it became more unusual with the passing of each kilometer marker, giving way to factories, to vast pastures without cattle, to rustic countryside under a thick fog that permitted nothing but ghostly shadows to appear. I guessed there was a plow here, haystacks over there, a combine, an old broken-down tractor in the distance, next to the highway; we were in backcountry.
But we kept on rolling.
After more than two hours on the road, we came to a silent place that, at first, I thought was a railway depot, because broken-down trains were parked all over the place. A mass grave for railway cars. I thought about elephants that go to cemeteries to protect themselves from prying eyes. Nuts and bolts and iron bars were strewn across the ground. Yellow safety helmets hung from the branches of the few trees in this spot. Railway workers’ overalls hung from the windows of locomotives. It was quite a deserted site. Nobody around. Not the shadow of a life. We got out of the car, my arms still handcuffed to the big guy.
In the late morning, a dusting of white snow carpeted the ground and crunched under our feet. Mine were damp, frozen, and numb. I couldn’t feel them anymore. I wasn’t dressed for the weather. A blue cloth shirt over a black T-shirt. Jeans worn through at the knees, Spring Court sneakers on my feet. I shivered. The two men made great fun of this, decked out in military boots, heavy coats, lined gloves and hats that covered their ears as if they were crossing Siberia.
We had walked several hundred yards on foot. The engines and railway cars were far behind us. A vast expanse opened before us with a horizon of antiquated buildings. We hurried toward them. Crows punctured the fog, cavorting high in the sky, in search of the tallest ledge of those buildings, their wings clenched in the cold.
Four thugs pushed open the gate without batting an eye when we arrived. We crossed a large deserted courtyard marked by tracks of gigantic boots. This place had clearly been used before. I noticed a fenced soccer field on the other side, a few barbells, and just one basketball hoop. We headed straight for the tallest building and took the stairs that led to the basement. The two men dragged me down an interminable corridor. Our steps reverberated in rhythm, as if we had planned it. The silence gave the place the feeling of a decrepit penitentiary, abandoned if not outright haunted.
Awakened by the heavy silence of the place, I started to get worried. What had we come here to do? Did I deserve this isolation? Moreover, to be treated like this, was I a prisoner? That’s what it looked like. I thought it unfair that they had taken me captive. I wasn’t going to let them mistreat me this way. Certain things had to be clarified.
Many things.
First of all, I demand that you tell me why we’re here. What did they say to you when you shoved me into the car? Answer me, sirs! Answer! Come on, give me an answer! Is this just for today? Until this evening? Until tomorrow? Or until the day after tomorrow?
Silence.
I wanted to express myself, explain, convince, tell them to give me a few minutes, just a few minutes. To ask a favor: take me back to rue du Moulin-Vert in the fourteenth arrondissement. Our building. The cars parallel-parked down the whole street. The Arab on the corner who let comrades buy on credit. The stairs. The window. The wool blankets. The plastic table. The camping stove on wheels. Which was the way to rue du Moulin-Vert?
They would drive me there. Maybe not.
They’d say, “What are you going to do back there? No, it’s out of the question.”
I would beg them again.
Nothing but this one last favor, please, sirs. They would no longer listen to me. Definitely wouldn’t talk. Shut up! One more word and they’d have an excuse to beat me with a billy club. Follow them silently. Do what they want.
And wait.
The corridor became narrower the further we went. We went down several flights. The two men escorting me, one in front, the other behind, knew where to step. Their practiced, aloof attitude meant this was certainly routine. The bigger of the two must have been at least six feet tall. His primate arms hung down to his knees and he had to unshackle himself from me to be able to move with ease. The second man was not as tall. He turned around and looked me straight in the eye, a dark look of resolution. His thickset muscular bulk showed that he worked out assiduously.
We had been forced to walk lopsidedly and had to hunch over so we didn’t bump into the stairs above our heads.
Finally, we got to a heavy iron door, equipped with no less than a dozen locks. One of the two men, the smaller one, took out a bunch of keys. He picked the wrong one several times. He muttered and cursed before finding the right one. The other one, without a word of warning, pushed me into the room. . . .
When the door slammed shut, it was as if night had fallen. I stayed still for a good minute with my eyes closed. I opened them gradually to accustom myself to the darkness. Then, little by little, a glint of light made its way through the barred holes of the building’s air ducts, way above my head.
The silence would have been complete were it not occasionally punctured by quick footsteps, coughing, murmuring behind the door, and even sometimes, to my great surprise, by outbursts of resounding laughter that I heard coming from above this sort of cell.
So there was life in the building.
Since then, I’ve been in this somber room, facing my shadow, which I see get up and walk without warning me. It comes and it goes. It gets up and sits down again, holding a hand to its cheek as if we formed just one entity and our fates were sealed forever.
All their warnings struck me as ridiculous. Even left outside, alone, I wouldn’t find my way back. From the get-go, the idea of escaping never entered my head.
I repeat: I do not consider myself a prisoner. I have nothing to escape from. But them, would they believe me? Experience had proved the contrary to them. I have no doubt, people in my situation, incensed, tried anything and everything. Wait behind the door, pretend to fall into a complete faint, then grab the throat and don’t let go of the man who would come toward them or bring in a meal.
If they sequestered me—I can’t find a euphemism for the circumstance—in this sort of bunker, it’s only to protect themselves against an eventual escape.
It is highly likely that a police van will come take us like damaged goods to put in storage before being disposed of later in a public dump, far away from everyday life. I say us because my intuition tells me that I’m not alone here.
Do I have neighbors of misfortune in the adjacent rooms? Nothing indicated I should think so. Or think not. If they are there, are they there for the exact same reason as me or at least a related one? Had we also been neighbors in Seine-Saint-Denis, or did they come from other places around Paris? No information at all. A complete wall. Night.
The rank smell.
The room I was in had been unoccupied for a long time. In the dark, man’s only reflex is to turn inward on himself. The dark reminds him that he is nothing but an infinitesimal speck without the blessing of the light of day. He can’t set out to do anything, and he is reduced to groping his way.
I curled up in a corner across from the door. Fatigue
