I had no trouble identifying him, he was one customer at a table in the bar of the Hotel Ibis where we go. One type air overwhelmed behind his round glasses, who felt the difficult months and for the essential injustice of the world.
The lawyer had warned me he was angry with his son for years and although he came especially to Aix-en-Provence to see him in jail, Eric refused to meet him.
He rose to greet me, the smell of a chemical toilet water enveloped me cheap. He asked me if I wanted something to drink my coffee and ordered the boy who had nothing else to do than read Le Provençal.
It rained on Aix. Was often the case around Christmas.
- "Thanks for coming," he said in the introduction. Eric's lawyer has told you why I wanted to see you, he says, one of the few people to be aware of exactly what happened. You will be asked to testify without doubt ... But I ... I think I need to know ... I am on bad terms with my son, it has been five years since they had talked more. But he was a boy rather calm, collected. Withdrawn same. I do not understand how he could do that ...
- It is not indiscreet to ask you the reason for your disagreement?
- Oh, he did not support my divorce with her mother and my remarriage even less ...
- What exactly do you know?
- What the newspapers said. And the lawyer ... My son was killed with a hammer a director of the Bolshoi , Alex Kovalev, while the band was in Orange for a series of performances. Eric worked for the assembly of sets or something like that. I know no more ... "
I plunged into the club chair and lit a cigarette. It was a time when smokers were not yet subjected to harassment hysteria.
I was prepared for this meeting and I was pretty sure of what he was going to ask me. But there in front of this distress I had a moment of uncertainty: how to tell him that? It was uncountable ...
"- Um, I said in my throat. To explain, it will be long. Without the context, we can not understand. I hope your son will fare without too much damage and he will be sentenced with the stay, the more preventive it has made on the day of his trial.
- I have plenty of time. Rather, you ...
- OK. The starting point for me is IMS ...
- IMS?
- Employer. It is a box that makes the events, but specializes in sports: tennis, golf, rally cars, racing cyclists. I knew they had never occupied before the tour to organize a troupe of 400 people with Opera artists, sets, costumes, technicians ... How have they had the exclusive contract with the Bolshoi? It's a mystery ... But they were four months in Europe with three weeks at the Theatre Antique d'Orange : Mussorgsky (Boris Godunov ) and Prokofiev's ballet, Romeo and Juliet . They smelled the coup of the century: the poor Russians were in total collapse after perestroika, their miserable wages, but the artistic quality intact. Getting to know the market economy, they were willing to sell for 10 times less expensive than a Western company of repute. And these bastards IMS does have a bite. Despite this ridiculous price, they behaved like rats, scraping every penny. I'll spare you the details, but you can not imagine ...
- For example?
- Oh, everything ... For example, the contract did not provide one meal a day plus breakfast, for example, instead of being housed in hotels in the vicinity (in Orange there is almost nothing), they had dug up the jock students from an agricultural high school of his empty house in the summer, for example, they provided them with towels so rotten that when you wiped it was covered with fluff, but the most serious concern is that Eric directly time: they calculated that paying all Russian technicians had to be fed, housed during their stay they returned much more expensive than hiring on the spot technicians and stagehands in the entertainment they would pay at the time worked. They therefore required the Russian teams scarce. Heads basically. Technical teams were so mixed. That's why they needed a full-time interpreter with them, among others. It is work which had been vested. But beware, this is not my job. In civilian life I am Russian teacher here in Aix. I came across an advertisement to which I replied, I was a test of Russia by telephone and was caught.
- was well paid?
- I believed in Initially, we used to pay for teachers. But since I checked, no, it was far below the rates normally applied. But I did not care, I was free in July, for me it was the extra pay, I love classical music, opera, ballet ... and plus it was fun.
- So they have also hired Eric?
- Yes. I do not know the details. I think they were first hired a team leader used to this kind of work and he undertook to turn to find guys ... with your son. It was his job?
- I do not know ... I do not know nothing from him for five years.
- What appeared to me fairly quickly is that the intermittent French hired by IMS were far too few. Finally, it would perhaps have passed, if there were some circumstances both aggravating and aberrant ...
- ...
- First, IMS wanted to return the rental of the Roman Theatre and they had variety of performances interspersed among the performances of the Bolshoi: Véronique Samson suddenly, suddenly Chris Rhea, Patricia Kass once. Probably a question of availability of these people ..
- And so it was good for intermittent French? It was their rest days, right?
- Instead ... As there was not a day off, it was necessary, for example, while removing the end of the performance of Boris Godunov , from around midnight, so that the team of Patricia Kass, who arrived on next mid-morning to settle. And it was not until the end of his concert and his team have everything packed up in order from 3-4 o'clock in the morning sets of Boris Godunov!
- They could not do during the day?
- No, because, and this is another amazing detail, the theater of Orange is a historical monument and the town was in the contract, had demanded that the visits continue, it remains open during the day from 10 am to 17 pm to the public, except those parts closest to the stage . At first they tried to go back anyway during the day. Until the day when a projector has escaped from the hands of a lighting from the top of one of the two towers for the lights and it increased to 10 inches from the head of a mother who was visiting the places pushing a pram with a baby inside ... She made a scandal of course. IMS had to give it ... But that's not all. These towers, just ... They were kind of scaffolding for twenty yards, there were two sides of the bleachers to support a battery of floodlights. The first time that Russian lighting are mounted, it was a day of mistral, they stopped halfway up, came down and decreed that it was too dangerous. Total, of course, only the French were ascending ... No fools, these people ... In general, anything that was dangerous or difficult, they delegated them.
