Windows on the World

by Frédéric Beigbeder

  “Is that really true, Dad? Really? Were we nearly the Coca-Cola family?”

  And Dad’s, like, all happy and he’s stopped crying and stuff, it’s really cool seeing him smile. “It’s true, David—can you imagine?” and Jerry’s like “What?” because he knows the story by heart and he can’t figure out why I’m faking like this is the first time I heard it. Like, duh! I’m doing it to keep Dad happy, otherwise he’s not gonna have enough energy to use his superpowers.

  9:10

  La Closerie des Lilas (1804), Le Dôme (1897), La Rotonde (1911), Le Sélect (1925), La Coupole (1927). The Lost Generation knew where to find each other: Mont-parnasse. In pilgrimage, I stagger through the bars Hemingway catalogs in A Moveable Feast: thanks to “Papa,” writing is the perfect excuse for getting drunk on your own, especially if you’ve just had a bust-up with your girlfriend. When I order a vermouth-cassis at the Closerie, it’s purely professional courtesy. What on earth were these geniuses thinking, drinking an abomination like this? I pass 27 Rue de Fleurus, a couple of minutes from my house, where Gertrude Stein and Alice Babette Toklas lived. To my stupefaction, a plaque reminds us of the importance of this mythical apartment where Gauguins and Miros hung on the walls and where the famous line “You are all a lost generation” was uttered by Ms Stein’s car mechanic as he leaned over her creaky old Model-T with the iffy transmission. Gertrude Stein, the American who introduced Picasso to Matisse, had been living in Paris since 1902, in a ground-floor apartment with a courtyard garden. It’s a neighborhood in which the Russians preceded the Americans. Hemingway came here on the advice of Sherwood Anderson trying to be like Modigliani, Soutine, Chagall, etc.; Trotsky and Lenin planned the revolution here. Why, when he was about to put a bullet in his head, did Hemingway come back here in spirit? In 1957, when he begins writing A Moveable Feast, he is fifty-eight. Three years earlier, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Four years later, he will kill himself with a hunting rifle. He decides to spend those last four years in the time machine we call literature. Physically he is in Ketchum (Idaho), then Spain and later Cuba. But in his mind, the last years of his life take place in the Paris of 1921-26, with his first wife, Hadley Richardson. He refuses to be sixty: he writes so that he can be twenty-five again, so he can once again be the young unknown, destitute but in love, who first met Scott Fitzgerald in April 1925, blind drunk in the Dingo Bar on the Rue Delambre (now L’Auberge de Venise) where seventy-eight years later I scribble these words, drinking a Long Island Ice Tea (which recipe he invented: all the white spirits in a tumbler + Coca-Cola and ice). At the Dingo Bar, you could run into Isadora Duncan, Tristan Tzara (who is buried in Montparnasse cemetery), Man Ray…I raise my glass to the great artists who haunt these wood-paneled walls perfumed with cigar smoke, Bourbon and despair.

  It was not by accident that Pompidou built the miniature replica of the World Trade Center in Montparnasse: this was a district whose soul had been imported from America. Hemingway wanted to retrace his own steps; I am doing it on his behalf. At 42 Rue du Montparnasse, the Falstaff is still there, but the brothel on the corner—Le Sphinx, 31 Boulevard Edgar-Quinet, with its Egyptian suite, where Henry Miller spent money he didn’t have—has disappeared. Nowadays, it’s a branch of the Banque Populaire, with an ATM out front. Walking home (with difficulty), I look for 113 Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, where Hemingway settled himself in 1924 when he got back from Toronto (Ezra Pound lived on the same street at 70 bis). I pass 115, then 111. Hey, number 113 has disappeared too, though it wasn’t a whorehouse. I retrace my steps…I’m not imagining it: Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs skips from 111 to 115, you can go and check for yourself. So the building where Francis Scott Fitzgerald pissed on the stairs, starting a memorable row between Ernest Hemingway and his concierge, no longer exists. All that remains of it is a book: a moveable edifice. There isn’t even a plaque. Pity, there’s quite a lot you could chisel into the marble. “This is where the American writer Ernest Hemingway loved his wife Hadley and his son Bumby, where he was visited by Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, William Carlos Williams, John Dos Passos, where he wrote The Sun Also Rises, where Francis Scott Fitzgerald urinated in the doorway one Saturday night in 1925 angering the concierge, where Hemingway received a letter of apology from Fitzgerald in which he says: ‘The deplorable man who visited you at your apartment on Saturday evening was not I, but a man named Johnston who often masquerades as me.’”

