The Emperor, C'est Moi Read online

  With the little kids, I would set up my troops, I’d appoint captains and lieutenants . . . I know all the ranks in the army; it’s my big brother, a fighter jet pilot, who reeled them off for me. I even asked him to list them on a sheet of paper.

  For victory, anger is essential, but not haste. After working out a strategy, we would take the enemy by surprise. But, careful: stealthily, and in small waves. I’ve already identified the playground areas ideal for ambushes that won’t be spotted by the teachers. We’d use bait to attract the enemy. There are pieces of wood in the yard, there are pens, rulers, everything necessary to make weapons. I saw this in The War of the Buttons.2 Several of us could also capture a big kid to tackle a middle kid, or vice versa. We’d eradicate them slowly but surely. We’d imprison them and the least stupid ones would eventually rally to our side. We could also have spies in the enemy camp. We stage a prison break; the fake escapee rejoins the opposition and brings us information. But watch out for double agents! I’m convinced that these spies wouldn’t have much to tell us, however, seeing as such morons are incapable of planning the slightest strategy as soon as there are more than three of them. I’ve noticed that, too. But, careful: never underestimate your enemy. All great warriors will tell you that.

  Just to get to this point undetected would take months, perhaps even the entire year. Not to mention that we’d then have to deal with the problem of the three elementary school grades. Bigger kids, therefore tougher, but not really great strategists either. I’ve been watching them, too. To learn more about them, however, I would have to launch a far-reaching espionage project over there, all the while waging the kindergarten wars on three levels to gain time. The other playground is larger. I have therefore envisioned a specially tailored plan of attack with bikes and big sticks, like a medieval jousting tournament. Rapid, efficient. They’ll never see it coming. I don’t know how to ride a bike, but the others do, and besides, I cannot thoughtlessly expose myself to combat. Just a bit at the beginning to motivate the troops, but that’s it. The great show of unity, swaggering around at the risk of losing everything, no thanks!

  I must remain securely guarded by an elite escort in order to direct operations undisturbed, because without me, they’ll lose their head. Finally, after total victory, every student will be behind me, in my army. Then all we’ll have to do is deal with the teachers. They’re big, but if we all stage a surprise attack, they’ll be helpless. When the right moment arrives, I’ll give the signal. We must strike when they’re gathered together, during recess, so that none of them have time to leave the playground. Some of my soldiers will guard the exits until the final assault proves victorious. After having valiantly won many battles, we will then have won the war! And I will thus become the commander-in-chief of the school. But that won’t be the end of it! After the school, France; after France, the world; then on to the universe! That is how one can win a war against the big guys, and the really big guys, by rallying little kids.

  So . . . you really want me to go play with my classmates? Or would you prefer that I remain the best-behaved pupil in the school with my perfect grade in conduct? Their games leave me no other choice than to become a dictator. And it’s going to be the same thing after my school days are over? You don’t know whom you’re dealing with, because I am not showing you my eyes. But I’m warning you: if I ever do play, it will be by my own rules. Attacking a little kid all alone in his corner without any reason, that doesn’t interest me.

  I hate children, along with their violent, senseless games. No interest. None. And what’s more, I hate myself.

  The others never stay still, they just want to scream, and they don’t want to learn anything about the Earth and the cosmos. Tough bounce for them. And yet, it would seem that I’m the one with a problem.

  My problem . . . is you.

  Note:

  2The War of the Buttons (La guerre des boutons): A novel published in 1912 by Louis Pergaud, a French writer who was killed in a World War I German field hospital by a French artillery barrage in 1915. The book tells the story of two gangs of boys from neighboring villages who play at war, taking the buttons of those they “kill” as trophies, but as in William Golding’s much later Lord of the Flies, the tale can turn unsettling whenever make-believe violence fosters real aggression in the children.

