LITMIR.BIZ

       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

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