Alice Asks the Big Questions

by Laurent Gounelle

  He poured a little into his glass and swirled it around before bringing the glass to his nose. Alice saw his eyes sparkle with pleasure. He carefully tasted it, and a smile of satisfaction lit up his face.

  “So delicate! So full-bodied! Those little hints of citrus…”

  He poured them both some wine and raised his glass.

  “To youth, whose advantages are also the main obstacles to happiness!”

  Alice also took a sip of the wine, savoring the perfect balance of its many aromatic nuances.

  Her father was now looking at the garden full of flowers, a secret garden like so many in Cluny, hidden behind houses that revealed only their seemingly insignificant facades to passersby.

  When he started speaking again, his voice was quieter, more serious.

  “In the past, when I was young, I thought getting older was very sad. To me it was the progressive loss of all our advantages. Everything that gave us our worth was gradually taken away as we got older.”

  He paused, and Alice tacitly agreed. She had the same view.

  “And then,” he continued, “because you can’t stop time, I began to feel its effects. At first, you don’t really realize it, and it’s only when you chance upon a picture taken a few years earlier that you become aware of the…deterioration. At the time, it’s a bit of a blow to the morale, but then you don’t think about it anymore, and life goes on…and getting older does too.”

  He drank some wine. Alice did the same. Her throat was dry.

  “And then one day, when I was about fifty, I realized an incredible thing: even though I was gradually losing everything that had been a source of pride to me, I was feeling better and better. It was illogical, incomprehensible, and not at all what I had expected. That’s when a difficult event threw my life into turmoil.”

  “You lost your job.”

  “Yes. At the time when my capabilities were starting to taper off a little, I suddenly lost my job, and that was a shock. In those days, unemployment was relatively rare. Many people spent their entire careers in the same company. We didn’t have an official guarantee of a job for life, but in practice, that’s what it came down to.”

  He drank some more wine.

  “Once the shock passed, I was angry. Then I felt very sad, but the sadness also ended up vanishing. I wasn’t overly upset about it because I had confidence in my ability to find another job: someone always needs a business manager somewhere. And, of course, pottery manufacturing was a dying industry in the area, but I knew my skills would be transferable elsewhere. In the meantime, your mother’s salary and my unemployment insurance were enough to keep the family going. Nevertheless, I remained unemployed long enough to realize something incredible.”

  “What?”

  “It’s difficult to describe. But…I discovered that I wasn’t my work.”

  “That you weren’t your work?”

  “I went on living despite my professional failure. I went on living despite the lack of a job. Up until then, my work had been such a source of pride to me. Being a business manager was my life.”

  “Isn’t that fairly normal? When you like your work, when you are fulfilled by what you do, you devote your life to it.”

  “Yes, but it went further than that: I felt I existed only through my work. In my mind, I was a business manager, and in hindsight, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, I was nothing else. I also wasn’t a very good father…”

  “That’s in the past, Papa.”

  “I identified completely with my professional role, you see, and when that role was taken away, it was as if a large part of myself had been taken away, if not my very reason to live. I suffered enormously, and then…then I ended up discovering that my life was not limited to that role, that I wasn’t my job but just a man who was doing a job.”

  “I see…”

  “And if I defined myself through my profession, it was because it gave me a great sense of pride.”

  Alice looked at him, deep in thought. “Just like your strength, physical appearance, intellect, and sophistication in your youth.”

  He agreed.

  Alice ate an olive and took a deep breath. The countless white flowers of the mock orange bushes gave off a wonderful, delicate scent. Her father looked at her.

  “I realized that you become attached to what makes you proud, to the point of defining yourself by it and believing that you are whatever is the source of that pride. And the more you believe that, the further away you find yourself from what you really are. Pride is a product of illusions, the fuel of a machine that pushes you away from your true nature, a diminisher of identity.”

  A diminisher of identity…

  That’s where the problem truly lies, thought Alice. Defining ourselves through one of our attributes diminishes the extent of who we are.

  “And the progressive decline of beauty, of physical and mental skills, helps to detach us from those false identities, is that it?”

  “To those who accept the decline.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have the impression that certain people who identify too much with those things can desperately resist and deny their aging, hiding it from others and perhaps even from themselves. They don’t realize that by clutching on to things that were no more than illusions, they are missing out on allowing who they really are to surface. By thinking they’re saving their identity, they are losing it.”

  Alice had a strange feeling listening to those last words, as if she had already heard or read them somewhere. Jesus, perhaps. Jesus must have said something similar.

  “Have you ever talked to anyone about all this? For example, the people you know who might have forgotten who they are?”

  “It’s not easy. You can’t fight against illusions, and no one likes having them pointed out.”

  Alice made a face and shrugged her shoulders. “If a friend prevented me from deluding myself, he would be a true friend.”

  Her father seemed touched by her remark and had a faraway look in his eyes for a long moment, as if he was going through his memories.

