The Elegance Of The Hedgehog Part 13

Profound Thought No. 14.

Go to Angelina's To learn Why cars are burning.

Something really fascinating happened today! I went to see Madame Michel to ask her to bring some mail for Colombe up to the house once the courier delivers it to her loge. In fact it's Colombe's master's thesis on William of Ockham, it's a first draft that her director was supposed to read and send back with comments. What's really funny is that Madame Michel told Colombe to take a hike because she rang at the loge at seven in the morning to ask her to bring up the package. Madame Michel must have told her off (the loge opens at eight) because Colombe came back to the house like a fury, ranting that the concierge was an old sc.u.mbag and who did she think she was, anyway, and have you ever seen such a thing? Maman seemed to recall suddenly that yes, indeed, in an advanced, civilized country, you don't go disturbing concierges at any old hour of the day or night (and she would have done better to remember that before Colombe went down there), but that didn't calm my sister down, and she went on bleating that just because she'd goofed up on the time didn't mean this non-ent.i.ty had the right to slam the door in her face. Maman just let it go. If Colombe were my daughter-Darwin forbid-I would have slapped her on both cheeks.

Ten minutes later Colombe came into my room with a really gooey smile on her face. Now that is one thing I really cannot stand. I'd even rather she yelled at me. "Paloma, sweetie, can you do me a really big favor?" she cooed. "No," I answered. She took a deep breath, ruing the fact that I am not her personal slave, why she could have had me horsewhipped, which would have made her feel a lot better-what an irritating snotty-nosed kid. "Let's make a deal," I added. "You don't even know what I want," she retorted with a scornful little smirk. "You want me to go see Madame Michel," I said. She sat there with her mouth open. She's told herself so long that I'm a r.e.t.a.r.d that she's finally ended up believing it. "I'll do it if you don't play loud music in your room for a month." "A week," said Colombe. "Then I won't go," I said. "Okay," said Colombe, "go see that old bag and tell her to bring me Marian's package the minute it comes to her loge." And she went out, slamming the door behind her.

So I went to see Madame Michel and she invited me in for a cup of tea.

For the time being, I'm testing her. I didn't say much. She gave me a strange look, as if she were seeing me for the first time. She didn't say anything about Colombe. If she were a real concierge, she would have said something like, "Yes, well, your sister there shouldn't go thinking she can get away with whatever she likes." Instead, she gave me a cup of tea and talked to me very politely, as if I were a real person.

The television was on in the loge. She wasn't watching it. There was a program about kids burning cars in the banlieues. When I saw the images I wondered what it is that makes a kid want to burn a car. What is going on in their heads? And then this thought came into my mind: what about me? Why do I want to set fire to the apartment? Journalists talk about unemployment and poverty; I talk about the selfishness and duplicity of my family. But these are all hollow phrases. There have always been unemployment and poverty and pathetic families. And yet, people don't go burning cars or apartments every day of the week. Honestly! I figured that, in the end, they were all false pretexts. Why do people burn cars? Why do I want to set fire to the apartment?

I didn't get an answer to my question until I went shopping with my aunt Helene, my mother's sister, and my cousin Sophie. In fact we had to go buy a present for my mother's birthday, which is next Sunday. The pretext was a visit to the Musee Dapper, but we went straight to the interior design boutiques in the 2nd and 8th arrondiss.e.m.e.nts. The idea was to find an umbrella stand and buy my present for Maman as well.

