Hi folks,

Well it’s finally happened. I never liked blogs. So I’ve been writing this blog with one eye closed and the other eye shut. I’ve been doing it with half a heart, a soul full of boredom and an off-hand desire to build something of a reputation. Which is hilarious. Because I don’t give a toss for reputations. My view is that you either do something you believe in or you don’t do it at all. You either do it with a flaming gut (and a burning snatch) or you move on to something completely different.

So it’s finally caught up with me. I have bored myself to the hackles, to my brother’s earlobes with this blog. Which is why, instead of boring myself (along with the other three souls who kindly read this blog), I’d really just rather quit.

You see, I got it wrong. I thought the blog was going to be a window on my new novel. I thought it was going to give people a glimpse into the way I write. Irony is, both things have happened. Just in a twisted upside-down way. Let me explain.

I write novels in a chaotic, barbaric, fragmentary way, driven entirely by random images, memories, moods and a natural talent for self-centeredness and invective. Strangely however, in writing this blog, I started doing something horribly unnatural. I started writing linear narrative. Uninspired linear narrative what’s more, that has finally stuck in my literary throat like a wordy fish bone.

As I see it, two things happened.

First, quite unexpectedly, the blog ruined the novel and the novel wrecked the blog.

Second, also quite unexpectedly, my readers did get a glimpse into how I write. Just not the way I intended.

You have all seen now that for me, writing involves a long series of blind alleys, wrong turns and skin-thickening rewrites. Fact is, this is a blind alley. It’s a wrong turn. And it must be corrected.

A novel is a novel. It is not like writing copy. Or like writing blogs. It is cold, personal and secretive. Writing a novel is like having a degraded secret no one knows about. Writing copy (or a blog) is like being in the park with your husband and children. It is friendly, short and public. A novel is dark, brooding and misanthropic. You don’t write a novel the way you write copy. You don’t write a blog the way you write a novel. A novel isn’t written with your boss or your audience peering over your shoulder. Blogs and copy are (no prejudice intended, only clarification). A novel therefore has its own self-imposed pace. Its frozen charms. A novel is cold lonely and intimate. It is possessive. It is jealous. It will not abide by coercion. And it will not share its secrets unless you leave it alone.

But the drug of novels once tasted cannot be traded in for the wide airiness of the Internet. The wide world of the instantaneous. Blogs belong to their readers. A novel belongs to its author. Only when it is finished, can it be handed over to the reader, never to return. In this sense, it is monogamous. Ruthlessly so. Once in the hands of the reader, it no longer belongs to the author. But until then, it is totally and entirely mine. The author’s. And possessive I may not be in matters of love. But in the writing of a novel, I am as possessive as an Oedipal mother, as jealous as the most bloodthirsty mistress.

Therefore, since I hate linear narrative. Since I am a terrible misanthrope who loves to talk to herself and brood over her own writing. Since I must have the time to sift through my life and its chaos of points competing for my memory’s organizing focus, I am unfortunately going to bow out of this ill-advised blog business. And go back to doing what I love best. Writing novels.

I do hope all of you will visit me on my new website though, which should be up soon. All those who’ve liked what they’ve seen here. If you would like to know more about that, leave me comments here or mail me at miamakarand@gmail.com

Yes indeed. In a world where the icecaps are melting faster than Britney can get her next fix, who has the time to delve into straight line details? Not me at any rate. The world is sinking. The urgent need is to write before it drowns. And in a way that will get your nerves singeing and your brain frittering. Like good old Dario Fo (the Nobel Prize-winning Italian dramatist) said, le théâtre doit faire violence. The theater must be violent in its impact. That’s what I think.

Writing should be jagged, inhuman and violent.

Or not at all.

All the best

Mia

Soleil et Loisirs was a residential hotel. Part of an immensely successful chain and concept that involved large sprawls of turnkey ugliness which ruined the view for the locals but served to accommodate the kitschy beachy hordes of Europe who wanted to be on holiday without having to worry with pesky details like local color, local food and local people.

