Speculating upon my future as a poet, he continued, light as foam, I had a last stroll around my apartment and then I went out. As I waited for the elevator, I began to hum the tune "He's a free man, Max …" then stopped once I arrived on the ground floor. Like any good concierge, my new concierge—forty-something, neither tall nor short, neither slim nor chubby, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, olive skin, nose somewhat flat, eyes big and dark, hair long and wavy—left her loge and came out to greet me. I introduced myself and gave her my card with my "white" name, correctly spelled.
After she had read it, without a trace of an accent—like any good Frenchman paralyzed by clichés, abetted by her complexion and her first name (Madame Lisa, so Mademoiselle Papinot had told me), I expected her to utter hissing sounds, à la Portuguaise—she informed me of the time of the mail distribution, and the garbage collection, and showed me where the garbage cans were stored, emphasizing that in this building we were required to sort our garbage.
She welcomed me to the building, then gave me the phone number to her loge, and also her cell phone, and said that I could call her in an emergency, that she lived in the neighborhood, and she added that if I needed someone to clean the apartment she could take care of it herself. I acquiesced. Was she not discreet and efficient, I said to myself, envisaging the round firm quivering breasts of Mademoiselle Agnès Papinot.
After I had taken down her telephone numbers in my cell phone, I gave her the extra set of keys. As she was taking them, I noticed the state of her left palm—red and swollen, cracked and oozing. I was about to go back on our agreement, but then abstained.
Scarcely able to hide my disgust, I said, "Bleach?"
"Among other things."
"You must wear gloves, and use ointment. My mother uses—"
"Nothing seems to help," she interrupted with a smile. Showing me the palm of the other hand, smooth and healthy as a baby's, she added, "When it's all over, the right hand looks just like the left."
"When it's all over?" But I had no intention to dally over the cutaneous concerns of a little concierge, so I did not leave her time to answer my question, and informed her that her tasks, in my house, would be limited to house cleaning, and that I took my meals out. "Like most bachelors," she said, bordering on a familiarity that I did not appreciate. "But please, avoid throwing parties, that's not the sort of thing that's done in this building," she added, with a faint pout. "Fine," I said.
I left the building, not knowing where my feet would take me. I was going to head right, toward the parking lot on the rue de Sèvres, to pick up my car and go back to Saint-Ouen, but in fact I turned left, and found myself on the rue de Rennes. Right before I reached the boulevard Saint-Germain, I stopped outside the Montblanc boutique. And what about treating myself to a new pen, to celebrate my new life? One of those fine black pens with a top embellished in white, of the kind displayed by my cousin and various television presenters?
I searched the window, with its tones of black and white, then told myself that there was no rush. That henceforth this shop was only a few strides from my house, and that right at the moment what was called for was a pleasant spot to mop up my emotions.
On the rare occasions when I had been to the Café de Flore, with Driss or my sister, the disowned one, we had sat inside or upstairs. The terrace is for yokels and tourists, said Driss, sipping on his non-alcoholic cocktail. If you want to see the gauche caviar close up, and that of Marrakesh—those specialists on equality who have not yet guillotined their king, who have relegated Léon Blum to oblivion, as well as the couturier from Dior and the philosopher and his doll—avoid the terrace, said my sister.
That particular day, I only had eyes for the boulevard; I wanted to appreciate it, feel sorry for the people packed into buses or standing in crowd in the taxi queue, all these people who were merely passing through Saint-Germain. Des Prés. Whereas I. Only a few minutes (on foot) from my apartment. From my very own home. Because I had my very own home. Roughly eight hundred square feet all for me. For me alone. Like a grown-up, I continued, jubilant when I saw a free spot on the terrace. Too bad if I'm not sitting across from the philosopher with his Barbie doll, or from Pierrot the Muscovite, formerly the advisor to the resigning socialist, who lives on your street, or that creator of anorexics, the man from Hamburg with his dark glasses, his buttocks once made of sausages and caviar and who is so proud now to display and to sell his new and quite unexpected thinness.
I was going to order a Météore, the house beer, and then I thought about a mojito, a Cuban cocktail which, if the bartender is the least bit free with his hands when dosing the rum, can sandblast your throat and burn your synapses.
