You Changed My Life (20 page)

I got more information on the telephone from the company that sold us the tickets for the boat. They were suggesting we go to Toulon, where we'd be able to make the crossing. Toulon, more than forty miles away . . . I tried calling a taxi. Nothing doing. So I took off on foot, alone, to the Marseille train station, to get not one, but two taxis. The train travelers were trying to get
cabs, too. No taxis. I headed back toward the center of town, went down the smaller streets leading to the Casbah d'Alger. I spoke in Arabic to the old men chewing tobacco on the doorsteps and ended up finding one ready to help us out in exchange for a small bill.

The look on the others' faces when they saw us drive up to the port . . . Our chauffeur was the lucky owner of a Peugeot 305 wagon so run-down that he wasn't allowed to leave the country that summer.

“Abdel, we're not really going to get in that thing, are we?”

“But of course we are, dear Laetitia! Unless you prefer to stay here?”

“You're seriously crazy! I'm not getting in, I'm not getting in!”

The teen, spoiled to the tips of her toes—manicured of course, she's fifteen!—has a giant tantrum. She's absolutely horrified. Her father reacts, incredulous: “Abdel, comfort aside, how do you expect eight of us to get in that?”

“Nine, of us, Monsieur Pozzo, nine! You're forgetting the driver . . .”

But we did it. Even Laetitia survived.

This kind of scene always gets laughs in the movies . . . Well
. . . the audience laughs, not the characters. When things get tough, old accounts are settled, little minor wrongdoings come back up, people's true natures are revealed. They could have turned on me, all of them, and judged me as responsible for the breakdown since I was the driver, come down on me hard because I let the two taxis leave too soon, because there weren't enough bottles of water in the wagon, because it was me, after all, who had the idea for this vacation! But not one of them made the slightest negative remark. Just like in the cattle wagon when they all put up with the heat without complaining, they decided to see the humor in the situation. For their father, their brother, their uncle, who didn't complain. For Monsieur Pozzo, the first one to laugh at the absurdity of our bad luck. The trip from Paris to Marseille had exhausted him, much more so than us; he had even endured being shaken and been subjected to the noise of the cattle wagon and our chatter. He blamed sheer
fatigue, but he had put his already fragile health in danger. Still, he didn't complain. He looked at us, one after the other, as if he were rediscovering new joy in being alive and one of us. I don't just mean one of the members of his family; I mean one of us.

I ended up at his side by accident less than a year before and stayed there almost without even deciding to. Against all odds, I acted like a real assistant: I had turned the pages of his newspaper, put in the disc he wanted to listen to, took him to the café when he wanted, mixed the sugar into his beverage and held the cup to his lips. Through my body, everything I could do, by my strength and my joy for living, I made up for his handicap. During the weeks before Béatrice's death, and the few weeks after, I didn't leave him for an instant. The word
job
didn't mean the same thing to me as it does to a guy who's afraid of losing his and not being able to pay his bills. I didn't care about job security and I was still insolent enough to leave at the drop of a hat if I felt like it. There were no hours; I had no more private life. I didn't even see my friends and I didn't care. Why did I stay? I wasn't a hero or a nun. I stayed because we aren't just animals . . .

I got through those difficult hours by respecting the same logic as I did at Fleury-Mérogis: the situation was bad, I wasn't in control of it, but I knew it wasn't permanent. I just had to wait it out. Weeks later, in the Marseille harbor, facing a cruise ship with no one waiting for us, I realized I was free again because Monsieur Pozzo, stuck in an absurd situation once again, was choosing life.

So, looking at this man who had the gift of laughter, I understood that something other than the job connected us. It
had nothing to do with a contract or a moral obligation. I was hiding something from my friends and even from my parents that I wasn't even aware of: I assured them I was staying with my boss to take advantage of his generous gifts, to travel with him, to enjoy the comforts of plush furniture and drive around in a sports car. There was a little of that, for sure, but so little. I really believe I loved this man, as simple as that, and that he returned the affection just as naturally.

But I'd rather die in a paragliding accident than admit it.