  Kick in the Head

  Gleaming green tiles, elevator, corridor, white floor, white door, blue carpet, and lowered blinds. Back with the lady with the dumb toys. I am sitting in front of a plastic castle. A castle with no dragons, no knights, no king and no queen. A dead castle. Of plastic. Mama, hurry up! Here time does not pass, it’s dangerously static, as if the Earth had ceased turning. Take me back outside. This lady doesn’t like me and I’m sure she doesn’t like you either. Me, I don’t like her one bit.

  The lady stands up and comes toward me. She takes a stuffed animal and waves it before my eyes. She smiles foolishly at me and addresses me in a silly voice the way one does with children. She hasn’t understood a thing. I don’t like people who don’t understand anything and I am going to let her know this. I stand up and kick her plastic castle. It flies into a thousand pieces. Scattered around the room. I observe the ruins while chewing on my pacifier.

  “That’s not nice, you’re kicking your papa!” she tells me.

  Why does she say that? No doubt about it, she hasn’t a clue. My papa is not in that castle. I want to blow up the walls of this office, I want to tear up this blue carpet, I want to rip the blinds down from these windows. That kick, I did it to the room we’re shut up in, this room I want to leave. That kick, I gave it to you, madame. It’s your head that just flew in ruins around the room, madame, and definitely not my papa.

  Come on, Mama, we’re leaving.

  The Apple

  I am having my bath. I do not want to get out of the water. I want to enter this world made only of reflections. Deformed and shifting reflections. I want to tame these forms and deform myself like them. Mama tells me the story of Snow White. Snow White put to sleep forever after biting into the apple the witch gave her. Only Prince Charming can awaken her. Snow White can sleep a long time. I am not Prince Charming. I would not know how to awaken her. I come from the shadows and I have only one wish: to return there. For good.

  Mama brings an apple out of her pocket. She tells me that a lady gave it to her this morning. A lady dressed in black with a hooked nose. I don’t believe her. All that is stuff and nonsense. Mama brings the apple to her lips. I don’t look at her. Mama bites into the apple. I keep playing with the water. Mama collapses. She lies on the floor, dead. Perhaps she’s only sleeping? She isn’t moving. Could she be pretending?

  I get out of the bathtub. I run my hands over her face. I pat her cheek. I try to lift her up. I try to feel if her heart is still beating. No response. This time, I am alone. Truly alone. I can’t stand it anymore. Words are heaving around in my throat. I must get them out. I open my mouth that does not speak and I say, “Mama? Mama?”

  Mama blinks and slowly regains consciousness. She tells me that it’s thanks to me that she is alive again.

  Today, I brought Mama back to life by saying her name.

  The Dictator and the Diplomat

  I have chestnut hair, my eyes are brown, and I live in the country. He is blond, his eyes are blue, and he comes from the city. He spends every summer at the house. There is one year’s difference between us. I am the elder. We have known each other since forever. I like him a lot, he’s very calm. When he comes, I don’t want him to touch my toys. I don’t look at him but I know he’s there, next to me. If he touches my things, I scream. When I find that his toys are better than mine, I snatch them from his hands and he cries. I couldn’t care less, I’m the boss. I’m secretly impressed by him, but I’ll never tell him that. Anyway, I don’t speak. Either I’m silent, or I scream.

  One day, my mother gives us costumes and
has us put on a play. It’s called The Miller and the Devil. Since I’m a bad boy, I play the devil. I have a black cape with a red lining. I look at my cousin.

  “Miller!” I say. “Millllller!”

  My cousin looks away, sad and lost. My mother has clothed him in a checked shirt and drawn a mustache on his face with black marker. I continue.

  “I am the devvvvvvil!”

  At other times, I’m the one who goes to see my cousin in Paris. His parents take us to lots of modern city-type places that I don’t know. There are films showing outdoors all by themselves, on screens so big you’d think you were in the picture. I am impressed. My cousin is a man of the future. At the end of my stay, my father comes to fetch me. I must go with him. I don’t want to. I scream. I scream very loudly all the way home. I start missing my cousin the moment we leave. I’m seven and Pierre is my friend. My only friend. When we see each other again, I will speak to him.

