Ali Bader - Papa Sartre

Before he met Germaine, however, he had a painful and sentimental experience with a young woman who was working as a waitress in the Café de Flore in Saint Germain. It was a story of a tortured love. She was, in a way, the miracle that mended a rift in the philosopher’s life. Unbeknownst to her she was the one who saved him from a horrible fate that would have led him into a wasteland. While Germaine took him to an environment of philosophy and unbelievable existential scenes, the Café de Flore waitress brought bitterness, confusion, emptiness, and sorrow to his life.

The philosopher was enamored of the waitress the moment he set eyes on her round and firm, protruding breasts, visible through the opening in her shirt. He imagined himself talking frankly to her about his feelings in order to stop the erupting volcano in his life. It was only his cowardice that stopped him and kept him away from these golden mountains that held him prisoner by their sweetness and attraction. Feeling helpless, he used to sit at a table, drinking beer or a cup of hot tea, his pipe lying on the table near Le Monde or one of Sartre’s books, watching her. He would sit there in silence, giving the impression of being a thinker who was pondering a wild and adventurous life. Deep inside him there was nothing but emptiness and sexual visions floating freely each time the waitress bent over to serve a table or toyed with the cross between her breasts.

One day she bent over his table to clean an ashtray and remove an empty beer glass. His eyes fell on the rounded shape of her full breasts that were swelling beneath her white woolen sweater. She asked him what he was thinking about. Her question was God-sent, as he had long wanted to draw her attention to his superior intellect so that he might dazzle her with his philosophy and ability to penetrate the open horizons of his being, but he had not known how to do it. She took him by surprise. He felt a little nervous but managed to smile at her as his heart rate rose significantly and his voice rattled in his throat. He replied spontaneously and philosophically, “I have been thinking about Sartre’s opinion of women. He said that they could not do without men.” The pipe was shaking in his hand, his heart was beating, and his lips were trembling. The waitress laughed quietly, pushed back an unruly lock of blond hair hiding her blue eyes, winked at him and said, “Do you really need Sartre’s head to know this?”

Her reply came as a surprise to him, such a totally and unexpectedly straightforward and hurtful answer, a little mocking even. He had expected her to open her mouth and say, in amazement, “Oh! Are you a philosopher?” Then the wheel of his fortune would have turned, moving from sadness to happiness. She would have stood on the threshold of a huge change that would have led them to an almost total melding. She would have learned to bring to light the hidden, mysterious, and incomplete side of her personality. Through his continuous efforts to express his secret self, she would have discovered the secret lying dormant in his soul. It was obvious that something bothered him and he needed a romantic relationship that would guide him to important people and those strongly biased in favor of their own ideas. But the answer he received was shattering and thus reduced him to shards scattered across the floor. He turned extremely pale as she turned her back and disappeared behind a door. All that remained in his imagination was the memory of her thighs, softly shaking. With trembling hands and grinding teeth he gathered his newspapers, books, stuffed pipe, and eyeglasses and left the café, catching the last breath of his failure.

22

He angrily pushed open his apartment door and threw himself on the bed, where he remained for a very long time. He felt defeated, as if he had been involved in a scandal. He pounded the pillow with his fists, saying, “It is my fault. If I weren’t so stupid I wouldn’t have said what I said. She embarrassed me. She should have been nicer to me.”

He felt as though his head was cloven in two and each half offered a solution — not a guaranteed solution but at least a solution. He felt torn, crushed, victimized. It was at that moment that he became aware of his tragic fate, the way he had in Baghdad with Nadia Khaddouri. It happened at a difficult period in his life, a time when he felt rejected, odd, and dismayed. He had to choose a way to find the courage to confront the savage monster roaming loose within him. He did so, but not until the following day.

23

At noon the following day, in rainy autumnal weather, Abd al-Rahman left his apartment in a hurry. He welcomed the refreshing breeze that hit his face and moved through his hair. He kept his hands in his raincoat pockets and lowered his hat on his forehead. He kept his eyes on the road in an effort to avoid walking in the puddles and headed toward Saint Michel to meet an Iraqi friend who had been living in Paris for many years.

The grass in the Jardin du Luxembourg was wet and fragrant, the streets were slick with rain, the buildings had been washed, and the trees revealed their dark green color. Abd al-Rahman met Ahmad near a telephone booth at the corner of the street. They walked toward Rue Monsieur le Prince in silence. Abd alRahman’s facial expression revealed his disturbed state of mind. He felt humiliated and disappointed and he wanted his friend’s advice on what his next step with the waitress should be, while recognizing his own gaucherie.

“I want to make a plan,” he told his friend angrily, “I want her to regret what she said to me. I want to change her mind.” Ahmad asked his friend for a cigarette. It was obvious from his reaction that he was used to the way the philosopher spoke. He asked whether there were reasons for his interest in her, to which Abd al-Rahman responded, “I’ve had enough of prostitutes, that’s why. Do you understand?” Ahmad realized that the philosopher couldn’t resist his physical attraction to that woman. He knew that he wouldn’t let go before he slept with her, though he was not in love with her. He was a jealous man but unable to make a decision.

Abd al-Rahman asked his friend if he had found out anything about her. “Yes,” said Ahmad, “I’ve learned some important things about her.”

“Tell me,” said the philosopher.

Ahmad filled him in. “I learned that she has an Algerian friend named Si Muammar.” Abd al-Rahman stopped suddenly in the middle of the street. A cigarette dangling from his lips, he asked, “Is that so?” Ahmad nodded and added with a relaxed smile, “It is true, and I can get to know him.”

“What about me?” asked Abd al-Rahman, with a strange look. Ahmad explained his plan, “Of course, of course, I’ll get to know him for your sake.”

The prospect of reaching her at any price was a torture for Abd al-Rahman. It took him back to his bestial nature, where instinct dictated his behavior. He wanted her by all means, at any price, whether it required begging, raping, killing, betraying, or torturing her. He left Ahmad near the newspaper stand and went to satisfy the call of nature in the pissoir at the end of Odeon Street. Peeing brought a sense of comfort and relaxation, and his mind fixed on the sight of the crumbling wall of an old church and a flock of pigeons flying from the roof of a building nearby. He rejoined his friend, feeling relieved and even a bit elated. The sky began to clear, and the sun was breaking through the clouds, warming up the puddles in the streets. Everything around him looked beautiful: the facades of buildings, the flowers in the squares, the cafés trottoires with their colorful parasols, the vegetable market, and the newspaper kiosks. His anxiety was washed away, and he recovered his old sense of comfort. He watched with joy as the streets came to life around him. SaintGermain-des-Prés stretched in front of him like a velvet carpet. He did not mind the blowing horns, the blinking red lights of the street bars, or the rush of pedestrians that filled the place this time of day. Women dressed in their going-out clothes emerged from side streets smoking cigarettes, their lips colored bright red with lipstick. He shouted in Ahmad’s face, “I’ll get to know her through Si Muammar, won’t I?”