1 One should note that there is in the name Basile the French word for asylum, "asile"; as for the eloquence of Tocquard, what better homonym for our word for loser, ugly, useless … (Mohamed).
I confess that from time to time I was forgetful of my late grandfather's tolerance—he was a Sufi who paid no heed to those who threatened him with anathema, in the heart of Blida, a conservative and fanatical town if ever there was one, and who had removed his daughters' veils, including that of my mother, and sent them to school, and, invoking lakum dinukum wa-li dini,2he allowed his nephew, my father, to seek his sustenance in an ungodly land—and I was as rigid as a pontiff, condemning my fellows to unemployment and placing young girls in inextricable dilemmas …
I was, thus, the perfect Muslim but, unlike my brother, I began an intimate acquaintance with the administration the moment I arrived in France in the mid-1970s, when I was not yet ten years old, and my brother was only barely conceived.
I nurtured this acquaintance at my father's request and in his company: not only did I act as public scribe for him, filling out his applications and checking the answers in the right place, but I was also his interpreter, in the event that a word or a phrase might slip past him, and, with the exception of remarks which might make the most implacable among us fly off the handle, everything slipped past my old man, who never flew off the handle and remained silent even regarding the deterioration of his physical and psychological health.
As soon as my father was of age, and long before the independence of his country, with the shirt on his back and a laborer's card in his pocket, he came to sweat blood and tears for the edification of France, living hand to mouth, here and there, in seedy hotels and migrant workers' barracks, waiting until 1965, when he was thirty-two, to marry his very young cousin, my mother, a woman of learning to be sure, but thin and dark, impossible therefore to marry off to anyone other than this illiterate orphan who, for nine whole years, had honored her with his paid leave, while he waited for the day when he would be rich—not as rich as Croesus, but with a few savings nonetheless—and could return to his little family for good.
2 Verse indicating that religions may mingle without harm to each other (Mohamed). ("Unto you your religion and unto me my religion," Al-Kafirun 6.)
His savings did not accumulate, or at least not in sufficient amounts for him to pack his trunk, but there did come a presidential decree on family reunification, so the little family in question, now enriched by two children, my twin and myself, came to join him in the land where, even today, I get the impression that I can smell emanations of his sweat.
It is while we were scouring those administrative offices, as I was saying—town halls and police precincts, low-incomehousing agencies and family allowance boards, feeling ashamed of my father and his Arabic name, his complexion and his curls, the poverty of his vocabulary and the way he would muffle his steps and his voice—that my pride forced me to up the stakes.
However much it might cost me, willy-nilly, on the sly or in broad daylight, as a worker or as an astronaut, I would lighten my skin, I would straighten my hair, and, naturally, I would swap my name for anything else, provided it had nothing Arabic-sounding about it: this became my refrain, played whenever my father uttered phrases in his pidgin French.
I had initially thought of names such as Sami Massi or Elias Sansal, easy to pronounce, somewhat ambiguous, or so I thought; they would not be off-putting and consequently would not completely alter my identity.
It was only at the high school—which was, however, a private establishment in a posh neighborhood, between Ternes and Wagram, where my mother, wagering on my intellectual gifts, bleeding herself dry on my behalf, and encouraged by Martine, had decided to enroll me—that I realized that Mohamed, Sami, or Elias: it's all one and the same. Only a completely French name, with nothing suspicious about it, would allow me to blend into the mass of white people.
And that is how Basile Tocquard3 was born. And when I graduated from business school, the headhunters, along with employers at job interviews, were none the wiser.
Would things be the same with this real-estate agency in the 6th arrondissement? I wondered, as I stared at the pink marble fireplace. Hello? Monsieur Mo-ha-med Ben-mok-tar? Uh, Tocquard? The Sèvres agency, here … We are sorry to inform you …
How, in the name of a roof, would I survive the fireplace? the oval bathtub? the oak parquet flooring? the desk overlooking the foliage? the poems I would not write? the women I would not enjoy?