  He is the ambassador from the outside world, and he lives in the future. He has many things to teach me. Now he is mastering the language of my kingdom and showing me the riches of his own. He does not believe in the same things I do. For example, at eleven he will tell me, backed up by proof and witnesses, that Santa Claus does not exist. Cousin Pierre is a courageous ambassador. He follows his ideas through to the end. He is a lot more cunning than I am. In fact, the devil—it’s surely him. He is my friend. We share an insatiable curiosity about the world, and year after year, he will transmit to me his joie de vivre, the exuberant enjoyment of life that I lacked. He’s the one with whom I will discover uncontrollable hilarity. Whenever we see each other, we always share fits of giggles. A very pleasant experience and one should never pass it up. Not on any account.

  The Dictator and the Diplomat. That could be the title of a play. The play we put on endlessly whenever we meet.

  The Dictator and the Diplomat. The one is the other’s reason for being, and vice versa. An indivisible couple. At the core of every human being, this couple exists. Indubitably, inevitably, since forever and for always. Bound together for eternity.

  The Shit in Me and Me in It

  I am not defecating. When it’s time to have a bowel movement, I do not push. I would like my turds to fall entirely on their own. If I push, I can feel this creates pressure inside me, in my pipes. I wish above all not to damage my pipes. I’ve seen on diagrams of the human body, in books, that the lungs are full of tiny balloons: the alveoli. The same balloons I see sometimes and they frighten me when they pop. They are usually red and blue, as on the diagrams. And on the anatomical chart of the human body I saw at school. Same balloons, same colors. My theory is thus confirmed: I have balloons inside of me. So when I push, I’m scared that I’ll pop them. A popped balloon looks like a scrap of bloody flesh. That’s what my alveoli will be reduced to if I push too hard. No more alveoli, no more lungs. No more lungs, no more breathing. No more breathing, no more life. Logical. I don’t want to die, so I prefer to wait for my turds to come out by themselves, even if that moment can happen anywhere at all. I’m a little ashamed, but the main thing is for my pipes and balloons to remain intact.

  When people go to make a poop, they always close the door behind them. So they must have a secret way to make the turds leave their bodies without any risk of interior explosions.

  Sometimes Mama gives me suppositories. They work well. Afterward it comes out on its own. When I’m on the throne, Mama spends hours close by to encourage me to push. When I’m blocked, she presses little circles with her fingertips along my vertebrae from top to bottom. It’s nice, but has no effect. Before each push, I try to adjust the effort so that it will come out without my vital organs bursting inside me.

  One morning, we’re running late getting ready for school. Mama is very angry. It’s most unusual for her. Suddenly, a voice I’ve never heard before shatters my eardrums and freezes me.

  “Push, dammit, just push! Will you just push?”

  She breaks the hairbrush on the porcelain of the sink, which cracks under the blow. The mark is still there today. For that fraction of a second I forget all about the balloons. Immediately, instinctively, I push. Three turds plop into the toilet bowl. I am terrified. Terrified by my mother’s new face, terrified at having just missed exploding inside. In a trembling voice that comes from very far away, I reveal my anguish.

  “Tell me, Mama, with pushing, can the lungs explode? Can they pop like balloons?”

  This phobia about things bursting inside will haunt me until I’m eleven years old: intestinal occlusion. The only time my mother went away on a trip, I managed to keep everything inside me for more than eleven days. Once in the hospital, I realized instead that that was how I risked exploding. I have never been constipated since.

  Turtledove My Love

  The turtledove coos soothingly. It’s pleasant music. I love this song. I love the turtledove. I love it so much that I can’t bear to hear it. Then I utter my own cry. Be quiet, turtledove! Stop bringing me back to my human condition, my prison. You, you’re free! You can fly and sing. While I can do neither. I am trapped in this body belonging to Julien who is himself trapped in the world of other people. I spend my life with small wriggling beings who shout and gesticulate and whom I wish neither to see nor to hear. You, you are beautiful, you sing and you fly.

