The first lesson with Decroux was a paradox, like a koan: “Pantomime is the art of not moving.” To explain this, he told us, “The turtle is a cat inside its shell,” “The greatest force is the force that is not used,” “If the mime is not weak, he is not a mime,” and “The essence of life is the struggle against gravity.” For endless hours, we studied the mechanism of marching, the expression of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, overly bright light, darkness, the various attitudes of a thinker, and finally, all the ranges of physical suffering: pain caused by diseases, broken bones, wounds (in the back, chest, side, extremities), burns, acid, asphyxiation, and so on.
We met in a large school gymnasium once a week. With an old man’s lewdness Decroux declared, “Men do not interest me,” and had us stand in the back. (I was reminded of the old pain of knowing that Jaime had eyes only for Raquel.) When he gave his demonstrations he rolled up his baggy trousers and, often, as if unaware of doing so, exposed his testicles. I hated his Chaplinesque imitations. He made mime into an art as strict as classical ballet. The only thing that was different was the awareness of weight: “Only idiots stand on their tiptoes.” We analyzed the laws of equilibrium, the mechanisms of loads, pulling and pushing, we studied the manipulation of imaginary objects, we learned to create different spaces with our flat hands. The knowledge he transmitted to us was conveyed slowly, drop by drop, as if he were reluctant. Despite charging a very high price for his classes, he gave us the feeling that we were robbing him. He quoted a phrase from Breton to justify this attitude: “‘A bad writer is like a water stain on paper; it spreads quickly but soon evaporates. A good writer is like a drop of oiclass="underline" when it falls it makes a small spot, but as time goes on it extends to fill the entire sheet.’ The lessons I’m giving you now will last you ten years.” He was right. His surgical cruelty, which eliminated any sort of warm relationship, forced me to be the judge of myself without expecting any external confirmation. In order to resist contempt and deconstruction I had to seek and find my own values, like a fisherman who dives into the dark ocean and comes up carrying a pearl. I learned that creativity cannot be effective if it is not accompanied by good technique and also that technique, without art, destroys life.
When Marcel Marceau arrived six months later, my theatrical destiny took off. The mime accepted me into his company after a minute examination, giving me a very minimal role to show me that even if I had been somebody in my country, I was still nobody in France. Little by little I gained his appreciation and eventually rose to the highest role he granted to a collaborator: holding the signs announcing his pantomimes. Thus I accompanied him on his tours through several countries. While my friend slept late, exhausted from the previous night’s performance, I would get up early and visit whatever teacher or sacred place I could find. Since I did not have the opportunity to realize my ideas, I decided to give them to Marceau. I wrote The Mask Maker, The Cage, The Heart Eater, The Samurai’s Sword, and Bip the China Salesman for him, pantomimes that would bring new energy to his career. Having decided that I did not want to grow old making mute gestures with makeup covering my wrinkles, I bade adieu to Marceau. Unemployed again and with a young wife to support, I had to take a job as a house painter.
In this dance of reality it happened that Julien, the head of the company, was a member of a group organized by Gurdjieff and his collaborator, the philosopher Amir Sufi. Painting an entire house with them on the outskirts of Paris became a mystical experience. The owner of the mansion, an obviously incapable pseudoaristocrat, claimed to be an abstract painter and sculptor. He made striking splotches on large canvases using a whip dipped in paint. As a sculptor, he made imprints of his buttocks in a mold and used them to manufacture plastic chairs. We dubbed him the Furious. His wife had beautiful green eyes, and Julien loved her. One night, as an exotic spectacle, the Furious invited us to dinner with him and his friends in a pavilion that was painted in gold, blue, and red — colors that, according to them, were worn by the kings of France. We drank a lot of wine. Possessed by a poetic furor, I improvised verses composed exclusively of insults. The guests were terrified and began to leave. When only we three painters remained, an out-of-control “workers’ trio,” our trembling hosts placed three bottles of wine in front of us and went upstairs to the mezzanine to sleep. After a while, filled with the euphoria of breaking down limits, I went into their bedroom and lay down between them, not even taking off my shoes. Before falling asleep, I penetrated the Furious’s wife, very briefly, as a way of saying good night.
Early in the morning, I left my snoring employers and went to work. The Furious arrived at noon, smiled at me, and set about painting his canvases with his whip as if nothing had happened. Julien, however, did not conceal his bad mood. He pointed to my abundant hair and growled, “With that artist’s mane, you’re not real to them. They take you for a fool. If you want to break down conventions, make yourself into a normal man, like us, so that you’ll learn to savor the consequences of your actions. These people are dangerous, the power is on their side; our lives are practically in their hands.” And straight away, brandishing a pair of scissors, he cut my hair almost down to the scalp. Then he sent me to clean up a ceiling covered with spider webs, knowing that I had a phobia of those creatures: “Neither the poor, nor any sentient beings, have the right to have phobias.” When I went to the bakery splattered with plaster and paint, my new look drew the attention of several well-dressed ladies. They desired me, taking me for a socially inferior man, while making a show of rejecting me. I realized that the world was composed not only of artists, who are a tiny minority, but also of millions of anonymous people, destined for oblivion. In those people beliefs, feelings, and desires took on strange forms. Something was wrong. My view of life was lamentable. I was not yet ready to accept life for what it was. I needed to take refuge in a theater, sleep and eat on stage, not read newspapers. and grow my hair back.