You Changed My Life (24 page)

I put myself in the service of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo because I was young—young and stupid: I wanted to drive beautiful cars, travel first-class, sleep in châteaux, pinch rich women's asses, and laugh at their little offended squeals. I don't regret anything. Not my previous motivations, or the person I still am. But I became aware of something by telling my story in this book: that I finished growing up next to Monsieur Pozzo, from hope to an appetite for living, by way of the heart. Now it's my turn to be lyrical, like abstract art . . .

He offered his wheelchair for me to push like a crutch for me to lean on. I'm still using it today.

After a few years by his side, I had said enough to Monsieur
Pozzo.

Crossing his arms over his stomach, leaning his torso forward, unfolding his limbs like the wrapper on a chocolate bar, putting him down in the right order, putting up his running shoes with the soles that will always be new . . . I had said enough. I needed to stop.

“Stop what? Abdel, are you leaving me?”

“No, I'll stay, but I can't consider it as my job. So I'll keep doing all of that, you can count on me, but you and me are going to do something else. We're going to be partners.”

“Abdel, I'm the one who needs you. Not the other way around.”

“Of course I need you! I'd like us to start a business together. I have the strength, the talk, but I don't have the manners. Paperwork, accounting, I don't know anything. The same goes for bowing to bankers. I don't know how to do it. You do.”

“Bowing to bankers . . . my dear Abdel, you're overestimating my flexibility a little.”

He came up with a great idea, so great that when launching it, I told everyone it was my own: car rentals to private clients with car delivery wherever they want. No more having to go to the agency: the client calls, gives an address, we take the keys to their door, and leave by our own means. The company will be called Téléloc, it'll belong to Monsieur Pozzo and him only, I'll just be there to learn.

To get started, the boss decides we won't use bankers.

“What do you mean? We're going to have to buy twenty cars, you know!”

“Don't worry, Abdel, I have some savings.”

“Some savings! Oh, right, what do you call it already? An eggs . . .”

“An expression.”

I love learning new words.

Monsieur Pozzo makes only one and unique condition to my presence in the company: that I never get behind the wheel of one of the rentals. Because I wrecked the Rolls-Royce, too. Once again, it wasn't my fault. The heat worked too well in the palace on four wheels, and Monsieur Pozzo was cold, as usual. We were driving at night toward the south of France, and it was easily 80 degrees inside the car. How could I have not fallen asleep? We heard a sort of
crack-boom
from the body of the car hitting the bumper on an old Golf. I also heard a second strange sound, more like a
chong
. That was the head of my passenger, thrown forward against the front seat. The rescue team arrived and first took care of me.

“Do you feel all right, sir?”

“Wonder . . .”

Then they went to look at the backseat. They opened the door, saw Monsieur Pozzo's body, and suddenly lost interest in me.

“There's a stiff in the back!”

Nice tact. I put Monsieur Pozzo back on the seat, dabbed the bump swelling on his temple, rigged the front of the car with a crowbar, and we got back on the road.

“Are you all right, Abdel? Did you fall asleep?”

“Not at all! That lady in front of us fishtailed!”

First chapter: Abdel is always right.

Second chapter: when Abdel is wrong, please refer to chapter one.

I never pretended to be in good faith.

We rent offices in Boulogne where we set up Téléloc. Three rooms. The first is used as a staff dormitory: Youssef, Yacine, Alberto, Driss. They're friends from the projects, from the pizzeria, Trocadéro. They don't all have papers—or driver's licenses, that goes without saying—they live there around the clock, the blankets pile up on the floor, coffee molds at the bottom of a mug, it always smells like mint tea. A second room serves as an office for Laurence, whom we've hired to take care of all the stuff requiring capable hands and a brain. The third room, which has a faucet, serves as a kitchen, bathroom . . . and doghouse for Youssef's two pit bulls, who water the carpet abundantly. In this environment, poor Laurence goes nuts.

“Abdel, you tell Youssef to take his dog to piss somewhere else or I quit!”

“Laurence, you wanted to do penance! It's now or never!”

She's got a sense of humor. She laughs.

The adventure lasts a few months. Enough time to send a few cars to the mechanic. To get complaints from clients: the cars arrive dirty, the tank empty, and the delivery people sometimes have the nerve to ask for a lift to Boulogne . . . or somewhere else! Enough time to get complaints from the neighbors (the pit bulls water the elevator, too). The time for me to get picked up by the police.

“Abdel, you don't put clients in the trunk,” Monsieur explains after getting me out.

The guy in question had rented a car and refused to give it back. I went to get him myself with Yacine. We only wanted to teach the thief a little lesson. By the way, he recognized that he was wrong because he didn't press charges.

