And then Muriel’s face leaning over my bed when I awoke, her smile of joy and relief, her tears dripping onto my cheeks … The nervous tension being released. In five years of driving a cab, I was her first accident. A truck trying to merge, lateral impact, knocked against a guardrail, thrown into the Seine. In a cracked, very slow voice she reminded me of these events, stressing her consonants, as people do for the deaf or half-senile old men. If I didn’t come out of the coma, she’d vowed never to drive a taxi again. That said, she added frankly, my return to life didn’t change her future very much. Class five violation, summons to appear in court, and loss of her driver’s license. She let it go at that, but I could easily read the rest in her silence. I recalled certain phrases she’d uttered at my bedside: her prayers for me to open my eyes, her anxiety, her discouragement, all those confidences that had escaped uninhibited from her, since she figured I couldn’t hear them. Divorced, raising two kids in some dead-end housing development in the northern suburbs, hog-tied by the long-term loan she’d taken out to buy her taxi shield. A body eaten away by worries, her muscles a bit too prominent beneath her sweater, black hair held back with a comb, weary features with no makeup, eyes that must once have laughed and shown pleasure but now only watched the road. Pretty enough, beneath her bulletproof toughness and her scars. An angel conditioned to withstand anti-tank mines, but with a chink in the armor plating. Apparently she’d brought me back up to the surface single-handedly: none of the witnesses had dived in, thinking it more important to jot down the license of the truck that was speeding from the scene.
When I told her my name, once out of the coma, and that I couldn’t reach my wife, she went to verify that I indeed lived at the address I’d given. The door to the building was closed and she’d rung the intercom in vain. Since the doctors had discharged me, but the administrator refused to let me go without getting my insurance information, she practically kidnapped me, calling the hospital imprisonment at a thousand euros a day: she’d drive me home and I could come back to pay the bill when I was ready, and that was that. I couldn’t stop thanking her, and she couldn’t stop apologizing to me. In the taxi lent by a vacationing co-worker, she drove me to my door. She gave me her card, just in case, and drove off again once she saw me talking into the intercom. In a hurry to forget about me, no doubt, now that I was out of danger.
‘We’re out of rum,’ says the waiter. ‘Plain Coke or something else?’
‘Plain Coke, then.’
‘For cognac, by the way, I just wanted to point out that, legally, we’re allowed to label it vintage after 1970, if you’ve got a certificate from the Bordeaux court, and even before 1970 if you do carbon-dating.’
‘My apologies. Let’s make it a Coke and cognac.’
His barely civil attitude dissolves in a grinding of jaws. I’m about to ask him where the nearest police station is when I remember that I don’t have any money on me. In the time it takes him to get back to his bar, I’ve vanished.
I spot a policeman across the street, listen to his directions, and thank him. He gives me a smile. I remain there for a moment, as if glued to that smile, with a kind of secret happiness. He doesn’t know who I am, but he has no cause to doubt me; he trusts me, is giving me credit. My insistent stare lowers his smile. He turns away and goes to deal with a double-parked car.
Suddenly, my reaction frightens me. I have to get hold of myself. Look confident. It’s just a bad joke, a marital spat that will soon be resolved. I’m sorry to have to air our private life, but Liz is leaving me no choice.
2
‘Do you have any identification?’
Laboring to keep my patience, I explain that I don’t, and that’s the point: I’ve come to report them lost.
‘Any supporting documents?’
‘Yes. But the thing is, they’re at my house – that’s the second problem. As I was telling your partner before, they’re not letting me in.’
The policeman knits his brow, looks over at his partner, but she’s gone off to handle something else. They’ve made me wait for twenty minutes, bouncing me from one window to the next to answer the same questions over and over. At regular intervals, they drag in kids shouting in some foreign language dressed up as skeletons, witches, and pumpkins; their victims rush up to the police officers with an air of priority and I wait for it to be my turn again.
‘Are you a French citizen?’
‘American.’
‘Have you contacted your consulate?’
