The Sermon on the Fall of Rome, стр. 10

by the transformation she witnessed and for which he would be the project manager, twelve thousand euros was nothing, a gift, he was embarrassed by it, he felt as if he were robbing her and he explained that he planned to invest his capital in the initially necessary works and would pay her the first half of the fee within six months and the balance six months later, plus a year in advance. Marie-Angèle judged the offer a fair one and refused to listen to reason when Vincent Leandri came and warned her that, according to his inquiries, the fellow was a notorious deadbeat whose only professional experience amounted to a few seasonal jobs at seaside food trucks. However, it seemed as if Vincent had proved to be unjustly suspicious. The agreed works were undertaken. The back room was transformed into a kitchen, the furnishings changed, hi-fi material, a sound system, record decks and a magnificent French bar-billiard table were delivered, and, on the eve of the opening, an illuminated sign was hung up above the door. It showed the winking face of Che Guevara, from which a cartoon strip bubble emerged, announcing in neon blue letters,

El Commandante Bar, sound, food, lounge.

The following day, at the inaugural evening, the regulars from the village were greeted by the sound of heavy techno that made it impossible for them to hear themselves yelling during their game of belote and discovered to their amazement that, for prestige reasons, the manager had decided not to serve pastis and was offering ruinously expensive cocktails instead, which they drank making faces, and that furthermore there was no way for them to get served again because the manager was busy making merry with a gang of his friends who were downing vast quantities of vodka and ended up dancing naked to the waist on the counter. The friends in question very rapidly became the only regular customers for the bar and the opening hours were reduced to a strict minimum. In the morning it remained closed. At around six in the evening the pounding rhythm of the techno announced the serving of apéritifs. Unfamiliar cars would park all over the place, laughter and shouts could be heard until about eleven in the evening, at which time the whole gang, including the manager, would go down into the town. Around four o’clock in the morning, on their return from a nightclub, the music would start up again, and through their shutters the villagers, doomed to insomnia, would see the manager, with an entourage of appalling-looking girls, crowding into the bar, the door of which was then locked, and rumor had it that the French bar-billiard table had only been bought so as to afford the new manager the level surface he needed for the satisfaction of his lewd desires. At the end of three months Marie-Angèle went to see him and asked him how he was planning to pay the sum owing. He told her not to worry, but she thought it prudent to go again accompanied by Vincent Leandri, who demanded to see the accounts and warned him that if his legitimate curiosity were not satisfied he would be compelled to resort to extreme measures. The manager tried to prevaricate before finally admitting that there was no account book, every evening he took the entire contents of the till and spent them in the town, but that he was confident he could make good in the spring once the first tourists arrived. Vincent sighed.

“You’re going to pay what you owe next week or I’ll break all your teeth.”

The manager’s fatalistic response was not lacking in a certain nobility.

“I haven’t got a bean. Nothing. I’m afraid you’re going to have to break my teeth.”

Marie-Angèle restrained Vincent and tried to reach some accommodation, but this proved to be impossible, for not only was there not a single sou for the fee but the suppliers had not been paid and the building works had all been done on credit. Vincent clenched his fists as Marie-Angèle tugged him outside, repeating there’s no point, there’s no point, but he made an about turn, took hold of a carafe and broke it over the manager’s head. The latter collapsed with a groan, Vincent was panting with rage.

“It’s a matter of principle, for fuck’s sake, a matter of principle!”

So Marie-Angèle had to forgo her payment and settle debts she had not even incurred. She resolved to be more circumspect in choosing next time, but this did not do her much good. The management was now entrusted to a charming young couple whose conjugal strife transformed the bar into a no man’s land from which, by day as well as by night, there arose a din of broken glass, shouting and oaths of unbelievable coarseness, followed by breathless reconciliations, equally unsparing in decibels, whence it emerged that, when it came to coarseness, the couple had unlimited resources, both in rage and in ecstasy, such that scandalized mothers forbade their innocent offspring to go anywhere near this place of debauchery until the young couple were replaced by a lady of perfectly respectable age and appearance who spent her days ranting at the customers and subjecting the prices of drinks to whimsical variations, as if she were devoting every ounce of her energy to ruining her own business, which she achieved in record time and, as she saw summer approaching, Marie-Angèle was in despair, convinced that she was going to have to take matters in hand herself and make good the damage done before it became irreversible. But in June, when she was almost resigned to having to go back to work herself, she received an offer which overwhelmed her with joy. They came from the mainland. For fifteen years they had been running a bar as a family business in the suburbs of Strasbourg and were now in search of a sunnier clime. Bernard Gratas and his wife had three rather ugly but well-behaved children aged