The traffic in Hanoi is like life itself, generous, inexhaustible, dynamic, in permanent motion, constant imbalance, and slipping into its midst and becoming one with the chaos gives you an intense feeling of being alive. Very often, seated in the back of a cycle rickshaw, I let myself be carried along the streets of Hanoi for hours at a time, abandoning myself to the random succession of crossroads and avenues. I was in the very heart of the traffic, sitting on a moving seat, my arms on the armrests, my feet resting on the small curved grid of the rickshaw seat, with no external protection and within arm’s reach of the other bicycles, of the honking motorcycles, of the cars, trucks, and buses passing us, of women stranded in the middle of the traffic, lost, hesitant, a straw hat on their heads and a large flexible bamboo pole resting on their shoulders, eyes darting around, looking for an opportunity to cross the street. I glided over the roads, my feet gently brushing the asphalt, letting myself be pulled along by the traffic and the flow of time, I accepted the movement of life and accompanied it without resistance, my thoughts themselves eventually melting into the flow of traffic. Sometimes I took off one of my shoes and crossed my legs in the basket of the rickshaw, leaning my head back and letting it lie motionless on the seat, my sunglasses weightless on my cheeks. Everything was fluid around me, everything flowed listlessly in the surrounding warmth, time and the traffic, life and the hours of the day, my loves and youth itself, I made no effort to hold time back, I consented to get older, accepted the idea of death with serenity. Time passed and I couldn’t do a thing about it, I was pulled along in the flood of Hanoi traffic, and all of that intense stream of traffic flowed along with me in the streets like water in a torrential riverbed, never meeting any obstacles, always avoiding them, sweeping around them and continuing on its way, ever curving, always finding new directions and advancing without resisting or forcing anything, imposing on nothing and nevertheless irresistible, imperious, with the force of the wind, the necessity of the tides.
The day after our arrival in Hanoi our delegation was received at the Writers’ Union for an informal meeting with our Vietnamese colleagues (we were a bit like the three musketeers, the four of us who’d come from Paris to speak at this cultural event). We’d taken our places in a large impersonal meeting room on the first floor of a modern building with an archway and balcony, it could have been in East Berlin ten years ago if it hadn’t been for the heat, which was, believe it or not, even more oriental and overbearing than it was in Berlin, with Formica furniture and tulle curtains in the large windows, a gray carpet, microphones on the tables (and perhaps in the walls as well), three or four bouquets of flowers placed here and there, and a small rostrum, a simple conductor’s stand with a vase and a microphone for the speaker. On the wall behind it, in large plastic letters stuck to the wall, was written a welcome message surrounded by a bouquet of accents: Gap go nha van viet nam va cac nha van phap. 3.10.1995. Okay, fine. I’d taken a seat in the middle of one of the arms of the large U that made up the immense working table of the conference hall, on the French side of course, between Olivier Rolin and Tahar Ben Jelloun, and across from us at the other leg sat a row of Vietnamese writers in grayish short-sleeved shirts, grave and impenetrable, who stared at us from behind huge spectacles. Vietnamese writers are generally classified by generation, and we had four generations of Vietnamese writers there in front of us, from the oldest who’d seen the French colonization to the youngest who’d fought against the Americans. Right across from me, pale, bald, and fragile, was a writer of the first generation; another, beside him, of the second generation, almost blind, was squinting straight at me. At the end of the arm of the U, at the glove, let’s say, sat the French ambassador, impassive, placidly sucking on a cough drop. Then came the rest of us, the participants, almost all of us were there, three out of four (the fourth was still sleeping at the hotel), calm and serious, somewhat perplexed, with faces and eyes alert — a bit too alert, in fact. Once we’d all sat down around the large U-shaped table our host, the General Secretary of the Writers’ Union, went and stood at the rostrum accompanied by a small and trembling interpreter in a short-sleeved grayish shirt who translated