The Age of Reinvention (6 page)

Tahar had not suspected a thing during all those months when Ruth was organizing this surprise party. He watched her now as she welcomed their guests, makeup and hair in perfect order, her body sheathed in a $10,000 dress inlaid with pearls, and thought that he owed her everything. That night, in his thank-you speech, he made public the love and admiration he felt for her—the type of exhibition that he had long considered ridiculous and embarrassing, but whose virtues he had come to appreciate from living in the United States. The guests clapped and cheered; his wife shed tears of emotion; his children rushed up to hug and kiss him. The photographer immortalized this moment. The perfect Jewish family. Snap!

1
. Nawel Tahar, née Yahyaoui, the daughter of Ismail Yahyaoui, a metalworker. Born in Tunisia, she was forced to give up school and find a job after her father died in an accident at work.

2
. The star of Blake Edwards's 1968 movie
The Party
, this elephant now plays cameo roles in private parties.

3
. Born in Poland in 1890, Rav Shalom Levine was for forty years in charge of burying sacred texts with the dead. According to Jewish tradition, the texts must not be burned or torn. A longtime member of the Jewish Writers' Club in Warsaw, he habitually quoted this line from the Pirkei Avot: “Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his lot in life.”

4
. Despite winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer stated: “I consider the fact of being vegetarian to be the greatest success of my life.”

5
. One of whom, Yonathan Strauss, later became a famous harpist.

6
. Sofia Werther (but is that her real name?). Believed to be born in 1979. Though known for her depressive tendencies, she did manage to wangle a date with Woody Allen after one of his clarinet concerts at Carnegie Hall by pretending to be a Czech movie producer.

7
. Adam Konigsberg announced to his parents, at a very young age: “I'm going to be rich when I grow up.” Today, he is the proprietor of several sex shops.

8
. After studying political science, Ethan Weinstein became a Democratic senator to “piss off” his father.

9
. Long considered a “failure” by his father, Michael Abramovich—who had dreamed of becoming an actor—committed suicide at the age of twenty-seven by throwing himself out of a window.

10
. Deborah Levy. A brilliant child, raised by parents obsessed with the idea of scholarly success, she gave up her studies to pursue an American man of Indian origin. Having converted to Hinduism, she was now living in Mumbai with her eight children.

11
. Palestinian poet. In December 2005, he told the Arab newspaper
Al-Hayat
(London): “I don't believe in applause. I know it is insincere, deceitful, and that it can turn a poet away from poetry.”

12
. Dylan Berman, born in 1965 in New York. Son of a Brooklyn tailor, he decided at a very young age that he wanted to become a lawyer. He has boasted of being one of the best-paid members of his profession in the United States.

13
. Erwan Leconte, Franco-British businessman born in London in 1930, whose mother said of him: “When you have a son like Erwan, you can call your life a success.”

