Generally, at this point in an encounter, the protagonist will inquire, Do you speak French?
But Paul Nguyen merely smiles and waits.
With a Herculean effort I manage to say something.
Actually, it initially comes out as something like: “Grmbill.”
But he continues to wait with the same magnificent abnegation.
“Monsieur Ozu?” I finally say with considerable difficulty, in a voice worthy of Yul Brynner.
“Yes, Monsieur Ozu,” he says. “You didn’t know his name?”
“No,” I say with effort, “I had not understood it very well. How do you spell it?”
“O-z-u,” he says.
“Ah, I see. It is Japanese?”
“Quite, Madame. Monsieur Ozu is Japanese.”
He takes his leave, very affable, while my Good Night seems to travel through a throat afflicted with triple bronchitis. I close the door and collapse onto a chair, squashing Leo in the process.
Monsieur Ozu. Could it be that I am in the middle of some insane dream, crafted with suspenseful, Machiavellian twists of plot, a flood of coincidences, and a dénouement where the heroine in her nightgown awakes in the morning with an obese cat on her feet and the static of the morning radio in her ears?
But we all know perfectly well that, in essence, dreams and waking hours do not have the same texture and, upon careful examination of all my sensory perception, I am able to determine with certainty that I am awake.
Monsieur Ozu! Could he be the filmmaker’s son? Nephew? Distant cousin?
Well I never.
Profound Thought No. 9
If you offer a lady enemy
Macaroons from Chez Ladurée
Don’t go thinking
You’ll be able
To see beyond
The gentleman who has bought the Arthens apartment is Japanese! His name is Kakuro Ozu! That’s just great; something like this would happen right before I die. Twelve and a half years in a cultural desert and right when it’s time to go and pack it in a Japanese gentleman arrives . . . It really is too unfair.
But I want see the positive side of things: at least he is here, and really here, and what’s more we had a very interesting conversation yesterday. First of all, there’s the fact that everyone in the building is absolutely crazy about Monsieur Ozu. My mother speaks of nothing else, my father listens to her for once, whereas usually his mind is elsewhere when she starts to go blah-blah-blah about the goings-on in the building; Colombe pinched my Japanese textbook and, in an unprecedented event in the annals of 7, rue de Grenelle, Madame de Broglie came to have tea chez nous. We live on the fifth floor, directly above the former Arthens apartment and lately there has been all this remodeling work going on—a gigantic amount of remodeling! It was clear that Monsieur Ozu had decided to change everything, and everyone was drooling with desire to see what he had changed. In a world full of fossils, the slightest movement of a pebble on the slope of the cliff is nearly enough to bring on a whole series of heart attacks—so you can imagine what happens when someone dynamites the whole mountain! In short, Madame de Broglie was dying to have a look at the fourth floor, so when she ran into Maman last week in the hall she wheedled an invitation out of her. And you know what her pretext was? It’s really funny. Madame de Broglie is the wife of Monsieur de Broglie, the State Councilor who lives on the first floor and who joined the Council under Giscard d’Estaing—he’s so conservative that he won’t say hello to divorced people. Colombe calls him “the old fascist” because she’s never read a thing about the French right wing, and Papa holds him up as a perfect example of the ossification of political ideas. His wife fits the image: posh suit, string of pearls, pinched lips and loads of grandchildren called Grégoire or Marie. Until now she would scarcely say hello to Maman (who is a Socialist, dyes her hair and wears pointed shoes). But last week she jumped on us as if her life depended on it. We were in the hall, we had just come back from shopping and Maman was in a very good mood because she had found an eggshell linen tablecloth for two hundred and forty euros. And I swear I thought I was having auditory hallucinations. After the customary “Bonjour, Madame,” Madame de Broglie said to Maman, “I have something