How would I ever get over the frustration? I could pack it all in and enroll in one of Bin Laden's multinationals, for example—given my age and my degrees, they'd hire me on the spot. I might even be given the honor of slashing the skies of Manhattan. Who knows? And if the genes of my well-behaved forebears took precedence, in other words, if I lacked the balls to carry out this sort of endeavor, I could seek asylum in the land of my parents, and wed the daughter of the mayor of the seaside town north of Blida, the very young and very beautiful girl that my mother, ignoring my scowl, had just set her heart on. My sweet young thing would give me a few boys—ten, let's say. Ten sturdy and intelligent boys, like their father, who would teach them, with tact and brilliance, how to spit on France and all the West without distinction.
3Inspired by the cruelty of my schoolmates (Mohamed).
Honestly, who do they think they are, those white folk? holding our ancestors in contempt and scorn, denigrating their origins and their names? And they have the nerve to claim they brought well-being4 to the land of our ancestors, while even today, in 2007, they continue to deny us access to their posh neighborhoods, their prestigious jobs, their nightclubs. As if we were still natives, the savages in their colonies.
4 The official position taken following the introduction of a law on February 23, 2005, which was finally repealed by Jacques Chirac. Thank you Monsieur le Président (Mohamed). (Among other things, the law enjoined high-school teachers to teach the "positive values" of colonialism to their students. T.N.)
After visiting the apartment, he continued, we went back to the agency. The young woman, courteous and professional, just as she would be with anyone of her own blood, offered me a seat, and this made me forget my inner tirade and my cock-and-bull plans.
Sitting down behind the desk, in the very spot where, the evening before, her boss had welcomed me, she picked up my file and said, "I'll take a look at your file. But, Monsieur …"
"Tocquard. Basile Tocquard."
"I should warn you, Monsieur Tocquard, that we have had other applicants for this apartment," she said, all in one breath, without batting an eyelid. "Fine," I said, making a mental evaluation of the contents of my file and, above all, my emoluments—not a mere four digits, proof enough of a worthy school and an honorable trajectory, but five. Her eyebrow arched, feigning such concentration that you might have thought she was immersed in a dissertation on genetics, the young woman began to consult my file, lingering over the pay stubs and the tax return. A few moments later, she said, "You have an excellent file, Monsieur Tocquard."
"Good," I said, with a faint smile. "I'm going to make a photocopy and fax it over to the owner," she said, getting to her feet. "He's the one who'll get back to you. In general he responds fairly quickly."
"Good," I said, watching her operate the machines, and eyeing her butt on the sly, as flat and manly as her shoulders, but nonetheless sexy and disturbing. When she had finished photocopying and faxing my file, she sat back down and handed it to me. "Once the owner has called you, you will come back to see me for the inventory of fixtures and to sign the lease," she said. "And, given your file, he may offer you a six-year lease instead of a three-year one. In either case, we'll start the lease from August 1. But you'll have your keys before that. That way you can move in at your own pace," she continued, discreetly fluttering her eyelashes. All aquiver and certain of being in possession of the place of my dreams, I once again smiled faintly, although the young woman did not notice, b
usy as she now was tapping away on a calculator. She jotted endless strings of figures down on a sheet of paper that was, I could see, top quality letterhead. Astronomical sums. It goes without saying. But, once again, I was ready for anything. My freedom had no price, and I had ample means to live the way I intended to live from now on. In splendor and depravity, I thought, eyeing the young woman's lightly suntanned bosom. "You will need to prepare a check corresponding to each of the amounts I've designated," she said, handing me the fine sheet of paper. "Two months deposit and the rent for the current month, to the order of the owner, and our fees, to the order of the agency. Monsieur Galland, the owner, would prefer a bank transfer, and naturally, don't forget to insure the apartment and send us a copy of the policy. It's required by law."
"Not a problem," I said, careful with the way I enunciated this first sentence, its negation, avoiding any inflection that might reveal my life in the slum belt, that might betray my true-false address in the 7th arrondissement, that might ruin my excellent application … "Insurance for a banker …" she said, an imperceptible glimmer suddenly altering the chill in her eyes. Convinced that she would cancel the other visits, I grabbed the sheet of paper. I slipped it carefully among the other documents in my file, and was getting ready to stand up when, her elbows on the table, her cheeks supported by her carefully groomed hands, her blue eyes staring not into my eyes but at my forehead, she added, "Your file really is very good, Monsieur Tocquard."
