The Emperor, C'est Moi Read online

  One morning, the routine review covers phonemes and graphemes. The French teacher generally hands back the papers in decreasing order with the top mark first, announcing each worsening grade to the class. We reach the pass-fail line; I still haven’t received my paper. I steel myself for the worst: having to spend two more hours of my time in this hell. The grades sink as those doomed to detention get their papers back. I am the last one. The teacher places my quiz before me, without announcing my grade, and returns to sit at his desk. F minus. The teacher lists the names of those receiving detention. My stomach clenches. He doesn’t mention me. Why not?

  In all my time in school, I’ve never had to stay after classes for a single minute. I’ve always managed to slip through the net. But why haven’t I gotten detention this time? Saved, most likely, by my eternal and immutable perfect conduct? I’m sure he hasn’t overlooked me. He returned my paper last, without a word. Does he want to show me how merciful he is? Or is it my new status as a snitch that earns me this free pass? All at once I feel vastly relieved. But even today I’m not grateful for this favor. Me, when I’m tossed crumbs, I don’t say thank you.

  I’m convinced he was moved by pity. Pity is one of the most contemptible feelings I know, and I’m aware that it’s the only feeling I inspire in most of the teachers here. Pity or incomprehension or both. I hate myself more and more. Knives are churning in my stomach and I want only one thing: that they kill me a little more on the inside every day until they finally finish me off.

  The Pig Trough

  It’s twenty past noon. And here’s that awful bell clanging. Everyone stands up in a rush to get to the cafeteria. In the lobby, a line yards and yards long advances in fits and starts, as it does every day, obeying a light that flashes from red to green and back. A young woman is directing traffic, overwhelmed as always by the scene. Admittedly, it’s just her versus three hundred famished students. Personally, I’m not hungry. On my cafeteria card and every class roll I am Horiot, Julien. So I am Julien and therefore dead. The dead don’t eat. Still, I am obliged to show up. I show up. Once I get inside the refectory, I take my tray from the self-service line, go sit at a table, I don’t touch my tray, I rise and take it where it’s supposed to be taken, then go wait in the library for the bell announcing the rest of the interminable school day.

  Today the line is especially unruly. Possibly because the posted menu announces boeuf bourguignon for lunch? Who knows . . . I slip into line and as usual put up with the constant pushing and punching, just to show up and be counted. Absurd. The light has been red for a particularly long time. The natives are restless. The herd is bellowing. The supervisor is finding it increasingly hard to control the anger of all these beastly stomachs roaring their gluttony louder and louder.

  The light turns green. A huge ripple of excitement. I brace myself, and I let go. I let myself be swept up in the movement of the carnivorous crowd. Now I’m staggering at the mercy of the frenetic haste of this famished horde. I abandon myself to them, allow myself to fall. The onrush continues. I am trampled. I do not protect myself. I’m handing myself over to them. They hurry over my body with their impatient feet. They’re hungry and I’m offering myself up. I’m not hungry for anything anymore. The supervisor cries out. The crowd presses on. The light turns red. The supervisor darts into the throng and lifts me to my feet.

  She asks me if I am all right.

  I tell her yes.

  She asks me if I want to go to the infirmary.

  I say no.

  I return to my place in line.

  My chest hurts terribly and I’m not all right at all.

  I bungled my escape and today, as always, I will show up.

  Razor Blades in My Mouth

  I’ve considered my position: the remaining three years of lower secondary school are the equivalent of my last three years of elementary school. Still three more years to go. A long time. Since I’m unable to defend myself with blows, I’ll fight back with language. The words coming out of my mouth will be my weapons. And formidable ones. They will save me. They will be the killers. To speak will be to kill.

  Our new French teacher has explained to us the difference between colloquial language, common parlance, and formal language marked by a sustained style. I use formal language. What’s known as aiming high. As for the others, they don’t speak any of the above. Their language, I would say, is crude. At a lower level than colloquial. Barely a language at all. No presence, no class, no nothing. Just a medium for spewing shouts and insults left and right.

  When I’m the target of such insults, I now reply, “You are not worthy of my contempt.”

  If I spot a boy spitting in the halls, I tell him, “Save your saliva, you’ll need it when you learn to talk.”

  When I’m in the library, which is usually calm and quiet, I often tell stories to a small gathering that is increasing in size and interest around my favorite table. Even the monitor listens to me with appreciation. I tell them about my life.

  “I live in a great manor with slate roofs that tower into the heavens. Atop its mountain, the family seat looks grandly out upon the village. I am the Lord of Louvières.”5

  One of my listeners, a few grades ahead of me, interrupts to ask, “If you’re a lord like you’re sayin’, I don’ get it: why’d you bother wit’ this shitty place?”

  “That’s an excellent question. I have come here in order to personally take note of the deplorable state of this school. I am on these premises so that I may share with you the travails endured by the majority of French schoolchildren. Rest assured that I will bring my findings to the attention of those in high places, and that if I take measures, things will improve in the future. My determination to correct this urgent problem is absolute. For if I do not take action, who will?”