  I am in the classroom, a prison around my prison. When the window is open in May, turtledove, you sing and you fly. Wherever I go, you follow me. You are there. You are there to remind me constantly of what I know only too well: I am a prisoner, while you are free. Free to live in vast spaces, free to leave, free to sing, free to stay. You are killing me with your freedom, which I will never have, except when I’m dead. What is it you’re trying to tell me? Are you making fun of me?

  One day my mother talked to me about reincarnation. If it does exist, I would like to be reincarnated in you. I would sing and fly over other people’s prisons. I know that I am in prison and that I am a prison.

  Once, watching Peter Pan, I realized that if I ever met Tinkerbell, I would put her in a cage, as Captain Hook did. A little golden cage. I would contemplate her suffering and sadness all day long. Without doing anything. My prisoner, my captive. I would give her a present from time to time. I would give her some birdseed. That way, perhaps I’d manage to forget a little that I suffer, too. At least we’d be suffering together. That’s all I can offer. If I catch you, turtledove, I’ll make you suffer the same fate because I love you. As I do Tinkerbell. I love you so much that your freedom is unbearable to me. I love you too much. Too terribly.

  Turtledove, you hurt my love.

  Conditioner

  Julien, I hate you. You are too tall and too big to go back into Mama’s belly and too small to go to the center of the Earth. You burden me, you stand in my way. I cannot do a thing with you. I must take steps. Make changes. I cannot stay stuck with you and yet I’m stuck here because of you! This has to change! Yes, there must be a change. Something must happen. Departure. You must leave me.

  Usually, Mama cuts my hair. At home. I look pathetic. Shut up, Julien. Stop talking in my head. You’re useless.

  Mama often tells me that I have a noble and intelligent forehead. She also tells me that my forehead comes from her ancestors. I had never paid attention to this because ever since I was born, meaning about five years ago, I’ve always worn my hair medium-length with bangs. I go stand in front of a mirror and hold my bangs back with my hands. It’s true: I have a large forehead. It’s so large that I could sprinkle it with stars. Mama explains that today she won’t be giving me a haircut, but someone else will. We are going to a special place where that’s all they do, because this time, there will be lots of hair to cut off.

  You hear that, Julien? Someone’s going to remove your hair. That way you’ll be a little less present and you’ll stop hiding my noble and intelligent forehead. You’ve been hiding it so much that I didn’t eve
n remember it was there. It could have been forgotten because of you. You’d really have liked me to have a hole there instead, right? It’s a good thing Mama is here! You would never have thought of setting my forehead free. You truly are useless.

  White walls, green plants in black pots, mirrors everywhere into infinity. Smells of cleanliness and hair dryers. Women. Only women. Everywhere. They hurry, talk, and laugh. They wear sky blue blouses. They’re tall and I can see their legs. They remove my outer things and wrap me in a white cape a little too big for me. Black leather armchair. I’m placed there. My head is gently tipped back; hands are wetting and stroking my hair. It’s the first time I’ve come to the hairdresser’s and I already know it won’t be the last. Once the shampooing is over, they put me in another leather armchair, also black. But this one has only one leg. A shining, silvery stand that spreads out at the foot. And what’s more . . . it revolves!

  I am next to Soizic. Her hands were the ones that stroked me earlier and now she’s here beside me. I don’t dare look at her, but I can tell she’s smiling at me. She smells good. She’s beautiful. She’s here. And I’m here too, in front of the triple mirror, and I don’t want to see Julien. Soizic hands me a catalog with pictures of children. I don’t want to see them either. They look like the ones at kindergarten I have to put up with all day long. They yell in my ears, wave their arms around everywhere, are not interesting, I can’t bear them. Besides, I must deal with them constantly, all day, shut up with them either in the classroom, where the noise echoes, or on the playground, where they never stop running around. What’s more, I’m supposed to join in their childish games. NO! Soizic, put away the catalog! Oh yes, right: I don’t speak. I pull my mother toward me and whisper in her ear that Soizic must put the catalog away and that she has lovely hands. She wears rings on every finger. Blue ones. I tell Mama that it’s nice to wear blue rings like Soizic does.