The Age of Reinvention (22 page)

Barely had he gotten back home before he began throwing away all the things she had left behind, all the presents she had given him: the red leather diary, a silver pen, the statuette she bought in an antiques store with one of her modeling fees, and any little sign of love—words scrawled on a paper napkin, postcards, letters, charms—that he had, until this point, kept as if they were treasures. Then, one by one, he removed from his library every single book that reminded him of her: there were more than thirty of them. He began the mourning process that evening. He respected all the rites: He tore his shirt, slept on the floor. His evening meal was two hard-boiled eggs dipped in salty water. He covered all the mirrors with white sheets so he wouldn't have to see his reflection anymore. He stopped shaving. He stopped listening to music. He stopped washing. He recited the Kaddish for a dead love.

The realization of a happiness that, for Samir, had long seemed impossible. The possibility of a new beginning, of a rebirth. The possibility of being in love again. The ability to push back the deadline, refuse the inevitable, reject social conformism, to reinvent his existence by living in a different way, with a different woman, in different places: it was conceivable, it was “reasonable.” (“Life is not a rehearsal,” he told a friend once. “There are no second chances. This seems obvious, I know, but most people forget about it; they don't live that way.”) At forty, he felt as if he had not only achieved his objectives—those determined by society and those he set himself during different stages of his life: adolescent hopes, adult dreams, modest or wild ambitions—but actually gone beyond them. He may have wanted to be a lawyer, but he hadn't imagined being one of the most influential members of that profession in New York. He may have hoped to marry a charming, well-educated woman from a richer background than his own, but he hadn't imagined seducing the daughter of one of the most powerful men in America, a girl who was both beautiful and brilliant. He may often have dreamed of starting a family, but never had he dared to imagine one like this: two perfect children, good-looking, well mannered, extremely intelligent, and already—at only four or five years old—with a highly developed social sense. Thanks to a favorable conjunction of disparate elements—good luck, hard work, influential friends, and his own audacity—he had possessed and experienced everything. What do you give to the man who has more than he can consume? The one thing missing from his life. The essential thing. The love of the woman he loved most in the world. And now he had it—he had conquered her.

He has never been as happy as he is now, with Nina. Everything seems extremely simple to him, as if people and events are moving forward calmly, in the right direction, without any danger or risk. He loves her; he is mad about her—and this is new for Samir, who has never been able to feel anything for anyone. It's new, and that explains why he does not obey the will of Berman. It also explains why he lets his guard down. He's no longer as careful as he was. He knows this could be fatal, but he tries not to think about it. He risks losing his wife, his position at the firm, but that is the price he pays for living life so intensely. It's the price he pays for enjoying this sexual tension—naturally, without any effort, without any artificiality—this quasi-animalistic communion whose workings are mysterious to him. People can tell him that it's ephemeral, that it won't last, that he is taking crazy risks for a passion that will fade in the end, but it makes no difference—he dives in anyway. He is possessed by her, haunted by her body, and all he wants is to be with her, inside her. With Nina, there is no need for cunning or the contrived creation of exciting situations. He thinks about her and he is excited. He looks at her and he desires her. It's automatic. Sometimes he can hardly believe that she is with him, that she has given up everything for him, and that all he has to do in order to see her is cross a few streets or make a phone call. He has never had any difficulty recognizing that the one quality he values above all others in a woman is her sexual availability. And with Nina, he has exactly what he wants. Not that she is especially submissive—she is not one of those docile types, brought up to believe that a woman's role is to satisfy her man (her father was not that reactionary)—but she has no problem with sex. She has no problem with orgasm. Does she have a problem with seduction, predation, social relationships? Yes, absolutely. She can't stand being hit on/hassled/wolf-whistled in the street or at work or wherever else she goes. But in a bed, with a man she loves and desires, she has no inhibitions. And this is what unites them: this sexual intimacy, this genuinely joyous complicity. When Samir is with her, he does not feel responsible for anything—she is every bit as willing as he is. Guilt? What guilt? All they are doing is beginning again after their love was broken by emotional blackmail, by forces beyond their control, a kind of fatalism to which he had grown used—perhaps the time simply wasn't right then. But now, he feels certain, there are no longer any obstacles to the course of their true love. What kind of life would they have now if Nina had stayed with him back then? He probably would never have gone to Montpellier, but he would have faced the same discrimination when he applied for work. Perhaps in the end he would have capitulated, would have settled for a lowly position in a two-bit law firm. By now they might well have divorced. But he no longer wants to think about those dark times. It's all in the
past
. Remaining anchored in reality, living the present moment with intensity—this is what has meaning for him, and he surprises her, takes her on trips, responds to her every desire. With him, he thinks, she is no longer afraid, submissive, deprived. With him, she is able to shine: people notice her, she is the center of attention. And at last, what had always been his greatest fear has come true—this man who made discretion his watchword, who lived life in the shadows, now, on the arm of such a beautiful woman, is himself the center of attention.

