The Age of Reinvention (20 page)

“I'm not here to make trouble, I'm here to help you. If you have problems, I—”

“Since when did you give a shit about me?”

“I would do anything to make Mom happy. And I know she's worried about you. Why don't you have a job?”

“Can't find one.”

“What kind of jobs have you looked at?”

“A bit of everything . . . security, mechanics . . . it's okay for a week or two, but no longer than that. And the pay is shit. I'm sick of busting my ass for peanuts.”

“You won't achieve anything unless you put in some effort.”

“Have you come here to preach? It's easy for you to talk. Look at you—you've been lucky!”

“I made my own luck! No one gave it to me.”

“You've got all the cash you want . . .”

“That's not true. And I work damn hard for it.”

“Oh, give me a break. Poor little rich guy . . .”

“If you have problems, I can help you. But you have to promise not to do anything stupid from now on and not to let Mom get mixed up in your business.”

“You know what? Fuck you! You're not my father!”

“Obviously not, because he wouldn't deign to set foot in here!”

As soon as these words are out of his mouth, he regrets speaking them. François gives him a look of the purest hatred and screams: “Get out now! Get out, you jerk!”

Samir picks up his jacket and tie and leaves the room. François has put the same song back on, and the rapper's yells pierce the walls—
Filthy whore! Filthy whore!
In the hallway, he stands for a few seconds in front of a photograph of François in kindergarten: with his shock of strawberry-blond hair, his big blue eyes, and his gap-toothed smile, he looks like one of those models in magazines for children. His mother is in the kitchen: he can hear her clearing the table. When he reaches the front door, Samir opens his wallet and takes out a wad of bills. He places them on the chest of drawers, next to a framed photograph of his father.
Filthy whore!
“Mom, I'm leaving now,” he says, embarrassed. And, seeing the crumpled bills, he feels ashamed. He has done this hundreds of times, and it always feels wrong: he shouldn't leave the cash like that, without a note or a card, not even in an envelope. It's twisted, perverted, and it infuriates his mother. She doesn't ask him for anything—
Filthy whore!
—she can manage on her retirement pension, she doesn't need much money, and she starts to protest: she doesn't want this money, it's too much, “Keep it!” He loses his temper: “Enough, Mom! Just stop. I have to go.” He only realizes how brutally he has spoken those words as he hurtles down the stairs, running away like a criminal, like a man pursued by gunfire, the explosive rhythm echoing under his footfalls—
Filthy whore!
—hearing the words of the song played by his brother as if they were aimed at him.

1
. Jacques Duval, fifty-four, has been working at the hotel for thirty years. His father was concierge at the Ritz. He has become “exactly” what he wanted to be.

Nina no longer feels any desire to talk to Samuel. She goes out of her way to avoid him. She can't stand the way he thinks anymore, the way he lives, his character, his personality. She's had enough. Enough of this resignation, this constitutional weakness that makes him take on the role of failure, this desire to be a victim that is fostered by writing. Enough of this apartment where nothing is ever achieved, where doubt and fear overshadow everything. Enough of this relationship based on coercion, this absence of love/desire/common interests. Enough of being incarcerated, circling their cage like lab rats with nothing to eat but each other.

