Somewhat disappointed, on the verge of being angry, I went back into the living room and paced up and down. And as if to remind myself of my newfound reality, I opened my personal organizer and began to double-check the date and time when my purchases would be delivered.
Washing machine, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, gas stove, microwave, vacuum cleaner: this coming Thursday, between nine and noon. I would ask the concierge to take care of the delivery men. Because I have a concierge, I murmured. A concierge who, acting as a private post office, will be slipping my mail to me under the door. Is that not royal?
As for the bed, wardrobe, sofa, armchairs, table and chairs, desk, bookshelf, bedding, curtains, tablecloths, napkins, plates, frying pans and casseroles, and sundry wine, champagne, water and whisky glasses, along with only the finest dinnerware: they would be delivered on Monday, my day of rest. I would not forget, when clearing out of Saint-Ouen, walking out on my family, to take my old sleeping bag for Sunday night.
I had deliberately avoided buying a television, and I had left absolutely nothing to chance. A small fortune had been spent. If I'd gone to Leroy-Merlin, I would have spent less than half the amount. But that whole galaxy evoked the third world to me, as I knew it, or some Eastern European country in the thick of the Cold War, and it was utterly off-putting. How many times had I taken my mother there? How many times had we gone up and down the kitchenware aisles like two raving lunatics looking for the cheapest thing available? How many times had my mother thrown her heart into the purchase of a remnant of linoleum—hideous, but could you beat the price? How many times had she ordered me to run after a salesman in the wall-to-wall carpeting department? That's right, me, one of the most sought-after financiers of all the banks in all the realm.
And the racket. And the line at the checkout. And the smells of sweat and cheap perfume and aftershave … I leave the rest to your imagination.
By purchasing my supplies in or around my neighborhood, by indulging myself with a lamp and coffee capsules from the very shrines where the top brass of Paris worship, not only was I making my life simpler, I was also, in a way, making my entry into a world that was worthy of my luxurious apartment. My lovely, divine nest. My little Versailles.
In any case, I reassured myself, my savings were substantial. For fifteen years I had held positions in banks of renown. For fifteen years I had been making a good living, climbing the ladder, earning my stripes, reaching salary levels that would have made my late father's head spin, and that of Arlette along with it.1 Fifteen years without having to pay any rent, or any sort of utility bill. Apart from the odd luxury clothing item I would buy myself during the sales, I'd hardly contributed to the food shopping and even more rarely to the parcels destined for my sister's children, that is, the walled-upalive sister in Blida.
"Keep your money," said my mother. "You'll need it when the time comes." The time had come, but not in the way my poor mother had intended, for at that time she had no idea how much I earned, and if she were apprised now of the objects of my expenses, she would throw a fit. My mother had been hoping that my savings would go to the purchase of a villa in a posh suburb—But not too far from Saint-Ouen, apple of my eye, she intimated. And of a Renault Espace—I would like four grandsons, my sweet, so that my home will echo with their cries. Not to mention all the rest—a diamond necklace, solid gold bracelets, a belt of gold coins, bolts of silk and satin, caftans of velvet embroidered with gold … and so on and so forth. Offerings that would really impress all the guests from Saint-Ouen and Blida, thought my mother, filled with delight.
And even if I were to comply with my family's wishes, and be a slave to their desires, what sort of name was I to give my children? Mohamed or Pierre? Fatima or Marie? What sort of upbringing would they have? The same as that of my family—pious and respectful, which would toss them back and forth between humiliation and learning centers for at-risk teenagers. Or my own, newly revised—with neither god nor master, which in all likelihood would isolate them from my family and, consequently, from their origins, something which, probably, surely, would send them from one psychiatric clinic to the next.
1Arlette Laguiller, of course, the Trotskyist politician (Mohamed).
Curly locks, curly locks. So no family, then. That way, I could kick the bucket from cirrhosis of the liver, all alone, on a hospital bed in Blida or in Bichat, or from a heart attack between the thighs of a blonde, in my bedroom with its alcoves, or in a suite in the Bahamas, and my disappearance would affect no one. Is that not the very essence of freedom? So no family, then, I said again, out loud. Too bad, mother of mine. It's fate, mother dear. It has been written. My mother. My mother sticking to her son. My own sticking skin, mother of mine, ineluctably, must come unstuck from yours.
