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His apartment was situated on a tiny hill in Montmartre, three subway stations from his office.
From his window, he could hear the sirens and see the smoke rising from burning tires. He stared endlessly at the street as he waited for his daughter to arrive. She showed up three days later, took a quick shower, grabbed some of her clothes—since they were at his apartment—ate whatever she could find, and left again, repeating, “I’ll explain later.”
What he’d thought would be a fleeting moment, a contained fury, ended up spreading over all of France; employees kidnapped their bosses, and a general strike was declared. Most factories were occupied by workers—just as had happened a week earlier with the universities.
France came to a standstill. The problem was no longer the students—who seemed to have changed their focus and now waved flags emblazoned with FREE LOVE or DOWN WITH CAPITALISM, or OPEN BORDERS FOR ALL, or THE BOURGEOISIE DON’T UNDERSTAND A THING.
The problem now was the general strike.
* * *
—
The TV was his only source of information. That was where he saw, to his surprise and horror, after twenty hellish days, the president of France finally appear to tell his countrymen that he would organize a referendum proposing “cultural, social, and economic renewal.” If he lost, he would resign. General Charles de Gaulle, he who had survived the Nazis, he who had put an end to the colonial war in Algeria, he who was admired by all.
What de Gaulle had to propose meant nothing to the workers, who had little interest in free love, open borders, that sort of thing. They thought of only one thing: a meaningful increase in wages. Prime Minister Georges Pompidou met with union leaders, Trotskyites, anarchists, socialists, and only then did the crisis begin to wane—when everyone was face-to-face, each group making different demands. This division was the government’s doing.
Jacques decided to take part in a pro–de Gaulle demonstration. All of France watched in horror. The demonstration, which spread to nearly every city, brought together an enormous number of people, and those who had launched what Jacques never stopped calling “anarchy” soon recoiled. New labor agreements were signed. The students, who no longer had any demands, slowly returned to classes—overcome with the sensation that their victory meant absolutely nothing.
At the end of May (or beginning of June, he couldn’t remember), his daughter finally came back home and told him they had achieved everything they wanted. He didn’t ask her what it was they wanted, and she didn’t elaborate, but she looked tired, disappointed, frustrated. Restaurants were opening once again. They had a candlelight dinner and avoided the subject entirely. Jacques wasn’t about to tell her he’d gone to a rally in support of the government. The only comment he took seriously, very seriously, was when she said:
“I’m tired of this place. I’m going to travel and live far away from here.”
In the end, she gave up on the idea; first she needed to “finish her studies,” and Jacques understood that those who desired a prosperous, competitive France had won. True revolutionaries weren’t the least bit worried about graduating and earning a diploma.
Ever since that day, he’d read thousands of pages full of explanations and justifications offered by philosophers, politicians, editors, journalists, et cetera. They cited the closing of a university in Nanterre earlier that month, but that couldn’t have been the reason for the fury he’d witnessed the few times he had dared to leave the house.
He never saw a single line that could bring him to conclude: “Ah, that’s what started it all.”
* * *
—
The second—and defining—transformative moment was a dinner in one of Paris’s finest restaurants, where he would bring special clients—potential buyers for their countries and cities. France had already turned the page on May 1968, though its flames had spread to other locations across the globe. No one wanted to revisit these events and if a foreign client dared to ask about them, Jacques would discreetly change the subject, arguing that “the newspapers always exaggerate.”
And the conversation would end there.
He was a good friend of the restaurant’s owner; they were on a first-name basis, which impressed his clients—part of the plan, by the way. He would walk in, the waiters would take him to “his table” (which was always changing according to how busy it was, but his guests didn’t know this). A glass of champagne was immediately served to each of the guests, the menus delivered, the orders taken, the expensive wine (“Same as always, right?” the waiter would ask, and Jacques would nod), and the conversation was always the same (leaving those who had just arrived wondering if they ought to go to the Lido, the Crazy Horse, or the Moulin-Rouge; it was incredible how Paris was reduced to these three destinations in foreigners’ minds). There was no talk of work during a business dinner unless it came at the end, when an excellent Cuban cigar was offered to everyone at the table. The final details were worked out among people who thought they were extremely important when in reality the sales department had everything ready and only needed the proper signatures, as was always the case.
After everyone had ordered, the waiter turned to Jacques: “The usual?”
The usual: oysters for an appetizer. He explained how they must be served alive; seeing how the majority of his guests were foreigners, they were horrified. His plan was to order snails next—the famous escargots. He’d end by asking for a plate of frog legs.
No one dared join him, and that was how he preferred it. It was part of the marketing.
All the appetizers were served at the same time. The oysters arrived, and everyone else sat waiting to see what would happen next. He squeezed a bit of lemon over the first, which moved a bit, to the surprise and horror of his guests. He popped it in his mouth and allowed it to slide down into his stomach, savoring the salt water that always remained in the shell.
Then, two seconds later, he could no longer breathe. He tried to maintain his pose, but it was impossible—he dropped to the floor, certain he was about to die, looking at the ceiling and its crystal chandeliers, possibly brought from Czechoslovakia.
His vision began to change; now he could see only black and red. He tried to sit—he’d already eaten dozens, hundreds of oysters in his life—but he no longer had any control over his own body. He tried to pull air into his lungs, but it refused to enter.
There was a quick moment of anxiety, and then Jacques died.
Suddenly, he was hovering near the restaurant ceiling looking down on a crowd that had gathered around his body. Others tried to make room for help to arrive, as the Moroccan waiter ran toward the kitchen. His vision wasn’t exactly sharp and clear; it was as though there was a transparent veil or some sort of water running between him and the scene below. Fear, and everything else, had ceased to exist—an immense peace washed over everything, and time, because time still existed, sped up. The people down below seemed to move in slow motion, in other words, in photograms. The Moroccan waiter returned from the kitchen, and the images disappeared—the only thing left was complete, white emptiness, and a peacefulness that was almost palpable. Contrary to what many said on occasions like that, he saw no dark tunnel; he felt a loving energy all around him, something he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He was a baby in his mother’s womb, nothing more—he never wanted to leave there again.
Suddenly he felt a hand grabbing him and pulling him down. He didn’t want to go; he was finally enjoying what he’d fought and waited for his entire life—peace, love, music, love, peace. But the hand was tugging him with incredible force and he was unable to fight against it.
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the restaurant owner’s face, somewhere between worried and overjoyed. His heart was racing, he felt nauseous, like he was about to vomit, but he controlled himself. He’d broken out in a cold sweat, and one of the waiters brought a tablecloth to cover him.
