The Possibility of an Island

by Michel Houellebecq

  Of course in the beginning the journalists didn’t believe it, everything in their training predisposed them to ridiculing the hypothesis; but I realized that they were, despite themselves, impressed by Miskiewicz’s personality, by the precision and rigor of his responses; at the end of the interview, I’m convinced, at least two of them had some doubts: it was easy enough for these doubts to spread, amplified, in general-interest magazines.

  What amazed me, however, was the immediate, unreserved belief of the followers. On the morning after the death of the prophet, Cop had, in the early hours, called a general meeting. He and Knowall announced that the prophet had decided, in a gesture of oblation and hope, to be the first to keep the promise. He had therefore thrown himself into a volcano, giving his aging physical body to the flames, in order to be reborn, on the third day, in a renewed body. His last words in his present incarnation, which it was their mission to communicate to the disciples, were the following: “There where I go, you soon will follow.” I expected some movement in the crowd, a mixture of reactions, maybe some gestures of despair; but none of that happened. As they left, all of them were concentrated and silent, but their eyes gleamed with hope, as if this was the news they had always been waiting for. I had thought that I had a good general knowledge of human beings, but this was based only on their most everyday motives: these people had faith, this was new to me, and it changed everything.

  They gathered spontaneously around the laboratory, two days later, leaving their tents in the middle of the night, and waited without saying a word. Among them were five journalists, selected by Knowall, from two press agencies—AFP and Reuters—and three networks, CNN, the BBC, and, I think, Sky News. There were also two policemen, from Madrid, who wanted to record a formal statement from the being who was going to emerge from the laboratory—strictly speaking they had nothing on him, but his position was unprecedented: he claimed to be the prophet, who was officially dead, without exactly being him; he claimed to come into the world without a biological father or mother. Lawyers for the Spanish government had examined the question, obviously without finding anything, even in old records, which could apply to the present case; they had therefore decided to content themselves with a formal statement, in which he would confirm in writing his claims, and provisionally accord him the status of a foundling.

  At the moment when the doors of the laboratory opened, turning on their invisible hinges, everyone stood up, and I had the impression of an animal panting spreading through the crowd, caused by the sudden acceleration of hundreds of breaths. In the dawning light Knowall’s face looked tense, exhausted, and closed. He announced that the concluding part of the resurrection operation was running into unexpected difficulties; after having conferred with his assistants, he had decided to extend his deadline by three days; he therefore invited the followers to go back to their tents, remain there as much as possible, and concentrate their thoughts on the transformation, on which the salvation of the rest of mankind depended. He would meet them in three days’ time, at sunset, at the foot of the mountain: if everything went well the prophet would have returned to his apartment, and would be in a fit state to make his first public appearance.

  Miskiewicz’s voice was grave, reflecting the appropriate amount of concern, and this time I noticed an agitation, whispers ran through the crowd. I was quite surprised that he had exhibited such a good understanding of mass psychology. The course was initially scheduled to end the following day, but I think no one seriously thought of leaving: out of three hundred and twelve return flights, there were three hundred and twelve cancellations. As for me, it took me several hours to think of alerting Esther. Once again I got her voicemail, and once again I left a message; I was quite surprised that she didn’t call back, she must have been aware of what was happening on the island, the whole world’s media was talking about it now.

  Of course, the extended deadline increased the incredulity of the media, but curiosity did not abate, instead it increased from hour to hour, and this was what Miskiewicz had intended: he made two brief statements, one each day, this time only to the five science journalists he had chosen as interlocutors, in order to outline the last-minute difficulties he claimed to have run into. He had a perfect mastery of his subject, and I had the impression that the others were beginning to be more and more convinced by him.