On that note, he said, I closed my diary and went over to the balcony. I lit a cigarette and leaned my elbows on the balustrade. But no matter how I thought about all the lovely things in store, that rosy light which had enveloped me at the time of the owner's call had not yet managed to reach my inner core.
My mind was now absorbed by trivial considerations: I would die of hunger, for I had never in my life so much as gone near a gas stove. I would go moldy in the dust, for I had never placed a finger on a vacuum cleaner "on" button. I would become mired in filth, for I had never held a sponge in my hand. And who would iron my shirts and trousers? Who would darn my socks? Who would sew the buttons on my shirts? Who would brush my coats and my suits? Who would polish my shoes and my boots?
SoI turned my thoughts to frozen food and the microwave oven. And to brasseries—no longer could anyone or anything prevent me from eating there as often as I liked. And a cleaning woman, who would come once a week …
And hadn't my cousin Driss lived on his own since arriving in France, a good twenty years ago now, finishing his higher education, setting up the perfect company, signing contracts with renowned multinationals, traveling the world over, from China to the Emirates, offering his genitors a three-story house with bulletproof doors and a sophisticated alarm system, in Algiers on the Corniche de Saint-Eugène, and also a checking account in foreign currency, in the largest Algerian bank, and regular trips to Mecca … Driss the lucky devil, Driss blessed by his family, praised by my own, Driss who was accountable to no one. Not even his own person, so he said.
Driss the bigamist, two legitimate marriages, consecrated according to ritual, before Allah and before man, with savvy modern women, docile and independent, one a pharmacist, much older than he was, she had loved him and supported him during his studies, the other a professor of ancient Greek, fresh and sweet like Ronsard's rose, according to my cousin. Both of them were from the home country, but born on French soil; the girls from there, he said, with the exception of the real village yokels, or the veiled ones, hijab-wearing fanatics, were too rebellious, too political to run a household.
So two legitimate spouses. Who, he continued, just like Madame Mitterrand and Mademoiselle Pingeot, shared the same man without a scandal, shared my cousin, who liked to call them "the Mothers." Three or four children. Maybe five. What did he know? Since there was always one on the way, he trumpeted. He need hardly look at either of them, he boasted, nine months later they were ringing him up from the maternity ward.
In short, two families—one on the right bank, the other in a chic suburb not far from Paris—and he kept them both with largesse of means, equity of treatment, regular, well-organized visits, vacations in the mountains and on the Pacific, cultural and linguistic visits with Grandpa and Grandma on the Corniche de Saint-Eugène …
A life as regular as clockwork, which in no way cramped my cousin's style and allowed him to put his bachelor flat to good use—it was a superb apartment in the Bastille district, with a view on the Seine, and where he entertained those he called his "concubines," girls from the home country, but neither the village yokel nor the hijab-wearing sort, no, real hot, rebellious types, who didn't give a fig about a religious ceremony, and my cousin
pampered them like queens, and he showed them off on a regular basis, whenever he gave one of his sumptuous parties in his splendid apartment, complete with caterer and Andalusian or Kabyle or Chaâbi orchestra, or a famous DJ … Parties which generally ended up as orgies, even in the middle of Ramadan.
Really high-class orgies, my man, the kind you'd never imagine in your wildest dreams, he bragged, eyeing the goatee which, in those days, surrounded my lips, in keeping with the sira of the Prophet. Have you ever seen me drink alcohol or eat pork? Or hook up with a roumia who, regardless of the call of nature to which she has responded, leaves the toilet without first purifying her lovely buttocks? he said indignantly whenever I, good Muslim that I was, tried to remind him of the consequences of his transgressions.
