Despite my fall, I still mattered to him — I was the only one who could appreciate his ascent. I knew him back when he hadn’t even climbed the first rung. He wasn’t going to let me get away without telling me the story of his struggle, step by step. And he wouldn’t settle for a simple recounting of events: with my bare hand, I’d have to touch every trace, every sign, every object that spoke of his rise through society. What good would it do to tell him I’d spent my life scribbling down stories that I tore up once I’d finished them, not because they were bad, but because I was writing them for myself? I am both writer and reader. Totally autonomous. I would have kept on like that if I hadn’t got sick of working at the factory. I stopped working, but I wanted to continue writing. I found a way of getting a publisher. A publisher, I understood, gives you money in hopes of getting a book at the end of the line. The perfect deal for me. I negotiated over a book I hadn’t written, and knew I wouldn’t write; the only proof of its existence was the title. They gave me five thousand euros upon signing the contract. I hardly even saw the color of that money because of the debts I’d built up over the years. They promised me the rest, another five thousand, when I submitted the manuscript. In other words, I made five thousand euros for nothing. In the meantime, I became a filmmaker, I made a short film about a group of Japanese girls, a film that even the most experimental festivals wouldn’t touch. Everyone wants a neatly tied-up little plot. I get bored too quickly to begin a story and then finish it. Once I can picture the ending, I move on to something else. I write as long as I’m not hungry. When I feel like eating, I wrap up the story in a hurry. Maybe I’d get something from Midori. I didn’t know how much she’d be willing to put out for her photo book. I could write it over a weekend, but I’d make her believe it’d take me months of effort. I’ve noticed that people are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat — that’s the only moral they know. Maybe this wasn’t the kind of story you could tell an old friend on the first night of your reunion. I trusted him to serve me up a better fable.
We went into the bar where he stops off for a drink once or twice a week with his colleagues. I knew he wanted me to observe the position he occupied in his world. François likes concrete things. I remember he used to love acting out the anecdotes he’d tell me, and if a story took place in a discotheque, he’d start dancing. I tried in vain to make him see he could achieve the same results with words. He smiled, then applied a gentle slap to the face: “That’s something a writer would say.” Back then, I hadn’t written a single line. And when I did write my first story, after he read it, he was practically angry. “You want the Nobel?” he said. “Is that what you want?” And now he was being greeted noisily by his group of friends — which is a figure of speech, because I’m his only friend. Hearty slaps on the back. He introduced me and I received a vague welcome, but he wanted everyone to greet me with greater respect. “Listen, guys, he’s the one I’ve been telling you about. Ask him anything you want to about what’s going on in the world — he’ll have the answer.” Everyone waited a moment or two, but no questions came. An embarrassed silence settled in. Finally, a mercantile murmur arose (they’re accountants, after all). A chalet in the Laurentians, the new model that bmw had just come out with, the chances of winning that night’s hockey game. The price of pleasure, above all else. After five minutes, my head was spinning. Still, I could see that he was the prince of the evening. The waitresses took his order first. And when he laughed at a joke, everyone’s laughter ratcheted up a notch. But we weren’t going to put down roots here. We said our goodbyes and headed out. Fat tips on the table. I didn’t even look at the bill. Such figures didn’t concern me. He was taking me to his place. We got on the expressway. He wanted to spring a surprise on me. He rummaged through the glove compartment and finally found a Skah Shah cd, the group of our tender years. He danced as he drove — and so did the car. Dancing was his thing. Not mine. He used to say, every time, “Sure, but you know how to make words dance.” We finally got there. His house stood at the end of a dead-end street, behind a barrier of rosebushes — his colleagues must have the same set-up. Off-handedly, he introduced me to his wife, Shônagon. I’d always thought François was the kind of guy who would settle down with someone of his own blood type. We entered the living room. Sober decoration. He didn’t walk, he glided. Cognac? Whiskey? He had rum too. He laughed. People laugh as soon as he laughs. His laughter always was contagious. He wanted to give me everything he had: his house, his wife, his car. Nothing new there; he’d always wanted to be me. Even as a teenager, he had everything he wanted: girls, money, freedom. I was a shy guy, I didn’t know how to dance and I didn’t have a penny. Worse, my mother wouldn’t let me go further than the Paramount movie house. Why? What did he see in me that he didn’t have? Finally, his wife smiled. I began to see her differently. An overseas call he’d been expecting came in. He went into his office to take it. I was alone with Shônagon. The silence was awkward. Then, in a small voice, she began to tell me what her life with him was like. François talked constantly about me. It was a regular obsession. I avoided her eyes, so sad and resigned. A magnificent Hokusai on the wall. Not a single Haitian painting. The decor was entirely Asian. On the outside, he’s a Quebecker. Within his own walls, he’s Japanese. Everyone is always telling him that Haiti is a disaster. Does he ever dream of Haiti? Does he remember the country? He returned with the rum (Haiti in a bottle) in the middle of a silence. Now he began telling me about his wife. He started with her origins. Her father is Spanish and her mother Japanese. She inherited from both sides: Spanish fire and Japanese sobriety, he added without a smile. As if the thing that had once seduced him no longer meant much. An interesting mix in bed, I imagined. Those are the qualities I’d like to have as a writer: a classic style fueled by devastating passion. François told stories from our boyhood as he drank. He remembered tiny things my memory could not hold. I imagined him in front of a bottle of rum on a Saturday night, performing a heartbreaking solo. In life, we fight but a single battle. The more he drank, the more he wanted to recall the smallest details of his life before the big departure. He seemed desperate that he’d forgotten the title of a Tabou Combo song. And when I said — it was a pure guess — that it was “Bébé Paramount,” he was even more distraught that I, to whom music meant nothing, could remember the title he’d been searching his memory for all these years. It was typical of our strange relationship, of how he’d always claimed I was a genius, worthy of the Nobel. The only song whose title he’d forgotten, and I remembered it right off. That happens only with him; otherwise I don’t know anything in life. By the way he looked at his wife, I saw that what she had been trying to explain to me was true: I really was the focal point around which his incredible energy revolved. Every detail he conjured was about me, as if he had spent his entire life analyzing my being. Shônagon’s smile (his last piece of property) grew thinner as I, a helpless witness, was forced to watch the film of my life. Life before Shônagon. Every time I broke in to tell a story about him, he cut me off, the better to batter me with compliments. I felt as though I belonged to him. With his prodigious memory, so flattering to me, he had taken over my life. I had been dispossessed of myself. Beware of those who love you.