Soleil et Loisirs wasn’t cheap. It was actually quite expensive. But it helped you save on the small things. Things like restaurants, children’s activities and housekeeping. It was perfect for responsible red-faced husbands who brought home the bacon and knew how to give the missuz a piece of the pie. Here they got to rent a small apartment to store their old folk and brats in while still feeling like they were on holiday. Here they could stare at young breasts burning alongside a pool while drinking uncontaminated water, avoiding exotic food and catching up with their buddies over a cold beer. In short, the place was convenient. It was home away from home with the added attraction of sunshine, a pool and very occasional trips to France. I mean, the country you were actually in. It was the most important word in places like this: convenient. And the wives loved it too. Soleil et Loisirs was in fact perfect for the family. The thrifty hard-working pink-skinned family that wanted to be in the sun but not in the country where it shone. That wanted to show it had money but never actually spent it. That wanted to be on holiday without really knowing how to relax.

I got out of the car with my overpacked oversmall suitcase and waited self-consciously. Then with a phony smile pasted on my face, I followed Harcourt and the woman up in an elevator and onto a large open area with reception desk at right and bar slash pool-table area at left.

I was immediately transfixed. I had never been to a place like this. The kind you saw on holiday brochures and wouldn’t dream of visiting because you preferred the small auberges and local restos (not that you had the cash anyway). This kind of brash and tasteless luxury wasn’t for me. But it did look incredible So I looked admiringly, incredulously, shamelessly. Again I had that feeling of undeserved luxury. Unwarranted privilege. I was being paid to be here, I thought. I was being paid to be here. That’s what was fabulous.

The pool was right out of a postcard. The whole thing was right out of a postcard. The pool was large and shimmering turquoise with sculptures in its center and at the far end, a landscaping effect that made it look like it blended right into the sea. Like it fell into the sea. And then there was the Mediterranean beyond. It looked magnificent. A deep tranquil blue. Giving off an easy luxurious feel, with cruise ships and yachts, swift racing boats striking white lines of foam on its cool unhurried surface. Everywhere you could see the wealth, leisure and glitz of Cannes. It made you want to send a postcard right away. To all your friends. To all your enemies. Yes indeed. You wanted to show this off more than anything else. It was like an autograph. Like this festival. Like its overdone celebrities. People who came here cared more about showing it all off than what they really did here.

At the check-in desk we waited while Caro, our driver went around and greeted some friends. The girls at the desk were polite Scandinavian bimbos, an immediate reason for me to sense envy snaking up through my overweight veins.

But we did check in and were told where to go. My room was at the end of an excruciatingly long walk. The hotel was done up in pink like all the local houses, but otherwise, in architectural style, resembled a Greco-Roman pukefest. Large Greco-Roman amphora-style pots stood everywhere carrying flowers and plants, and all around the complex were several damaged Greco-Roman statues. There was also a maze of forbidding paths, trails and stairways, which gave the whole complex an unpleasant, unpopulated and lonely feel aside from making walks to the lobby horribly horribly painful.

That’s what was strange, I thought. They all crammed into places like this but didn’t want to see each other. Not even catch sight of each other. This was why even though my room was on the same level as the lobby, I had to go down two flights of steps and up two more to get to it. My suitcase wasn’t large but it was heavy enough to make the walk reminiscent of Dante’s infernos. Yes it is strange, I thought. I’m on the same level as I was to begin with. But I have descended and climbed at least fifty-eight steps. Go figure, I thought. Either the architect is a sadist. Or he’s a nincompoop.

Still, when I got to the door, I was pleased. It looked good. I was perched on top of all the other rooms and figured I’d have a good view. So once I’d struggled with the card key a little, I opened the blue door. And I walked in. The apartment was fine. A long rectangular apartment, with white floor, blue fixtures, bunk beds in one side room, bathrooms, and a small well-equipped main living room with kitchenette, dining table and two foam sofas that faced each other. But the view was absolutely stunning. Yes indeed. When I pulled the patio curtain aside, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I thought again that privilege was good. Yes indeed. Privilege was fabulous. Damn. I thought. Damn. Hell. And damn.