"As for Ramadan and prayer," continued my cousin, "never mind if I don't enter Paradise through the gate reserved for those who fast or those who pray, there will be another gate open to me, on the scale of my good deeds, inshallah, I leave Ramadan and prayer to potential amnesiacs and minds without imagination. I personally do not need to go into contortions five times a day to remember that God exists, or starve myself to remember the annual zakat. Do you know that ten percent of my annual revenue goes to the poor, and that's not including all the little contributions here and there that fill up those piggy banks at the bakery, and all the offerings at the mosque.
"I don't know if our grandfather taught you, or what they've put into your head out in your suburb, cousin, but just soyou know," he quibbled, in his big-shot manner, "in our religion sex pleads not guilty, and so I'm allowed to copulate my fill here on earth, and beyond, inshallah, after my demise. I am not some priest or even some lay Catholic who feels guilty for getting hard whenever he watches the Rexona commercial, nor am I a Rabbi who screws his old lady through a hole in the sheet; I'm a Muslim who is obligated to devote himself to the pleasures of the flesh, which are not a transgression, as you imply, but an offering from the Almighty," he ranted, growing ever more indignant.
And then he burst out laughing: "It's about time for you to start, old man, time to be a man, a real one, and time you began practicing so you'll be able to honor your houris who, I am sure, are ready and waiting for a good-looking guy like you. As my favorite proverb has it, in order to satisfy the pearls in Paradise, let us satisfy the ordinary ones here on earth. A little bismillah, and bingo! No one's the wiser, and no one will be punished!
"Life's too short, cousin …" I tossed out my cigarette, he continued, and focused my attention on the passersby who, as it was a Saturday in summer and major sales were under way, were swarming along the street, clogging up the sidewalk cafés and flocking into the shops. Not very many mommies were to be seen, not many strollers, in any case. Civilized women think about other things than just procreating right down to the last gamete.
Without the backstreet abortionist of our neighborhood in Blida—I learned what I am about to relate at my own expense, in a Turkish bath or at a marriage, when I was only six or seven years old, where my mother, underestimating a child's unfailing memory, allowed me to mingle with the women and overhear their sordid discussions, and later, when my twin sister, before her wedding and expatriation, was debating her pregnancy I heard her assert, in so many words, that our religion allowed abortion before the end of the fourth week of gestation (and without the pill manufactured in our neighborhood, in SaintOuen)—as I was saying, without the backstreet abortionist of our neighborhood in Blida, my educated and civilized mother (for that is how she described herself) would have engendered something like ten children. From the age of sixteen, like a good eldest son, to help feed my mother's brood, raise the brothers and marry off the sisters as quickly as possible, I would have had no choice other than to roll up my sleeves, grit my teeth, and, like my father, spend my entire (short) life on the assembly line, fastening bolts onto future automobiles that neither he nor I would ever own. And farewell to my studies. Farewell to the good jobs. Farewell to the well-padded savings account. Farewell to the lovely nest. Farewell to poetry and the song of the blackbird. Farewell to steamy nights …
And thus it went with my cogitations until a voice I had thought long gone, along with my erstwhile faith, whispered into my right ear: "And what if, by creating this distance with your family, you were to find yourself endlessly drifting? And what, if by renouncing your loved ones, you were sinking deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit? A pit from which even God himself with the help of his very best saints cannot dislodge you?"
Shit, I swore, feeling myself falter, ready to climb over the balustrade, when the other voice, the adversary of the first one, a voice that has never left me, that was there when I was staring at the dome of the Invalides, into my left ear did whisper: "Have no fear, Arab. With or without God, you are escaping from the she-wolf who was devouring you limb by limb. With or without God, you will be like the baby scorpion that devours its mother just after its birth. And do not forget this, you have just been born. Don't spoil it all, Arab."
Too true. Too true, I found myself saying, deliriously, thinking again of the spasms that had caused me to double over the day I was putting the phone down to go to the real-estate agency.
A sudden joy subsequently dismissed all my dark thoughts, gradually procuring a feeling of lightness I had never before experienced. Neither on the day when I passed my baccalaureate exams with flying colors and found myself with a scholarship, nor on the day when I came first in my graduating year at business school and was swamped with propositions from headhunters …
A sensation so intense that I had a knot in my throat. So intense that I felt like shouting, screaming for joy from the height of my balcony.