to ask you,” which must have really hurt her lips. “Please, go right ahead,” said Maman with a smile (thanks to the tablecloth and her anti-depressants). “Well, my little daughter-in-law, Étienne’s wife, is not very well these days and I think she’ll have to consider therapy.” “Oh?” said Maman with an even bigger smile. “Yes, uh, you see, some sort of psychoanalysis.” Madame de Broglie looked like a snail lost in the Sahara but she stood fast all the same. “Yes, I see,” said Maman, “and how may I be of assistance, Madame de Broglie?” “Well, the thought occurred to me that you might have an idea . . . well . . . how to go about it . . . so I would have liked to discuss it with you, that’s all.” Maman could not get over her good fortune: an eggshell linen tablecloth, the prospect of spouting all her knowledge about psychoanalysis and Madame de Broglie dancing the dance of the seven veils—oh yes, a good day indeed! And she couldn’t resist because she knew perfectly well what the other woman’s actual intention was. My mother may be a bit of a bumpkin in the intellectual subtlety category, but you still can’t fool her completely. She knows perfectly well that the day the de Broglies are genuinely interested in psychoanalysis, the Gaullists will start singing the Internationale—clearly, the name of her sudden success was “the fifth-floor landing lies directly above the fourth-floor landing.” Still, she decided to act magnanimously, to prove to Madame de Broglie how kind and open-minded socialists can be—but not without a little hazing to begin with. “By all means, Madame de Broglie. Would you like me to come to your place one evening to discuss it?” she asked. The other woman looked constipated, she wasn’t expecting such a suggestion, but she got hold of herself very quickly and, as a woman of the world, she said, “No, no, please, I don’t want you to have to come down, I will come up to see you.” Maman had already had her little moment of satisfaction so she didn’t insist. “Well, I’m in this afternoon,” she said, “why don’t you come have a cup of tea at around five o’clock?”
The tea party was perfect. Maman did things just as one should: she used the tea service that Mamie had given her, the one with gold leaf and butterflies and roses; she offered macaroons from Ladurée, and, all the same, brown sugar (a leftie indulgence). Madame de Broglie, who had just spent a good quarter of an hour on the landing below, looked a bit embarrassed but satisfied all the same. And a bit surprised. I think our place was not as she had imagined. Maman pulled out all the stops regarding good manners and worldly conversation, including an expert commentary on where to buy good coffee, before leaning her head to one side and saying, “Well, Madame de Broglie, you are concerned about your daughter-in-law?” “Hmm, ah, yes,” said the other woman, who had almost forgotten her pretext and was now struggling to find something to say. “Well yes, she’s depressed,” is all she came out with. So Maman shifted into the next gear. After all this generosity it was time to hand her neighbor the bill. Madame de Broglie was treated to an entire course on Freud, including several titillating anecdotes on the sexual mores of the Messiah and his apostles (including a lurid aside on Melanie Klein), and punctuated with references to Women’s Lib and secularism in French schools. The works. Madame de Broglie took it like a good Christian. She endured the onslaught with admirable stoicism, convincing herself all the while that this was a small price to pay to expiate her sin of curiosity. When they parted, both ladies were perfectly satisfied, but for different reasons, and at dinner that evening Maman said, “Madame de Broglie may be sanctimonious, but she does know how to be charming.”
In short, everyone is excited about Monsieur Ozu. Olympe Saint-Nice told Colombe (who despises her and calls her “Our Holy Lady of the Pigs”) that he has two cats and that she is dying to see them. Jacinthe Rosen waffles on and on about the comings and goings on the fourth floor and she goes into a trance
every time. As for me, I’m excited too, but not for the same reasons. Here’s what happened.
