The Age of Reinvention (26 page)

It takes Pierre Lévy a few seconds to react. Although he is overwhelmed by Samir's lie (and he tells him: it's a “monstrous betrayal”), he does feel responsible for the nightmare in which his friend is now trapped: it was he, after all, who first mistook him for a Jew and presented him to others as such. In some way, he was the trigger for this hoax, but he would like to understand why Samir didn't tell him the truth earlier.
Impossible!
Doesn't he understand? The lie grew every day, nurtured and fed by his imagination, becoming a social construction, something solid and real to which he added new elements constantly as if to convince himself that his initial decision was the right one. His life was a complete fabrication! How on earth could he put an end to it?

“What choice did I have? If I'd told you the truth back then, you'd have fired me!”

“No . . . of course I wouldn't. What do you take me for? I think I would have tried to understand what had made you lie to me.”

“Bullshit. I'd have been out on my ass! And, just like all the others, you would never have interviewed me in the first place if you'd known I was an Arab.”

Pierre is silent for a few moments. He detests this sort of attitude:
I'm a victim
. He got to where he is today without any help, through hard work and determination, and he does not accept Samir's defense—and tells him so brusquely. He swallows a few mouthfuls of wine and puts down his glass extremely slowly. “You want to know what I really think?” Samir nods.

“You talk like a failure. Your mentality is defeatist. This way of thinking, of seeing the world . . . it's narrow-minded, small-minded. If you follow that logic, then we are perpetually doomed to being a victim of our origins, our background, our education. And that's not true. Succeeding in life is a question of determination and desire. It's a question of opportunities, meetings, seizing your chance. I am certain of this, and I will go further: I am the living proof of it. A door slams shut in your face? Knock on another one. And if worse comes to worst, you smash it down.”

“I sent my CV to dozens of firms, and I never even got a single interview. You think that's normal? Do you seriously refuse to recognize that there is a real discrimination problem?”

“I recognize that there is real discrimination, but I think it's social, not racial. Maybe your address led to you not being interviewed, but not your name . . .”

“You only say that because you've never had to deal with it yourself!”

“Oh, I've had my share of humiliations as a Jew, believe me. Segregation, exclusion . . . I've experienced those things. You think I wasn't called a “filthy Jew” in school? You think I never got dumped by a girl because she discovered I was Jewish? You think I never heard the worst anti-Semitic clichés from people I considered my closest friends? Oh, and I think I've lost opportunities because of my name too. We've all been there . . .”

“You're just telling me anecdotes. I'm talking about integration, access to employment. I'm talking about organized humiliation across an entire society!”

“You want to know the brutal truth? The kind of thing no one ever says publicly because they don't want to disturb the peace? The truth is that Arabs feel humiliated and Jews feel persecuted. The truth is that Arabs still react as if they are being colonized, oppressed, and the Jews as if they are still at risk of being exterminated. Each group has to come to terms with that, and sometimes that leads to a kind of competitive victimism: Who has suffered the most? Who is suffering the most? Who's got the highest death toll? Who's the oppressor and who's the victim? We are! No, we are! It's pitiful, pathetic. It depresses me. It depresses me to exist only through this prism of martyrdom, this contest where the weakest are the winners. Did you really feel so discriminated against? You passed all your exams, didn't you? You were top of your class, in fact—you told me so yourself. Maybe, once or twice, you had a teacher who was harder on you in the oral exam because he had racial prejudices, but so what? Anyone can face that kind of situation. The son of a rich bourgeois family who turns up to the exam wearing thousand-euro shoes and a luxury watch might also receive a bad grade just because someone takes exception to his appearance. You see what I mean? It was paranoia that led you to lie about your identity . . .”

