The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Although the editorial staff likes to dismiss our chief's luncheons as "rather a bore," they wouldn't miss them for anything in the world. Our boss, known variously to his supporters as Geronimo, Louis XI, and the Ayatollah, regularly hosts luncheons in order to "take stock," as he puts it. It is here on the top floor of the magazine, in the biggest executive dining room, that our generalissimo offers his subjects clues about where they stand in his affections. His remarks range from praise couched in velvet tones to the most lacerating of rebukes, and he possesses a whole repertoire of gestures, scowls, and beard scratchings, which over the years we have learned to decipher. Of that final meal I remember very little, except that the condemned man's last drink was water. I think the main course was beef. Perhaps we all caught mad cow disease, which nobody at that time talked about. Since it incubates for fifteen years, we still have time left. The only illness reported that day was President Mitterrand's. The whole of Paris had been hanging on his medical reports, wondering whether he would last the weekend. As it turned out, he had another whole month to live. The worst thing about these lunches is that they go on forever. To save time, I sneaked out afterward through my office, without saying goodbye to anyone. When I met my driver, evening was already falling on the glass facades. It was well past four.

"We're going to be caught in this mess, sir."

"I'm truly sorry—"

"It's you I'm thinking about, sir."

For a second I feel like chucking the whole thing: canceling the theater, postponing my weekend with Théophile, retreating to my bed with a plate of cheese and the crossword puzzle. I decide to fight this sense of utter exhaustion that has come over me.

"We'll just have to avoid the freeway."

"Whatever you think…"

Despite its power, the BMW bogs down in the traffic milling on the Pont de Suresnes. We drive past the Saint-Cloud racecourse and then the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital at Garches. I cannot pass this spot without recalling a quite sinister childhood episode. When I was at the Lycée Condorcet, a gym teacher used to take us to the Marche Stadium at Vaucresson for outdoor sports of the kind I detested. One day our bus ran smack into a man who had dashed out of the hospital without looking where he was going. There was a strange noise, the sound of brakes, and the man died instantly, leaving a bloody streak along the bus windows. It was a winter afternoon, like today. By the time the police finished asking questions, it was evening. A different driver took us back to Paris. At the rear of the bus they were singing "Penny Lane" in shaky voices. Still the Beatles. What songs will Théophile remember when he is forty-four?

After an hour and a half of driving, we reach our goal, the house where I spent ten years of my life. Fog hangs over the garden, which once rang with so many yells and so much helpless, happy laughter. Théophile is waiting for us at the gate, sitting on his backpack, ready for the weekend. I would have liked to phone Florence, my new girlfriend, but it is Friday and she is at her parents' place for the Sabbath. I expect to speak to her after the play. Only once have I participated in that Jewish ritual—here at Montainville, in the house of the old Tunisian doctor who brought my children into the world.