Benoît Immerman was a conductor of the very first rank, whereas Sam Immerman was a small dealer in household appliances who had not really made it. How could two brothers have arrived at so striking a contrast? Fate? Bad luck? Not at all. Sam had kindly taken a lease on a not-very-impressive but available premises near the boulevard Beaumarchais to set up a shop selling radios and clothes irons, whereas Benoît had contented himself with being a genius, like all geniuses. So in the family there was a Sam with whom one could speak naturally, and a Benoît with whom one needed an interpreter in normal language to exchange two words. In short: on the one hand, a good, kind boy without fancy (someone incapable even of imagining a sandwich any other way than with pickelfleisch [pickled beef]), and on the other side a snob, a dreamer, someone from another world!
That was what their uncle, in general, thought of the two brothers — an uncle who was also in household appliances, but in the twelfth arrondissement.
And the uncle thought of it in exactly the same terms on the day he decided to remarry and to prepare the invitations.
He had had no child with his first wife, who died during the war, and at sixty, in 1956, he had made up his mind to officially marry Ida, a lady friend of his with whom he had been living for a long time.
Until then, he had presented her as his shopgirl; now he was therefore resolved to make things official; they would have a wedding in proper form. That being so, while he foresaw no communication trouble with his nephew Sam, he had a presentiment that things might not go the same way with Benoît. Besides, since the celebration for the wedding had to be organized and Benoît was a pest, he resolved to telephone him first. His nephews were his only living family and one had to begin with someone for the invitations. He would therefore start with Benoît, because that was the one with whom he never felt at ease.
And so, one evening in June around half past nine, just two weeks before the celebration, which was to take place in a hall on the rue de Lyon, the uncle made up his mind to dial that nephew’s number. He suffered immediately for having called, because instead of being able to speak to Benoît as he had foreseen — which was already no picnic — he first had to say a few words to his wife, whom he got on the line and whom he hardly knew. Out of a sort of bottled-up shyness, it came out rather curt.
— Good evening. I’m Benoît’s uncle. Put him on for a second, I need to speak to him…
Now at the very moment he was speaking, all that had finally seemed to him too severe for such an occasion. He had therefore ventured, immediately after, the usual phrase he used to lighten the atmosphere when he telephoned a supplier and got a switchboard operator first. He had thus let fly, in his good-natured voice:
— … Only don’t disturb him right away if he’s on the can taking a dump. Let him wipe his behind first!
No doubt Benoît’s wife understood life poorly. In any case, when the nephew picked up the receiver, he began by asking why his uncle had said such filth. What was there to answer? Even the word “filth” meant nothing to the uncle. He did not insist, then, and announced that he was going to get married, that he apologized for calling so late one evening, that he was telephoning only about an invitation, and that… That what? There he wanted again to lighten the atmosphere and asked whether Benoît — who had no doubt been disturbed at the waters [toilet, in the old Anglicism then current] — had in fact properly wiped his behind?
Always a telephone joke.
Still, one needed an interlocutor who understood things. With Sam it would have been a fresh round of laughs. With Benoît, the problems were already beginning. He grasped nothing of anything. What wedding? What invitation? What waters?
The uncle then felt obliged to correct himself, to clarify, to get himself tangled up. Yet, when he hung up, the chore had been useful: his nephew Benoît and his wife would indeed be there a fortnight from Sunday. They would come at three o’clock for the religious ceremony on the rue des Tournelles, then afterward they would all gather for a little reception at the Paris-Lyon Palace. Certainly Benoît had asked a certain number of snob’s questions: should one dress up, for example? The uncle had only answered that he himself had planned to dress because it was better not to arrive naked, but provided one had trousers under one’s jacket, everyone could do as they liked. It wasn’t Napoleon and Marie-Antoinette that the rabbi of the rue des Tournelles was going to marry, for once. It would be simple, and among intimates.
The uncle reckoned he had gotten off well. Benoît had even politely gone ha, ha, the way people laughed in books and not in life, but that was his problem.
For Sam, on the other hand, there was neither problem nor question. Just “good luck!”, just “mazel tov!” and the indication that they would be on time.
These formal invitations once made, the uncle set about telephoning the real guests during the week that followed.
The war had hollowed out enough around him and Ida that everything concerning the families was no worry. Apart from his nephews, there was no longer anyone living. There remained the acquaintances: belote partners for him, rummy partners for her, and then a few appliance repairmen from other neighborhoods too. Simple friends, finally, who frequented the same cafés. In all, heaps of people who would be delighted to attend the ceremony, then afterward to come to the dinner-reception.
On rereading his list, the uncle, including in it a bachelor supplier, had arrived at the figure of forty-one normal persons. Plus the nephew in household appliances and the niece by marriage — normal too. Plus the genius of Pleyel and his wife. In short, forty-five eaters — normal and abnormal lumped together — to report to the caterer.
One would also have to add Ida and himself.
So forty-seven. That made rather a lot, but he wasn’t watching the expense, one only married once in one’s life. At a pinch twice, if there was a world war before then. No more. Unless of course one divorced, which wasn’t his style.