“You think
I'm
paranoid? What about the Jews? As soon as they're subjected to any kind of criticism, as soon as they feel unloved, wronged, slighted, they accuse you of anti-Semitism! You dare say a word against Israel, and you're labeled an anti-Semite. Fail an oral exam? The examiner must be anti-Semitic. Job interview goes badly? Anti-Semitism, what else? Come on, we all know the routine—even my own kids know it. Their mother taught it to them. It's obsessive with Jews, this fear of not being loved, not being accepted. Jews never think inwardly, never examine their own conscience, because they're too busy accusing everyone else! But if an Arab says he's suffered racism, that he's been targeted because of the color of his skin, discriminated against because of his name, then he's a whiner, he's exaggerating, he's playing the victim, he's failed to integrate,
it's all his fault
, he should go back where he came from, or where his parents came from, or he should change his name . . . which is what I ended up doing. I'm not paranoid, believe me. I know what I'm talking about. I sent my CV to more than fifty firms and didn't get a single interview, but as soon as I changed my name from Samir to Sam, I suddenly became interesting, intelligent, someone worth listening to, someone whose opinions were worthwhile . . . I became
visible
! Dropping the last two letters of my first name gave me a legitimacy that my skills and my qualifications somehow failed to give me. Can you believe it? In this day and age! In a democracy! Ha! The number of times I've been asked to show my ID, or I've been stopped while driving for a ‘routine check' . . . it's become a joke among my friends. But my wife doesn't find it funny, not at all. It drives her crazy that people might think her husband is an Arab. Although admittedly I get stopped a lot less often when I'm driving my Aston Martin, that's for sure! Come on, Pierre, admit it—you hired me because you thought I was a Jew! Of course I was competent, I was very well qualified, but you also thought I was one of yours, and that reassured you. It reassured you to work with a Jew. Don't try to deny it. The first thing my partner's son notices when he starts a new class is whether he's the only Jew or not. And if there is another Jew in the class, you can bet your ass that's who he'll become friends with, even if they seem to have nothing else in common. It'll be the Jew he invites to his parents' summerhouse for the weekend, and it'll be the Jews' parents that Berman and his wife end up meeting so they can talk about political power and Jews, about Israel and Iran, about the rise of anti-Semitism and the price of real estate in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv! That's how it is!”

“All right, that's possible. We all seek out our own, but so what? I'm no better or worse than anyone else in that regard . . . But that doesn't alter the attitude I would have had toward you if you'd admitted the truth to me.”

“So you'd have trained me exactly in the way you did? You'd have given me the keys to your office? You'd have paid for my studies in New York and given me control of the branch you wanted to start here? You'd still have been a friend to me, a mentor, if you'd known that I lied about my origins? You remember what you said? ‘You're like a son to me . . .' ”

“I might have felt betrayed, that's true, but I would have tried to understand. How exactly do you see me? You think I'm a sectarian, a racist? Let me remind you that I just hired someone of North African origin . . .”

“Am I supposed to congratulate you?”

“Don't be ridiculous. I chose him for his qualifications, his experience, and the fact that he made a good impression at the interview. Sofiane is a brilliant lawyer. If I hadn't taken him, another big firm would have, believe me! Your problem is that you divide humanity into monolithic groups. The reality is more complex. I'm sure there are lots of employers who wouldn't hire you because you were named Samir, because they had prejudices, in most cases passed on to them by their parents. It's called stupidity, ignorance, and no society, no matter how equitable and just, can ever eliminate those traits. But there are other employers, maybe not as numerous—and it would probably have taken you longer to convince them than it would someone else—but there are other firms who would have trusted you and given you a chance. Maybe it would have taken two or three interviews, maybe you'd have had a temporary contract to begin with, a trial period, but in the end they wouldn't just have hired you, they'd have made you a partner a few years later! How many CVs did you send out? Fifty? And you gave up, when you should have sent out a hundred!”

“I needed that job, so I took it. And I remain convinced that, had I told you the truth back then, you would have gotten rid of me.”

“You're probably right. I wouldn't have kept you on. Not because of the revelation of your identity, but because I would no longer have felt able to trust you.”

At that, Samir puts his forehead on the table and is silent for a few moments.

“I'm screwed, Pierre,” he says finally. “Ruth never knew that I had a brother. She thinks I'm Jewish. If my brother tells her the truth, I will lose everything I've constructed: my family, my career, my social position. I'll be in the street. Do you understand?”

“You're thinking about yourself. But have you thought about her, about your children?”

“Don't rub my nose in it . . .”