Twenty years later, the bomb explodes, causing internal carnage and mortification. It happens just when Samuel least expects it: at forty years old, as he is mourning the man he
should
have been; it comes when he no longer possesses anything, when he has already deliberately trashed every chance he's been given, every ability he had—it's incredible how much determination someone can put into their self-destruction—and here he is now, staggering to his feet in the middle of the night (he looks like he has a limp), heading straight toward the wall, he's going to crash into it, but no, he steadies himself, holds his course, rises to the challenge. And here he is now, frozen before Nina, watching her statuesque body lying on the mattress on the floor, stretched out on her back in a mortuary pose; he examines her closed eyes, the purplish eyelids, dark rings from sleepless nights spent watching him get shitfaced, the mass of black hair that she trims herself with little beveled nail scissors, and her opulent white breasts that he can see through the oversized T-shirt—that obsession she has with always wearing clothes a size too large . . . to hide what? She is
objectively
the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and every time he looks at her, overtly or surreptitiously, he feels the same shock. He should be used to it by now, after all the time they have been together. You get used to everything, they say—but not that. She is a tall brunette with black-edged eyes, fine features and a stunning, voluptuous body. She has high, rounded buttocks, wide hips, and a narrow waist, legs that are long and amazingly muscled for someone whose main form of exercise is running through the corridors of the RER train station or after her bus. A woman whose every gesture electrifies the most mundane activity. Look at her reading, look at her working. Watching as she enters a room or crosses a street is, in itself, an erotic experience, not because Nina tries to attract the male gaze or wants to be the center of attention—she is too discreet for that, too natural and unambiguous—but because she seems hampered by her perfect physique. There is nothing free about her movements; she can't let her hair down, put on a pair of shorts and a low-cut tank top, and go out for a walk because, if she does, if she acts spontaneously, lets loose her sensuality, she will be whistled at, checked out, heckled, and hit on. And for a girl like her, so detached from the iniquitous laws of attraction, so indifferent to the artificial physics of seduction that rule social life, this is unbearable. It is clear, watching her, that she has no idea what to do with that hypersexualized body of hers, which magnetizes everyone around her, no matter what she does, filling the mind of every passing male with just one desire: to possess her. God should have provided a user manual with a body like that. Such beauty is a prison. Faced with her, no one thinks they are in the same league—and it's true: no one is. She is not the kind of girl to fuck on the first date, or even the second. Not that she's especially prudish—her moral compass does not always point north—but she is all too aware of the devastating effects of her impressive, alienating beauty. And the truth is that she is the one who is most impressed, most alienated by her beauty. So she ties her long, smooth, dark hair in a ponytail, and that is the best thing to do. True, she has just turned forty; she is now entering the climacteric phase; she knows that soon, in a few months or a few years—within a very short, and rapidly shortening, period of time (a time she does not fear the passing of, because age, she thinks, will calm the agitation that her presence always creates whenever she enters a room)—men will no longer turn around and stare. Samuel is watching out for that moment. With a woman like her, you live with the permanent fear of losing her. You see and you understand that a man can take her from you at
any
time; many men have the desire to do it, and perhaps the means too: charm, humor, wealth, whatever . . . The fact is, he
can
take your place. In a matter of months, weeks, hours, he can steal the place you have managed to keep through pity, intimidation, and blackmail, the place that is constantly under threat due to your repeated failures. You are sitting on an ejector seat, and you must use all your charm/cunning/negotiating skills to stay there. You walk, always, on the edge of an abyss. You never feel secure. Even in bed with her, you worry you are not up to the task. You go to bed in a state of anxiety, you sleep uneasily, and you wake up with your stomach in knots. Being married to a woman like this is like driving an armored truck containing millions of dollars in cash while running a high fever: Concentrate! There are bank robbers lurking in the shadows, everywhere, waiting to shoot you in the head so they can make off with the loot. What you have, they want—and more intensely, more powerfully than you do, because as yet they have never touched it, never possessed it; they don't know what it is to have a woman as beautiful as that. If she were a spy, she could obtain state secrets simply by laying her head on a pillow. But she is not aware of her power. Whenever she enters a room, she slouches slightly, lowers her eyes . . . and yet it makes no difference: she still lights up every corner, hardens every prick, and this is what terrifies Samuel: losing her . . . (And he
is
losing her, he can feel it, so why does he suggest to her, as soon as they have switched off the television, that they do some research on Samir?)
Get the laptop—let's see what we can find on him
. And now here they are, sitting next to each other, eyes fixed on the screen like two students cramming for an exam. Samuel googles the words “Samir Tahar” and reads the following question:
Did you mean: Sam Tahar?
Within seconds, dozens of links appear on the screen—professional contact details, interviews, references to current legal cases. No Facebook or Twitter profiles.

He clicks on each link, prints each document. He discovers that Samir got his master's in criminal law from the University of Montpellier and joined the firm Lévy et Queffélec, where he worked for two years before taking over the branch they opened in New York. Samuel googles
Levy, Berman and Associates
. Having passed the bar exams in Paris and New York, Samir made his name representing an American firefighter who was seriously burned while rescuing victims of the Twin Towers attack, and two families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. His name is also often mentioned in relation to lawsuits brought by feminist groups; in fact, he has represented several gang-rape victims. He also learns that Samir is married to Ruth Berg, the daughter of Rahm Berg.

On Wikipedia, he finds this article:

Born in Jerusalem on May 4, 1945, Rahm Berg is an American businessman, former president of the RBA Group, listed on the Fortune Global 100. He is also one of the world's biggest collectors of modern and contemporary art.

His first name, Rahm, means “high” or “lofty” in Hebrew. His mother, Rebecca Weiss, is descended from a long line of ultra-Orthodox rabbis. His father, Abraham Berg, born in Jerusalem, is a former member of Irgun, a paramilitary Zionist group active in Palestine and then in Israel between 1931 and 1948. He emigrated to the United States with his family in the late 1950s.