‘Not yet. First I wanted to see if you could help me take care of a problem at home. It’s only three blocks away, but your partner said I have to start by filing a complaint.’
‘What arrondissement do you live in?’
‘The eighth.’
He sighs, annoyed that I fall under his jurisdiction. He’s a sunburned redhead who’s not pleased to be back from vacation, peeling under the neon lights in front of his screen. He pulls closer to his desk, adjusts his rolling chair in front of the keyboard.
‘Name?’
‘Harris.’
He waits. I spell it out. He searches for the letters, presses the keys, asks me if I’m related to the bakery chain. I say no.
‘First name?’
‘Martin.’ I say it English-style, pronouncing the n.
‘Like a woman?’
‘No, not Martine, Martin.’
‘Written like in French.’
‘Right.’
‘Occupation?’
‘Botanist.’
I start to spell it, but he interrupts sharply that he knows what that is: plants.
‘A gardener, in other words,’ he translates.
‘Not really. I’m director of a research lab at Yale University, and I’m here to work in the Biogenetics Department at the INRA.’
‘What’s that?’
‘National Institute for Agronomic Research, unit 42, 75 Rue Waldeck-Rousseau in Bourg-la-Reine.’
He sighs, taps his index finger on a key to erase what he’d started entering.
‘Date of birth?’
‘September ninth, 1960.’
‘Where?’
‘Orlando, Florida.’
‘So you’re American.’
‘Right.’
With a bitter look, he nods toward the children lined up on the benches and points out that Halloween is an American custom. I commiserate as emphatically as I can, to keep him from getting too sidetracked.
‘Local address?’
‘1 Rue de Duras, Paris 8.’
‘So what’s your complaint?’
‘Identity theft, attempted fraud, false statements, abuse of trust …’
‘Hold on, there! I’ve only got two fingers!’
He makes me repeat it, stops to take a call and look through a file. After giving a list of names, he hangs up and turns back to my case, pushing his mouse around the pad.
‘And who are you filing against?’
He raises his head after five seconds of silence and repeats his question. I murmur, ‘Martin Harris.’
He knits his brow, checks his screen, looks me in the eye again, and says slowly, ‘You’re bringing charges against yourself?’
‘No – against the man who’s taken my place. I don’t know his real name.’
‘Explain.’
‘I was in a car accident. I spent six days at Saint-Ambroise hospital, and when I got home I found another man living in my apartment.’
‘A squatter?’
‘That’s one way to put it. He’s told all the neighbors he’s me.’
‘So he’s your double.’
‘Not in the slightest. But I never had a chance to introduce myself to the others in the building, since I had the accident practically as soon as I arrived. I don’t know how he managed it, but he’s living an entire life under my name.’
The detective reads what he’s typed in, completes my deposition, thinks for a moment. Instinctively, I’ve chosen not to tell him about Liz. Until now
, I’ve read in his eyes that my story is holding up, and I don’t want it to turn into just another adultery case, like before with the concierge. Identity theft is a reasonable cause for complaint. A wife refusing to recognize her spouse in front of witnesses is already a bit shakier.
‘Brigitte!’
His partner comes over and he shows her his screen. She leans over, stops chewing her gum for a moment, frowns.
‘Doesn’t Rue de Duras look out onto the Faubourg?’
‘I’m sending somebody.’
‘Have a seat while we check into it.’
I nod, surprised by the sudden effectiveness of my enquiry. I walk toward the plastic seats bolted to the wall, but he calls me back.
‘Is there anyone who can vouch for you?’
I hesitate.
‘The man who owns my apartment. He’s a colleague, Dr Paul de Kermeur. He’s the one who invited me to come work with him here, and he’s lending me an apartment he inherited from his mother …’
‘Are you renting or borrowing?’
‘It depends on how well our work goes. If we decide to make it more long term, I imagine the INRA will cover the rent …’
‘Do you know his number?’
‘060-914-0720.’