his words nervously as he spoke. Once he had finished it was time for a representative from the ministry to take the floor who, getting up and heading over to the rostrum, started to read a very long and very official speech on literature and national character, at least six pages which he read right to the end despite occasional breakdowns in the sound system, which started to crackle and then screech. After ten or so minutes no one was listening anymore to what he was saying, and several little bits of paper traveled discreetly up and down the table, from the cultural counselor to the head of the book office or from the head of the book office to the cultural attaché, which we had to hand along to the person next to us as they passed, whereupon the lucky recipient casually opened the little note between his fingers and read it pensively, thumbs pointed outwards and eyes unfocused, while pretending to be listening attentively to the speaker. At one point, as the speech wore on and on, we saw the door of the conference hall open quietly and two young women appear in the room, distractingly silent and discreet, who with a furtive swishing of their silk tunics started to clear away the teacups we’d been given on our arrival, replacing them with cans of soft drinks and Tiger, the Singaporean beer (although it was just after nine in the morning), before bringing us soup bowls, salads, and spring rolls, cold meats, rice, and raw vegetables. There were several courses which I helped set in front of us on the table, plates of cold pork and small dishes of pâté, toast, and ravioli, as well as small vodka glasses in which they started to pour whiskey, or cognac, depending on which bottle they happened to be holding, so that we could toast later on to friendship and literature (there was something vaguely Lithuanian about all this, not to say frankly pleasant). Soon our hosts casually started opening bottles of beer and pouring them discreetly into their glasses while keeping one eye on the stand where the ministry representative was now explaining that autumn, in Vietnam, was the season of poetry and revolution (oh, the timing couldn’t be better, what a good thing we’d come in autumn), and I brought the bowl of soup to my lips to take a sip, blowing cautiously on the surface of the piping-hot liquid. The ministry representative finished his speech to a salvo of applause and the floor was handed over to the French ambassador. Very tall and with wavy black hair, the French ambassador got up and went over to the rostrum, sized us all up, and plunged straight into his speech, a blend of Racine and grunge, with large hands and burning eyes, his voice hoarse and raspy as if it had been scratched by his eucalyptus candy, all of which gave his speech — which was otherwise perfectly suited to the occasion — an extravagant Gaullian touch marked by occasional peaks of enthusiasm paying tribute to the radiant influence of the French presence in Asia (perhaps radiating would be a better word, I thought, what with the renewed French nuclear tests in the Pacific). Our Vietnamese hosts listened solemnly, nodding their heads in approval, and even jotted down a few notes now and then (writing sagely in their notebooks, “not only economic, but also cultural radiance” and underlining “cultural”). I didn’t know if I was dreaming, at the time, or hallucinating, if she was there with one of our group or just by chance, but in that very conference room where our studious gathering of writers and diplomats had convened for a morning’s work, separated from us by only a few Vietnamese colleagues, translators, and linguists, there, I swear, I saw Jane Birkin too.
Then, when it was time to leave, just before noon when almost everything had been eaten (the discussions had continued more informally, with everyone remaining seated and pecking at this or that with their chopsticks, a few spring rolls or a bit of cold meat, using the portable microphone if they had anything to add), the General Secretary of the Writers’ Union got up to take stock of our working group, welcoming at the same time the actress and singer Jane Birkin. He approached her shyly and asked her, she being a singer and all, to do us the honor of bringing our sessio