  I was also surprised by the attitude of Vincent, who was growing progressively into his role. On the level of physical resemblance, the project had raised some doubts in me from the start. Vincent had always been very discreet, he had always refused to speak in public, about his artistic work, for example, on the numerous occasions when the prophet had invited him to; despite this, however, most of the followers had had the occasion to come across him, in the course of the previous years. In a few days, my doubts vanished: I realized to my surprise that Vincent was changing physically. First, he had decided to shave his head, and this accentuated his resemblance to the prophet; but the most astonishing thing was that little by little the expression in his eyes was changing, as was his tone of voice. There was now a bright, mischievous gleam in his eyes, which had not been there in all the time I had known him; and his voice was taking on warm, seductive tones, which surprised me more and more. There had always been a gravity to him, a depth that the prophet had never had, but which could also work: the being who was going to be reborn was supposed to have crossed the frontiers of death, you might expect him to come out of the experience as someone more distant, more strange. Cop and Knowall were in any case delighted by the changes in him, I think they had never hoped to obtain so convincing a result. The only one who reacted badly was Gérard, whom I had difficulty now calling Joker: he spent his days wandering around the underground galleries, as if he still hoped to meet the prophet there; he had stopped washing and was beginning to stink. He flashed distrustful and hostile looks at Vincent, like a dog that does not recognize its master. As for Vincent he spoke little, but his eyes were luminous and benevolent, he gave the impression of preparing himself for an ordeal, and of having banished all fear; later he revealed to me that in those days he was already thinking of the construction of the embassy, its decor, he intended to retain nothing of the prophet’s plans. He had obviously forgotten the Italian girl, whose death seemed at the time to pose him such painful problems of conscience; and I must confess that I, too, had slightly forgotten her. Perhaps, fundamentally, Miskiewicz was right: a constellation of frost, a pretty but temporary pattern…My years in show business had to some extent weakened my moral sense; however, I still had, I believed, some convictions. Mankind, like all the social species, had built itself on the prohibition of murder within the group, and more generally on the limitation of the level of violence acceptable in the resolution of interindividual conflicts; civilization itself had no other real meaning. This idea was valid for all civilizations imaginable, for all the “rational beings,” as Kant would have said, whether mortal or immortal, it was an incontrovertible certainty. After a few minutes’ reflection I realized that, from Miskiewicz’s point of view, Francesca did not belong to the group: what he was trying to do was create a new species, which would have no more moral obligation toward humans than the humans had toward jellyfish or lizards; I realized, above all, that I would have no scruples about belonging to this new species, that my disgust at murder was of a sentimental or emotional, rather than a rational, nature; thinking of Fox, I realized that the murder of a dog would have shocked me as much as that of a man, and probably more so; then, as I had done in all the quite difficult circumstances of my life, I simply stopped thinking.

  The fiancées of the prophet had remained ensconced in their bedrooms, and been kept informed of events to exactly the same degree as the other followers; they had greeted the news with the same faith, and confidently expected to find a rejuvenated lover. At one point it struck me that perhaps there would be, in spite of everything, a few difficulties with Susan: she had known Vincent personally, had spok
en to him; then I understood that no, she had faith as well, and no doubt more, than all the others, that her very nature excluded the slightest possibility of doubt. In this sense, I told myself, she was very different from Esther, I could never have imagined Esther subscribing to such unrealistic dogmas, and I also realized that since the beginning of this sojourn I had been thinking of her a little less; this was fortunate, moreover, because she still wasn’t replying to my messages, I had left about a dozen of them on her voicemail without success, but I wasn’t suffering too much, I was in some ways elsewhere, in a space that was still human but utterly different from all I had known before, even some journalists, I realized later when I read their accounts, had been touched by this peculiar atmosphere, this sensation of pre-apocalyptic expectation.

  On the day of the resurrection, the faithful gathered from the early hours at the foot of the mountain, even though Vincent’s appearance was only scheduled for sunset. Two hours later, the networks’ helicopters began to buzz over the area—Knowall had finally given them authorization to fly over, but he had denied journalists any access to the grounds. For the moment, the cameramen did not have much to pick out—a few images of a peaceful crowd, which waited, without a word or a gesture, for the miracle to happen. When the helicopters returned, the atmosphere became a little more tense—the followers hated the media, which was unsurprising given the treatment they had received from them up until then; but there were no hostile reactions, no threatening gestures or cries.

  Around five in the afternoon, a murmur ran through the crowd; some songs were sung, taken up softly by others, then silence reigned again. Vincent, sitting cross-legged in the main cave, seemed not only deep in concentration but in some way outside of time. Around seven, Miskiewicz presented himself at the entrance to the cave. “Do you feel ready?” he asked him. Vincent nodded without a word, and got up lithely; his long white robe floated on his thinning body.

  Miskiewicz was the first to go out, advancing onto the terreplein that overlooked the crowd of the faithful; they all leaped to their feet. The silence was broken only by the regular humming of the helicopters hanging immobile in the air.

  “The door has been crossed,” he said. His voice was perfectly amplified, without any distortion or echo; I was sure that with good directional microphones, the journalists would be able to make a good recording of it. “The door has been crossed in one direction and then in the other,” he continued. “The barrier of death is no more; that which was foretold has just been accomplished. The prophet has conquered death; he is again among us.” On these words he moved a few meters to one side and bowed his head in respect. There was about a minute’s wait that seemed to last forever, no one spoke or moved, all eyes were on the opening of the cave, which faced directly west. At the moment when a ray of the setting sun, through the clouds, illuminated the opening, Vincent came out and advanced onto the terreplein: it was this image, captured by a cameraman from the BBC, that would be repeated on televisions across the globe. An expression of adoration filled the faces of the followers, some raised their outstretched arms to the sky; but there was not a cry, not a murmur. Vincent opened his hands and after a few seconds, during which he simply breathed into a microphone that captured each of his breaths, he began to speak: “I breathe, like every one of you…,” he said softly. “However, I no longer belong to the same species. I proclaim to you a new mankind…,” he continued. “Since its origin the universe has waited for an eternal being, coexistent with it, in which to reflect itself, as in a mirror that is pure and unsullied by time. This being has been born today, just after five p.m. I am the Paraclete and the fulfillment of the promise. I am, for the moment, alone, but my solitude will not last, for you will soon join me. You are my first companions, to the number of three hundred and twelve; you are the first generation, the new species called upon to replace man; you are the first neohumans. I am the zero point and you are the first wave. Today, we are entering a different era, where the passing of time no longer has the same meaning. Today, we enter eternal life. This moment will be remembered.”