She cannot go back to her old life, the way it was before Samir, enmeshed in this dreary, despairing routine, and she is seized with anguish at the thought that she might end her life here, in this commuter town where hundreds of people swallow handfuls of antidepressants, hoping they will let them cope better/bear the horror of daily existence/the economic and social nightmare. But such hopes are groundless, because nothing will ever change here. Nina surveys the future like a fortune-teller, but all she sees is a terrifying darkness, a vision of horror: everything is converging toward misery, toward the loss of her looks, her only possession, the only thing that has kept her going until now. And she blames Samuel then, hates him. If she feels this way, it's because of him, his lack of ambition, his neuroses. “You're a little man, that's what you are,” she tells him. “You're too easily satisfied, you never aspired to anything, you have no dreams, and you will end up the way you began—a mediocrity. I look at you now and I feel no admiration, no respect. In fact, what I feel sometimes is disgust.” Samuel listens to this and does not contradict her. He does not mention the previous day's argument—cowardly/weak/given up the fight. He acts as if nothing has occurred to trouble their peaceful existence. He plays dead, withdrawn into himself, shoulders hunched, a man trying to disappear, aspiring to nonexistence. If he speaks, if he provokes her, he will lose her—he can sense it—and the idea of losing her is unbearable. It sickens him to think that she is so corruptible, that all it would take is one word and she would leave. So he's decided to wait. Samir will return to New York, and he'll never call her again. He'll find someone better, younger, and they will forget him . . . eventually. Today, Samuel goes off to work, telling Nina he loves her. But what's the point? She doesn't react. She watches him move away and thinks:
I don't love him anymore
. Finally, she is alone. What choice does she have? She knows she can no longer bear this sparkless routine, this (so she convinces herself) loveless existence. She can no longer bear the thought of him touching her, talking to her. It's over. She's wearing shorts and a tank top and she glimpses her reflection in the long hallway mirror. Is that really her, that beautiful, firm-breasted, voluptuous woman? She undresses—she wants to see herself naked, in the dazzling sunlight that filters through the slats of the blinds. She lets down her hair, surprises herself. She has lost the habit of looking at herself in a mirror. Once, in a magazine, she read Brigitte Bardot's advice to a young actress: “When you enter a room, lift your head and act as if you want to sleep with every man there. You are the most beautiful woman in the world. Enjoy it—it won't last.” This is what she does now—stands up tall and proud—and at that very second, the telephone rings. It's Samir: he wants to see her again; he needs her; come right away; he misses her so much. She laughs: “You called just as I was getting undressed. I'm naked.” “Don't say things like that, seriously. You could kill me with those two words. Are you really naked?” “Yes.” “All right, listen to me carefully. You're going to put on a dress, but nothing underneath—do you hear me? And you're going to take a cab over here to see me.” “What if I refuse?” “You can't refuse me anything.” Without warning, she hangs up. He calls her back, but she doesn't reply. He leaves her several messages—she's driving him crazy, he's so turned on, he wants her. He tries to calm down, but it's impossible. He calls her again, and again, and again. He feels like he's falling to pieces. He takes a shower, drinks a glass of whiskey. Where is she? And then, an hour later, there's a knock at the door. He rushes over, opens it, and there she is, her body sheathed inside a cotton dress with snaps running up the front. He pulls her to him—“I thought I was going to die”—then, pressing his body against hers: “I'm going to have to punish you for that.” He kisses her, holds her tightly, breathing in the scent of her hair, and then he takes her to bed and lies down next to her. Her dress is undone in an instant, and his hand is touching her bare hip. He pulls her roughly toward him—he likes brutality, enjoys violence—pins her to the mattress, and fucks her in a way that will make her understand he's the one in control, that he is her savior.