Fearful of returning to my family home drunk, I had never imbibed any strong liquor, hardly allowing myself a beer or two, and I would mask the smell by chewing on sweets. And even this was fairly recent, and only in the company of my sister. For although my cousin may have accepted my religious fanaticism, exhorting me moreover to live "like a man, a real man," I could not be so sure of his tolerance with regard to my newest forms of excess.
Not long thereafter I was savoring my mojito while making a few calls. I called my sister first, and asked her to forward my mail to number such-and-such on the rue Saint-Placide, 75006 Paris. "Incredible!" she exclaimed as I dictated the address to her. "Oh, fancy that! Eight hundred square feet! My brother finally standing on his own two feet! I can't wait to visit your place. Do you know we're almost neighbors? And sometimes I walk over to Le Bon Marché? And you know Pierrot took his infant swim classes nearby, on the rue Notre-Dame des Champs, at the Stanislas swimming pool? The very place where I did my prenatal prep? Remember, I told you about this old midwife who gave us relaxation classes, and who befriended me just because I was the wife of a TV star, and after Yvon's documentary about Algiers she came up to me and said, ‘Your husband ought to be a bit wary of Algerians, Madame de Montélimard. He ought to be reminded that those people have hated us since 1830.
They will never like us. They'll do their very best to destroy us. And anyway, they have sworn to colonize us in turn. And do you know what weapon they have found to show us they mean business? The uterus! It's just as I tell you, Madame de Montélimard. The uterus. Just look at all their kids, all those Moameds and Moulouds, disgracing our suburbs.' And never once did that old bag suspect my origins. Either she had a serious problem with her eyesight, or else she could not imagine that an Arab, even one with as Zoubida a name as mine, could possibly live in such a place, let alone be the wife of a celebrity with a handle to his name! Oh, my dear little brother finally on his own two feet! I can't get over it. Does the old lady know about it? Oh, dear, well good luck. I've still got such bad memories, you know … But it won't be the same for you. Well, let's hope everything will go smoothly. Oh my God, fancy that! Not only are you getting out of there, you're headed somewhere really special … Bravo. Really, bravo, brother."
She went on and on, my disloyal sister; she was over the moon and she took the news of my departure as a victory over those who, ten years earlier, without actually putting her on a plane, had disowned her and banished her forever from their life. And what if the same fate befell me? I suddenly wondered.
Driving such an improbable outcome from my thoughts as quickly as I could, I continued my phone calls. By the second mojito, I had informed four or five people that I was moving to Paris—among them Driss, now on vacation in La Rochelle with his latest conquest, possibly a future concubine, a girl from the desert, native of Biskra, hot as a brasero, straight out of a novel by André Gide, delicious earthy nourishment, cousin, he had confided before his departure; and then Gad, with his wife and son, currently visiting an uncle in Casablanca; and then that poor Nawar, who was out walking his matron's mutt, and who was happy to learn that we would henceforth be neighbors. Into a very nice apartment. Only a few cable lengths away from Saint-Germain. Des Prés. Obviously. And tocelebrate the event, I would host a dinner. Yes. Yes …
Only four or five people. In the name of the life of a recluse. Five years studying, fifteen years working, and so few people in my life. How could there have been more, under my mother's thumb, obliged to respect her curfew? virtually forbidden from going out on Saturday night? with Sunday lunch on the verge of the sacred? even obliged to cancel any trips away from
Paris or abroad? in order to spare the woman who gave me life from her dread of car accidents or plane crashes? What would become of me if you were to disappear, apple of my eye?
My mother, the she-wolf who eats her young alive. I took a big slurp from the third mojito and promised myself I'd make up for lost time. Henceforth, I was committed to catching up, and the list of my friends would grow longer. I would organize parties at my place and go to all those I was invited to. Only four or five people. And only men. Old classmates from business school, who only knew me by my birth name, like my cousin Driss, and who sometimes called me Momo; colleagues, like Gad or Christian the poet, who only referred to me by my white name, and who were totally ignorant of the original one. Only Nawar knew everything about me, or almost everything.