As for the search for an umbrella stand, it was endless. It took three hours but if you ask me all the stands we saw were absolutely identical: either really basic cylinders, or things with ironwork like you'd find in an antique store. And all of them ridiculously expensive. Don't you find it disturbing, on some level, to think that an umbrella stand can cost two hundred and eighty-nine euros? And yet that is what Helene paid for this pretentious object in "fatigued leather" (my foot: rubbed with an iron brush, maybe) with saddlemaker's st.i.tching, as if we lived on a stud farm. And I bought Maman a little black lacquer box for her sleeping tablets, from an Asian boutique. Thirty euros. I already thought that was really expensive but Helene asked me if I wanted to get something else to go with it, since it wasn't a lot. Helene's husband is a gastroenterologist, and I can guarantee that, in the realm of medical doctors, gastroenterologists are not among the poorest ... All the same, I like Helene and Claude, because they are ... well, I don't know quite how to put it ... they have integrity. They are satisfied with their life, I think, at least they don't play at being something they're not. And they have Sophie. Sophie has Down syndrome. I'm not the sort who gets all sentimental around people with Down syndrome the way some people in my family do-they think it's good manners, even Colombe joins in. The consensual script reads: they are handicapped but they are so endearing, so affectionate, so touching! Personally, I find Sophie's presence somewhat hard to take: she drools, she cries out, gets moody, has her whims and doesn't understand anything. But that doesn't mean I don't admire Helene and Claude. They themselves admit that she is difficult and that it is a real ordeal to have a daughter with Down syndrome, but they love her and do a great job looking after her, I think. This, along with their integrity-well, the result is that I really like them a lot. When you see Maman playing at being the hip, well-adjusted modern woman, or Jacinthe Rosen playing at having been born with a silver spoon stuck in her mouth, it makes Helene, who is playing at n.o.body at all, and who is content with what she has, seem really likeable.

Anyway, after the rigmarole with the umbrella stand, we went to eat some cakes and drink hot chocolate at Angelina's, a tea room on the rue de Rivoli. You'll tell me that nothing could be further removed from the topic of young people in the banlieues burning cars. Well, not at all! I saw something while we were at Angelina's that offered me a lot of insight about other things. At the table next to ours there was a couple with a baby. The couple were white and their baby was Asian, a little boy they called Theo. They struck up a conversation with Helene and chatted for a while. Obviously they had in common the fact that their children were different, that is why they noticed each other and began to converse. We learned that Theo had been adopted, he was fifteen months old when they brought him home from Thailand-his parents had died in the tsunami, along with all his brothers and sisters. I was looking around and thinking, how will he manage? Here we were at Angelina's after all: all these well-dressed people, nibbling preciously at their exorbitantly priced patisserie patisserie, who were here only for ... well, for the significance of the place itself-belonging to a certain world, with its beliefs, its codes, its projects, its history, and so on. It's symbolic. When you go to have tea chez Angelina chez Angelina, you are in France, in a world that is wealthy, hierarchical, rational, Cartesian, policed. How will little Theo manage? He spent the first months of his life in a fis.h.i.+ng village in Thailand, in an Eastern world dominated by its own values and emotions, where symbolic belonging might be played out at village feasts celebrating the Rain G.o.d, where children are brought up with magical beliefs, etc. And now here he is in France, at Angelina's, suddenly immersed in a different culture without any time to adjust, with a social position that has changed in every possible way: from Asia to Europe, from poverty to wealth.

Then suddenly I said to myself, Theo might want to burn cars some day. Because it's a gesture of frustration and anger, and maybe the greatest anger and frustration come not from unemployment or poverty or the lack of a future but from the feeling that you have no culture, because you've been torn between cultures, between incompatible symbols. How can you exist if you don't know where you are? What do you do if your culture will always be that of a Thai fis.h.i.+ng village and of Parisian grands bourgeois grands bourgeois at the same time? Or if you're the son of immigrants but also the citizen of an old, conservative nation? So you burn cars, because when you have no culture, you're no longer a civilized animal, you're a wild beast. And a wild beast burns and kills and pillages. at the same time? Or if you're the son of immigrants but also the citizen of an old, conservative nation? So you burn cars, because when you have no culture, you're no longer a civilized animal, you're a wild beast. And a wild beast burns and kills and pillages.

I know this is not a very profound thought but after that I did have a profound thought all the same: I asked myself, what about me? What is my cultural problem? In what way am I torn between two incompatible beliefs? And in what way am I a wild beast?

And then I had an enlightened thought, thinking of Maman's incantatory care of her green plants and Colombe's phobic manias and Papa's stress over Mamie being in a retirement home, and a whole lot of other things like that. Maman thinks you can conjure your destiny just by going pschitt pschitt, and Colombe thinks you can push your cares to one side just by was.h.i.+ng your hands, and Papa thinks he's a bad son who will be punished because he's abandoned his mother: in the end, they too have magical beliefs, the beliefs of primitive people, but unlike the Thai fishermen, they can't accept them, because they are rich-educated-Cartesian-French people.