So there would be forty-seven place settings.
For his part, the caterer decided to drop by the shop to discuss all that the very afternoon of the day the figures were telephoned to him. He had reflected, he announced, and he took the liberty of suggesting that fifty people would make a rounder count for the hall. What did the newlyweds think? Did they not still have a few people to invite? Why not? the uncle acquiesced, just as the telephone rang.
He excused himself to the caterer, whom he left to discuss with Ida, and picked up the receiver.
It was Tuesday, it was five o’clock, and he was not expecting a call from his nephew Benoît. Yet that was indeed who it was.
The other began to speak so softly, so politely, exactly like a doctor who might have been speaking to a raving lunatic, that the uncle did not see at all what was wanted of him, nor where it was leading. Benoît was asking after him, after his bride-to-be… He said kind word upon kind word. Everything idiotic one might say, in short, when one has something else to announce but hesitates to say it.
After five minutes of sweet nothings, his nephew finally let drop:
— You know, I’m having some trouble on my wife’s side. And perhaps it would be best not to count on her for Sunday, as for me…
He stopped, hesitating.
At that, the uncle was relieved. If it was only that, it wasn’t very serious. Yet, after a few seconds, he told himself it wasn’t kind of him. Perhaps she was offended, this young lady? So, to spare himself eventual worries, he ventured one of his jokes:
— If your wife only has a date with her lover on Sunday, and that’s why she can’t come, tell her she can bring him along! The caterer’s giving me a deal!
He was so pleased with his last sentence that he repeated it twice; but there was only a long silence at the other end of the line, then, suddenly, a:
— How did you guess that we were separating?
— Who? What? Separating? What are you talking about?
At that instant, Benoît started to sob outright instead of answering. It surprised his uncle; he would never have thought that a genius like that knew how to cry outside of a concert. He listened, embarrassed, coughed two or three times, then made up his mind to say that it wasn’t serious at all, that the important thing was to be in good health. His interlocutor wasn’t listening; he began to recount at length a story involving a familiar of his wife — she was a virtuoso at something — a familiar, then, with whom she was having a serious liaison. The word “liaison” called for clarification; the uncle asked what it was about. Benoît gave particulars. He was no longer sobbing; he had taken up a genius’s tone again. In a dozen sentences, he had set out the ins and outs of what he now called no longer a liaison, but an adultery. So be it, an adultery! But the uncle was bothered. He scratched his throat. This whole story disturbed him. And then there was the caterer beside him, who went on discussing with Ida.
He resolved to hang up, telling his nephew to come alone on Sunday and not to worry. As this sentence didn’t seem to him enthusiastic enough, he added:
— One woman lost, twenty-five found!
For him the conversation was over. However, he heard a cough at the other end of the line:
— In French, one says: one lost, ten found.
— Yes, and so?
— Well, you said: one lost, twenty-five found.
Either this nephew wasn’t of his family at all — it was a mistake at the hospital where he’d been born — or this Benoît really wanted to get on his nerves! The uncle’s tension rose.
— I can’t talk two hours with you, he snapped. I’ve got the caterer waiting for me to work out the prices. Get off my back with your twenty-five women and take only ten if it makes you happy!
— Excuse me, I don’t think I’ll be able to come, I’m not up to it.
At that precise moment, who walked into the shop? Sam, in his white work coat, his good nephew Sam!
From across the room, the uncle waved to him with the hand that wasn’t holding the telephone. He felt better. Here at least was one who posed neither question nor problem. No doubt he had a delivery to make in the area and had dropped by to say hello. Sam had just kissed Ida on the cheek and was now shaking the caterer’s hand. At that, the uncle dispatched Benoît with a “Don’t you worry, do as you like, we’ll see each other another time, regards at home!” and hung up.
Reassured, he took a few steps toward Sam and the caterer.
— So we go strolling about, instead of working, eh? he asked, slapping his nephew on the shoulder. At your place, at least, life is easy!
Sam started to laugh, but suddenly he began to explain at top speed that he had dropped by to say that he unfortunately wouldn’t be able to be there on Sunday, that he had in fact urgently to go, with his wife, to Berck-Plage where they had a vacation rental problem to settle, that it was a question of health for their children, that the weekend was the only time they were both available, that they couldn’t go during the week because of work, that, that, that…
He didn’t stop giving particulars about the house, about its geographical situation, about its distance to the meter — and even to the centimeter — from the beach, about… about… about… The uncle listened to all this opening his eyes wide. What did he have to do with a vacation rental where the kitchen cupboards were new and the bathroom tiling had been redone? Ida and the caterer nodded, vaguely understanding. He, for his part, was beginning to have enough of the family.
— Fine, fine, do as you can, he grumbled.
He turned toward the caterer:
— We’ll be forty-seven, minus four.
— Not fifty, then? sighed the other.
The uncle took him by the shoulder:
— We’ll be, I told you, forty-seven minus four.
He raised his voice:
— Forty-seven minus four, that means forty-three guests… But every one of them to be trusted.