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2

Once he was back in his room, Adam was nonetheless tempted to call his partner. Not to talk to her about the previous night, which would indeed have been in horrendously bad taste, but because he was in the habit of phoning her every morning and he had no reason not to do so that morning.

He dialled the number, not without a certain apprehension.

“You’re already at the office?”

“I’ve just got here, I haven’t even had time to sit down.”

“So, you’re not in a meeting …”

“Not yet, we’ve got time for a chat. Just give me twenty seconds to put my things down.”

She set down the phone for a moment, then picked it up again.

“Right, I’m all yours. Sémi says you’ve been getting a lot of work done. Maybe even a bit too much.”

“It’s true, I have been getting a lot done.”

“On the biography?”

“No, I’ve put Attila to one side, I’m working on something else.”

“If you’re constantly working on something else, you’ll never finish that biography.”

“Being steeped in the atmosphere of this country again, I had other desires, you can understand that …”

“Yes, I heard a little something to that effect …”

She laughed, and Adam was angry with himself for using such an ambiguous phrase. He quickly explained:

“After Mourad’s death, I felt a need to tell the story of my friends, of my youth, of what time has made of us.”

“I understand, it’s normal to feel a sense of nostalgia at times like this. But I feel like you’re losing yourself … I know you, Adam. You’ll fill hundreds of pages with stories of your friends, but it will all end up mouldering in a drawer … Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you not to do it. It’s cathartic, and it’s good for your mental health, because the death of your ‘former friend’ has affected you more than you care to admit. But don’t kid yourself, you’ll never publish it. If only because of your contemporaries …”

“My contemporaries?”

Adam’s surprise was insincere. What Dolores was saying was entirely true. He had a reputation to maintain within the community of historians, one that had taken decades to forge. He was admired for the rigour of his reasoning, his painstaking review of sources, his objective tone, his constant determination to produce something irrefutable, by even the most disputatious of his peers … How could he reconcile the qualities that had made him a respected historian with his desire to relate the existential problems of a group of students? How would his venerable colleagues react? He could already hear them laughing …

“You’re suggesting that I give up, and go back to working on good old Attila?”

“No, that’s not what I’m suggesting, honestly. Given where you are, and given the circumstances, you could hardly carry on working on a biography of a fifth-century conqueror as though nothing had happened. Write what you feel you need to write, do it honestly, think of it as a private memoir. Just remember that it’s an interlude, and as soon as you’re back in Paris go back to working on ‘Atilla,’ finish it, publish it, then you can move on to something else. In other words, allow yourself to stray a little, but not too much, and never lose sight of what is important …”

Adam was about to say that he entirely agreed, but his partner did not give him time.

“Someone’s just knocked on the office door,” she said in a whisper. “They’re here for the meeting.”

She immediately hung up. He glanced at his watch, it was 11:30 a.m. precisely, half past nine in Paris. The time at which his partner met with her colleagues every morning.

Having been hired by a European publishing conglomerate to edit a monthly popular science magazine, Dolores had taken the risk of making it a weekly. She had had a compelling case for her decision, and her bosses had supported her and given her substantial funds. But it was clear, as much to her as to them that, if the project failed to deliver, she would bear the responsibility. Since then, she had spent most of her time working on the magazine, and even when she was not, she was constantly thinking about it and talking about it with Adam. Not that this bothered him, quite the contrary; in fact, he enjoyed playing the role of her Candide, a friendly advisor with no ulterior motive, unconnected to the magazine and the world of science.

After their telephone conversation, Adam opened his notebook and, pencil in hand, thought about the curious situation in which he had put himself.

TUESDAY, APRIL 24

I still feel worried, even though Dolores was astonishing, a perfect model of good grace and tact.

Not a word about what happened last night, and yet not a word that didn’t touch on it somehow. I don’t know whether each insinuation was carefully rehearsed; and maybe I saw allusions where there were none. But the message is clear: the interlude is acceptable as long as it remains an interlude.

As a code of conduct, it suits me, and I should find the fact that Dolores made it explicit reassuring. But my fears come from elsewhere—from that mundane, tyrannical notion that makes me believe I have committed a sin, one that must, inevitably, be atoned for, for reasons connected both to human nature and the laws of heaven.

My generation, the women and men who turned twenty during the 1970s, made the liberation of the body its central concern—In America, in France, and in many other countries, including mine. In hindsight, I am convinced that we were absolutely right. It is by controlling our bodies that moral tyrannies succeed in controlling our minds. It is not the only weapon they use in order to control and dominate, but, throughout the course of history, it has proved to be one of the most effective. For this reason, the freeing of the body remains, overall, a liberating act. On condition that one does not use it to justify every vulgar kind of behaviour.

What I have just experienced with Sémi has meaning, because it represents a belated revolt against my crippling teenage shyness. Therefore, our intimacy was legitimate. But it will quickly come to seem pathetic if, rather than recognizing it as a nod to our adolescence, my lover and I start treating it as a banal affair, a fumble between the sheets.

An interlude, then, my night with Sémi? Probably. She does not see things any differently. There, the word Dolores used is neither offensive nor shameful.

An interlude, too, all the things I feel the need to relate about my youth, my friends? Yes, that is probably the appropriate word. Nevertheless, it is an interlude I do not intend to bring to a close just yet. Even if the pages dedicated to the memory of my scattered friends are destined to end up in a musty drawer, to be forgotten, they still mean something to me. My life, and that of the people I have known, may not seem like much compared to that of a famous conqueror. But it is my life, and if I truly believe it deserves only to be forgotten, then I did not deserve to live.