It was truly magnificent. Utterly breathtaking. On all sides was the deep blue sea. So I put my bags down, and reveled in it a little. Sure, I thought. This was a hideous place that made the countryside look like buttock acne. And of course it represented the most repugnant of human endeavors: the brutal disrespect for culture in favor of mass tourism and mass mercantilism. Sure, it was all those things. But little ole me was getting a good view from her room. Little ole me was being gifted this view. Little ole me was being spoiled for once. So, I mean, I could just enjoy it for once, couldn't I?

Yes sir, I told myself. You bet you can.

And then I called Claudie. I called my husband. I told him about the apartment and I told him the view was incredible. But then the feeling faded. Because Claudie had used a word. A nasty cruel word that ushered in dark and unpleasant feelings. Claudie had said I would have to call Belle. Our boss down at Toujours Plus. To announce our arrival, she said. Because I was in charge. Because I was their contact in the translation team. Not Harcourt but me.

Well I dreaded it. Belle was head production assistant at Toujours Plus. And her promising name notwithstanding, Belle was reigning queen bitch of the north south east west and every other more obscure cardinal point you could think of. They were all expert pricks at Toujours Plus, but not quite as expert as Belle. It was actually under her able guidance and leadership that they had all become inveterate assholes. Belle Lustiger could have given a master class at a modeling school in how to be a superlative skin-singeing bitch. How to make people feel small shitty and utterly loserish about themselves while swanning about with her big ass, blonde hair and god-given air of superiority was what Belle did best. It was what she did superbly. The rest of them merely followed. They all showed off how much they were part of the in-crowd and we weren’t. But Belle set the tone. Belle set up the blade-topped, barbed wire barriers. So no, I did not look forward to calling her. Unless suicidal dread can be considered as looking forward to something.

But I called. And luckily I got Luc. Luc was nice. Luc was Belle’s assistant. A nice, lanky bespectacled youth whose youth was fast being pumped out of him by his succubus boss and her skanky co-workers. Luc remained uncannily nice. I told him we had arrived.

But Harcourt didn’t care. I saw that. He looked totally unperturbed. He stood there smiling and then followed calmly as the girl walked us out and asked us to wait by a car while she escorted the others with a big smile and happy banter to a big bus. I saw her looking back at us. I saw her bitching about us. I figured Mademoiselle skinny bitch thought we were getting an undeserved privilege by being driven in a car instead of in the big bus along with all the others. I didn’t realize I was lucky. That I should have milked this superior treatment for all it was worth. That I should have just reacted like a snob as Harcourt did. But I was stupid that way. I thought everyone must like me. I thought everyone must be unconditionally warm and supportive. Yep. You said it. I was a dunce.

But Harcourt had the right attitude. He didn’t give a crap. Then again Harcourt had had more experience than myself. And he was a giant in his own right, both professionally and socially (not to mention physically). He had lived. He had lived contentedly and fully. I hadn’t even begun. My life was crap. So for me, this was a big deal. For me being part of the crowd, being respected, being treated like a human being, well it was all a huge and crucial step upward. For him it didn’t matter. So while he seemed to look upon all this, on all these people, on all this hysteria, with the bemused detachment of a medieval pope watching his armies being shredded, I looked upon it with the urgent hatred of a witch about to be burned at the stake.

No sir. I wasn’t calm at all. Even as I stood near the car, I was a nervous throbbing pulsating wreck of burning nasty filthy hateful evil thoughts. I was envious. I was angry. I was sad that the skinny girl hadn’t been so nice. I felt pitiful that I was so powerless and invisible. But I also felt lucky. I felt privileged. I felt excited. It was crazy. It was like my nerves were dancing a one-eyed jig on a madly swinging tightrope that was on fire.

Finally the skinny girl disappeared completely and a larger woman arrived. She smiled.

Hi, she said. I’m Caro. Sorry about the delay. I was getting in one last smoke!