I say it with disproportionate pride, but each memory that comes back to me without effort is yet another proof – even if I don’t need to prove anything to myself, and I run the risk of making him suspicious with my lesson-well-learned tone.
‘Answering machine,’ he says, handing me the receiver.
‘… but please leave a message,’ Kermeur’s voice continues in my ear, ‘and I’ll return your call as soon as I can.’ Beep.
‘Hello, Paul, it’s Martin Harris. Excuse me for bothering you, but if you could call me back right away, I’m at …’
The redhead lifts his eyes, nods toward the sheet tacked to the wall with the station’s main number on it. I read it into my colleague’s answering machine. Then I add in the same tone, in response to the question he must be asking himself since reading the latest issue of Nature:
‘For the hammer orchid, I can confirm that it is indeed pollinated by Thynnidae, and not Gorytini.’
I hand the phone back to the detective, who continues filling in my personal information with no visible reaction. I’m immediately angry at myself for parading my knowledge so obviously that it could look like I’m trying to throw him off the scent. That said, until now he’s had no call to put my good faith in doubt.
A terrible bout of anxiety twists my stomach into knots as I go and sit down again, amid the gang of kids who are snickering under their breath in their hermetic language. The aforementioned Brigitte walks up to the three skeletons on my left with a list and a telephone, signals for them to talk to the person on the other end of the line, then takes back the receiver, listens, and calls to the redhead, ‘They’re not Albanians.’
‘Shit. So what’s left?’
‘Belarus, Bosnia, Estonia … ,’ the girl recites limply, moving her finger down the list.
‘What about Chechnya?’ suggests their victim, a fat guy in plaid sitting at the end of the row.
‘We don’t have an interpreter for that.’
‘Goddamn Eastern countries!’ the fat man grumbles.
‘Eighty per cent of the time,’ the girl points out, ‘they’re French kids who pretend to come from there so we can’t do anything to them.’
The mugging victim swallows his prejudices, disappointed, then turns toward me and relates with convivial rancor, over the heads of the three kids, how they picked his pocket while he was photographing the Luxor Obelisk. I nod and turn my eyes away, concentrating on my own problem.
‘What about you?’ he continues, taking my side. ‘What did they steal from you?’
‘Everything.’
I say it in a sober tone. He pulls back his chest, looks me over with a perplexed face, and waits for me to say more. I turn away. Brigitte and the redhead, each on the phone, listlessly continue their tour of French interpreters. I hope they’re not tying up the switchboard and that a line is still open in case Paul de Kermeur calls back. At the same time, a vague apprehension makes me hope he doesn’t. It’s insane how quickly you can get used to absurdity. I’m still certain of being me, but I’m becoming less and less sure of everyone else.
An armed squad rushes down the stairs and out of the station. Doors slamming, sirens. I look away. Brigitte goes up to the vending machine, asks the repairman working on it how long it’s going to take. He gives a frown of uncertainty. I mechanically begin reviewing my life to prepare for the confrontation, searching for irrefutable arguments that will convince the police. But my doubts grow larger as the minutes tick by. Liz’s lover would never have the gall to come here, to claim to be me in front of the police. They won’t open the door to the cops, will pretend no one’s home, and I’ll have no choice but to initiate proceedings at the consulate. Without identity papers, I won’t get anywhere.
My hand isn’t hurting as much anymore, but my fingers are still very swollen. I try to undo the bandages they put on at the hospital, while the little girl sitting next to me falls asleep against my arm, her face at peace under her witch’s makeup.
‘How much longer do I have to put up with this farce?’ the false me shouts as he comes barreling in.
Closely followed by two policemen, he charges up to the window and slams his hand down, demanding to talk to the superintendent.
‘He’s not here,’ says the redhead. ‘And settle down. Your papers!’
I stand up. The stranger takes out a passport that he slaps onto the table, turning a hard face toward me while the detective looks through it.
‘Come here, you!’
I walk up, maintaining as natural an expression as possible, despite my racing pulse.
‘Martin Harris, huh?’ the cop growls, waving the open passport under my nose.