“This is important! You knew all about the woman you married: her background, her genealogy. This is a woman whose entire existence is centered around Judaism! How could you marry her, knowing that you could never tell her the truth? You lied to her, you cheated her, and you shouldn't act as if it doesn't matter. It's serious.”

“What bothers you is that an Arab seduced a Jew and had two children with her. Isn't it? Admit it!”

“Don't talk nonsense! What bothers me—what horrifies me—is that a man could not only lie to his wife, but raise his children in denial of their true identity. That is unforgivable.”

“What denial? My children are Jewish. They were raised as Jews. They even took their mother's name. From that point of view, I lost out completely . . .”

“You denied them part of their identity.”

“What does that matter?”

“It doesn't matter, as long as they don't find out. But what if your brother tells them everything? Imagine the shock, the trauma they will suffer . . .”

“So you acknowledge that they won't be able to bear it if they discover I'm a Muslim?”

“Sami, be realistic! You married Rahm Berg's daughter! A man whose father fought for Irgun! You told me that yourself. What do you think? You think they'll be happy when they find out the truth? You think they'll smile and give you a big hug and everything will be fine? You lied to them, Sami. And now you have to tell them everything. No matter how hard it is. No matter how much you have to lose . . .”

“Never.”

“There's a Yiddish proverb about this,” Pierre says. “You can go a long way with a lie, but you can never go back.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You must admit the truth! They'll find out sooner or later.”

“Never. Do you hear me? Never!”

“What about your brother? You think he won't tell them?”

“That's why I came to see you—because I need your help! I need you to advise me, not judge me!”

“All right, listen to me. You don't say anything for the moment, but you try to distance your brother.”

“How?”

“What do you think he wants from you?”

“Money. I was planning to ask him how much he wants to leave me alone.”

“Fine. The problem with money is that he'll always come back wanting more. And what do you do then?”

“I don't know.”

“Think strategically! What you want is for him to go away. Money is not enough to keep him at a distance. You have to give him something else that he wants. Your attention, your affection. Be a brother to him and he'll stop being a problem in your life.”

“You think so?”

“Just trust me, for once.”

The next day, Samir invites François to lunch, as an act of contrition. He tells him that he
sincerely
regrets the way he has behaved toward him since his arrival in New York. He regrets having been so offhand, regrets not having tried to understand his motivations, regrets the distance he has kept between them, this climate of tension and suspicion he has created. He acknowledges that François came with the laudable intention of making peace between them, and that he has responded only with a declaration of war. He regrets not having acted
like a brother
. “I should have welcomed you into my home, made you one of the family. Instead of which I have only tried to push you away, as if you were some sort of threat. And that's wrong, because I used to protect you when you were a child, I used to look after you when Mom went out to work.” So yes, he's playing the “brotherly love” card this time. The aggressive, offensive approach doesn't work with a man raised by a fragile mother and no father. So yes, he is going to appeal to his feelings in the hope of persuading him to return to France, and the first thing he does in this cheap Indonesian restaurant—a quiet, out-of-the-way place where he is certain not to run into anyone of his acquaintance—is tell him that he's been thinking and he's decided he wants to help him, wants to take an interest in him:
I want to know EVERYTHING
. And he manages to coax him: François blinks nervously, somewhat embarrassed. Clearly he is not the armed robber his mother imagines. Sure, he might have dealt drugs a few times. Sure, he looked after the weapons as a favor to one of his friends, to earn a few euros, but he probably doesn't even know how to release the safety catch. He's a harmless kid, basically, a little hoodlum. A hothead, yeah, but he wouldn't really hurt anyone. The kind of guy who can be manipulative and aggressive when he feels threatened/under attack/confused, but nothing more than that. In any kind of duel with his big brother, he would lose every time, because he doesn't have the charisma, the perverse intelligence, the cerebral gifts conferred by a good education, by the assimilation of the most complex social codes. He's not bad, just simple and unsophisticated. At worst, he can be like a bull with a red rag—and, consequently, a little dangerous—but master him and he will submit. Tame him, and he'll be eating out of your hand. Nothing can hide his lack of depth. Hearing Samir's words, he becomes more trusting. And, soon afterward, as if making a police statement after being mugged in the street, he says: “All right, I'll tell you everything.”