"Good," I said, observing her hands, then her rings, which adorned not her ring fingers but the middle ones. "Nevertheless, I am obliged to keep the other appointments." I swallowed, transfixed, and she noticed. "They're scheduled for next week," she continued, with a pout to express her regret. "Fine, fine," I said. Without swallowing. Despite my flawless file, my substitute name, and my truefalse address, this white woman is no fool, far from it, and she's uncovered my true origins, I thought, wiping my hand over my left temple, where there were still a few tight curls that resisted the expert fingers of my coiffeur and where this woman who henceforth held in her hands the destiny of a liberated, affluent man, had often directed her gaze, first in the reflection of the mirror above the fireplace, and then here, at the agency, when she sat back down at her boss's desk. "In any event, the final decision is the owner's," she said. "Fine," I said, venturing a smile. A smile that she recorded by broadening her own, her perfect teeth illuminating the blue of her eyes. Then she lifted a hand and reached for her business card, which she handed to me with the utmost grace. "You can reach me at all times, here at the agency, or on my cell phone," she said, rolling each syllable. I read her name and said, "Thank you, Madame Agnès Papinot."
"Mademoiselle," she said. "Forgive me," I said. "No harm done," she said, without dropping her smile. And I said nothing more. Nor did she, but given this sudden amicability, it went without saying that she wished to start up a conversation, just to keep me there a bit longer, just to attain some objective. Sure of her charm, or so I believed at first, this white woman with her malevolent gaze, who scorned my race and my little curls but revered my pay stubs and my Hugo Boss jacket, aspired to only one thing—to tie the knot, around my neck. First we'd live together, in sin and in the apartment on the rue Saint-Placide—which she would furnish according to our taste—little dinner parties with friends, flicks on Saturday, Sunday lunch at parents'—hers, it goes without saying—regular vacation, summer and winter, on the Nile or in Crete, Chamonix, or Switzerland, warum nicht meine Liebe, shopping with the credit card belonging to yours truly …
And then, once the probity of the pigeon—myself, as it happens—has been confirmed, the wedding bands will be chosen, the time for a little trip to the Town Hall will come, then the ceremony at the same church where her Mom and Dad said "I do," and then finally it will be time to move into a house, with the perspective of inflating the local demographics; in other words there will be three of us, or four, maybe even five, and they'll be called Gustave or Auguste, Clémence or Camille. That too goes without saying. And who gives a damn about the genitor's tight little curls, anyway? Doesn't he have a degree from HEC? or so they would whisper, her mother and father, her uncle and aunt, her godmother and godfather …
I wasn't born yesterday, I knew the refrain. But maybe, I thought, conscious of her status as a little realestate agent, maybe she knew that this could never be. In our day and age, to see one's wishes fulfilled, it was not enough to have a nice ass, or exceptional irises, or skill in fluttering one's eyelashes. Doctors no longer married their nurses, nor did bankers marry secretaries or real-estate agents. I would gladly fuck her, and not once but twice, and then send her packing back to her little studio (probably in the suburbs), where she would continue to vegetate, moping in front of American TV series, envying the model spouses, eating an apple and some low-cal cereal for dinner, squandering her meager income at the gym and in beauty salons and low-end boutiques, without even the hope of seducing someone like Nawar, that Lebanese guy, your neighbor, a former client of the rue Saint-Denis, who's become a friend of sorts, whom I ran into in the 6th arrondissement, a good-looking guy, but dark skinned with frizzy hair as visible as the nose on your face, who recently married an aging, anorexic blonde who abhors Arabs but who, given the profession of her young husband—struggling musician, but an artist all the same—considers that with him it's not the same, or so he would tell me, on occasion, during our intimate little exchanges in my office. As for me, sweetheart, I'm neither a gigolo nor a struggling artist, and as for white women—blondes, brunettes, redheads, with eyes of blue, green, gray, violet, or brown, with a kindly gaze thrown in as a bonus, whose aims are quite the opposite of your own, in other words, women who are liberated from conventions, fans of Sex and the City—I'll find them. If need be, I'll go all the way to the Revolutionary Communist League to find them. And as if reading my thoughts, with that malevolent spark in her eye, the witch said, "The other visits are scheduled for next Wednesday and Thursday."
