The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers. Fouad Laroui
let it show, true to his credo: “I am not at home here, I am a sort of guest in this country.”) But here, for God’s sake! Here, in Utrecht, wasn’t he ten times more of a foreigner than he would have been if he had moved to Nantes or Montpellier? Over there, the trees would have had familiar names, the trees and the animals and the household items at the supermarket; over there, he wouldn’t have needed to consult a dictionary to buy a mop—a mop, goddamnit! It had come to this, he who had dreamed of “changing the world”—what was it again, that Marx quotation he had repeated with elation (in his youth, for now opportunities for citing Marx were rare…), with a sort of pride by anticipation—like a program, like a project…ah yes: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it!” He added long ago, a bit of a pedant, but a winning pedant: “the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach,” yes, yes: “the point is to change it!” But today? Life’s vicissitudes…Here he is, an immigrant in a world where he doesn’t know the codes, or only very vaguely, a world where each day he must discover the codes—a discreet nudge from Anna, the nudge in his side that night when he had enthusiastically plunged his spoon into the soup bowl, the night when her parents were visiting—hey, we have to wait for the short prayer giving thanks to God for the food on the table—wasn’t her father a pastor of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands? Hastily putting the spoon back down next to the bowl, he had clasped his hands with unction and lowered his head—they didn’t expect him to do the short prayer (what was it called? “Doing grace”?) but at least he had given the impression of reflecting with them, so that he would be slightly of their world)—a world where everything was foreign?
What would it be like… he asked himself, walking slowly—more and more slowly, as if he wasn’t in any hurry to arrive—in the direction of his house (their house), where his wife Anna was waiting for him—sweet, kind Anna—but sweet and kind because he never annoyed her, having decided once and for all that he would move to the Netherlands, that they had accepted him (they had even given him a passport), and that it was out of the question, consequently, to import anything of his own customs, habits, behaviors from his native Morocco into this country where he was rebuilding his life—no: where he was continuing his life—Anna whom he had ended up marrying in order to settle down (isn’t that what it was called, in times past, in the world of Parisian courtesans? (Doesn’t Proust use this expression somewhere? Concerning Odette, perhaps?)—Oh Maati, you and your French references…and sometimes she would add, with a smile: You aren’t even French, you’re Moroccan! (It wasn’t mean, just a bit teasing—Anna didn’t establish any hierarchy between Moroccans and the French—which stunned him, and for which he was extremely grateful to her—it was so new, a country where he was just as well regarded, or just as poorly regarded [depending on the person], as the French. At least there’s that in exile.) He had tried one day to explain to her that he was Moroccan by birth, in body, but “French in the head.”…(Suddenly he remembered the title of the novel-essay by Günter Grass, Headbirths or, the Germans are Dying Out. Today he could read it in German: Kopfgeburten oder die Deutschen sterben aus. While learning Dutch, he had incidentally also learned German. At least there’s that in exile (bis). I’m cold, he said to himself sometimes with bitter irony, I’m cold and I eat tasteless things, but at least I’ve learned German, the language of the philosophers, and now I know the exact meaning of aufheben. We were so impressed by them, the Althussers and the consorts, the Derridas, the Glucksmanns, in Paris, when they threw out words like that one, without translating them, as if they were using an abracadabra that only they could access.) She had laughed in his face, and even he wasn’t very convinced by his pro domo plea. (He got angry when Anna contradicted him, and even more so when he knew that she was right, at least partially—but he never let it show, true to his credo: “I am not at home here, I am a sort of guest in this country.”) But here, for God’s sake! Here, in Utrecht, wasn’t he ten times more of a foreigner than he would have been if he had moved to Nantes or Montpellier? Over there, the trees would have had familiar names, the trees and the animals and the household items at the supermarket; over there, he wouldn’t have needed to consult a dictionary to buy a mop—a mop, goddamnit! It had come to this, he who had dreamed of “changing the world”—what was it again, that Marx quotation he had repeated with elation (in his youth, for now opportunities for citing Marx were rare—at university he had seen people defend a thesis in economics, in sociology, without being able to define surplus value or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall), a sort of pride by anticipation—like a program, like a project…ah yes: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it!” He added long ago, a bit of a pedant, but a winning pedant: “the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach,” yes, yes: “the point is to change it!” But today? Life’s vicissitudes…Here he is, an immigrant in a world where he doesn’t know the codes, or only very vaguely, a world where each day he must discover the codes—a discreet nudge from Anna, the nudge in his side that night when he had enthusiastically plunged his spoon into the soup bowl, the night when her parents were visiting—hey, we have to wait for the short prayer giving thanks to God for the food on the table—wasn’t her father a pastor of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands? Hadn’t he accepted, this strict father (but not overly), bearded like Jehovah (but not overly), Bach amateur (without moderation), that his daughter marry a foreigner? Shouldn’t he be grateful to him? Even if it was possible to read this entire story differently, and view him, the foreigner, as the loser in the affair; to paint a picture, passing from one German to another, from Marx to Nietzsche: “This one went forth in quest of truth as a hero, and at last got for himself a small decked-up lie: his marriage he calleth it.” A dressed-up lie (so sweet, so kind) that nudged him in the ribs…Hastily putting the spoon back down next to the bowl, he had clasped his hands (he who had never done so in his country, who had never prayed, nor even entered a mosque) and lowered his head—they didn’t expect him to do the short prayer (what was it called? “Doing grace?”) but at least he had given the impression of reflecting with them, so that he would be slightly of their world—a world where everything was foreign?
What would it be like, he asked himself, walking slowly…
…more and more slowly; he ended up stopping right at the corner of Transvaalstraat…
…as if he weren’t in any hurry to arrive—in the direction of his house (their house)…
…what is a house? “House” or “home”? Just a cube, a big cube, a cut-out space that the Land Registry had given to him…He watched television there, slept there, watched out of the corner of his eye a beautiful young blonde woman sitting on the sofa, next to him, sometimes forgetting who she was…
…ah yes, it’s my wife…(my wife? What does the possessive signify? What, exactly, do I possess? Am I not rather the thing that is possessed, the domesticated animal—there must be a tiger or a lion at the zoo in Amsterdam who believes he possesses something, who thinks he’s wandering around in his home and that the little piece of wood in the form of a tree is his own, beware of the one who comes to rub himself there—it’s the conspiracy of the Tall-Blonde-Bach-amateurs that possesses me in the most subtle of manners—I am in their trap—their chains—so be it, I will end up in the cellar, in the hold of a ship beaten by the waves, heading toward the plantation, the zoo…)
…where his wife Anna was waiting—sweet, kind Anna—but sweet and kind because he never annoyed her…
…he had become someone who gives up, a sâdhu…“Are you two sure you’re married? (It was their neighbor who had said this, loquacious, knowing…) You never fight.” Exactly, he could have responded: I have renounced—in a world of discord—I have abstracted myself from the world, I am an abstraction—indeed, they talk about me that way. Maati? What a curious name…What are you? (What.) Ah, Moroccan…then comes the succession of adjectives, the abstraction clarifies: Muslim, probably macho, lover of complicated things, tom-tom, and isn’t there a big desert in your country? (In my country? I live on Transvaalstraat, in Utrecht.) No, I mean: in your country.
…having decided once and for all that he would move to the Netherlands, that they had accepted him