I remain speechless. It has my name, my date and place of birth. And the other man’s photo.
‘Is this some kind of joke? You think we have nothing better to do?’
‘But that’s me!’ I stammer, gesturing toward the other. ‘Interrogate him! Ask me! You’ll see that’s not him!’
‘That’s enough, mister, or we’ll throw you in the tank for insulting an officer!’
I raise my hands, assure him that I respect his function and that all I’m asking is for us to unmask this impostor, who on top of everything is carrying a false ID.
‘That’s your story. This passport looks perfectly legit,’ he adds, leafing through it again.
I’m about to demand a full examination, a counterfeit detector, but then I spot the stamp of his arrival in France on the last page, exactly where they put mine last Thursday.
‘You satisfied? Good. Now you’re going to stop bothering this gentleman, got it?’
‘But just think for a minute! Why would I come here to bring charges if I’m not who I say I am?’
‘I’m not a shrink.’
I look hard at the blond with gray eyes who’s smirking back at me, arms folded, with the superior air of someone who has credence on his side. I hesitate among a thousand details that he couldn’t possibly know, then blurt out to the cop, ‘Ask him what his father’s name is!’
‘You said his father,’ the detective stresses with a victorious smile.
‘Franklin Harris,’ the other one answers. ‘Born on 15 April 1924, in Springfield, Missouri. Died on 4 July 1979, of a cardiovascular collapse at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn.’
‘Is that true?’ the policeman asks me, seeing my hand clenching the edge of the table.
‘How should he know?’ the other retorts.
I cry out that it wasn’t a cardiovascular collapse but an allergy to iodine.
‘That caused a collapse!’ he immediately adds. ‘Who told you about that? You hired a private detective, is that it?’
The knowing look the policeman gives me suddenly makes me los
e my footing.
‘Careful, don’t let him fool you. He’s trying to turn things around!’
‘My father died from cardiac arrest brought on by anesthesia with iodine as he was about to be operated on for an intestinal blockage,’ the stranger recaps, with an authority that takes the words out of my mouth. ‘He was participating in a kind of bet among hot-dog eaters when he collapsed …’
‘That’s not true! It wasn’t a bet, it was the annual contest sponsored by Nathan’s every July Fourth! My father won three years in a row, and he gave half his winnings to the Coney Island orphanage!’
Complete silence falls on the police station. Everyone is staring at me. I’ve screamed it out, beside myself. I stammer an apology, stare into the detective’s eyes with a sincerity that can’t be faked.
‘Listen,’ he sighs. ‘You two work this out outside. We’ve got other things to do.’
The impostor nods and reaches out to retrieve his passport. I grip his arm and spin him around toward me. ‘And what am I working on right now? Why am I in France?’
His eyes don’t turn away. On the contrary, he looks straight at me, eyelids narrowing. Like an appeal, a sign of reconciliation, a request for truce. Either he doesn’t know the nature of my research, or he’s trying to remind me that it’s confidential.
‘Dr Paul de Kermeur is going to call any minute,’ I say, feeling like I’ve finally scored a point.
He turns away, takes our interlocutor as witness. ‘Lieutenant, this individual is very well informed. I don’t know how. I don’t know if he’s an obsessive or a crook, but I want him to stop harassing us!’
‘Who’s “us”?’
‘He showed up a little while ago and started attacking my wife as if she were his.’
‘She is mine!’
‘She has never seen him before. He called her by name and she’s very distraught. She’s just recovering from a nervous breakdown …’
The redhead looks questioningly at the two uniformed cops, who nod. They add that, otherwise, everything is in order. They checked.
‘Do you wish to bring charges of harassment, sir?’
His small gray eyes look me over beneath his blond locks. I try to block this insane reversal of the situation by repeating the facts, but the police lieutenant summarizes them: ‘This man has identification papers in the name of Martin Harris; you’ve lost yours. He’s married to your wife, which she confirms. And the neighbors all side with him. Have you got anything else to say?’
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