The Red Dot

By Christophe Noël

Love & Death, a short story initially published in French, and translated by Peggy C.
Bonus : The Spider.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christophe Noël
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005462055

Christophe Noël

Christophe NOËL a connu un parcours atypique, pratiquant bien des métiers: ouvrier tapissier, vendeur ambulant, homme à tout faire dans un petit hôtel, surveillant d'externat, aide-comptable, distributeur de journaux, cadre responsable de centre, intérimaire, représentant, chef des ventes, promoteur publicitaire, visiteur mystère, fonctionnaire. Il est aujourd'hui à la retraite.

Book preview

The Red Dot

Followed by The Spider

Short stories translated from French

Christophe NOËL

©Christophe NOËL – 09-2020

Translation : Peggy C.

The Red Dot

1.

His great-grandfather, Vassili Grigorovich Zbartov, had arrived in France in 1905. He was a Zaporog Cossack¹, fleeing the upheaval of the aborted Russian revolution. In the early days he slept under the Mirabeau Bridge², but he later found a job as a doorman in a restaurant set up by one of his compatriots – another emigrant, who had taken care to leave with a nest egg. He met a Breton woman working in Paris as a maid, whom he married. Of the eight children born of the union, five survived, including Jean’s grandfather, Sérafim Vasilyevich Zbartov.

Born in 1913, Sérafim knew ‘The Call of Destiny³ ’, and joined the French army while still very young. He participated in all the adventures of the Free French in North Africa under the brilliant leadership of Philippe de Hautecloque (better known under his nom-de-guerre of Leclerc). Sérafim ended his career as a lieutenant colonel. Just as his illustrious leader changed his surname in 1945 (becoming Maréchal Leclerc de Hautecloque), he officially shortened his own to the more French-sounding Séraphin Zbart. Married in 1936 to a Pied-Noir of Alsatian origin, he produced children of his own: three boys and four girls.

One of these boys was Jean’s father, Maxime Etienne Marie-Joseph Zbart. He was born in 1937 and grew up in Algeria during what were known – with some understatement – as the ‘events.’ He crossed the Mediterranean at the end of 1959 to settle in Marseilles. There he met a Greek woman, a child of Piraeus⁴, endowed with an incredible fortune, whom he married in 1962.

Jean Zbart⁵ was born in 1970, the third and last son of the couple.

(.1) Guillaume Apollinaire, Réponse des Cosaques Zaporogues au Sultan de Constantinople: From Alcools (1913).

(1.2) Guillaume Apollinaire, Le Pont Mirabeau: From Alcools (1913).

(1.3) Max Gallo, De Gaulle, tome 1: L’appel du Destin (1998).

(1.4) Popular song written by Manos Hatzidakis and first sung by Melina Merkouri in the film of same name, directed by Jules Dassin (1960).

(1.5) Character created by Serge Gainsbourg (French singer and composer), born Lucien Ginsburg (Paris 04/02/1928 -03/02/1991).

2.

As a young man Jean went to Paris in 1988 to begin his brilliant studies. Instead, he fell in with various gangs, some more or less communist, others more or less anarchist (all of them more Jackass than anything else, as his father said). Maxime, after delivering to his son repeated sermons in vain, prayed, exhorted, threatened to withhold his allowance conditioning them to an active resumption of studies.

Jean eventually resolved to comply with the paternal diktat. Actually, he was determined to make amends. Swore to God! He communicated this intention to his friends and girlfriends, who invariably roared with laughter, predicting that under a week he would be back on the bridge. ‘Not at all!’ he replied; ‘you will see, this time I will keep my word. You won’t recognize me anymore,’.

But as soon as the paternal subsidies arrived, Jean went forth with weighted pockets to seek good fortune in the bars, clubs and shadowy corners of the Parisian night. And by the next morning, he had nothing left. The booze, the girls, the cards, at night, had swallowed up everything. Perhaps he had even been helped in the business by one or two nimble hands.

3.

He awoke late in the morning, in an unknown room, among crumpled and filthy sheets beside a young woman with voluptuous breasts and fat thighs, armpits and sex unshaved, thick red hair in a halo around a tiny head in comparison. The sunbeams whose warmth had woken him were flickering through the shutters, blinding him. Particles danced in the light. His ears perceived the sounds of the city which hardly ever slept. Car engines accelerating, car horns,