I go everywhere with Monsieur Pozzo. Absolutely everywhere.
Now that he's—sort of—gotten over his wife's death, we manage again without the help of nurses and nurse's aids. I've learned what needs to be done, treating the bedsores, trimming away the pieces of dead flesh, putting in the catheter. I'm not disgusted. We're all made the same way. It's understanding the pain that took me a long time. I never got a laugh from emptying a hot teapot onto his legs like my character does in the film
Intouchables:
Monsieur Pozzo doesn't feel anything, sure, I get it. So why does he scream like that? He's sensitive to what doesn't work normally inside his body. Something to do with nerve endings, apparently. The only thing linking his soul to its envelope comes from this pain, never from pleasure. What luck . . .

We finally got to Corsica. I was expecting to stay in one of those rich people's homes that see you around there, like with old stone and an infinity pool, and here I am in the ruins of a chateau in the mountains just near Ajaccio. The history of the place is fascinating. The chateau was built with the remains of a palace that had stood in the Tuileries and was burned by the Communards—a new generation of revolutionaries, if I understood correctly—in 1871. A dozen years later, when it was about to be completely demolished, Pozzo's grandfather bought the stones, had them transported to Corsica, and had them used to build an identical structure. When I see the way things work today . . . They've started restoring the roof. There don't seem to be too many workers and they're going to be at it for at least ten years.

We stay in a nearby tower that we have to cross a suspension bridge to get to—it's the Middle Ages. I joke with Monsieur Pozzo, calling him Godefroy de Montmirail. He didn't see
Les Visiteurs;
I don't think French comedies are his thing.

His ancestors are laid to rest in a chapel a few hundred feet away. Monsieur Pozzo tells me that he has a spot waiting for him. Let it wait . . . He gets really sick—exhausted from the chaotic journey, no doubt. A vesicle blockage that seems impossible to cure. For three days and three nights, I see him suffer like never before. At the work site, the men hit with their hammers. They stop now and then, surprised by the intensity of the screams coming from the tower. Seriously, I've never seen a man cry that much.

“Don't you think we should go to the hospital?”

“No Abdel, please, I want to stay at home. I don't want to miss the party.”

We'd planned to invite the people over from the village next to the chateau. They had mourned Lady Béatrice three months earlier and the count intends to thank them. But he's stuck in bed and no painkiller has any effect. He can only get relief at the hospital. He doesn't want to go, and I give in. The kids feel right at home at La Punta; they have memories of coming here as a family. Monsieur Pozzo remembers Béatrice in this place full of history and their history, and I can't see myself depriving them of this rediscovery.

It seems like I did the right thing. On the morning of the party, the pain goes away. We organize a North African–style barbecue. I go get the sheep, slaughter it, and roast it like a servant from another era. The members of the polyphonic choir Alata have come. They sing in a circle, each turned toward the next one, with a hand over an ear. Their deep voices resonate in the trees and bushes. You'd have to be a fool not to appreciate it. It even does something to me . . . The party is fantastic, the lord reigns from his wheelchair, delivered from physical pain and from the slightest hint of his sadness.

We're always together.

I take Monsieur Pozzo to the doctors at Kerpape, the physical rehabilitation center in Brittany where he was treated after his accident. He announces to the staff, jovially, “Let Dr. Abdel through.”

He's a grateful man.

I go with Monsieur Pozzo to his dinner invitations. In restaurants, I move the chairs and tables, I arrange the cutlery so that I can feed him neatly. Sometimes, they forget to feed the care assistant—me. Monsieur Pozzo politely tells the headwaiter that I eat, too.

One Sunday, we're eating with one of the most traditional families. The kids are wearing navy suits with white shirts, the girls in pleated skirts and Peter Pan collars. They say some kind of prayer before digging in. I burst out laughing. I quietly say, “It's like the Ingalls family!”

Monsieur Pozzo looks at me, panicked.

“Abdel, get a hold of yourself. And who is the Ingalls family, anyway?”

“We need to work on your culture! They're the people on
Little House on the Prairie
!”

Everybody at the table's heard me. They stare at me, furious. Monsieur Pozzo has the kindness not to apologize for me.

I go with him to dinner organized by people from his world. They don't know too many Arabs, except maybe for their cleaning ladies. They ask me questions about my life, my plans, my ambitions.

“Ambitions? I don't have any.”

“Come now, Abdel, you seem intelligent and hardworking. You could certainly do something.”

“I take advantage. It's not bad, taking advantage. You should all try it sometime. You'd look a lot better!”