She is lying on top of him. Her tongue teases his, then moves down his neck. Her fingertips caress his scar. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got this?” He pushes her back a little. “What is it? Tell me . . .” He holds her gently by the shoulders: “Do you really want to know?” Nina nods. “It's violent. You might be traumatized,” he says sarcastically. Instantly she replies: “I like your scar. It makes you seem more manly, it—” “Stop!” He frees himself from her embrace and sits up, hands behind his head as if trying to encourage himself. “This is the first time I've ever told anyone about it. Usually I just say that I was defending a woman who was being attacked in the street and I got stabbed—the heroic version, you know. People are always impressed by that . . . It's not true, of course. It didn't happen like that at all. I was fifteen. My mother asks me to take a suitcase down to the basement. She doesn't want me to go alone—no one likes going down to the basement. It's filthy and there are always guys smoking down there, dealing drugs. So she asks the night watchman's son to go with me—she sees him as someone who can protect me. In fact, he's a gang leader, but my mother doesn't know that. Anyway, he tells my mother he'll take care of it . . . We go down the stairs and he asks me if I've ever slept with a girl. I say no. He tells me now's the time. But I don't think it is at all: I have math homework due the next day, I have work to do. I don't want to go with this sick jerk, but he won't take no for an answer and I can tell from the mad look in his eyes that it wouldn't be a good idea to press the issue. We enter a long corridor, a sort of dimly lit tunnel. At the end, there are a dozen guys the same age as me waiting outside a door. I can hear heartrending screams coming from the other side of that door. He grabs my arm and shoves me past all the others, through the door, and into the basement—and there, in the middle of a damp room, on top of a half-broken desk, I see a girl of thirteen being violently fucked by a guy of sixteen, and she's screaming, she's screaming like a wild animal, begging him to stop, telling him it hurts, shouting for help . . . it's horrible, horrible, you can't even imagine. The gang leader tells her to shut it. He pushes away the guy who was fucking her, points to me, and tells the girl: ‘Suck him off.' The girl walks over to me. She's in tears. She kneels in front of me. The guy smacks her in the head and yells: ‘Suck him off!' There's blood pouring from her eyebrow and she's sobbing. And I say I don't want her to. I say: ‘Leave her alone.' One guy starts insulting me, saying I should lose my turn. The guys behind me are getting annoyed. One of them yells that I'll probably go to the cops. The leader says: ‘What are you, a fucking pussy? She's just some slut!' But I don't move. I feel paralyzed by fear and horror. The others are egging him on now, encouraging him to punish me so I'll keep my mouth shut. So he takes out his penknife and he cuts my neck. He says if I ever breathe a word of this, he'll put his knife somewhere else and twist it till I'm dead. I leave. I forget about the suitcase and I run like crazy. I never told anyone about the girl. They were never charged.” “I'm sorry,” Nina whispers. “I had no idea . . .” “I've never been able to forget that girl. She's the reason I became a criminal lawyer—so I would never again find myself in a situation where the victims are unprotected and their abusers go unpunished.”

Nina strokes his hair, almost like a mother. “I had no idea,” she breathes. “You've never talked about it before.” “There are so many things I've never told you.” “I thought I knew everything about you.” Hearing this, Samir turns away from her and says: “No one knows me. And if anyone ever claims they do, they're lying.”

In all romantic relationships there comes a time when you have to find the best way to capture love, to safeguard it in an appropriate framework—an apartment, a marriage. This is an option that leads irretrievably to failure: the lovers know it, everyone knows it. And yet this knowledge does not dissuade anyone from doing it. After a certain amount of time, the lovers want to live together, in spite of the fact that it is precisely because they are not living together that they love each other. Samir and Nina are lying on the unmade bed in bathrobes. They feel good, happy that they are back together. Samir's cell phone rings: it's his wife. He doesn't answer it. He is too afraid of altering the intensity of this moment. Theirs, he knows, is a rare passion. Ruth might call four or five times, it won't make a difference—he's in love, he's crazy. It's dangerous. It's a risk. He feels recklessly free. He tells Nina:
I can't live without you anymore
. But she remains lucid, she calms him down: they have no choice; he will go home to his wife and they will each go back to their own life. She says this coolly while, of course, hoping that the opposite will be true. And it works: Samir becomes even more impassioned.
You don't understand—I love you, I really love you
.

“What I want, you can't offer me. I've just turned forty—I want a child. And you're married. You have a family.”

“So what? I'll leave them.”

“So you say now. But how can I believe you?”

Why does he say that to her? Why suggest something unthinkable when he has already chosen to lead a conventional, perfectly ordered life? His existence is privileged, the kind of life that everyone wants—though only in appearance, because the freedom from financial worries comes at a price: the loss of his true freedom. He is the husband of Ruth Berg. The son-in-law of Rahm Berg. No matter how he might try to forget this or to pretend otherwise, the fact remains: he owes his social position entirely to his wife and her family. Yes, he has forged a successful career on his own, but his entrée into the most exclusive clubs, his meetings with the most influential clients—those who can be approached only through private recommendation—he owes to the Bergs. He might promise Nina a better life where everything will be possible once again, but he's lying.