n to a close with a little song. Jane Birkin, somewhat embarrassed, kindly declined his offer, not able to dissimulate a wisp of a smile. Something from your repertoire, the General Secretary of the Writers’ Union asked her, holding out the microphone. No, no, really, repeated Jane Birkin, who continued laughing and smiling. Our other hosts joined in and started pressing Jane Birkin to sing a song. I don’t know exactly how it started, but soon everyone was pleading Jane Birkin to sing, four generations of Vietnamese writers, those who’d fought against the French, those who’d fought the Americans, everyone in the big meeting room was clapping their hands and chanting: a song! a song! We too, the French speakers, started chanting as well out of courtesy to our hosts, together with the people from the French embassy, the university professors, a few translators, and even the French ambassador, despite his sore throat. A song! a song! we all chanted around the large U-shaped conference table. Jane Birkin was laughing and laughing (and she’s got a very charming way of laughing and laughing, Jane Birkin). A song! a song! we kept chanting. Jane Birkin couldn’t refuse any longer, you can’t resist four generations of Vietnamese writers. Finally she got up and, walking briskly along the rows of chairs while pushing back a strand of hair, she took the microphone and started to sing, looking at the ministry representative:
Et quand tu as plongé dans la lagune
Nous étions tous deux tout nus…
tunisia
I no longer know exactly how this strange premonition came about, but I was certain I was going to die on this trip to Tunisia. I’ve often taken the plane in recent years, but ordinarily, apart from a slight apprehension at the moment of departure, which makes itself felt by a vague pressure around the chest and a relaxation of the sphincter, giving me a sudden, if generally unwarranted, desire to take a shit the moment I call the taxi, I leave my apartment without any particular fears, even experiencing the tempered enthusiasm of a seasoned traveler as I enter the airport. To tell the story of this curious premonition from the beginning, however: Everything started, I think, one morning in Berlin, where I was living at the time, when Gilles M. of the French embassy called me up to fill me in on the schedule of my visit to Tunisia, telling me that, whereas I thought I’d be staying the entire couple of days in Tunis, I would in fact have to give a talk at the French Institute in Sfax, and asking me if I’d rather go there by car or by plane. Although the question might seem perfectly innocent, I must say that the mention of this trip to Sfax secretly had the most devastating effect on me you could imagine, because I was at once absolutely certain that it was there I would die, in the aforementioned Sfax, and that I was being asked to choose my death, as simple as that, by car or by plane, and instead of backing out by evasively citing some last-minute obstacle that prevented me from going on this trip, I demonstrated an extraordinary sang-froid by asking in an admirably neutral voice how long it takes to drive from Tunis to Sfax. Around three hours, he said. Well, do what you think is best, I said in a flat voice (when I hung up, as far as I was concerned, I was already dead).
The trip out to Tunis went without a hitch, and I was given a very cordial welcome. As nothing was planned for the day of my arrival, my host arranged to have me driven around Tunis and the surrounding area. We stopped for a moment in Carthage where there wasn’t much to see, just a sign beside a lagoon showing where the ancient Punic harbor had been (I can still see myself sitting in that car by the side of the road, the engine running, rolling down the window to take a quick look at the nonexistent ruins). After a day of historical and literary tourism with its Flaubertian and Shakespearean touch (it was a little like Elsinore in Denmark, where there’s also nothing to see), I spent a calm night before my departure for Sfax. We’d finally agreed I would travel to Sfax by car and return to Tunis by plane, so the die had not yet been cast as to the exact circumstances of my demise. The driver from the French Institute who came to pick me up at the hotel early the next morning was a small, courteous and taciturn Tunisian who helped me put my bag in the trunk of the car before we headed off slowly toward Sfax, leaving the suburbs of Tunis behind us in the haze. Sitting beside him with my seat belt fastened I daydreamed while looking out at the countryside and, aided by the heat, I even got a hard-on in the car (a small, inept erection, really, in this official car belonging to the French Institute), peacefully following the flow of my thoughts before dozing off on my seat, ithyphallic and contented. I don’t know if I conked out completely, but when I opened my eyes again I saw that we’d entered Sousse.