  The moral of the story is: when buildings vanish, only books can remember them. This is why Hemingway wrote about Paris before he died. Because he knew that books are more permanent than buildings.

  9:11

  Ultrasecret communication from secret agent David Yorston to the Forces of the Galactic Alliance

  September 11, 2001. I have discovered my father possesses superpowers. I was in Windows on the World with my older brother when it happened. Officially, my father is called Carthew, but that’s not his real name. He didn’t know he had megaextrasensory powers, like in X-Men when the guy finally realizes he can see through walls. I knew because I had been informed by the Intergalactic Charter in 7987 BN (Before Now) (I’m an agent of the Intergalactic Council). In fact, my father’s name is not Carthew, it’s Ultra-Dude. We don’t know the extent of his powers, because he hasn’t used them yet, since they operate only when he is in megadanger, like in a fire for instance. At times like this, he can walk through concrete walls, twist metal, even fly, since fear charges his battery pack. Then afterwards, he doesn’t remember anything because he’s got an instantaneous autoadaptive memory that allows him to erase all the data from his mental hard drive so he doesn’t give up the microfilm if he’s ever subjected to cunning interrogations in an Astral Confederation prison ruled by his archenemy Morg (aka Jerry the Vile).

  I was eating pancakes with a number of Earthlings when we were attacked by the Dark Forces: it was a carefully planned attack, most likely an attempt by Lieutenant Devil-Raptor to take Ultra-Dude by surprise. Using the secret transformer concealed beneath the North Pole for thousands of years, the evil Devil-Raptor transformed himself into a plane and, using teleporta-tion, slammed into the skyscraper trying to get at the macroconstrictive primes (Devil-Raptor is an interstellar prime hunter capable of subliminal transformations: he can transform himself into anything he touches, except if he’s got the flu). Anyway, the attack happened just a few minutes ago. I will make contact again to keep you informed of developments. In a moment, as soon as he senses his devastating googolplex superpowers, Ultra-Dude will take action. For the moment, he is completely unaware that he is a superhero about to avenge the abomination of Darkness and also the ghastly murder of his mother who was gobbled up by the Hideous Fang Fish twelve centuries ago. Ultra-Dude will wake in a second, and there’s gonna be megadeath. They’ll see! Devil-Raptor will get what’s coming to him when Ultra-Dude zaps him with his dematerializing Starlaser. The battle has only just started. With the help of the Ark of the Covenant and the Sacred Ring, Ultra-Dude will take on the puny enemy minions with his Magic Fire. Agent X275 signing off.

  9:12

  “Les plantes sont plus aware que les autres species;” “Manger des cacahuétes, it’s a really strong feeling.” I like Franglais; it’s the language of the future. A book celebrating it has just been published: an anthology of quotations by Hollywood-based Belgian kickboxer-cum-actor, Jean-Claude Van Damme. “La drogue c’est comme quand tu close your eyes;” “Un biscuit ça n’a pas de spirit.” In 2050, everyone will speakera like Jean-Claude Van Damme, hero of Replicant. “Mourir, c’est vraiment strong.” “Personne n’est right or wrong.” Young people holed up in their audiovisual loft spaces have taken up the adroit path of the Belgian cyborg quite spontaneously: “Je suis pas trés free du body,” “Moi je dis yes à la life,” “Est-ce que tu kiffes la night?” “Je navigue au feeling.” We shouldn’t be afraid of English words. They are calmly integrated into our own in order to create a global language, one which defies God: the single language of Babel.
Les words du world. The lexicon of text-messaging (“C U L8R”), Internet emoticons , the rise of phonetic spelling and slang, all of this contributes to creating the novspeak of the third millennium. Anyway, whatever. Let’s leave the last word to Jean-Claude Van Damme: “A single language, a single currency, and no religion, and everyone would be better off. But we’re not here to talk politics.”