“Abdel, this can't go on any longer. This company isn't Téléloc, it's Téléshock! Do you realize we're going to have to liquidate?”

This Godfather is the big boss. He never threatens, never asks to see the books.

“Monsieur Pozzo, should we try something else?”

He's a gambler, maybe more so than me.

“Do you have an idea, Abdel?”

“Well . . . the auctions, there's money in it, right?”

“Oh, not cars again!”

“No, I was thinking more about real estate auctions . . . Candle auctions.”

You had to find run-down apartments, renovate them,
and sell them fast, pocketing the added value in the process. In the United States, they call it “flipping.” Unfortunately, Alberto, Driss, Yacine, Youssef, and his pit bulls were no more talented in plumbing and painting than they'd been in driving. Monsieur Pozzo quickly reoriented me toward an activity in which we could rely on just our own two skill sets. He also had another objective: a change of climate.

“Abdel, Paris doesn't suit me anymore. Too cold, too damp . . . you wouldn't happen to have a sunnier destination to propose, would you?”

“There's plenty of that. The West Indies? La Réunion? Brazil? Oh yeaaahhh . . . Brazil . . .”

I can see myself sipping a guava juice on a perfect beach surround by girls in thongs.

“Brazil is a bit far, Abdel. My children are grown, but I'd like to stay two or three hours away by plane, maximum. Say, what if we go and see what we could do in Morocco?”

“Morocco? Great, I love Morocco!”

It's true. I always preferred the couscous at Brahim's mother's place.

Monsieur Pozzo and I land in Marrakech. A mild breeze
envelops us as we get off of the plane. We can already see the palm trees.

“That's good! Right, Monsieur Pozzo?”

“A limousine is waiting for us. Magnificent.”

“That's nice! Right, Monsieur Pozzo?”

We go to the address my friend gave . . . a
riad,
a type of home with a garden or courtyard in the middle. It's locked, and I don't have the key.

“That's stupid! Right, Abdel?”

No problem. I know a place. Another
riad
in the Medina. The limousine drops us off at Jemaa-el-Fna plaza. The snake charmers back up when they see the wheelchair I'm dragging, more than pushing, over to the street. The ground is dirt. Pedestrians walk clinging to the wall on the right, bicycles race down the left lane, and we go right down the middle. We zigzag between chicken nests. Monsieur Pozzo is already regretting the
trip. He regrets it even more when he realizes that the only room on the ground floor of the
riad
opens onto the patio and has no heating. I use my favorite joke:

“Don't move. I'm going to go get some electric heaters.”

“I'm not moving Abdel, I'm not moving.”

Turns out that I have a little mishap. It has to do with a fist—one of mine—thrown in the face of a not-so-helpful parking lot security guard. But when I finally come back, I've got what we need to transform the place into an oven. It's an emergency. Monsieur Pozzo's entire body is shaking.

“Well, you see, you're still moving!”

First thing the next day, we set out on a trek around the country. My driving talents are really put to the test. We get lost several times, but it's never my fault: we're not the ones who put so much snow in the Atlas and so much sand in the desert. Finally, we stop at Saïdia, otherwise known as “the blue pearl of the Mediterranean,” in the extreme northeastern part of the country, just next to my native Algeria. A gorgeous beach, dozens of giant hotels, what else could you put here? Everything! We plan on creating an amusement park for tourists. We have to find the land and get the necessary authorization from the local governor, who is really hard to get in touch with. The days stretch out and not so effectively.

There's a very pretty young girl at the hotel where we're staying. When our eyes meet, something happens. Something new. Something that stops me. Right there. I am speechless. It reminds me now of the uneasiness I felt when I first showed up at Philippe Pozzo di Borgo's house.

I get a hold of myself. We're just passing through here.

“Abdel, you were just passing through on the avenue Léopold II, remember?” snickers the Jiminy Cricket in me. I shut him out, telling him to go bother Pinocchio. I must have been thinking out loud. The beautiful receptionist stares at me and bursts out laughing. She thinks I'm nuts. That's a bad start.

Monsieur Pozzo and I take our project very seriously, but it quickly becomes clear to us that it'll take months to get this started. We go back to Paris and bring Laurence into the project (once again, for anything that requires two capable hands and a brain). We multiply our round trips. We always stay at the same hotel, of course. Every time, the beautiful girl at reception smiles at me, attentive, distant, mysterious. I'm a total idiot around her.

She tells me, “I like you, Abdel Yamine.”

And then: “I like you a lot, Abdel Yamine.”

And finally: “If you want me, Abdel Yamine, you have to marry me.”

There's something else . . . she's one of a gaggle of sisters. She's never had a big brother to shut her up; she lives her life as she pleases; she makes her own choices.