  Shortly afterward, my mother is summoned by my French teacher.

  “Madame, there is a problem: your son. Your son insists on speaking in rather flowery language. It would be good if he were to place himself instead on the same footing as his classmates.”

  She has obviously heard about my little lecture in the library. The school bigwigs must have been most displeased. My mother tells me about her meeting with my teacher and is completely dumbfounded. As for me, I’m outraged. I, who have worked so hard to speak to the world—and now they’re trying to confiscate my language because it doesn’t suit their mediocrity. They, who dare claim the right to teach us, now want to censure me into silence—irrefutable proof that the aim of the French National Education Ministry is to squash its children under a leaden weight, to preprogram them by stifling them in the mold of ignorance and submission. No! I will not climb into the mold. No! I will not submit.

  One day, the Latin teacher called me a pretentious twit. Madame, today I give you my answer. What you call pretention, I call exactingness. Making great demands of myself, and of others. Is it not your role, as a high priestess of learning, to encourage those who try to rise above the stupidity of the masses? You prefer to drown these seekers in a slough of filth. So: you expect from me some vulgarity, some rude expression? Well, I have just the one for you. I did not present it to you yesterday, but in a burst of heartfelt generosity, I have it ready for you today. And see how magnanimous I am! So that no one will feel left out, I have something for everyone.

  To the entire body of teachers, headmasters, deputy headmasters, principals, and vice-principals who are always right I say: “Screw you!”

  Note:

  5Louvières: A small commune in the Calvados department of the Basse-Normandie region of northwestern France. The original meaning of the name is “place of the wolf.”

  Odile

  She is tall, her curly hair smells like lavender, and I can imagine her bust under the white mesh of her sweater. She’s probably around thirty; her name is Odile. She is a school monitor. Me, I am twelve and I’m in eighth grade. My dog-tag
number is 8-5.

  The student Horiot Julien, 8-5, likes spending time with Odile, la belle Odile. Sitting on a bench at the far end of the playground, always the same bench, a little off to one side. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, during the lunch hour. These are Odile’s days. Odile is lovely, to die for. But Julien knows that she is beyond reach. So he stays next to her. As long as possible, as close as possible, but he will never touch her.

  They talk. They talk about everything. Julien tells her how much he dislikes school. Odile tells him that it’s not important, that it will soon be over. Later Julien will do lots of interesting things, she’s positive about that. While she’s talking to him, Julien imagines her without any clothes on. Both of them far from the world around them.

  Odile has high heels and pretty legs. Julien’s eyes like to drift to the place where Odile’s thighs come together. Maybe Odile knows this, but she says nothing. Odile has eyes large enough for Julien to drown in. Shipwrecked, he slips across Odile’s skin and loses himself in her.

  Odile will go away like a dream. The next year, she will no longer be there. The bench, though, will remain. Occupied by others.

  Odile was right to leave this hell.

  Odile was right not to wait for Julien.

  Julien hasn’t finished with the monsters.

  I haven’t finished with you, you worthless jerks.

  Politics and I

  I can see that everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Hugo isn’t enough of a liar and faker to fit in with the rest of you. So I begin to study the liars most in the public eye at present. It’s an ideal time for that: 1995, the run-up to a presidential election. I watch all the televised debates, faithfully follow the epic soap opera, witness the bloody duels waged with murderous little sound bites. I note the mimicry, the gestures, the poses, the attitudes. I evaluate what’s good or bad, what to do and what not to do. I carefully index the mistakes to avoid. I try to identify what a successful lie looks like. I must become a virtuoso of lying, even better—or rather, worse—than others. In the end, I tell myself that they’re a bit in the same situation as I am at school: no one likes them and they despise everyone else right back. Yet they must manage to garner a massive amount of support from the electorate to carry the day. Or else they die.

  The final duel arrives: Jospin versus Chirac. And sure enough, the biggest liar is elected. I had, by the way, put all my money on him by secretly betting thousands of dollars with myself that he’d win. Good pick.

  September rolls around. I’m in ninth grade and I have a plan. I will seize power. I’m too young to be President of the Republic and anyway, the slot is filled. No matter. I’ll cut my teeth on snagging the position of class representative. A campaign demands preparation, I learned that from TV. I write my name on some standard A4 sheets of paper that will serve as posters and banners. “Vote Horiot”: it’s as dumb as that. Certain students even agree to carry the posters around and show them to others while we’re lined up or to pass them around as flyers under the desks in class.

  Election day arrives. The voting will take place in drawing class. Through the irony of fate, that day’s exercise is to draw one’s own name on a sheet of paper. Until the baccalaureat exam, I was always called Julien. That was my first name on my ID and the class rolls. And I just had to go along. To put up with it, I let everyone talk to a dead boy. That way, I’m not involved. So in art class I draw Julien, who’s dead. A snake represents the J. A poisonous snake. With its forked tongue sticking out. I did the most beautiful drawing in the class. The teacher shows it to everyone and tapes it up on the blackboard. My funerary drawing elicits general admiration. I am confident. I am ready. The other candidates have made no visible effort to campaign. The head teacher asks each candidate to rise and make his speech. I hang back, because I know I should save the best for last. I let the others babble first, each in turn, going at it feebly, staring vacantly, unable to crank out more than three words at a time. Pathetic. No panache, no charisma, nothing.

