me to separate dream from reality. Shadows walked in front of me. Faces. Places. Voices. I’m unable to associate this phantasmagoric universe with a specific situation. For me, all of this is still confused. I feel like I’m at the bottom of a cliff, slowly rising back up, deluded in the ascent by the prospect of false happiness, which I aim toward, flying through the sky. The wind gives me wings. I use them. All I’ve got to do is lift my arms to the sky to take flight. Is that why my eyelids grow heavy?
I stare at that smiling, reedy silhouette while I’m dozing off. I recognize the silhouette. I would recognize that one among thousands.
It’s Moki.
It’s him. Why does your face look a little thin to me? It’s really you, Moki. I recognized you. And that man next to you? Who drove him all the way here? I recognize him, too. His name is Préfet. He’s drunk. As usual. He’s looking at his watch. As usual. He sizes me up, deciding that I’m the man for the job, that I’ll do a good job with this business at the end of the month. I owe him that, I tell you, after everything he’s done for me. You tell me it’s also in my own self-interest; I should think about that, you add. Instead of staying put, not doing a damn thing, Préfet says. And you give him your agreement. I have nothing to say about that. My voice doesn’t count. Préfet will come back to rue du Moulin-Vert the day after tomorrow. Very early in the morning. We’ll make the rounds together. You made that decision together, a job for rookies, to use the words Préfet used that morning. Everyone has done this work. Even you, Moki, you assured me. Everybody started out with this. Later, I would do other things if I wanted to. It’s a job that shouldn’t be difficult for me to accomplish. You worked it out together—I know that, Moki. I’m talking to you. Why do you come after me even in my sleep? Do we remain connected even here? I make no mistake. It’s definitely your face.
Where are you now? . . .
I would like for everything to be in chronological order. At times, memory seems like a mountain of garbage that has to be patiently sifted through just to retrieve a miniscule object, the trigger that sends everything adrift, linked together in a succession of events irrespective of a man’s will.
The tangle of events burns my temples. I was surprised at how things happened. I would like for everything to be clear. That there be no ambiguity. I have nothing to hide. Not to mention nothing to lose. Much less, something to gain. I did not hurt anyone, as I will point out. I acted like all the others, those in our circle. I’m not one of those that holds back, and Moki knows that very well. Préfet is convinced of it, even though that guy is hard to please.
What’s important at this point is to understand.
To look at everything without truncating or falsifying the facts. I don’t want to relive the illusion that started me down this road. I figure I’ll be accused of being a false friend, accused of treachery, or betrayal, and the height of irony, of ingratitude, me who has never been presumptuous and who gave the best of myself. That’s what I expect.
It’s difficult for me to step back from this. Things are happening fast. Tonight? Tomorrow? Day after tomorrow? I have no idea what day it is. My reminiscence is an unavoidable internal examination to ease my conscience, freed from the sludge of remorse that crushes my thoughts . . .
With perseverance and dogged determination for a shovel, I’ll take whatever time it takes to exhume all those moments that catapulted me from near and far, all the way to this place, more than six thousand kilometers from the land where I was born.
PART ONE
The Country
It is better to dream one’s life than to live it, though even living it is to dream it.
—Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
MOKI AND HIS RETURN
MOKI’S SHADOW
MOKI’S FATHER
GENERAL DE GAULLE
THE WHITE VILLA
TAXIS
THE TALE OF ARISTOCRATS
THE NEWBORN
PARIS IS A BIG BOY
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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