And I am probably the biggest victim of all of this contradiction because, for some unknown reason, I am hypersensitive to anything that is dissonant, as if I had some sort of absolute pitch for false notes or contradictions. This contradiction and all the others ... As a result, I don't feel I belong to any belief system, to any of these incoherent family cultures.

Maybe I'm the symptom of the family contradiction, and so I'm the one who has to disappear, if the family is to prosper.

4. The First Principle.

By the time Manuela comes down from the de Broglies' at two o'clock, I have put the thesis back into its envelope and dropped it off at the Josses'.

This gave me the opportunity for an interesting conversation with Solange Josse.

You will recall that as far as the residents are concerned I am a stubborn concierge who lurks somewhere at the blurry edges of their ethereal vision. Solange Josse is no exception to this rule, but because she is the wife of a Socialist member of parliament she nevertheless makes an effort.

"Good morning," she says as she opens the door and takes the envelope I hand to her.

An effort, as I said.

"You know," she continues, "Paloma is a very eccentric little girl."

She observes me, checking to see if I am familiar with this word. I a.s.sume a neutral expression-one of my favorites, for its wide lat.i.tude of interpretation.

Solange Josse may be a socialist but she does not believe in mankind.

"What I mean is that she is a bit strange." She articulates carefully, as if talking to someone who is hard of hearing.

"She is a very sweet child," I say, taking it upon myself to inject a bit of philanthropy into the conversation.

"Yes, yes," replies Solange Josse in the tone of someone who would like to get to the point but must first overcome a number of obstacles stemming from the other person's lack of culture. "She's a sweet little girl but she often behaves rather strangely. She loves to hide, for example; she disappears for hours."

"Yes, she told me."

A slightly risky reply, compared with the strategy that advocates saying nothing, doing nothing, understanding nothing. But I think I can play the part without betraying my nature.

"Oh, she told you?"

Suddenly Solange Josse sounds rather vague. How can she find out what the concierge has inferred from what Paloma might have said? The question mobilizes her cognitive resources, causing her to lose her concentration and making her look quite absent-minded.

"Yes, she told me," I reply. You have to admit I have a certain gift for laconicism.

I catch a glimpse of Const.i.tution behind Solange Josse, sneaking slowly up to the door with a blase look on her face.

"Oh, watch out, the cat," she says.

And she comes out onto the landing and closes the door behind her. Don't let the cat out or the concierge in: this is the first principle of socialist ladies.

"Anyway," she continues, "Paloma told me she would like to come to your loge from time to time. She daydreams a lot and likes to settle somewhere and do nothing. To be honest, I really would prefer she did that at home."

"Ah."

"But from time to time, if it's not a bother ... That way at least I'll know where she is. She drives us all mad, making us look all over for her. Colombe is up to here in work and she's not too keen on having to spend hours moving heaven and earth to find her sister."

She opens the door a crack, ascertains that Const.i.tution has moved on elsewhere.

"Are you sure you don't mind?" she asks, her thoughts already elswhere.

"No," I reply, "she won't disturb me."

"Oh, good, good," says Solange Josse, whose attention is now most definitely being solicited by a far more urgent and interesting matter. "Thank you so so much, it's very kind of you." much, it's very kind of you."

And she closes the door.

5. The Antipodes.

After that, I get on with my duties as concierge and, for the first time all day, I have time to think. Yesterday evening comes back with a curious aftertaste. After a pleasant aroma of peanuts come the stirrings of a dull anxiety. I try to ignore it by concentrating on watering the houseplants on every landing in the building: this is the very type of ch.o.r.e that I situate at the antipodes of human intelligence.

At one minute to two, Manuela arrives, looking as excited as Neptune when he espies a zucchini peel in the distance.

"Well?" she says several times impatiently, handing me some madeleines in a little round wicker basket.

"I'm going to need your services again," I say.

"Oh, really?" she says, insisting heavily, almost unintentionally, on the real real.