- Professionals are probably more cautious ...
- Sure ... Added to this is that Orange is an outdoor theater and lighting settings can therefore be done at night ... Clearly, it would have to double the staff that this happens without problems. After two days of this treatment, the French were unhappy intermittent become zombies, rags, sometimes sleeping 2-3 hours per night. Your son, like ... You can not imagine how this scene is large, especially when you cross over 150 times in the day ... With fatigue, there were accidents, one serious enough, a broken tibia and fibula. And it has not been replaced!
- So because of fatigue that all this happened?
- No. Finally .. yes and no. It was a circumstance ... heavy. But there was more: the whims of the director. At the Bolshoi each show had its own. With that of Boris Godunov , it went pretty well, the trouble began when the corps de ballet and Kovalev had landed to Romeo and Juliet . It was a big guy, kind old gentleman, with the best dancer-star and thought he was a genius. He came, even at rehearsals, in clothes unbelievable: I remember a white leather dress with fringe, probably found in Las Vegas such a huge hat musketeer. It was ridiculous. But a tyrant. Technical director who was a Russian really nice guy, adored by his team, got a whiff: the Kovalev, he recognized talent, but the guy was undrinkable ... "
I broke for a moment finish my coffee had become cold. Eric's father drank my words literally. He seemed fascinated by this world that I did discover, though far from the usual glitter ...
- "From the first day he began," I replied: it calls a rehearsal for 17 hours, closing time at the theater audience, and declares that the scene did not please him, she stretched in width, it is empty, it takes the trees to furnish the following evening for the first! Panic in the French camp, here they are now calling all the nurseries in the region to find enough trees large enough, to seek an open truck and move them back, two here, three somewhere else ... To 20 hours the truck is back with a score of trees in containers that are difficult to install, using cranes on the scene. In the evening, the rest of the stage is set and I'm about to pass with a lighting sleepless night for setting the lights.
- Because you also did nights?
- Forced ... Once there were mixed teams, we needed an interpreter. Besides, I can not deny that at first I struggled with the technical vocabulary: a stilted, a Legs or gobo, I did not even know what that meant French ... But to make the nights, we took turns, we were 5 performers in all. That night was my turn.
- This is where this has happened?
- No. But what happened that night was significant. Behold: the ancient theater of Orange has a peculiarity. Sometimes, some days of strong Mistral wind, the wind blows, it is trapped and begins to swirl, creating a mini-tornado inside. It was around 3 am, we had just finished setting the lights and the wind picked up. Increasingly strong. And at one point, the tornado took place ... and everything has buggered off: trees on the stage, the decorative elements that are torn. We all rolled on the ground, trying to remember what it was. A sheet of plywood I passed just above the head; a miracle there were no injuries among us. That lasted a few minutes. Everything was on the ground, except oddly, the famous tower in scaffolding. The stage was covered with decorative elements broken, toppled trees, earth spread out trays. A disaster ... But a disaster that was repaired before the first which took place the same evening ... So early in the morning, it wakes up the machines (as they call them) who, it must be remembered, have completed their work very late. The Russians have shown themselves this time really cooperative. But now the director requires a "Connection" in the late afternoon, so that reassembly and cleaning should be stopped. When the rehearsal ends it is past 19 pm and there is still work to install the decorations. In particular, this: it is a gigantic cross of 5 meters high made of a lightweight wooden frame on which is stretched a canvas painted dark brown. And staging plans that we can erect it in a few seconds for a "black" light in the midst of an act. Russian technical director explains thus through me, what to achieve the three stagehands who are responsible for the case. Your son is one of three ... The French point out that the Russians, as this cross is designed, it makes a beautiful veil, and if the wind picks up again, we may well find it in the middle of the public ... The Russians agree and support the idea that it must be well secured.
- Hum ... a cross that we must be able to stand a few seconds, which must then be securely attached and easily removed at the end of the act ... Easier said than done, right? ...
- indeed because, in addition, it is a fact that you do not already know: the ancient theater of Orange is a historic monument and it is out of question planting any nail, any peak in its venerable walls, is strictly prohibited and monitored by city employees particularly fussy. It is permanently attached to a small number of peaks and all the troops who come to work must make do with what is ... So here they are looking for an effective system. They try one that does not work. Too long. After more than two hours of effort, these three boys, exhausted by sleepless nights finally succeed in extremis : it is so late that the theater doors are already open and viewers begin to enter! I still remember their tools in hand, trying to breathe at last ... That's where the drama was played ...
- ...
- Yes, the moment chosen to appear Kovalev with his court and say something in Russian technical director. The latter then approached me, looking annoyed: "Listen," he said, I do not know how to tell you, but Kovalev wants more of the cross. ... They can take it apart. " This is where it happened, when I came to them translated. The others I did not notice, but Eric was tripped. He still held a hammer in his hand and jumped up screaming on Kovalev was talking with a costume. He broke the skull. It took five people to subdue him. When the ambulance arrived, they could do nothing, the guy was dead ... Your son was like a madman, had he not been mastered, I'm sure he would be hard on the body ... The cops were forced to handcuff her hands and feet ... That's the whole story ... "
I was silent. Eric's father was sobbing, the boy behind the bar had stopped reading his newspaper. He looked at us oddly ...
We parted on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the Ibis. Night had fallen and the tinsel is reflected on wet pavement. I looked away for a moment and get lost amid the passersby, carrying their Christmas shopping.
Something about his figure reminded me of Eric.
I thought I'd have to try to visit him in jail ...
Frederic Spassky
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