It is such a simple story that Adam himself sometimes finds it hard to believe. At the start of the year a business syndicate had acquired the top hotel in the city, built in 1885, and in the spring had requested bids for its renovation. The mayor of the city and David Schtourm were invited to sit on the jury. Even though his firm is too small for works on this scale, Adam had nevertheless submitted a plan and illustrated his submission with a transparency of one of the paintings from his new series. His submission was not accepted, but David Schtourm noted the illustration and wanted to know the name of the painter, and that is how Adam is now due to meet him. It was as simple as that.
When he reaches number seven Adam pauses for a moment in front of the big window through which one can see the well-ordered desk of Graziella, the firm’s secretary, and that of Louis, the trainee, a first-year architectural student. Adam works in the office at the back, which has a French window leading out into a little concrete-floored courtyard, with four chairs, a table, and a big camellia in a pot on the ground. The lights in the office are on but there is no one there. Adam looks at the models exhibited in the display window and several before and after photographs of houses he has redesigned. He smiles at the Christmas tree made of flotsam that Anita had bought the previous year from a Congolese artist living in the mountains about whom she had written an article. The strips from Coca-Cola cans glitter, the stars fashioned from old lengths of cassette tape revolve gently. It is a clean, well-lit window display, but this morning it has a somewhat old-fashioned and melancholy aura. At this precise moment, when the clock on the city hall is about to strike the half for 8:30, what remains from all those years of work?
Adam has become an architect for swimming pools, conference centers, gyms, and for the local bourgeoisie. At what moment did he abandon his dreams of designing a church, a museum, a memorial? If he had not taken to painting in the secrecy of his studio, if he had given up his obsession with colors, textures, and shapes, if he had devoted all his energy and ambition to his profession, would he have become a different man, a different architect? Might he have opened an office in Paris? Might he be coming back here now merely to “move into the slow lane” and, as they say, “renew contact with the simple life” in the provinces? He suddenly thinks back, again rather wistfully, to his first years in Paris, before he met Anita. Just as his wife said she felt she was regarded as a “typical foreigner” at the cocktail parties she went to with him, so he himself felt he was viewed as a “typical provincial,” with his local accent, his ungainly appearance, his local traditions, his cheese.
The light changes and Adam catches sight of his own reflection. A tall figure, stooping a little toward the window, his arms crossed over his blue parka, an old leather bag slung across his shoulder, a hazy face, much of it covered by a beard. He has a surge of affection for himself, as if for an animal that is growing old, and feeling a little lost. He uncrosses his arms and thrusts his hands into his pockets, and his fingers encounter the receipt given to him by the receptionist at the hotel that morning. Adam holds himself straight. Maybe today will be a wonderful day.
He sees Louis and Graziella returning, each carrying a cup of coffee. Adam goes into the building. “Good morning, good morning, I’m late,” he says, to excuse his lack of enthusiasm for early-morning small talk. He dives into his office, closes the door.
An hour later Graziella knocks.
“Adam? Monsieur Clément’s secretary has just called. He’s got flu. He can’t be on site this morning.”
“Oh, no!”
“I’m afraid so. He’s been in bed since yesterday.”
“Damn! I’ll call the project manager directly. Anything else, Graziella?”
“There’s someone in reception for you, a Monsieur … hmm, wait, I’ve written it down. A Monsieur … Imam.”
“An imam wants to see me?”
“No, his name is Imam. He says it’s a personal matter.”
“Ah! Im-ran, Graziella. For heaven’s sake, it’s quite simple really.”
She laughs, as if she had never before heard anything so funny in her life. Adam remembers a conversation between Graziella and Louis he had overheard a few months before, and the remark: Well, what do you expect, his wife’s from Mauritius. That evening he had told Anita about it, as it had struck him as a compliment, a little as if he had heard them saying: What do you expect? His wife is a top model! What do you expect? His wife is a Nobel Prize winner. But Anita, as was increasingly frequent, had hit the roof. What’s that supposed to mean? Is that some kind of flaw? A kind of fetish? Or a sickness that causes you to love only women with dark skin? Women from islands? Or, as you used to say, “women of color”?
Why did she take it like that? What caused this anger? Anita was becoming so susceptible, so touchy, so, yes, disagreeable, sometimes. If anyone asked her where she came from, she took it badly. If she was asked questions about her native land she would retort that she was not employed by the tourist office. How could she expect other people to overlook her color, her distinctive nature?
When they were younger (all this seems an eternity ago to Adam, days when they slept on a mattress on the floor, talked for hours, made love every day, lived