Good day Madam, I said, sitting up in confusion, good day Madam. It was two women, two archaeologists, one thirty-five and the other sixty, I’m making them a bit younger to be on the safe side, whose car had broken down on their way to Sfax the previous day and who, after having spent the night in Sousse, were looking for a way to drive to Sfax with their equipment and get back to their excavation, an archaeological dig situated around thirty miles south of Sfax, I’d say (I say south but I could just as well say north). Having heard through I don’t know what Arab grapevine that a speaker (that’s what they call us writers in embassy jargon) was traveling by car from Tunis to Sfax, and no doubt unaware of the fateful premonitions of said speaker, they’d asked if the driver of the French Institute’s car could take a detour through Sousse and pick them up with their gear, a complete set of six or seven suitcases full of mysterious archaeological material, big padded honeycombed metal suitcases like they use in the movies, which, stacked one on top of the other in the trunk, crushed my poor flexible black travel bag and the three impeccably ironed shirts it contained. I’d kept a low profile as the equipment was being loaded, I know it’s not a good idea to show too much of an interest when heavy lifting is being done (before you know it, you’re doing the work yourself), so I’d discreetly moved away across the parking lot while chewing on a matchstick, my hands in my pockets, my eyes on the sumptuous hotel pool that could be made out behind the tinted glass of the reception area. Then, as the four of us headed off once more towards Sfax in the comfortable French Institute car, I could see that despite the anxieties clearly visible on her face, the elder of the two women, who was having a hard time getting back her breath and wildly fanning her chest with her hand, had lost none of her good manners and erudition, because, once she’d got over the initial stress which had left her panting breathlessly beside the driver (of course I’d gallantly ceded her the death seat), she turned to me amiably and apologized for having obliged me to take this detour through Sousse. Don’t mention it, my dear woman, I said. As I too happen to be quite well mannered (though not very knowledgeable on the subject of piston rods, into whose mysteries she tried in vain to initiate me), the atmosphere soon became very refined and worldly in the French Institute’s car, and we exchanged diverse considerations on our respective activities. I asked them about the reasons for their trip, if not about the circumstances of their breakdown, and learned that, apart from the unfortunate setback of having to spend the night in Sousse and leaving their car in the hands of not particularly scrupulous mechanics who’d tried to take them for a long ride while towing their car (a big mistake, they knew the whole region like it was their own dig), it was above all the bleak prospect of spending three weeks in Sfax without a car that worried them the most. All of their hopes now rested on our chauffeur, who’d already had the chance to help them out a couple of years earlier after another breakdown in the same sector (other times, other piston rods) by driving them each morning and evening to their dig and back.
The driver, who remained quiet, depressed perhaps by the bleak prospect under discussion, which seemed to have come crashing down on him in all its gloom, asked us after a while if we’d like to stop to have a drink and stretch our legs and, after talking it over in the back of the car, the two women and I, we answered that no, there was no need, whereupon he slowed down and pulled up in front of a roadside café. Here it is, he said. He got out of the car and, leading me informally by the arm, brought me inside and asked what I’
d like to drink (the women were apparently not thirsty). A tea, I said. He gave our order to the owner in Arabic. The café was very dark, deserted, there was a certain freshness in the air compared with the burning noonday heat of the road. I drank my tea, a very hot, extremely sugary mint tea. I wondered if I should pay and, unsure, decided not to, wandering absently away from the counter and taking a few steps further into the darkness of the room. An old faded poster showing a soccer team wearing red and green uniforms was tacked to one wall, a couple of trophies that weren’t exactly won yesterday were displayed on a shelf together with a pennant and a few other odds and ends. Slowly I headed over to a blind door marked “toilets” in Roman letters and gave it a discreet push, in vain, it was locked. I left the café, not a sound on the street. The air was burning outside, almost shimmering. I went and took a piss against a wall behind the building then came back out front. From time to time an old tarp-covered car barreled along the highway at top speed, blowing up a cloud of dust as it passed. Here and there in the noonday heat you could catch a glimpse into the cool and welcoming shadows behind the curtains of a few stores lining the road, a bakery, a butcher’s, two or three of those typical little North African grocery stores offering nothing but an enigmatic array of large tins of chickpeas or quince jam, a few bottles of soft drinks in a plastic crate on the floor, and, abandoned near the door, a big burlap sack full of who knows what type of seed. I walked a couple of paces on the sidewalk beside the stores, took a kick at a tin can. Further off, near the car, I could see the silhouettes of my two archaeologists waiting for the driver to return. The eldest was sitting on the back seat, the door wide open, and her colleague was standing beside her, almost in profile, with one elbow on the roof as if she were posing for the cover of a sixties fashion magazine. As I came up to them I saw they were absorbed in the French newspaper I’d bought in Tunis which they seemed to be reading with great interest, the elder holding the newspaper wide open on her lap and the other leaning over from time to time and casually pushing back a strand of hair, while the first, determined, dynamic and undaunted, continued to read the sports page of the newspaper aloud with one hand on her glasses, interrupting her reading occasionally to signal her disbelief to her colleague before closing the paper and sitting motionless for a moment, pensive and distressed, her eyes staring into space and slowly filling with tears, because they had just heard — the news hadn’t reached them yet in Sousse — of the death of Ayrton Senna two days earlier at the San Marino Grand Prix.
Self-Portrait Abroad Page 4