The Possibility of an Island (26 page)

On a map on the 1:200,000 scale, especially on a Michelin map, the whole world seems happy; on a map of a larger scale, like the one I had of Lanzarote, things deteriorate: you start to make out the hotels, the leisure infrastructures. On a scale of 1:1 you find yourself back in the normal world, which is not very pleasant; but if you increase the scale even more, you are plunged into a nightmare: you start to make out the dust mites, mycoses, and parasites that eat away at the flesh. By two p.m., we were back at the center.

“Good timing, that’s very good timing,” declared Cop as he welcomed us, jumping with enthusiasm; the prophet had just decided, in an impromptu fashion, to organize a little dinner that evening to bring together the
celebrities
present, that is to say all those who could, in one way or another, provide media contacts or have a public profile. Joker, who was standing next to him, nodded vigorously and winked at me as if to suggest that I didn’t have to take it all that seriously. In reality, I think he was counting on me to improve the situation: as the person responsible for public relations, he had up until then only known failure; in the best cases, the sect was portrayed as a bunch of cranks and UFO freaks, and in the worst, as a dangerous organization propagating ideas that flirted with eugenics, if not Nazism; as for the prophet, he was regularly ridiculed for his successive failures in his previous careers (race-car driver, cabaret singer…). In short, the presence of a fairly substantial VIP like myself was an unexpected stroke of luck for them; you could say I was extra air in their tires.

Ten or so people were gathered in the dining room; I recognized Gianpaolo, accompanied by Francesca. He probably owed this invitation to his acting career, however modest; evidently, the term
celebrities
had to be taken in its broadest sense. I also recognized a woman of about fifty, platinum blond, quite plump, who had performed the welcome song for the Elohim with a scarcely bearable sonic intensity; she introduced herself as an opera singer, or more accurately a choral singer. I had the place of honor, just in front of the prophet; he greeted me cordially, but seemed tense and anxious, and looked nervously around in every direction; he calmed down a little when Joker sat down next to him. Vincent sat on my right, and threw a sharp look at the prophet, who was rubbing bread into little balls and rolling them mechanically on the table; at that instant he seemed tired and distracted, for once he really looked his sixty-five years. “The media hate us…,” he said bitterly. “If I was to disappear now, I don’t know what would remain of my work. They would move in for the kill…” Joker, who was getting ready to make some witty remark, turned to him, gathered from his tone of voice that he was speaking seriously, and was left gaping. His face, flattened as if by an iron, his small nose, and the few spiky hairs on his head: everything predisposed him to playing the clown, he was one of those unfortunate beings whose very despair cannot be taken completely seriously; the fact remains that, in the event of a sudden collapse of the sect, his fate would not have been an enviable one, I wasn’t even sure he had another source of income. He lived with the prophet in Santa Monica, in the same house occupied by the twelve fiancées. He had no sexual life himself, and generally he didn’t do much with his days, his only eccentricity was to have garlic sausage flown over from France, the Californian
delicatessen
shops seeming to him to be insufficient; he also collected fishhooks and appeared on the whole to be quite a miserable puppet, emptied of any personal desire and any living substance, whom the prophet kept at his side more or less out of charity, to basically be used as a foil or a whipping boy when the opportunity arose.

The prophet’s fiancées made their appearance, carrying plates of hors d’oeuvres; doubtless in homage to the artistic nature of the assembled guests, they had exchanged their tunics for cheeky Mélusine fairy costumes, with conical hats covered in stars and skintight dresses in silvery sequins that exposed their asses. An effort had been made that evening with the food; there were little meat pastries and various zakouskis. Mechanically, the prophet caressed the bottom of the brunette who was serving him zakouskis, but that didn’t seem to be sufficient to improve his morale; nervously, he asked that the wine be served immediately, downed two glasses in one go, then slumped back into his chair, looking long and hard at those present.

“We must do something with the media…,” he said at last to Joker. “I’ve just read this week’s
Nouvel Observateur,
this systematic smear campaign, it’s just uncalled-for…” The other frowned, then after a minute’s reflection, as if stating an utterly remarkable truth, he said: “It’s difficult…,” in a dubious tone. I thought he was responding with slightly surprising detachment, because he was, after all, officially the only one responsible—and this was all the more obvious as neither Knowall nor Cop was present at this dinner. He was without doubt completely incompetent in this field, as in all others, he had got used to getting bad results, and thought that it would always be thus, that everyone around him had also got used to the results being bad; he too must have been almost sixty-five, and he no longer expected much from life. His mouth opened and closed silently, he was apparently looking for something funny to say, but couldn’t find it, he was the victim of a temporary comedy breakdown. He finally gave up: the prophet, he must have thought, was in a bad mood this evening, but he would get over it; he calmly tucked into his meat pastry.