  “When I think about it,” he admitted, “several of my friends probably defined themselves through their professions. They gave the impression that they only existed through their work. Like I did before being unemployed helped me to put it all in perspective.”

  “But I imagine they’re no longer young enough to work, so how are they doing now?”

  Her father stared at her for a moment, as if hesitant to continue. His eyes were suddenly tinged with sadness.

  “They all died very soon after they retired.”

  16

  “Are you sure about what you’re saying, Madame de Sirdegault?”

  The bishop had been so certain he didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing.

  He saw her acquiesce, eyes half closed, dazzled by the sun that shone through the tall, small-paned windows of the bishop’s palace. Despite everything, she remained a very dignified woman with a serious expression, her head held high. She sat up so straight that you might have thought she was wearing a corset—as stiff as the cross with the large ruby she wore around her neck. He couldn’t remember ever having seen her smile. Or perhaps she had: before her divorce.

  He looked outside. The baroness had parked her old English racing-green Jaguar right below his window.

  “You believe that Father Jeremy is being influenced by a young woman?”

  “It’s obvious, Your Grace. In any case, I’m only warning you about this as a friend, so that you’re not the last to know.”

  “You are too kind. Does that mean others have noticed?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Many others?”

  “Enough.”

  The bishop sighed. Fortunately, the baroness regularly kept him informed about what was going on in the parish. Knowledge was the key to power.

  “Is she…pretty?”

  Madame de Sirdegault looked at him sternly. “I’m
not in the habit of judging the physical attributes of young women, Your Grace.”

  The bishop stared at her for a few moments. She stared back without blinking.

  “And how do you think the others find her?”

  “People say she’s beautiful.”

  The bishop nodded. People say she’s beautiful. Father Jeremy was perhaps still too young to know how to resist a temptress. A temptress who was getting involved in things that were none of her business. They were headed for a scandal. And in its current state, the church could do without that. Especially in his diocese.

  * * *

  When she opened the front door that afternoon to get a file she’d forgotten, Alice immediately smelled the warm steam of the iron.

  “Are you here already, Rosetta?” she called out.

  “I got here early,” Rosetta replied from the bedroom.

  Alice put down her things and opened the closet in the hall. She took out a large present wrapped in Christmas paper with Santa Clauses on it, the remains of what she’d bought a few months before to wrap up her nephews’ toys.

  She went into the bedroom, walked over to the cleaner, and handed her the package.

  “This is for you, Rosetta. I was in Burgundy this weekend, and I brought this back for you.”

  Rosetta seemed surprised. “For me? That’s very nice of you.”

  Alice smiled.

  Rosetta took the package, which she nearly dropped.

  “It’s really heavy!”

  She put it down on the ironing board, next to the iron, which gave out a small burst of steam. She started to unwrap it by scratching at the Scotch tape with her index finger, but it wouldn’t come off, so she ended up tearing off the paper.

  “Oh!”

  Alice smiled at her. “I thought you’d like it.”

  Rosetta turned as red as a newborn baby who’s been plunged into a cold baptismal font in the dead of winter.

  “Thanks very much,” she stammered, without looking at Alice. She was staring at the large package of laundry detergent she was holding in her hands.

  * * *

  An hour later, Alice was back at the office on the fifty-third floor of the Montparnasse Tower, sitting comfortably in her large swivel chair turned toward the window that overlooked Paris. Leaning back slightly and facing the immense sky, she thought back to her experience at Hermès and her conversation with her father the past weekend.

  Okay, she existed independent of her profession, her appearance, her intellect, and the approval of others. That she could understand and accept. In a certain way, it was almost obvious. But then why did she pay so much attention to her image? Why did she feel devalued in the presence of any woman more beautiful than she was, or a more brilliant colleague, or a more sophisticated friend? Why, whenever she met someone in a high position, did she feel pressure to let them know she was a consultant and to make herself seem important? Why did she need to do that if her life and her true worth didn’t depend on those things?

  At Hermès, she had deliberately quashed her self-esteem, swallowed her pride, allowed herself to be ignored, despised. And strangely, that had led her to a feeling of joy, of unparalleled inspiration. So there was an existence beyond the way we see ourselves, present ourselves, beyond the way others see us.

  Alice took a deep breath and looked up at the blue sky. All that was very vague, very mysterious. She sensed she was touching upon something essential, primordial. She was trying to find her way, almost blindly, through unknown territory.

  Suddenly, an idea came to her. Her friend Toby Collins could shed some light on this for her.

  She picked up the phone, dialed his cell number, and waited, restlessly, as it continued to ring. Outside, along the large window, she could see the window washer’s platform cable vibrating. He must be a few stories below.

  “Toby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Toby, it’s Alice, from Paris. How are you?”

  “Alice! My God! It’s so nice to hear from you!”

  Alice couldn’t stop herself from smiling when she heard the warmth in her friend’s voice. She asked for his news, then explained the thoughts that were motivating her.