  Daniel25, 6

  DANIEL¡ ASIDE, these crucial days had only three primary witnesses; the life stories of Slotan1—whom he called “Knowall”—and of Jérôme1—to whom he had given the name “Cop”—converge, fundamentally, with his: the immediate adherence of the followers, their unreserved belief in the resurrection of the prophet…The plan seems to have worked from the outset, to the extent that one can actually speak of a “plan”; Slotan1, as his life story shows, never believed that he was indulging in trickery, persuaded as he was that he would obtain the necessary results within a few years; in his mind, the announcement had simply happened slightly early.

  In a very different tone, and with an elliptical brevity that has disconcerted his commentators, the life story of Vincent1 confirms no less precisely what took place, right up to the pathetic episode of the suicide of Gérard, the one whom Daniel1 had nicknamed “Joker,” found hanging in his cell after dragging himself around for a few weeks, and at a point when Slotan1 and Jérôme1 were beginning, for their part, to think of eliminating him. Turning more and more to drink, Gérard became carried away with tearful memories of his youth spent with the prophet and of the “good tricks” they had played together. Neither of them, it seemed, had believed for a second in the existence of the Elohim. “It was just a joke…,” he repeated, “a good joke between stoners. We had taken some magic mushrooms, we went for a walk among the volcanoes, and we began to hallucinate the whole thing. I never thought it would go this far…” His chatterings were beginning to become embarrassing, for the cult of the Elohim was never officially abandoned, even though it quickly fell into disuse. In their heart of hearts, neither Vincent1 nor Slotan1 placed much importance on this hypothesis of a race of extraterrestrial creators, but both of them concurred with the idea that the human being was going to disappear, and that it was necessary to prepare for the advent of its successor. In the mind of Vincent1, even if it were possible that man had been created by the Elohim, recent events proved in any case that he had entered upon a process of Elohimization, in the sense that he had become, in his turn, a master and creator of life. From this perspective the embassy was becoming a sort of memorial to mankind, destined to bear witness to his aspirations and values in the eyes of the future race; as such it also fitted perfectly into the classical tradition of art. As for Jérôme1, he had become just as completely indifferent to the question of the Elohim, ever since the moment he had been allowed to devote himself to his true passion: the creation and organization of power structures.

  This great diversity of points of view within the triumvirate of the founders certainly played a big role, as has already been emphasized, in the complementary operations that they were able to establish, and in the stunning success of Elohimism in the few years that followed Vincent’s “resurrection.” Moreover, it makes the correlation of their testimonies all the more striking.

  Daniel1, 18

  The complication of the world is unjustified.

  —Yves Roissy, reply to Marcel Fréthrez

  AFTER THE EXTREME TENSION of the days preceding the resurrection of the prophet in the form of Vincent, after the acme of his media appearance, at the entrance of the cave, in the rays of the setting sun, I am now left with a vague, almost joyful, memory of the days that followed. Cop and Knowall rapidly defined the limits of their respective operations; I realized at once that they would keep to them, and that if no sympathy could emerge between them, they nevertheless functioned efficiently in tandem, for they needed one another, knew it, and shared the same taste for flawless organization.

  After the first evening, Knowall had definitively forbidden journalists access to the grounds, and had, in Vincent’s name, refused all interviews; he had even asked for a ban on flyovers—which was immediately granted him by the chief of police, whose aim was to try and calm, as much as possible, the prevailing agitation. By proceeding in this way
, Knowall had no specific intention, other than to make it known to the world media that he was in charge of information, that he was at the source of it, and that nothing could happen without his authorization. The journalists, after having camped unsuccessfully in front of the entrance to the grounds, therefore departed, in smaller and smaller groups, and, by the end of the week, we were alone again. Vincent seemed to have moved definitively into a new reality, and we had no more contact; once, however, on passing by me on the rocky slope that led to our former cells, he invited me to come and see how advanced the plans for the embassy were. I followed him into an underground, white-walled room, lined with loudspeakers and video projectors, then he activated the “slideshow” program on the computer. It wasn’t an embassy, and there weren’t really any plans. I had the impression of crossing immense curtains of light, which appeared, formed, and vanished all around me. Sometimes I found myself among small sparkling, pretty objects, which surrounded me with a friendly presence; then an immense wave of light swallowed everything, and gave birth to a new decor. We were entirely in whiteness, from the crystalline to the milky, from the dull to the dazzling; this bore no relation to any possible reality, but it was beautiful. I told myself that this was perhaps the true nature of art, to show us dreamed-of worlds, impossible worlds, and that it was a thing I had never come close to, that I had never felt myself capable of; I also understood that irony, comedy, and humor were going to have to die, for the world to come was the world of happiness, and there would no longer be any place for them there.