“In your view…,” the prophet addressed me directly, looking me straight in the eye, “…is the hostility of the press truly a long-term problem?”

“On the whole, yes. Of course, by posing as a martyr, by complaining of being unjustifiably ostracized, you can successfully attract a few deviants—Le Pen managed this in his time. But at the end of the day you lose—especially when you want to express a unifying message, that is, from the moment you try to increase your appeal beyond a certain audience.”

“There you go! There you go!…Listen to what Daniel has just told me!” He got up in his chair, enlisting the entire table as witnesses. “The media accuse us of being a sect when they are the ones who stop us from becoming a religion by systematically misrepresenting our ideas, by denying us access to the general public, while the solutions we propose are for every human being, regardless of their nationality, race, previous beliefs…”

The guests stopped eating; some nodded, but no one could formulate the slightest remark. The prophet sat down again, discouraged, and nodded to the brunette, who served him another glass of wine. After some silence, the conversations round the table started up again: most were about various acting roles, scripts, and movie projects. Many of the guests appeared to be actors—novices or D-list; probably as a result of the determining role that chance plays in their lives, actors are often, I had already remarked, easy prey for all kinds of bizarre sects, beliefs, and spiritual disciplines. Strangely, none of them had recognized me, which was rather a good thing.

“Harley de Dude was right…,” the prophet said pensively in English. “Life is basically a conservative option…” I wondered for a while who he was speaking to, before realizing that it was me. He stopped, then continued in French. “You see, Daniel,” he said with genuine sadness, which was surprising for him, “mankind’s only aim is to reproduce, to continue the species. Although this aim is obviously insignificant, mankind pursues it with terrifying relentlessness. Men may well be unhappy, atrociously unhappy, but they resist with all their strength the thing that could change their fate: they want children, and children similar to them, in order to dig their own grave and perpetuate the conditions for unhappiness. When you suggest that they accomplish a mutation, advance along another path, you come to expect ferocious rejection. I have no illusions about the years to come: as the conditions for the technical realization of the project come closer, opposition will become more and more fierce; and all the intellectual power is in the hands of supporters of the status quo. The battle will be tough, very tough…” He sighed, finished his glass of wine, and seemed to plunge into a personal meditation, unless he was simply struggling against apathy; Vincent fixed the prophet with an incredibly attentive look as his mood swung between discouragement and unconcern, between a tropism of death and the convulsions of life: he looked more and more like a tired old monkey. After a couple of minutes he stood up from his chair and cast a brighter look over the guests; it was only at that instant, I think, that he noticed Francesca’s beauty. He gestured to one of the girls serving, the Japanese one, and said a few words in her ear; she approached the Italian girl and passed on the message. Francesca jumped up, delighted, without even looking at her companion, and came to sit on the prophet’s left.

Gianpaolo sat up in his seat, his face completely still; I looked away and, despite myself, noticed the prophet passing a hand through the young woman’s hair; her face was full of a happiness that was—how shall I put it?—childlike, senile, and moving all at once. I looked down at my plate, but after thirty seconds I got tired of contemplating my pieces of cheese and risked a look to my side; Vincent continued to stare shamelessly at the prophet, with even a certain jubilation, it seemed to me; the latter was now holding the girl by the neck, and she had laid her head on his shoulder. When he put a hand in her blouse, I couldn’t help looking over at Gianpaolo: he had raised himself a little more out of his chair, I could see the fury burning in his eyes, and I wasn’t the only one, all conversation had ceased; then, defeated, he sat back slowly and lowered his head. Gradually the conversation started up again, first in low voices, then more normally. The prophet left the table in the company of Francesca before the desserts had even arrived.

The next day I came across the young woman as we left the morning lecture. She was speaking to an Italian girlfriend of hers. I slowed down as I passed, and heard her say:
“Communicare…”
Her face was radiant, serene, she seemed happy. The course itself had settled into a rhythm: I had decided to attend the morning lectures, but forgo the afternoon workshops. I joined the others for the evening meditation, immediately before the meal. I noticed that Francesca was again beside the prophet, and that they left together after dinner; however, I had not seen Gianpaolo all day.