I am a sparrow hawk grazing the summits. I am an eagle soaring among the stars. I am a star burning without end. I am eternal. I am a free man.
But I didn't shout or scream for joy. What would my neighbors think? That they had a madman in their midst? My neighbors would inform the concierge posthaste, and she, in turn, discreet and efficient, would slip a note to the agency …
I did not even dare think of what would ensue—termination of my lease, return to the slum belt, above all the triumphant breasts of one Mademoiselle Agnès Papinot as she took my key chain off me and recommended the acquisition of a hovel, Mademoiselle Papinot whose grandfather or greatuncle or perhaps even both of them—I have no idea why, maybe because of her name,1 or her natural blondness, or the cold glare of her eyes—I could easily envisage, fifty years or so ago, shoving Jews into railroad cars bound for Auschwitz. Just as I could imagine her father and her own self watching the evening news and applauding our lawmakers for shoving those foreigners into charter flights bound for their respective banana republics, of the totalitarian or socialist people's republic ilk—like the one in which I came into the world, and where I whiled away my childhood under the protection of the holy burnous of my august ancestor.
1Which made me think not of Denis Papin the physicist but of the other bloke, Maurice Papon, the acolyte of Marshal Pétain (Mohamed).
Having given myself a thorough fright, he said, I decided to keep quiet, and my imagination gradually took another course. Propelled into a near future a few months, at most a year, down the road, the time to put my book together, my imagination entered a world of sound and glitter, of spotlights and movie cameras. Renowned poet, outstanding author, to the world did I hear myself declare:
According to ancestral tradition, until my marriage I should have continued to live—tied to her apron strings—between the four walls of the woman who gave birth and life to me. Thank you, mother of mine. But one day, as I was staring at the dome of the Invalides, a question as resistant as a virus began to nag me. Who am I (if not a shadow)? Who am I (if not a man in chains)? And so on until I realized that I had nothing in common anymore with my loved ones. And all that remained for me to do was to go over the wall, with the firm intention of becoming an individual who decides and charts his life as a Westerner on a full-time basis,
with every right thereto pertaining. To sum up, and spare you any useless gloss, Iinvite you, dear readers, to discover the adventures of a man of forty a former Islamist demagogue and virgin somewhat careerist, but oh dear reader, he is liberating himself from his mother. His mother whom he loves with all his heart.
For—and I insist upon this point—until what was meant to happen did happen, I loved my mother. Loved her like a madman. I was prepared, for her sake, to throw myself from a cliff. Under a train. Blow myself up with dynamite on Mars. If she asked me to.
Prepared for anything. Hence the anxiety that tore at me as I was leaving her. Hence the sacrifice of my youth, for her sake. Hence the lack of interest I showed my father, and my shame on his behalf, which I have evoked here above, but also the shame which devastated me whenever he had to meet with my teachers, or on the rare occasions when he waited for me outside school and I felt pinned to the ground, and I had to look away, and then I would leg it until I was breathless, straight into my mother's arms, and she would dry my tears and order me to pretend my father—my father, my genitor, the founder of my daysof my life—was someone else. The gardener, improvised my mother, brilliantly. Perfectly. Sent by your father, who's a businessman, who's very busy, always away on business trips …
And I obeyed my mother. Because, as soon as everyone was asleep, no sooner had she finished tidying the kitchen, preparing the breakfast, my father's lunch box, and my snack—the cafeteria at school was beyond our means, so I stole out to eat in the Parc Monceau or in a square not far from the school building—my mother spent the rest of her night bent over a sewing machine. In addition to the special orders she filled for neighbors, to help make ends meet, for us, for her eldest son in particular, she would reproduce outfits that she had seen in magazines or in luxury boutiques … She did so in such a way that, dressed like the nabob that I clearly was not, none of my schoolmates could call into question the profession of my father , who, I am now sure of this, had been perfectly aware of my hostility. Come, my son, come, my blood, come to retrieve my shame, lamented Corneille. Come, my father, come, my blood … Curly locks, curly locks.
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Page 4