurain

  Copyright

  Daniel Mercier went up the stairs at Gare Saint-Lazare as the crowd surged down. Men and women hurried distractedly past him, most clutching briefcases but some with suitcases. In the crush, they could easily have knocked into him but they didn’t. On the contrary, it seemed as though they parted to let him through. At the top of the steps, he crossed the main concourse and headed for the platforms. Here too it was crowded, with an uninterrupted tide of humanity pouring from the trains. Daniel forced his way through to the arrivals board. The train would be arriving at platform 23. He retraced his steps and stood next to the ticket-punching machines.

  At 9.45 p.m. train 78654 ground into the station and released its passengers. Daniel craned his neck, looking for his wife and son. He saw Véronique first. She waved, then described a circle above her head, finishing her gesture with an astonished look. Jérôme meanwhile made a beeline for his father, flinging himself at his legs and almost tripping him up. When Véronique reached them, slightly out of breath, she stared at her husband.

  ‘What on earth is that hat?’

  ‘It’s Mitterrand’s hat.’

  ‘I can see it’s Mitterrand’s hat.’

  ‘No,’ Daniel corrected her. ‘I mean this really is Mitterrand’s hat.’

  When he’d told her at the station that it really was Mitterrand’s hat, Véronique had stared at him again, her head on one side, with that little frown she always wore when she was trying to work out if he was having her on or not. The same frown as when Daniel had asked her to marry him, or when he’d first asked her out on a date to an exhibition at the Beaubourg. In other words, the frown that was the reason, amongst others, that he had fallen in love with her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she had asked incredulously.

  ‘Have you got Mitterrand’s hat, Papa?’

  ‘Yes I have,’ Daniel had replied, grabbing their bags.

  ‘So you’re the president?’

  ‘Yep, that’s me. President of the Republic,’ Daniel had answered, delighted by his son’s suggestion.

  Daniel had refused to divulge anything further as they drove back.

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.’

  Véronique had pressed him, but he stood firm. When they got up to their sixteenth-floor apartment in the fifteenth arrondissement, Daniel announced that he’d made supper. Cold meat, chicken, tomato and basil salad, and cheese. Véronique was impressed – her husband rarely made dinner. First they had an aperitif.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Daniel, who had still not taken off his hat.

  Véronique sat. And Jérôme snuggled up beside her.

  ‘To us,’ said Daniel, solemnly clinking glasses with his wife.

  Jérôme copied them with his Orangina.

  Daniel removed his hat and held it out to Véronique. She took it carefully, running her finger over the felt. Jérôme immediately did the same.

  ‘Are your hands clean?’ his mother asked anxiously.

  Then she turned the hat upside down, and her eye fell on the band of leather running round the inside. The two gold letters stood out clearly: F.M. Véronique looked up at her husband.

  The evening before, Daniel had stopped his Golf at the junction. He’d turned off the radio, cutting off Caroline Loeb as she droned on about liking cotton wool. The hit song with its slow, insistent refrain was now stuck in his head. He had massaged his aching shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to get the crick out of his neck. He hadn’t heard from his wife and son, who were in Normandy with his parents-in-law for the holidays. Perhaps there would be a message on the answering machine when he got home. The tape was starting to wear out and hadn’t been rewinding properly for the last few days. He really should buy a new machine. How did people manage before answering machines? wondered Daniel. The telephone rang and rang, no one answered it, and then they rang back later, that’s how.

  The idea of shopping on his own then making supper for himself in the silent flat was unbearable. He had started fantasising about going to a restaurant – a really good brasserie, perhaps – at about four o’clock that afternoon as he was checking the last of the expenses slips submitted by the SOGETEC auditors. He hadn’t been to a really good brasserie for at least a year. The last time had been with Véronique and Jérôme. His son, only six at the time, had been very well-behaved. They had ordered the seafood platter royale, a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé, and a hamburger with mashed potato for Jérôme, who had declared, to his father’s great disappointment, that he didn’t want to try the oysters.

  ‘Not even one?’

  ‘No,’ said Jérôme, shaking his head.

  Véronique had defended her son. ‘He’s got plenty of time.’

  It was true. Jérôme had plenty of time.

  It was eight o’clock now, and the early-winter cold was already gripping the city, muffling its sounds and the noise of the passing traffic. He had driven past this particular brasserie several times before. Now as he drove tentatively from the boulevard to the next street, he finally spotted it. That was definitely the one, with its big red awning, oyster bar outside, and waiters in spotless white aprons.

  A meal all on his own, with no wife and no child, awaited him inside. The sort of meal he used to enjoy occasionally before he was married. Back then his salary hadn’t stretched to anywhere as smart as this. But even in the modest establishments he’d frequented, he had always eaten well and never felt the need of company as he savoured andouillette, a decent cut of beef, or a dish of whelks. The fading light held the promise of a bachelor evening. What a pleasing phrase.