  Secretly I’m laughing my head off, but I keep a straight face. After every speech, my neighbors tap my shoulder, urging me to stand up. They want to hear what I have to say. Patience, patience. I’m thrilled inside to have known how to create such anticipation. In politics, that’s called communication.

  That’s it, they’ve all spoken, and each one’s as bad as the next. Deplorable. Now it’s my turn to enter the arena. I rise. Today I’m wearing my vest and my navy blue pants with a white shirt. My heart is beating faster than the sure and steady pace at which I walk straight up the center aisle. My shoes are shined. It’s crime time. Let’s go. Here I am before the big blackboard, standing on the podium. The atmosphere is still. You could hear a fly whiz by.

  A faint murmur runs through the classroom. A pause. I glance around me. I begin.

  “Dear classmates, dear friends.

  “Your expectations, I understand them and I share them.

  “The job of a representative is not an easy one.

  “It’s an important, a vital responsibility.

  “The representative is someone who acts, not someone who tells others to act.

  “The representative must bring your hopes and expectations before the class council.

  “The representative must constantly strive to act in the general interest.

  “And your interests are mine, just as mine are yours.

  “Yes, I am a candidate, willing to bear this heavy burden on my shoulders.

  “And I now solemnly swear that your hopes will be the sole object of my crusade.

  “If you deem me worthy of your trust, then speak through your ballots, so that I may speak in your name.”

  Torrents of applause: shouting my name, the crowd’s ovation shatters the tense silence. This is how to sway the masses without presenting the slightest program or idea. Add a smidgen of populism to that speech, and you have a perfectly presidential harangue.

  The voting begins in an electric atmosphere. I win in the first round with a crushing majority: Twenty-three votes out of thirty-one. More than 70 percent! I am doubtless the winningest representative in the school’s entire history and then some. An overwhelming victory. I savor my triumph, although I am a little disappointed not to have battled a worthy adversary. The other five candidates share the crumbs. Some haven’t even a single vote. That’s because they didn’t make an effort. Ah, yes, I’d forgotten: two representatives are selected. A girl is elected along with me, and she’s the one who garners the most crumbs, about five votes. For years she has always had the best results, averaging eighteen votes to win a position every time. Incontestably the most deserving and legitimate candidate for the job. Her speech, however, was a dull affair, pedantic and lifeless. But the ballots have spoken: even though there are two delegates, I am still THE representative. The iron will and the silver tongue have paid off. I was able to stage my candidacy and make this election a game. That’s why they voted for me, but they don’t know it yet. Against all expectations, they were entertained, and they were grateful to me.

  Evidently, they imagine that I will now busy myself with their future and their puny problems. I just wanted to treat myself to a bit of showbiz in the spotlight here at the heart of what they call scholastic life. I call it prison life. While some students try vainly to protest by burning plastic bottles out in the playground, thus gaining nothing but hours of detention, I have pulled off with impunity a political putsch, in effect blowing a raspberry right under everyone’s nose. But I know that after the euphoria of victory, everything will return to normal. I will even manage to become the most unpopular representative of all time. In reality, I will simply be as unpopular as I always was, but with a job title. Representative. Representing the jerks. According to those who elected me, it’ll be more like “our jerk rep.”

  It’s true that the office of representative is really a job for a jerk. No power, no l
egitimacy, nothing. Not even an official car. I must attend class councils where I’m supposed to defend those who daily torment me because I’m different—and where I must deal with a hierarchy that constantly upbraids me for lagging behind. Serious shit. And anyway, when all is said and done, these fake debates lead inexorably to the same predetermined conclusion: “Whatever happens, the teacher is always right.” The straitjacket trotted out to protect the craziest ones in the asylum.

  I will not serve out my term. My mother pulled me out of school later that year. I was teetering on the edge of serious depression, on the verge of joining Julien under the black earth, shut away forever. Shortly before my mother retrieved me from my sinister environment, a girl clearly a bit too old to still be there had loudly announced, “This guy’s unbelievable! You look him in the eye and you’d think he was about to shoot you. He’ll be an actor, I’m sure of it.” She’d hit it right on the nose. Only, here’s the thing, I’d become such a steely armored weapon that I was incapable of appreciating the slightest goodwill shown me by a few rare individuals.

  At this moment of my life, I am mastering communication but I no longer have any way of opening up. School is not the place where that’s going to get fixed. Later, much later, I will learn to let down my defenses.

  IV

  THE THEATER AND TRANGRESSION

  The Giant of the Cinema

  I soothe my despair over humanity with chess games and walks in the woods. My mother has made the wise and lifesaving decision to spring me from “the slammer.” Commonly known as school. I go on an impromptu and well-deserved vacation. I know that discussions are under way regarding my attendance at a different institution. In the meantime, I savor this fleeting calm, recovered at last.