The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Here we come to the end of the road—that disastrous Friday, December 8, 1995. Ever since beginning this book, I have intended to describe my last moments as a perfectly functioning earthling. But I have put it off so long that now, on the brink of this bungee jump into my past, I feel suddenly dizzy. How can I begin to recall those long futile hours, as elusive as drops of mercury from a broken thermometer? How can I describe waking for the last time, heedless, perhaps a little grumpy, beside the lithe, warm body of a tall, dark-haired woman? Everything that day was gray, muted, resigned: the sky, the people, the city, collective nerves on edge after several days of a transport strike. Like millions of Parisians, our eyes empty and our complexions dull, Florence and I embarked like zombies on a new day of punishment amid the indescribable chaos caused by the strike. I mechanically carried out all those simple acts that today seem miraculous to me: shaving, dressing, downing a hot chocolate. Weeks earlier, I had chosen this day to test the latest model of a German automobile: the importer had put a car and driver at my disposal for the whole day. At the appointed hour, a most businesslike young man was waiting outside, leaning against a gunmetal-gray BMW. Through the apartment window I eyed the big sedan, solid and sleek. I wondered how my old Levi's jacket would look in so sophisticated a vehicle. I pressed my forehead against the windowpane to gauge the temperature outside. Florence softly stroked the nape of my neck. Our farewells were brief, our lips scarcely brushing together. I am already running down stairs that smell of floor polish. It will be the last of the smells of my past.

I read the news today, oh boy…

Between crisis-fraught traffic reports, the radio plays a Beatles song, "A Day in the Life." Crossing the Bois de Boulogne, the BMW glides like a flying carpet, a private world of luxury and comfort. My driver is pleasant. I tell him of my plans for the afternoon: to pick up my son from his mother's place, twenty-five miles outside Paris, and bring him back to the city in early evening.

He didn't notice that the lights had changed…

Théophile and I have not had a heart-to-heart talk, a man-to-man exchange, since I moved out of the family home in July. I plan to take him to the theater to see the new Philippe Arias play, then to eat oysters at a restaurant on Place Clichy. It's all set: we are spending the weekend together. I only hope the strike will not frustrate our plans.

I'd love to turn you on…

I love the arrangement of this number, in which the whole orchestra reaches a crescendo and holds it until the explosion of the final note. Like a piano crashing down seven floors. We reach Levallois. The BMW stops outside my office, and I arrange to meet the driver at 3:00 p.m.

There is only one message on my desk, but what a message! I have to put in an immediate return call to Simone V., former minister for health, once the most popular woman in France, tenured for life at the top spot on the magazine's imaginary honor roll. Since this kind of call is rare, I first ask around to find what we might have said or done to provoke this quasi-divine personality. "I think she's unhappy with her photo in our last issue," my assistant tactfully suggests. I skim through the issue and reach the offending photo, a montage that ridicules rather than glorifies our idol. It is one of the mysteries of our trade. You work for weeks on a subject, it goes back and forth among the most skillful pairs of hands, and no one spots the glaring blunder that a neophyte would spot in a second. I am pitched into an authentic long-distance tornado. She is convinced that the magazine has been plotting against her for years, so I have the greatest difficulty persuading her that, on the contrary, she is a cult figure at Elle. Normally such damage control is the job of production chief Anne-Marie, who handles all celebrities with kid gloves, whereas as a diplomat I am more akin to Tintin's friend Captain Haddock than to Henry Kissinger. When we hang up after a forty-five-minute exchange, I feel exactly like a trampled doormat.