I was in the elevator with Monsieur Ozu and it got stuck between the second and third floors for ten minutes because some dolt had not closed the grate properly before deciding to walk down after all. When this happens you have to wait for someone to realize or, if it’s taking too long, you have to shout your head off to alert the neighbors, but of course you must remain dignified, which isn’t always easy. We didn’t shout. So we had time to introduce ourselves and get acquainted. All the ladies in the building would have sold their souls to be in my place. I was just really happy because my considerable Japanese side was obviously delighted to speak to an authentic Japanese gentleman. But what I really liked, above all, was the content of our conversation. First of all, he said, “Your mother told me you were studying Japanese at school. What is your level?” I casually took note of the fact that Maman has been gossiping again to draw attention to herself, and then I replied in Japanese, “Yes, sir, I know a little Japanese but not very well.” And he replied in Japanese, “Do you want me to correct your accent?” and then translated right away into French. Well, I appreciated that for a start. Lots of people would have said, “Oh, you speak so well! Bravo!” whereas I’m sure I must sound like some cow from Outer Mongolia. So I answered in Japanese, “Please do, sir,” and he corrected one inflection and then said, still in Japanese, “Call me Kakuro.” I replied in Japanese, “Yes, Kakuro-san,” and we laughed. And that is when the conversation (in French) got really interesting. He said, right out, “I’m very intrigued by our concierge, Madame Michel. I would like your opinion.” I know plenty of people who would try to worm the information out of me, acting all innocent. But he was up-front. “I suspect . . . that she’s not what we think,” he added.
I’ve had my own suspicions on the matter for a while now too. From a distance, she’s a real concierge. Close up . . . well, close up . . . there’s something weird going on. Colombe hates her and thinks she’s the dregs of humanity. Colombe, in any case, thinks that anyone who doesn’t meet her cultural standard is the dregs of humanity, and for Colombe the cultural standard is social power and shirts from agnès b. As for Madame Michel . . . how can we tell? She radiates intelligence. And yet she really makes an effort, like, you can tell she is doing everything she possibly can to act like a concierge and come across as stupid. But I’ve been watching her, when she would talk with Jean Arthens or when she talks to Neptune when Diane has her back turned, or when she looks at the ladies in the building who walk right by her without saying hello. Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she’s covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary—and terribly elegant.
Well, having said that, I admit it: I’m not a clairvoyant. If nothing out of the ordinary had happened, I would still be seeing the same thing everyone sees: a concierge who, most of the time, is grumpy. But something did happen not long ago and it’s odd that Monsieur Ozu’s question came along just when it did. Two weeks ago, Antoine Pallières knocked over Madame Michel’s shopping bag just as she was opening her door. Antoine Pallières is the son of Monsieur Pallières, the industrialist on the sixth floor, a guy who lectures Papa on how France ought to be run and sells arms to international felons. The son is less dangerous because he’s a real moron, but you never know: the capacity to do harm is often an item of family capital. Anyway, Antoine Pallières knocked over Madame Michel’s shopping bag. Beets, noodles, bouillon cubes and soap all fell out and as I walked past I glimpsed a book amidst all the things on the ground. I say glimpsed because Madame Michel rushed over to pick everything up, looking angrily at Antoine (he was obviously not inclined to lift a little finger), but she also looked worried. He didn’t notice but I had all the time I needed to figure out what the book in Madame Michel’s shopping bag was—or rather what kind of book, because there have been loads of the same type on Colombe’s desk since she enrolled in philosophy. It was a book from a publisher called Vrin—ultra-specialized in philosophy books for university. What is a concierge doing with a Vrin book in her shopping bag? is the question that, unlike Antoine Pallières, I asked myself.
“I think you’re right,” I said to Monsieur Ozu and we immediately progressed from being neighbors to something more, conspirators. We exchanged our impressions of Madame Michel, and Monsieur Ozu said he was willing to bet that she was a clandestine erudite princess, and we said goodbye with a promise to investigate this further.
So here is my profound thought for the day: this is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial but I think it is profound all the same. We never look beyond our assumptions and, what’s worse, we have given up trying to meet others; we just meet ourselves. We don’t recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy. When my mother offers macaroons from Chez Ladurée to Madame de Broglie, she is telling herself her own life story and just nibbling at her own flavor; when Papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, as if practicing the Coué method or something; when Colombe talks about Marian’s lectures, she is ranting about her own reflection; and when people walk by the concierge, all they see is a void, because she is not from their world.
As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.
