Les Clients d'Avrenos
Georges Simenon
Editions Gallimard, ‘Folio policier'
collection,
Nov. 2006, 192 pages
Sophie Colpaert
Translation: Steve Novak
With
a pleasant regularity since 1999 the ‘Folio Policier collection
has published anew some of George Simenon's novels. Not the famous
Maigret investigations, sure winners at the box office, but some
not-to-be-found and long-time disapeared novels, in which the atmospheric
suspense wins over the classic police plots cogwheels.
Published for the first time in 1935 and finally back from neglect, Les
Clients d'Avrenos takes us to Turkey for a surprising
initiation voyage starting in a seedy Ankara cabaret and ending
in a luxurious diplomatic flat in Istanbul.
Bernard de Jonsac, an assistant at
the French Embassy, is irresistibly attracted to Nouchi the young
Hungarian dancer at the Black Cat. As the parlementary session
will end the next day, Jonzac and other employees will leave the
muggy capital for Istanbul and the more breezy Bosphorus shores.
Resolute to grab her chance, Nouchi finds her way in Jonsac's luggage
and in his life. They start a couples' life but with two well separated
twin beds that Jonsac aims to join soon, but he finds that can't
dismiss the authority of Nouchi's scornful laugh. By sliding her
hand along Jonsac's arm Nouchi thought she had found her fortune.
But Jonsac, besides his noble name and distinguished middle age
look, is only a small rank and poorly payed embassy assistant.
Nonetheless there should be in the circle of acquaintances around
them some means to strike it big. Nouchi starts looking at Jonsac's
friends from another angle. The easyness with which she bonds with
people precipitates it all and a powerless Jonsac witnesses the upheaval
of his living conditions. He becomes a puppet whose strings Nouchi
tugs with an affectionate yet steady hand. If he tries something
on his own, it leads to disaster…
One finds in this old novel eveything that
we know as the Simenon touch. A simple and bright style with open-to-all
language, a very rich analysis of human relations and particularly
the male/female ones as witnessed in couples. Are Jonsac and Nouchi
a real couple? Among their friends opinions vary. Nouchi doesn't
care and uses it for their benefit while Jonsac endures ans suffers
to see how Nouchi's scoffs at him. Yet, within three days, besides
whatever she might say or do, he's hooked. Because underneath his
apparent manliness, Jonsac is soft – a classic trait of Simenon's
characters – and
is one to always wait for either someone or something to make decisions
for him and only follows his daily small habits. This atmosphere
of ennui breads a deep suspense and one keeps turning the pages of
this curious novel with mounting interest.