Rahm Berg is a fervent supporter of the “Jewish cause” and of Israel. He has financed several artistic projects and, in particular, one major exhibition entitled “Guilty Silence” at the Somerset House gallery in London.

When he types “Sam Tahar” into Google, he notices something he missed the first time around. The search engine provides the most-searched-for combinations involving his name. Samuel reads:

sam tahar lawyer

sam tahar new york

sam tahar jew

They are dubious to begin with—they know that the description “Jew” is often attached to famous people on Internet search engines—but as they open the links, they realize there can be no doubt. “So Samir's either pretending to be a Jew or he's become a Jew—that's pretty clear, don't you think?” “Yes,” says Samuel coldly, apparently troubled by this revelation. “You think he converted?” Nina asks. “It's possible . . .
Anything's
possible where he's concerned.” The two of them are suddenly struck silent by a large portrait of Samir in an American magazine. Caught by the lens of a famous photographer, he is posing in a black suit and white shirt, his face aggressively lit from below, as if to underline his importance and his duality, suggested by the article's subtitle:
God or the Devil?
Above the full-page article runs the headline
WHAT MAKES SAMI RUN?
, while the piece itself, written by a young American novelist,
¹
is part of a series of profiles entitled
Rising Stars
, highlighting the upward trajectories of leaders in various professional fields. Samuel's English is not good, but Nina's is. “Give me that,” she says, grabbing the laptop and placing it (underside hot and motor whirring) on her knees. As she reads, she translates for Samuel. But after only a few seconds, her face tightens and she goes silent. “What is it? What does it say?” Samuel asks. Nina does not reply. She reads on, incapable of dragging her eyes away from the screen. “Tell me what it says!” Samuel shouts. He's losing control now, this is torture, he's about to crack. “Tell me what it says in the article! Why have you stopped translating?” Nina remains silent. She has to read the piece three or four times so she can fully understand what's at stake and decide her strategy. He grabs her shoulders and gently shakes her: “Tell me! Tell me! What does it say?” But she only looks at him, her mouth half open, without making the slightest sound.

1
. Samantha David, twenty-eight, author of the political novel
The Reconciliation
. Has also written works of erotica under the pseudonym Lola Monroe.

Here they are now, the Tahars, walking hand in hand through the main entrance with a complacent, seen-it-all look on their faces while the night watchman
¹
assigned to guard their building checks them out with a mix of fascination and contempt. Later, he will describe them to his wife as “those rich bastards,” but for now he's all smiles—good evening, ma'am, good evening, sir, laying it on thick in search of a tip. It's an importunate sort of obsequiousness, and Tahar will end up slipping him a few bills, but not now because—tough luck—Ruth's cell phone starts ringing: it's her father, wanting to congratulate her again, tell her how proud of her he is, etc. They take the elevator—Ruth's father still talking—and enter their apartment, and finally she is able to hang up, after thanking her father ten times over. (And Samir finds himself wondering just how much input this man had in the organization of his party, hoping the answer is not too much because he can't stand the idea of being indebted to his father-in-law again.)
One last drink before bedtime?
he asks his wife. But no, she's had too much to drink already and she's tired. “I can't believe you still have so much energy. I feel like I've kissed so many people tonight that I must have caught every germ in Manhattan!” But there's no way he can sleep now—it must be the excitement, the emotion. Before going to bed, she hands him the large white envelope containing the list that she left at Ralph Lauren. He can't resist opening it in front of her and remarking on the amount of money each guest paid. “Stan, that son of a bitch—I made him who he is and all he gets me is a hundred-and-fifty-dollar scarf. Dylan gave fifteen hundred euros—I hope he didn't hand it over in cash,” he jokes. “You have enough clothes to last you until you're fifty,” Ruth says. And then, after kissing her husband, she moves off toward the bedroom. Samir watches her slim figure vanish down the hallway, holding her precious high heels by their straps in one slender hand, her bare feet gliding delicately over the carpet like the ballet dancer she must once have been, back in her childhood when, idolized by a father who saw her as a creature of earthly perfection, she had tried out every single activity a wellborn girl ought to try: ballet, music, and foreign languages, essentially. The results had been beyond even her father's expectations: just look at the way she walks, stately and supple; admire her posture, her virtuosity at the piano; the ease with which she expresses herself in German, Hebrew, even Japanese, which she learned quite late, purely for the pleasure of being able to read haikus untranslated.