Wednesday 9 May 2012

Begins with the end: back to Paris from China


When i get out of the train , the sky is grey and the lion statue seems as lost as I am, forgotten there half asleep and so annoyed to be in the middle of the square, nor on one side nor  the other.
It is exceptionally luminous to be 7am in the morning.
I remember where I put my key but I totally forgot the digicode to enter the building.
Then after a long number of trials I manage to find my way in.
It seems one of those gray mornings when I begged my grandma and my mom not to go to school.
I check that the dolan rubab, the one from Mohammad Emin in Kashgar; the one I picked among all those other fancier ones in his Kashgar store , the simplest one and the more harmonious in his body curves, the one that only Mohammed Emin’s father can play, is all in one piece and I put it to rest in front of my bed. Under its watch I can fall asleep safely and build fat dreams, just for a little before resuming my life or getting to think how to resume my life. I suddenly wake and cannot remember where I am, I know I live here, but where is here? This is something that happens to me more and more, I cannot just recall what am I doing in Paris…how did I drift here??? A coffee will fill the air with home scent.
I shower and get down to go to work. 
The courtyard is bizarrely empty; is it the rain that chased everybody inside or the town has been deserted after an atomic bomb? I cross the front door and a shy sunlight is greeting me. The trees , still burgeoning with a lot of impatience one month ago , are now dressed up in an abundance of leaves. The branches and the sun draw for a second a contorted checkerboard on the pavement . The small kid from the other side of the street slowly plays inside it ; his racket is larger than his back and his knees are wobbly. I think I know his elder brother, he has given up the tennis racket and has a guitar now. He is probably moving on to another type of sport. 
I suddenly see all the other people around me. The middle age concierge in front that is bringing out the rubbish in a red striped shirt. The blond girl cycling across the streets. The forest of cigarettes held up in the street bar. All is silent and I feel I do not want to talk, eventhough eventually I am in a place where I can talk the language and not make my way out of smiles and looks. Then I suddenly realise, if I talk this all will be real.
I think of the Kim-KI DUk's BinJip, I remember that the shouted word brings the violence, that the silenced is the feathered dream of peace and love. I stick to the silence as long as I can.
But then I pop by my friend and I have to say who I am. Strangely I remembered this digicode, and not mine….
I come to the office. It seems that people in the metro are all startled to see me, I do not know these people, what did I put on, how am I dressed? How can they possibly guess that I have not been in paris these last weeks? Maybe I have a tan from yesterday .
Two blues eyes are singled out inside a dishevelled fringe, I remember that this is Paris, plenty of eyes and sighs ,and  I turn back ... but i cannot tell whether they were there or i had made them up...
I arrive to the office, I realise that slowly all the actions that seemed unknown to me are coming back to life, little by little I relearn the talk of the town, of the metro card , of the office badge and of the different codes to enter worthless and virtual worlds. 
I relearn the way out here by actions. 
I relearn to swipe the card at the market , to choose fruits and products. The boy must just come for the summer stages, he is wide and youngly uncomfortable, he looks and stutters with its pen as a broken heart that cannot avoid to keep still thinking to his love somewhere. In the fleshy eyelids I see the blank forming , that moment when your guard is off and the thoughts come in pouring. To stutter and then come back, the click on the black color and the pen is ready for my signature on the slip. I would like to tell him that I know, that you are bound to lose , if you fight and if you do not , you can only wait. But as tears , as daydreaming are not reusable, not recyclable, not resellable , I do not say anything. I cannot tell him how long this siege will last, maybe forever, maybe just another click on the pen.
All day my mouth has uttered words in this un-native tongue, I find myself hesitating but not for the lack of words, not for forgetfulness, I am just amazed by the fact that I am all of a sudden able to speak french again, I make jokes in it again and it all pours out of my mouth without me commanding it.
so who am I?