  I also love lots of disgusting American things like vanilla Coke, peanut butter, cheesecake, onion rings, garlic butter, chicken wings, root beer.

  Above all, I love Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy. Our fathers all wanted to be like him. It’s important to understand what happened to our parents’ generation in the sixties with every filthy rich guy thinking he was Hugh Hefner. His vast orgy-filled mansion, his private jet, transformed twentieth-century masculinity. To be a modern man in the sixties was to be a womanizer. The new Don Juan had to drive a fast car, smoke American cigarettes, lounge around turquoise swimming pools surrounded by big-breasted blondes in bikinis. Nowadays, that type of masculinity has become obsolete. There’s nothing sleazier that a playboy in a nightclub; in fact, that desperate attempt at seduction is precisely what marks a man out as old, no matter how many face lifts he’s had. Mademoiselle, if a guy with graying temples and a playboy shtick hits on you, he must be at least seventy since he’s stuck in the thirty-five-year-old time warp from the year he turned thirty-five.

  In the America of the sixties and seventies, the playboy was a superman. Any self-respecting man had to come on like Tom Jones, Gunter Sachs, Porfirio Rubirosa, Malko Linge, Julio Iglesias, Kurt Jürgens, Roger Moore, Roger Vadim, Warren Beatty, Burt Reynolds. You had to wear your shirt open with a lot of chest hair peeking out. You had to pick up a different girl every night at all costs. You had to be tanned all year round. Everything that today, in the noughties, is the height of the passe, the pathetic, was an absolute must. In France, Eddie Barclay and Sasha Distel, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Philippe Junot were the true icons of the middle classes, much more than hippies and rock stars. Add to this the arrival of the contraceptive pill, relaxed divorce laws, the feminist revolution, the sexual revolution, and you get the INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY: “the man without seriousness” described by psychiatrist Charles Melman, the man who must “have pleasure at any price.” What had happened? Freedom had killed off marriage and the family, couples, and children. Faithfulness had become a concept that was reactionary, impossible, inhuman. In this new world, love was a three-year thing, max. Nowadays, the INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY lives on. He lurks within each of us; he has been inexorably absorbed by every man. The INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY is single because he refuses to be tied down. He changes nationality every other week. He lives alone and dies alone. He has no friends, only a few urbane, professional acquaintances. He speaks Franglais. When he goes out, it’s to hunt bimbo (in French, “pétasse”). In the early days, when he is rich and handsome, he seduces shallow women. Later, when he is not as rich and not as handsome, he will pay prostitutes to escort him. He never looks for love, only for pleasure. He loves no one, especially not himself, because he refuses to suffer and does not want to risk losing face. The INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY takes his champagne showers in Saint-Tropez, hits on venal women in hotel bars, winds up in swingers clubs with some rented creature. Of course, he’s kitsch (in France, Jean-Pierre Marielle has often parodied him; in the United States, Mike Myers did so in Austin Powers), but he paves the way for twenty-first-century mutant man: doped up on Viagra until he drops dead. His embarrassing behavior, his feet sockless in his moccasins to stay young, the INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY poses serious questions: What use is love in a civilization based on desire? Why burden yourself with a family if freedom is the ultimate principle? What is the purpose of morality in a hedonistic society? If God is dead, then the whole world is a brothel and the only thing to do is make the most of it until you buy the farm. If the individual is king, then only selfishness makes sense. And if the father is no longer the sole figure of authority, then the only thing which limits violence in a materialistic democracy is the police.

  9:13

  “The only thing standing between me and greatness is me…”

  Woody Allen

  Below us: Glass doors, plants, colonnades, polished parquet floors, lamps with white lampshades of extraordinary sophistication…Polished wooden balustrades, fawn leather benches, an ocher bar…

  Above us: Helicopters whirling like aluminum hornets, a column of smoke extending the tower to 2,000 feet.