Alcohol. From the moment he wakes, there's a bottle close at hand. Nothing else can liquefy this concrete block, this dead body lying inside his head. In alcohol, it dissolves a little, becomes more bearable. Samuel feels the warm slide of its effects, lying on his bed or standing at a bar or, sometimes, underground, in a basement, lining up with all the other sheep to buy some hash or coke, just enough to keep him going for another five or six hours. He quickly moves on to harder drugs that explode in his head, finally giving him the energy, the power that he needs. It works on paper and in ink too, this explosion: for the first time, he feels as if he is writing something worthwhile. He's better, he thinks, than all those pen pushers who have never known violence, deprivation, that fear in the gut, that dread of going out, the possibility of murder, the taste of blood and iron, all those innocents who don't know what it is to be woken in the middle of the night by gunshots, a kid moaning, a siren screaming, by neighbors fighting/running/crying, while he has seen everything—poverty/shit/death—and nothing can scare him now. He's mired in it, and he feels good. He wouldn't change places with anyone now. He's at home in this hole, where one day he will die, a broken man. He sits at his desk, writing so fast it feels as if he's sitting on a rocket, speeding, driving drunk, close to crashing at every turn, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but the words unfolding inside his head, spending his days and nights writing, on the verge of collapse, his body tense, heart pounding, pupils dilated, mouth dry, no longer eating. He can't even look in a mirror anymore: his reflection horrifies him. He doesn't wash, scratches himself till he bleeds. All his clothes are too big for him. But he still has enough strength to take more coke, and that keeps him going. He's in danger—he might die, might never return from this edge—but he's not afraid. What he wants, now, is to write about reality, his reality: this solitude, this suffering, this misery, this isolation, this social leprosy imposed by the government, encouraged by the government. And those men and women in power, cut off from the rest of us. It would take him an hour on public transport to reach the capital and set fire to it. They've given up on us. And he thinks: It's all true. He's not inventing anything. This great social novel is his life. He writes with a line by Hemingway in mind: “A true writer . . . should always try for something that has never been done, or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.” All these years, there had been a terrible distortion between what he wanted to write and what he wrote, as if, when committed to paper, the most powerful thoughts became banal phrases and each word seemed badly formulated, each comma and period in the wrong place, and he would rewrite endlessly without ever finding that perfect match between his thought and its expression. And it was only now, at forty years old, after losing Nina, that he suddenly felt in full possession of his abilities, his intention meshing precisely with his ambition.

He works, and only ever leaves the apartment to get his fix. Maybe he should kill himself. His situation is drastic. As the door bangs shut behind him, he feels his strength leave him. His legs give way—this is happening more and more, it needs to stop—and his fingers tremble too as he holds on to the wall, pressing against it so he doesn't fall. On the landing across from his, a twelve-year-old kid smokes and watches him, not lifting a finger to help him. He's keeping watch, sitting on a shaky old chair like a curator in a museum—he'll be there all night. He supports his family by doing this. Fifty euros a night, in cash. Samuel walks downstairs—the elevator's out of order. And it will stay that way. Like this, the cops have to take the stairs, their boots scraping loudly against the enamel tiles of the steps—it's Us—their handcuffs clinking as they shake from their belts, so loud you can hear it upstairs—it's Us—their walkie-talkies crackling and hissing as they talk to the support on the ground—it's Us, we've got the situation covered—and by the time they arrive, there is nothing left: it's all been stashed, hidden, thrown away. The babysitter's looking after it. She's a young widow, three young kids to look after. Her husband was shot and killed in a parking lot nearby—three bullets in the chest—and now she's under the protection of a gang leader. What choice does she have? She hides the drugs in the baby's clothes, sometimes in the cloth diapers that she uses to save money—she couldn't give a shit about saving the planet. They say hello and goodbye to her; everyone does what they can. On the eighth floor, it's like a hurdle race, with iron barriers blocking access to the higher floors. It takes him a good fifteen minutes to force his way through, and when he finally reaches the ground floor, when he leaves the building and walks toward the median strip ablaze with light, he is hit in the head with a bag of shit. He should wear a diaper on his head. He walks on, stinking of excrement. He doesn't even yell or get mad—he's used to it. And he knows tomorrow will be just the same.