I have never seen Manuela looking so excited.

"We're having tea together on Sunday, and I'm in charge of the pastries," I explain.

"Ooooh," she says, radiant, "the pastries!"

And immediately pragmatic: "I have to make you something that will keep."

Manuela works Sat.u.r.days until lunch time.

"Friday night I'll make you a gloutof gloutof," she declares, after a brief pause for reflection.

The gloutof gloutof is a rather voracious Alsatian cake. is a rather voracious Alsatian cake.

But Manuela's gloutof gloutof is ambrosia as well. Everything that is dry and heavy about Alsace is transformed by her hands into an aromatic masterpiece. is ambrosia as well. Everything that is dry and heavy about Alsace is transformed by her hands into an aromatic masterpiece.

"Will you have time?" I ask.

"Of course," she says, over the moon, "I always have time for a gloutof gloutof for you!" for you!"

And so I tell her everything: how I arrived, the still life, the sake, Mozart, the gyozas, the zalu, Kitty, The Munekata Sisters The Munekata Sisters and everything else. and everything else.

If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.

"You are amazing," says Manuela, when I have finished my story. "All the idiots in this building, and now you-for once there is a decent gentleman here-you are the one who is invited to his place."

She gulps down a madeleine.

"Ha!" she exclaims suddenly, insisting heavily on the "h". "I'll make you a few whiskey tarts!"

"No, please don't go to so much bother, Manuela, the ... gloutof gloutof will be plenty." will be plenty."

"So much bother? But Renee, you are the one who has been going to a lot of bother for my sake all these years!"

She pauses for a moment, as if trying to remember something.

"What was Paloma doing here?" she asks.

"Well, she was taking a rest from her family."

"Oh, the poor kid! You have to admit that with that sister of hers ... "

Manuela's feelings about Colombe-she would gladly burn her bag-lady hand-me-downs and then send her out into the fields for a little Cultural Revolution-are unequivocal to say the least.

"The little Pallieres boy stands there gaping whenever Colombe walks by," she adds. "But she doesn't even see him. He should put a garbage bag on his head. Oh, if only all the young women in the building were like Olympe ... "

"That's true, Olympe is very sweet girl."

"Yes, she's a good sort. Neptune had the runs runs on Tuesday, you know, and she really took care of him." on Tuesday, you know, and she really took care of him."

One mere run on its own would have been far too stingy.

"I know, we're good for a new carpet in the hallway. They're delivering it tomorrow. No harm done there, the other one was dreadful."

"You know," says Manuela, "you can keep the dress. The lady's daughter said to Maria, Keep everything, and Maria told me to tell you that she's giving you the dress."

"Oh, that's very kind, but I can't accept."

"Don't go on about that again," says Manuela, annoyed. "In any case, you'll have to pay for the dry cleaner's. Just look at that, it looks like an orange orange."

The orange, it would seem, is a virtuous type of orgy.

"Well then, please thank Maria for me, I'm really very grateful."

"It's better like this. Yes, yes, I'll thank her for you."

Two sharp knocks at the door.

6. Baby Porpoise.

It is Kakuro Ozu.

"h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," he says, bursting into the loge. "Oh, h.e.l.lo, Madame Lopes," he adds, upon seeing Manuela.

"h.e.l.lo, Monsieur Ozu," she replies, almost shouting.

Manuela is a very enthusiastic sort.

"We were having tea, will you join us?"

"Ah, with pleasure," says Kakuro, grabbing a chair. And when he sees Leo: "Oh, what a fine specimen! I didn't see him properly the other time. A regular sumo!"

"Have a madeleine, they're made with orgy orgy," says Manuela, who is getting everything mixed up, as she pushes the basket in Kakuro's direction.

The orgy, it would seem, is a vicious type of orange.

"Thank you," says Kakuro, as he takes one.

"Marvelous!" he exclaims, the moment the madeleine has disappeared down his throat.

Manuela wriggles on her chair, blissfully happy.

"I have come to ask your opinion," says Kakuro, after four madeleines. "I am in the midst of an argument with a friend over the issue of European supremacy in matters of culture." He sends a graceful wink in my direction.