  “The ego,” said Toby. “You’re interested in the ego.”

  “The ego?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I occasionally use the term in conversation, like everyone does, but without knowing exactly what it means.”

  “It’s actually quite simple. We don’t really know who we are, because who we are is too abstract, so we tend to lump together our being with a certain number of tangible things: our physical appearance, attributes, intelligence, profession, or even the roles we give ourselves.”

  “Roles?”

  “Yes, without actually realizing it, we can adopt a certain role and stick to it more and more: the role of the cool guy, the active woman, the unloved introvert, the tough guy who’s a little macho, the sweet and kind person, et cetera. There are an endless number of them, of course.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Not in itself, but it is limiting. We’re not just our profession, our beauty, our intelligence, or the role we’ve taken on. But because we tend to define ourselves by it, somewhere inside, we necessarily feel that it’s somewhat feeble. And then fear sets in: fear of not being sufficiently what we believe we are. Fear we’re not beautiful enough, intelligent enough, gifted enough, competent enough, not good enough at the profession or role we’re trying to define ourselves by.”

  “I see.”

  “We start believing that we will be valued for those attributes, without realizing that they are, in fact, relatively external to ourselves, or, in any case, secondary. But since who I am is difficult to define, and even hard to feel, well, it leads me to clutch on more and more to the elements I believe define me, to believe that they are me, and I insist on defending them against any decline. I feel any criticism about my physical appearance, my ideas, or my skills as a criticism of who I am, as if my own worth had been questioned. So then I feel wounded or cut to the quick, and depending on my personality, I either disappear and withdraw into my illusionary self or I strongly reject the criticism and perhaps even launch a counterattack to protect myself.”

  “I’ve actually realized that myself.”

  “There you go.”

  Alice thought she could detect slight frustration in Toby’s voice. Perhaps he was busy and she was bothering him? Another two minutes and she’d let him go.

  “And what is the link to the ego?”

  He remained silent for a moment.

  “The ‘ego’ is what we call that mental construction around the idea we have of ourselves. It’s a false identity that, in a certain way, inhibits our true nature. And yet we hang on to it and are prepared to do anything to defend it. The ego can be seen as a part of ourselves that takes control, expresses itself in our place, and especially would like to exist more and more within us.”

  “And…is there a way around it?”

  There was another moment of dead air on the line. When Toby started talking again, Alice found his voice colder.

  “Tell me, Alice, with all these questions…are you coming to me as a friend or a consultant?”

  “Um…it’s the same thing…isn’t it?”

  “No, Alice, it’s not the same thing.”

  “Okay, well, what’s the difference, then?”

  Another brief silence.

  “Five hundred dollars, my dear.”

  Stopped in her tracks, Alice mumbled something. The conversation came to a sudden end, and she hung up, disappointed, her heart heavy.

  Outside the window, the Senegalese window cleaner imitated her baffled expression before looking sorry for her.

  She tried to smile back at him. Was he really nice and funny or had he adopted the role of the nice and funny window cleaner? Her disappointment in Toby made her mistrustful.

  She sighed. Had she ever truly been Toby’s friend?
During the seminars, every time there had been a break, she had done everything possible to establish, then maintain, their relationship. Why? When all was said and done, did she really like him?

  Every question she asked brought its own answer, and Alice quickly saw the obvious: she had been mainly flattered to be the friend of a celebrity, as if she were also defined by her relationships. I mix with people who have worth, therefore I have worth. And hadn’t she subtly made it known to the people around her that she was Collins’s friend? Ego again, most likely.

  Collins, the high priest of personal development. Still, he had helped her enormously—she had to recognize that, not turn her back on him because she was annoyed. It was thanks to him that she had learned to love herself, have confidence in herself, free herself from her doubts and fears. He himself had so much confidence, was so self-assured, so embodied success.

  On the other side of the window, the Senegalese man was carefully doing his work. They glanced at each other again, and he gave her such a kindly, sincere smile that it warmed her heart.

  As for Collins, what if the goal in life was more than simply being content with yourself and knowing how to manage things in your own self-interest?

  She sighed as she dreamily watched the window washer’s movements, regular, very efficient. She herself was in the process of cleaning the distorting lenses through which she viewed her life.

  She loved the window washer’s empathetic, positive, humane attitude. No, that wasn’t a role. He was being himself; she would swear to it. He seemed down-to-earth and direct, and somewhere inside her, she envied that straightforwardness. He wouldn’t go to the trouble of asking himself existential questions!

  She then realized that, nevertheless, she felt—how could she put it?—a little superior to him. She who had philosophical concerns and was trying to raise her level of spirituality. She was angry at herself for having that feeling and suddenly was aware of the enormous trap into which she was about to fall: the person seeking liberation from her ego and increased spirituality was risking…seeing her ego take over this process and identifying with it!