A sort of herbal tea bar had been set up at the entrance to one of the caves. I came across Cop and Joker sitting in front of some lime tea. Cop was speaking with great animation, emphasizing his speech with energetic gestures; he was obviously talking about a subject very close to his heart. Joker did not reply; looking concerned, he nodded vaguely while waiting for the other’s virulence to burn out. I went over to the Elohimite stationed at the kettles; I didn’t know what to order, I have always hated infusions. In despair, I opted for a hot chocolate: the prophet tolerated cocoa, on the condition that it was greatly reduced in fat—probably in homage to Nietzsche, whose ideas he admired. When I passed by their table, the two leaders were silent; Cop was staring severely ahead of him. With a sharp hand gesture he invited me to join them, apparently redynamized by the prospect of a new interlocutor.

“What I was saying to Gérard,” he said (oh yes, even this poor deprived being had a first name, he doubtless had a family, maybe loving parents who had bounced him on their knees; life was truly too hard, if I thought about this kind of thing for too long I would end up blowing my brains out, there was no doubt about it), “what I was saying to Gérard is that in my view we communicate far too much about the scientific aspect of our teachings. There is a whole New Age, ecologist trend that is frightened off by intrusive technologies, because they take a dim view of man’s domination of nature. They are people who strongly reject the Christian tradition, who are often close to paganism or Buddhism; we could have potential sympathizers in them.”

“On the other hand,” Gérard said astutely, “you attract the techno-freaks.”

“Yes…,” Cop replied doubtfully. “But they’re mainly in California, I assure you that in Europe you don’t see many of them…” He turned to me again: “What do you think?”

I didn’t really have any opinion, it seemed to me that in the long term the supporters of genetic technology would become more numerous than its opponents; I was above all surprised that they were putting me yet again in the role of witness to their internal contradictions. I hadn’t yet realized it, but as a showman I was credited by them with a sort of intuitive understanding of the currents of thought, the fluctuations of public opinion; I saw no reason for disabusing them, and after having uttered a few banalities that they listened to respectfully I left the table with a smile, under the pretext of tiredness, slipped out of the cave, and walked toward the village of tents; I wanted to see the grassroots followers at first hand.

It was still early, and no one had gone to bed; most were sitting cross-legged, generally on their own, more rarely in couples, in front of their tents. Many of them were naked (without being obligatory, naturism was widely practiced by the Elohimites; our creators the Elohim, who had acquired a perfect mastery of the climate of their planet of origin, went around naked, as was appropriate for any liberated, proud being, having rejected guilt and shame; as the prophet taught, the traces of Adam’s sin had disappeared, and now we lived according to the new law of true love). On the whole they were doing nothing, or perhaps they were meditating in their own way—many had their palms open, and their eyes were turned toward the stars. The tents, provided by the organization, looked like teepees, but the canvas, which was white and slightly shiny, was very modern, of the “new materials from space research” type. All in all, it was a kind of tribe, a high-tech Indian tribe, I think all the tents had Internet connections, the prophet insisted repeatedly on this, it was indispensable in order for his directives to be instantly communicated to them. I suppose they must have conducted intense social relationships via the Internet, but what struck me on seeing them all together was rather their isolation and silence; each one stayed in front of his tent, without speaking or going to see his neighbors; they were only a few meters from each other but seemed oblivious even to their mutual existence. I knew that most of them didn’t have children or pets (it wasn’t forbidden, but strongly advised against all the same; the aim was above all to create a new species, and the reproduction of existing species was considered an outmoded and conservative option, proof of a flaky temperament, and one that did not exactly indicate a greater faith; it seemed rather implausible that a father could rise very far in the organization). I walked down all the pathways and passed in front of several hundred tents without anyone speaking to me; they contented themselves with a nod or a discreet smile. I told myself at first that they were perhaps a bit intimidated: I was a VIP, I had the privilege of direct access to the prophet’s conversation; but I quickly realized that when they came across each other on one of the pathways, their behavior was identical: a smile, a nod, and nothing more. After leaving the village I continued walking, and went for several hundred meters along the stony path before stopping. There was a full moon, and you could make out perfectly the gravel and blocks of lava; far to the east, I could see the weak luminosity of the metal barriers encircling the grounds; I was in the middle of nowhere, the temperature was mild, and I would have liked to reach some kind of conclusion.