3. Beneath the Skin
A few days go by.
As on every Tuesday, Manuela comes to my loge. I just have time, before she closes the door behind her, to hear Jacinthe Rosen talking with young Madame Meurisse next to the elevator, which is taking its own sweet time to arrive.
“My son says that the Chinese are very difficult to deal with.”
Madame Rosen’s resident cockroach affects her pronunciation: she does not say Chinese, but Chanese.
I’ve always dreamt of visiting Chana. ’Tis far more interesting than China, after all.
“He dismissed the baroness,” says Manuela. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are shining. “And everyone else along with her.”
I adopt the very air of innocence.
“Who did?”
“Monsieur Ozu, of course!” Manuela looks at me reproachfully.
For over a fortnight now all the talk in the building is of Monsieur Ozu moving into the apartment of the late Pierre Arthens. In this frozen place, this glacial prison of power and idleness, the arrival of a new resident and the unbelievable things that, under his orders, a whole host of professional contractors have been getting up to—their numbers so impressive that even Neptune has given up on trying to sniff each and every one—this arrival, therefore, has brought with it a wave of excitement and panic all at the same time. For the conventional aspiration to see tradition maintained and the contingent disapproval of anything that might remotely might evoke newly-acquired wealth—ostentatious interior decoration, the installation of stereo equipment, excessive use of meals delivered from the traiteur—were in open competition with a deeper hunger, deep in the guts of all these benighted souls blinded by boredom: the hunger for novelty. Thus, for two weeks or more 7, rue de Grenelle throbbed to the rhythm of the comings and goings of painters, carpenters, plumbers, cabinet-makers, and delivery men, carrying furniture, carpets, and electronic equipment, until the grand finale, the actual movers; and all these people had clearly been hired to transform the fourth floor from top to bottom. So, needless to say, all the residents of the building were dying to see that transformation for themselves. The Josses and the Pallières no longer took the elevator: discovering new wellsprings of vigor, they would wander at all hours across the landing of the fourth floor, which naturally th
ey could not avoid if they were to leave and then return to their own apartments. They now attracted the envious gazes of all the other residents: Bernadette de Broglie plotted to take tea with Solange Josse—never mind that she is a socialist; and Jacinthe Rosen volunteered to drop off the package for Sabine Pallières that had just been delivered to my loge—I was only too pleased myself to entrust her with the task, making a great hypocritical fuss over it in the process.
Because I alone, of everyone in the building, have been careful to avoid Monsieur Ozu. We met twice in the hallway but he was always accompanied and merely greeted me politely, and I did likewise. Nothing in his behavior betrayed anything other than courtesy and indifferent kindliness. But just as children can sense that beneath the skin of conventional behavior lies the true stuff of which human beings are made, my internal radar, suddenly on high alert, told me that Monsieur Ozu was watching me closely, biding his time.
It was his secretary who saw to all the tasks requiring any contact with me. I am also willing to wager that Paul Nguyen has something to do with the fascination Monsieur Ozu’s coming has been exerting on the residents. He is a strikingly handsome young man. From Asia and his Vietnamese father, he has acquired distinguished manners and a mysterious serenity. From Europe and his mother (a White Russian), he has inherited height and Slavic cheekbones, as well as the light shade of his slightly almond-shaped eyes. He is both manly and delicate, a perfect synthesis of masculine good looks and Asian gentleness.
I learned about his background one afternoon when there was a great commotion all around, and I could see he was very busy: he rang at my loge to apprise me of the arrival early the next morning of a new crew of delivery men, and I offered him a cup of tea; he accepted without ado. We conversed in an exquisitely nonchalant manner. Who would ever have imagined that such a handsome and competent young man—for he was most competent, I’d swear by all the gods, we all could tell by the way he organized the work and never seemed overwhelmed or tired, getting everything done in a calm manner—would also be so utterly devoid of any form of snobbery? When he took his leave, thanking me warmly, I realized that in his presence I had forgotten even the very notion of trying to hide who I was.