  ‘A bachelor evening,’ he repeated, slamming the door of the Golf.

  Daniel was experiencing the need ‘to find himself,’ as one of the guests had said on a recent programme on Antenne 2. The guest was a psychotherapist who’d written a book about stress at work and was on the programme to promote it. Daniel found the concept appealing. This gourmet interlude would allow him to get back in touch with his true self, to throw off the stress of the day, and to forget about accounts and figures and the recent tensions caused by the reorganisation of the finance department.

  Jean Maltard had taken over as director, and Daniel, who was deputy director, couldn’t see anything good about the appointment. Nothing good at all, not for the department as a whole, nor for him personally. Crossing
the boulevard, he was determined to put his worries right out of his mind. As soon as I open the brasserie door, he told himself, there will be no more Jean Maltard, no more SOGETEC, no more expenses slips, no more VAT. Just me and a seafood platter royale.

  The white-aproned waiter had walked ahead of him down the line of tables where couples, families and tourists sat chatting, smiling or nodding their heads, their mouths full. Along the way, he spotted seafood platters, entrecôte steaks with pommes vapeur, faux-filets with Béarnaise sauce.

  When he had first entered, the head waiter, a rotund man with a slender moustache, had enquired whether he had booked. For a moment, Daniel thought his evening was over.

  ‘I didn’t have time,’ he answered tonelessly.

  The head waiter had raised an eyebrow and peered closely at the evening’s list of reservations.

  A young blonde woman came over. ‘Twelve called to cancel half an hour ago,’ she said, pointing to a name on the list.

  ‘And no one thought to tell me?’ The head waiter was visibly annoyed.

  ‘I thought Françoise had told you,’ the girl said offhandedly, wandering off.

  The maître d’ had closed his eyes for a moment, his pained expression suggesting the full extent of the self-control required not to explode with fury at the waitress’s blunder.

  ‘Allow us to show you to your table, Monsieur,’ he said to Daniel, nodding to a waiter, who immediately hurried over.

  All brasseries have brilliant white tablecloths that hurt the eyes, like snow on the ski slopes. The glasses and the silverware really do sparkle. For Daniel, the characteristic glitter of tableware in the best brasseries was the embodiment of luxury. The waiter returned with the menu and the wine list. Daniel opened the red leatherette folder and began to read. The prices were much higher than he had imagined, but he decided not to worry about that. The plateau royal de fruits de mer was framed in the middle of the page, in elegant calligraphy: fines de claire creuses et plates de Bretagne, half a crab, three different kinds of clam, prawns, langoustines, whelks, shrimps, cockles and winkles.

  Daniel took the wine list and looked for a Pouilly-Fuissé or -Fumé. This, too, was more expensive than he had anticipated. Daniel ordered his platter, adding a half-bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé.

  ‘I’m afraid we only have bottles,’ said the waiter.

  Daniel didn’t want to appear miserly. ‘A bottle will be fine,’ he said, closing the wine list.

  Couples, on the whole. Tables of men in ties and grey suits like his own, except that theirs were clearly the best designer labels. They might even have been made to measure. The four fifty-somethings seated a little further down must be celebrating the end of a tough day and the signature of a decent contract. The quartet sipped at glasses of no doubt excellent wine. They each wore the calm, confident smile of a man who has succeeded in life. At another table beneath the large mirrors, an elegant brunette in a red dress was listening to a grey-haired man who Daniel could see only from the back. She was half listening, in fact; from time to time her gaze wandered around the room, before returning to the speaker opposite her. She looked bored.

  The wine waiter brought a silver ice bucket on a stand, the bottle of Pouilly bobbing amongst the ice cubes. The waiter took hold of the corkscrew and performed the ritual opening, passing the cork under his nose. Daniel tasted the wine, which seemed good to him. He was not one of those wine buffs who can distinguish every last nuance of flavour in a fine cru and discourse on it at length, in sophisticated terms. The wine waiter, in time-honoured fashion, awaited his customer’s opinion with an air of vague condescension. Daniel gave an approving nod designed to indicate great erudition on the subject of white Burgundy. The wine waiter gave a small smile, filled his glass and departed.

  A few moments later, a waiter placed a round stand in the middle of the table, a sign that the seafood platter was about to arrive. Next came a basket of pumpernickel bread, a ramekin of shallot vinegar, and the butter dish. Daniel buttered a piece of bread and dipped it discreetly in the mixture – a ritual he performed every time he ate a seafood platter in a restaurant. The taste of the vinegar was chased away by a mouthful of chilled wine. He gave a satisfied sigh. Yes, he had found himself.