  Us: Trembling humans huddled round a locked door surrounded by machines, pipes, deafened by the noise of the supercharged pumps and the hydraulic generators.

  I look at Jerry. From this angle, he looks a lot like me. Lucky for David, he looks less like me. But I clearly reproduced; it’s undeniable. And then got the hell out of there in a hurry. If society offers you the choice of listening to a baby screaming or going to a party without your wife, it’s hardly surprising that there are more and more single mothers in the West. I know exactly what Jerry thinks of me because he told me. He thinks I’m James Bond: the sort of guy who sleeps with every girl he meets.

  David, on the other hand, thinks I’m some sort of superhero:

  “Hey, Dad, you know you don’t have to keep hiding your superpowers.”

  The advantage of hitting on different girls all the time is that you can always use the same lines. It’s very relaxing.

  Jeffrey shows me a bottle of 1929 Haut-Brion.

  “Hey, we might as well drink it. I found a case of the stuff in the corridor. I don’t see why we should deprive ourselves. I gave the rest of the bottles to my group!”

  “Careful not to mix it with the pills…”

  “What the hell! Come on! Enjoy!”

  Jeffrey uncorks the grand cru français and chugalugs straight from the bottle.

  “Wow. It needs time to breathe, but it’s nectar…”

  “I think we all need time to breathe,” says Anthony. “Where’d you get that bottle?”

  “Relax, I’m just borrowing it, the company will pick up the tab. Don’t worry, be happy…”

  I drink from the bottle. The antique purple liquor which dates from the crash of ‘29 trickles down my throat like a last caress, a devil’s kiss. It would be wrong to refuse, it’s comforting. I proffer the bottle to Anthony, who shakes his head.

  “No thanks. I don’t do alcohol, I’m a practicing Muslim.”

  “Fuck! And I’m Jewish,” shouts Jeffrey grabbing the bottle of Haut-Brion and pouring the wine into his open mouth. “So you’re trying to kill all of us. You happy with what your buddies have done here?”

  “Come on! We don’t know who did this. It could have been anybody.”

  “Aw, come off it, suicide bombers is your thing. You blow yourself up in some pizza joint and Allah rewards you.”

  Anthony gets angry.

  “Fucksake, I’m a Muslim, not a fanatic, gimme a break, man.”

  “Take it easy, Tony,” I say, grabbing the bottle from Jeffrey. “He’s been mixing alcohol and tranquilizers, he’s losing it, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, I’m losing it all right,” say Jeffrey, “I’m must be losing it ‘cause I’m just some faggot, right? Like I’m the one crashing planes into buildings and butchering innocent people just to wipe out the state of Israel?”

  Oh shit. I take another big swig of 1929 Haut-Brion before wading in as Boutros Boutros.

  “Look, I’m Christian, he’s Muslim, you’re Jewish, which means we all believe in the same God, okay? Now calm down. Best thing we can do is pray in our three religions, that way God’s three times more likely to listen and open this fucking door!”

  Wine is the answer to religious conflict. Anthony should try some. He sits down again and starts punching numbers into his cellphone. Jeffrey chugs the wine and chuckles. “It’s not even kosher!”

  Jerry laughs, so do I. David’s still daydreaming. Lourdes is still leaning out the window. I’d like to tell you a bunch of crazy
action-packed anecdotes full of twists and surprises, but the truth is: nothing happened. We waited for someone to come for us and nobody came. It smelled of burning carpet and the Mars bars melting in the vending machines down below in the belly of the beast.

  9:14

  I’m really pissed at the guy who invented the office parachute for not inventing it until after the tragedy. It’s not as though it’s complicated: couldn’t you have thought of it sooner, asshole? I would have loved to see hundreds of men and women hurling themselves into space, backpacks on, parachutes unfurling over the WTC Plaza. I would have liked to see them glide through the air, defying gravity and terrorists, set down on the concrete, fall into the arms of the firefighters.

  Same goes for the architects who decided to stop putting external fire escapes on buildings. There’s one on every building in New York, except those with too many floors: in other words, the very buildings that need them most. It would look ugly on a skyscraper? Beware: design kills. Was a 110-story external staircase so inconceivable?