Chêne Pointu—“Pointed Oak”—is the name of a housing estate in Clichy-sous-Bois. It's a picturesque name, but the estate doesn't really live up to it. No one ever comes to visit him here anymore—it's “too dangerous.” It is a no-man's-land that reeks of death/sex/money, but it is swarming, it is alive. He takes the stairs down to the basement and walks past jeering kids, scurrying rats, dealers, and whores. He knows where he's going, but when he reaches his dealer, he collapses. He needs a fix but he has no cash. Please, please, he'll pay tomorrow, he promises, swears on his parents' graves, swears on his own life and his unborn children's, then goes home, the same way he came, takes an Ecstasy pill, and writes until the middle of the night, feeling like the king of the world.

Two days later, his door is smashed down. Armed men enter his apartment and tear it to pieces. They want to be paid. Samuel says he has nothing on him (in reality, he has nothing in the bank either; he has nothing left at all) but they see his laptop and help themselves. Samuel screams, holding on to their legs. The first chapters of his book are in that laptop, in a document entitled
novel 5
, his only copy . . . he'd rather die than let them take it. The two guys punch him in the face, take his laptop, and tell him he can have it back when he's brought them their money, plus interest payments—
You have twenty-four hours, you piece of shit
. They leave him in a pool of his own blood, like roadkill, his face swollen and one tooth missing. And here it is, at last—he's reached rock-bottom.

Samir knows exactly when it began—the moment when everything imploded and confusion reigned, a confusion so total, arbitrary, and definitive that he could no longer distinguish anything, his brain fogged, his vision blurred, anxiety choking him, absolute chaos. It happened about three weeks after Nina arrived in New York. He remembers precisely how his life began to disintegrate. All it took was one sentence, pronounced in a gloomy voice by his secretary, one Monday morning, about ten a.m., and his smooth world—a world made smooth by years of lies and sordid compromises, of social constructs created by his imagination and his vaulting ambition—started to creak and then collapse. One sentence—“Your brother is waiting for you in your office”—and he was suddenly outside Eden. His brother? What brother? He had no brother, had never had a brother.
I don't have any family—you know that
. Yes, she knows. She almost laughs as she explains that this man—who introduced himself as his brother but did not have the same surname (“François Yahyaoui—does that ring any bells?”)—announced that he was looking for “Samir Tahar.”
That's not me
. She knows it's not him, and asks if she should inform Berman. A man comes to his office, without an appointment, claiming to be his brother—he might be a madman or a pervert or something. Is he dangerous? Armed? “He wasn't very clear, if you see what I mean. The guys in the lobby downstairs let him right up when he said he was your brother. Should I call security?” A surge of dread. “No, don't call anyone, I'll deal with it myself.” Anxiety grips him: he thinks of Nina, of his wife, and imagines the worst. François is not the kind of man who can be controlled, hushed up: he might kick up a fuss, cause a scene. His face creases into a smile that looks more like a grimace. He feels hot. He can hardly breathe. His brother in New York—this is a possibility he never even considered. He never gave him his address or invited him over. He has always been wary of social networks. And he hates him—
really
hates him—a repulsion that is almost physical and that goes back years. And yet he keeps on walking, moving toward the room at the end of a narrow corridor lit by a geometrically perfect sequence of warm yellow spotlights. Berman's office is only a few yards away: he might appear at any moment and ask, “What's going on?” Samir pushes down gently on the door handle—it's slippery in his sweat-gloved hands—then opens the door and sees him: François, his brother.