Encouraged by his own life story, I had shared with himsome of my own, among other things my family name and my reasons for replacing it—but nothing about private matters, my sexual abstinence, first desired then endured, or my obligations toward my mother. But since I knew that his wife bossed him around, it was clear to me that he would never cross the threshold of my abode. Let alone for a dinner party. And if I did go ahead and organize a dinner party, well, I'd be in for a fine muddle, and a slew of teasing from some of the recalcitrant ones, my curly locks for example, about any change intheir administrative identity, and they might qualify the deed as a renunciation of my origins. Take Driss, who had not found employment that was worthy of his degrees, was then helped by his first wife, and had eventually set up his own research consultancy: for him, a name change would be tantamount to genocide, so he said. An ethnic war against himself, or something like that.
Even if he'd been black like Mobutu, or short like Napoleon (who, by the way, had also Gallicized his name), Driss Ben Mokhtar would have needed no one. And no one would come and hassle him, he said. And he was neither black nor short, but white and tall, as handsome as Zizou (Zidane) and Tomer (Sisley) put together—either one of whom had needed to renounce their origins in order to succeed, he added pointedly. But I was no star. I had no footwork and I wasn't the least bit funny. Nor did I have a research consultancy, or even an ordinary non-profit association, much less a patroness with a sizeable cash register. I was a mere financier—a top-level one, to be sure, but still just an employee. Incapable even of pulling strings to get my brother a job in the bank, with his little curls and his little beard. And I was a bachelor to the marrow. My book, on the other hand, will be signed with my birth name, and thus the apostate that I have become will obtain absolution from his loved ones—so went my sudden thoughts.
I feared the onset of a new bout of anxiety, he said, and so I amused myself by regretting that I had not chosen a name like Moses, for example. All for Momo, all for Momo. Tocquard, Momo. Momo Tocquard. You can smell the imposter a mile away. And why not Maurice? Like Audin, for example.1 Momo for all, all for Momo. But it was too late.
So no dinner, then. Or a dinner with new people. At the age of forty, I could still make friends. I would no longer need to resort to relatives, like Driss, whom I've kept in my life for lack of anyone better. Anyway, I would see. And such a minor detail, for goodness' sake, was not about to spoil my first hours if not as a free man at least as one about to be free.
I began to stare at the women who came into the café, to single out the prettiest ones, imagining, like a feline on the hunt, which ones would succumb to my Greek profile and my athletic allure.
For a moment I thought I recognized Mademoiselle Papinot, and my heart skipped a beat. I watched my real-estate agent's double as she sat down at the table to my right. Just as she was settling in her chair our eyes met: hers were shining with a joyful glow, mine with the desire to bite right into her. But her gaze, as if I were transparent, as if my six feet and my
1 Mathematician and member of the Algerian Communist Party, he was assassinated by the French Army for his activities in favor of an independent Algeria. Quite recently and without ceremony, his name was given to a little square off of the rue des Ecoles, in the 5th arrondissement (Mohamed). hundred and eighty-five pounds had suddenly evaporated, departed for other horizons.
Too bad for you, young lady, you don't know what you're missing, I said to myself, careful not to blow my cigarette smoke straight into her face.
By the fifth pretty girl and the fourth mojito, I was anesthetized, my palate totally insensitive to the rum and fresh mint. Only the taste of lime was still perceptible.
Better stop there before my brain was anesthetized—plus I had to drive. I thought about going home in a taxi, but then I remembered I needed the car the next day for my little move. For who, in the name of luxury, could stay away from little Versailles for more than twenty-four hours? I thought, looking at my watch.
The Monoprix on the rue de Rennes did not close until ten P.M., so I had plenty of time to stretch my legs and refresh my head among its cool shelves. I'd take the opportunity to stock up on mineral water, wine, and whisky, on soap powder and detergent, on noodles and canned food, and have it all delivered on Monday morning. Rue Saint-Placide. In the 6th arrondissement. Yes, please, I would say, with restraint.
And then, drawing closer to the ear of the employee—no doubt a dark-faced immigrant from the land that I had abandoned forever, some guy who would respect Ramadan and his mother—I would abandon all restraint and whisper, Me run away. You heard me, bro, got the hell out. Yes, yes. But me, comrade, me have means to take off, I end up among cream of the crop, who make their butter from your nothing status as never whitened.