"Fine," I said, getting to my feet. She did the same, and walked around the desk to stand facing me. Opening her arms slightly to either side, she said, "And if ever your application doesn't go through, Monsieur Tocquard, above all, please don't hesitate to call me …" As if magnetized, my gaze caught on her neckline. She noticed, and her eyes emanated that vanity which she wore as well as her blue eyes, her blondeness, her neckline, her perfume, her tight trousers, her knowingly manicured hands, and her unequivocal origins. "Any time," she added. Then, without any segue, she began talking about her work, told me that she was only temporary there, that other agencies, not located in the 6th arrondissement, also made use of her services, and that she would be sure to find me the very best place: "An apartment in the 18th or 20th arrondissement would be perfect for you, Monsieur Tocquard. "That said," she concluded, "I would advise you to buy rather than rent." At last I grasped the businesswoman's sudden interest in me: a substantial commission, perhaps even the offer of a permanent position, I thought, and I was about to retort that only this apartment interested me when I changed my tack. Feigningcontentment—above all, she must not be allowed to sabotage my plans—I said, "I hadn't thought about it, but it's a good idea."
"Fine," she exulted, walking with me to the door. "Fine," I repeated, without exulting, imagining that this precariously employed real-estate agent would, no sooner had she gotten rid of me, rush to the telephone, dial Monsieur Galland's number, and inform him that Monsieur Basile Tocquard has withdrawn his application …
"Goodbye, Monsieur Tocquard," she said, holding out her hand for my handshake. Thinking of the supporting role I had just played in this little Versailles drama and rejecting it, I was about to invite her to lunch, to the Petit Lutétia, why not, the chic restaurant on the other side of the rue de Sèvres, opposite the real-estate agency—a good meal and a little chitchat ought to convince her to cancel the other visits—but I let go of her hand and turned on my heels, my throat tight, my bowels on fire.
And then,
he said, I went through hell. For an entire week I scarcely ate a thing; I smoked one cigarette after another, and got annoyed at the drop of a hat. The tablets of Lexomil I swallowed without counting didn't fix a thing. My mother attributed my sudden (very) bad mood to a romantic disappointment—You can tell your mother everything, light of my days, she ventured, in between the chorba and the bell pepper salad, my favorite dishes, and which stayed desperately uneaten on my plate. Or could it have been the excess of testosterone that a man owes it to himself to evacuate—And the mayor's daughter, you know … she ventured again, directing subtle winks at my brother, who concluded that it was the stress of working in Paris that was behind my nervous collapse, and she suggested I request a transfer.
"You were better off in Saint-Denis," he said, squinting at me, raising his voice. "I'm fine in Paris," I insisted, pushing back my plate. At which point my mother interrupted her meal and rushed off to fix me some hot milk with honey. And my brother, remembering who was the eldest in the house, and powerless in any event in the face of so much irascibility, eventually lowered his gaze and his voice. After I had smoked a few cigarettes in my car—I had not been smoking for long, and never did so at home—I sat alone as long as I could in the kitchen, brooding, resigning myself to the idea that I would continue to spend my life tied to my mother's apron strings, surrendering, submitting to the destiny that had been allotted me. The sacrifice of Isaac, as my colleague Gad would say. The sacrifice of Ishmael, as my cousin, and friend, Driss would say. A pointless life, I mumbled, going to my bedroom. To fall asleep, overwhelmed by my brother's wheezing—he who, strong in his faith, confiding his failures and sorrows to his Creator, was sleeping like a dormouse—I had to take double the usual dose of Stilnox, along with the other medication I'd been prescribed following my father's death. A treatment I was following, suffice to say, unbeknownst to my family. Because a man, a real man, where we come from, in my family, in any case, shouldn't need subterfuges, and certainly shouldn't be consulting those who prescribe them.
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Page 2