  The platter arrived, the seafood arranged by species on a bed of crushed ice. Daniel took an oyster, held a quarter of lemon immediately above it, and squeezed gently. A drop of lemon juice fell onto the delicate membrane, which squirmed immediately. Absorbed by the oyster’s iridescent gleam, he nevertheless noticed the next-door table being moved to one side. Looking up, he saw the moustachioed head waiter smiling at a new customer. A man who removed his red scarf, then his coat and hat and slipped onto the banquette beside Daniel.

  ‘May I hang those up for you?’ asked the maître d’ immediately.

  ‘No, no. I’ll just leave them here on the banquette. If they’re not bothering you, Monsieur?’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel in a barely audible voice. ‘Not at all,’ he added in a whisper.

  François Mitterrand had just sat down next to him.

  Two men sat down opposite the head of state. One was large and stocky with glasses and curly hair, the other slender, with grey hair swept back in an elegant wave. The latter bestowed a brief, benevolent smile on Daniel, who summoned what remained of his composure and attempted to smile back. He recognised that face with its piercing eyes and narrow lips. And then he remembered who it was. It was Roland Dumas, who had been the Foreign Minister. Dumas had handed over to a successor when the Socialist Party had lost its parliamentary majority eight months ago.

  I am dining next to the President of the Republic, Daniel kept repeating to himself, trying to convince himself that, irrational as it might seem, it was really happening to him. He barely noticed the taste of his first oyster, so preoccupied was he by his new neighbour. The strangeness of the situation made him feel as if he might wake up any moment at home in bed and find that it was all a dream. Around the restaurant, other diners were pretending not to gaze in the general direction of the table next to Daniel’s.

  As he picked up his second oyster he glanced discreetly to his left. The President had put on his glasses and was reading the menu. Daniel took in the famous noble profile, seen in magazines, on television and every New Year’s Eve for the past five years. Now he was seeing that profile in the flesh. He could have put out a hand and touched François Mitterrand.

  The waiter returned and the President ordered a dozen oysters, and the salmon. The large man chose mushroom pâté and a rare steak, while Roland Dumas followed the President’s lead with oysters and fish. A few minutes later, the wine waiter appeared with a silver ice bucket on a stand containing another bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé bathed in ice. He uncorked the bottle smoothly and poured a little into the presidential glass. François Mitterrand tasted it, approving it with a brief nod.

  Daniel poured himself another glass of wine, and drank it down almost in one, before taking a teaspoon of the red shallot vinegar and dressing an oyster.

  ‘As I was saying to Helmut Kohl last week …’ Daniel heard François Mitterrand say as he ate his oyster. Never again, he told himself, would he be able to eat oysters with vinegar without hearing those words: ‘As I was saying to Helmut Kohl last week’.

  A waiter placed a small carafe of red in front of the large bespectacled man who immediately poured himself a glass, as another waiter brought the starters. The fat man tasted the pâté, which he said was good, and launched into a story about wild mushroom terrine. The President swallowed an oyster while Daniel removed a pin from the cork covered in silver paper, ready to make a start on the winkles.

  ‘Michel has some wonderful wines in his cellar,’ confided Roland Dumas, with a knowing air.

  The President looked up at him, and Michel continued with an account of his cellar in the country, where he also kept cigars from all over the world, and dried saucisson. He was as proud of his saucissons as he was of his cigars.

&nbs
p; ‘How original, to collect saucissons!’ said François Mitterrand, squeezing his lemon.

  Daniel swallowed his tenth winkle and glanced once more to his left. The President had finished his last oyster and was wiping his mouth with the spotless white napkin.

  ‘Before I forget,’ he began, addressing Roland Dumas, ‘our friend’s telephone number …’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ murmured Dumas, reaching into his jacket pocket.

  The President turned to his coat, picked up his hat and placed it behind the brass bar that ran around the top of the banquette. He took a leather notebook from his coat pocket, put his glasses back on and leafed through the pages.

  ‘The last name at the bottom,’ he said, handing the notebook to Dumas, who took it, silently copied the name and number into his own diary, then passed the book back to François Mitterrand, who put it back in his coat pocket.

  Michel began another anecdote about a man whose name meant nothing to Daniel. Dumas looked as if he was enjoying the story and François Mitterrand smiled, saying, ‘That’s a bit harsh,’ but he said it jokingly, encouraging the speaker to continue.

  ‘I assure you it’s true, I was there!’ the large man insisted, spreading the last of his pâté on a piece of bread.

  Daniel listened to the story. He felt as if he were sitting in on a private, rather risqué gathering. The other diners in the brasserie counted for nothing. It was only the four of them now.

  ‘And what about you, Daniel, what do you think?’

  Daniel would have turned to the head of state, and uttered things of great interest to François Mitterrand. The President would have nodded in agreement, and then Daniel would have turned to Roland Dumas and asked his opinion. Dumas would have nodded, too, and Michel would have added enthusiastically, ‘I agree with Daniel!’