In high spirits, I waved to the waiter, and called my mother to warn her I'd be late. An urgent case, I lied. The way I sometimes lied, though quite rarely.
Oh, no! shrieked my mother, while I paid the bill with my credit card.
Just a little bit late, I was murmuring, when my gaze landed upon the figure of the young woman sitting at the table on my left, in such a way that she was in perfect symmetry with the real estate agent's double who, given the way she analyzed the male patrons who came into the café, must have been waiting for a blind date.
As for the young lady on my left, she must have been there for quite a while already—her wine glass was nearly empty—and, given the concentration with which she was reading her newspaper, she wasn't waiting for anyone, I deduced to my satisfaction.
Maybe I won't even have any dinner, I murmured then, observing her discreetly. Thirty years old or so, dark as the devil, almost black, long wavy hair, sober but elegantly dressed in jeans with a white shirt, something familiar and reassuring emanated from her person. While my mother continued to lecture me—how could I leave her in the lurch like that, on a Saturday evening, not only had she gone to the bother of making pancakes, but I was supposed to go the next morning early to the market at Saint-Denis; my sister (the blessed one) and her husband (the convert) were back from their honeymoon and were coming over for lunch—I looked right at the young woman's face. Her nose was somewhat flat, her eyes were big and dark, her lips slightly too fleshy, not a trace of makeup, not even the residue of some lipstick or kohl that she might have put on that morning …
You wouldn't say she was beautiful, exactly, and nothing in her face matched my taste. But no doubt because of the solitude that was starting to bedevil me, and the rum that made it all the sharper, I could not take my eyes off her. She eventually noticed, and raised her gaze from her paper and directed it at me. A gaze that was hard and frightened at the same time. A gaze that is peculiar to Arab women, one I've seen on the face of my mother my sisters my cousins my wouldbe fiancées, and I picked up on it immediately. I gave her a faint smil
e, but she was already folding up her paper and calling the waiter. Instead of asking to pay, as I had thought she would, she wanted to order. The same thing, she said, winking at me, furtively, to be sure, but as eloquently as can be, indicating not only that she was staying but also that she was waiting for some sign from me to get acquainted. I was quivering. But fearful that I might have been mistaken, preferring to intercept some additional sign of encouragement, I did not venture anything. And given the poise with which she carried herself, with which she called the waiter, and of the wink with which she had subtly gratified me, I had a sudden doubt. What if she wasn't Arab at all, what if she were merely some white woman who had just returned from vacation, her skin gorged with sun? What on earth would I do with a white woman who didn't even look like a white woman? I wondered, while she was rummaging in a plastic bag from the La Hune bookstore. A moment later she was holding a book with the most morbid cover imaginable, the photo of a woman who looked anything but alive. I managed to read the name of the author—a woman, an Arabic name of the Middle Eastern variety, someoneI'd never heard of.
The title, Djamila and Her Mother, with the help of my mother's voice, momentarily became Mohamed and His Mother. Suppressing a laugh, I swore I had to meet the woman who'd written such a thing. Inshort, I continued to observe the young woman who was now reading the summary of the book with an almost joyful expression on her face, as if she were congratulating herself for her purchase, and I was no longer listening to my mother. An Arab, I thought, she must be one of those somewhat rebellious Algerian types. Only Algerian rebellious types could joyfully endure books with such sinister covers, and given the café and the bookstore she hangs out in, she had to be from the intellectual middle class in Algiers. As a student I'd come across a few girls like her, little daddy's girls, proud and inaccessible, who came to Paris for their studies and spent their time living it up. They were far too noxious for my convictions at the time, and I avoided them and condemned them with all the fervor I possessed, multiplying my dose of prayers to send those Satanic creatures to rot in hell. A believer like myself would enjoy the seventy houris promised by Allah: that was my consolation, and whenever they passed before me, I lowered my gaze. Those days were well behind me now, and my faith had been irrevocably lost, so this girl had come along at just the right time to enliven a few of my evenings on the rue SaintPlacide: those were my thoughts while my mother continued her desperate soliloquy. Just as I was hanging up, the young woman detached her gaze from her reading and directed it once again at me. Her gaze was hard and frightened at the same time, though I could detect a smile.
The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris Page 5