No sweat, said Harcourt bowing his head. I’m Henri and this is Mia. Nice meeting you.

No sweat? Did Harcourt just say no sweat? Of course it was in French but it was slang all right. Where the hell did he get off treating me like scum and using expressions like no sweat with this large woman he didn’t even know? It made me sick. Not to mention gobsmacked at how easily he had morphed into this ultra-hip Henri guy. Jesus. I felt like crap now, thinking that even here he was taking the lead. That I was sitting here frozen with formality while he was all Henri and and coochy coo.

Anyway we got into the car. And I sat in the back feeling like congealed horseshit while Harcourt rode with Caro in front. And throughout the ride to Cannes, they chatted easily and affably like old pals while I maintained a pained idiotic silence. Thus I began to take in the scenery. I decided it was better than talking. So there, I thought. So there!

The scenes were depressing though. At first the highway was beautiful and hilly, with a creek that we drove over and lots of green trees on either side, along with pink clay houses on distant hills and furiously colored flowers hanging down from overpasses and billboards. Then the highway ended and the road widened, flattened and became uglier and more banal as we approached the suburbs of Cannes or l’intérieur des terres as they were called. Inland towns in other words, that weren’t nearly as wealthy as Cannes. Here there were large franchise stores and franchise restaurants, franchise ramshackled houses and blaring franchise car radios. Then the roads narrowed, and classy pines made their appearance as well as charming houses, charming streets, charming cars and charming people. I began to see money, vacation homes, and finally caught the smell and sounds of the sea. It caused a subtle but sizable shift in my heart rate.

Yep, there was nothing quite as magical as the sea, I thought. Nothing quite as spiritual. No wonder the sea was where the goddess lived, both for the Greeks and the Hindus. But here there were no goddesses. Here there were the inimitable French and their inimitably French habits. I looked out at them. Bringing home baguettes, walking back from the beach, walking children home from school. The wealthy people of the Mediterranean, I thought. La côte d’Azur. It was a thrill, for sure. I felt undeserving again, like I shouldn’t be here. Like I was too poor or brown or something. I felt exactly as I had when I landed in London for the first time and wondered what on earth I was doing among all these white people. That’s how I felt.

And yet there was tremendous excitement coursing through my veins precisely for this very reason. Because I didn’t deserve it. Because I was here nonetheless. That I had been asked for, not just by Claudie, but by Paris Plus whose top producers had insisted I be recruited. That felt delicious. Yes it felt superlative. So in spite of my nerves that were doing the cha cha cha and my heart that was crooning the deep country blues, I knew another part of me leaped and surged with hot delicious excitement. After all, I thought. The fact that I was here seemed to prove what I felt deep down. That really, in spite of all current appearances, I was made for the good life.

We were to go to the hotel first, have lunch and then make the obligatory (and much dreaded) visit to the Dominguez hotel in Cannes, where we would meet the Paris Plus folks and register our presence. Then we would go to the Palais des festivals where we would watch the rehearsal for the opening ceremony and then interpret for it later this evening.

So I suggest you take your evening wear with you right away, the woman said.

Well I’m already wearing my pair of sequined underwear, said Harcourt.

The woman chuckled.

I don’t think they care about that, she said. All they want is to see your tuxedo.

Oh dear, said Harcourt. Well then I will have to buy a jacket.

I was listening with only half an ear. But I thought of that phrase evening wear. They had told us we would need evening wear. My version of evening wear was a long skirt I wore with a bulky sweatery thing. I didn’t own anything more eveningy than that. Anything more elegant, sensual or figure-hugging. Not that I had a life that involved elegant, sensual or figure-hugging evenings so why the hell would I have evening wear? I thought. Indeed.

So I continued to look out of my car window. Finally, our car wound up a small street and entered a small circular driveway. In the center was an island of plants and flowers, and all around, a wall of rock. I was puzzled. It didn’t look like a hotel, I thought. But of course, it wasn’t a hotel. Per se.

Still, since we were here and beholden to play our little part, we walked to the arrival area. We saw a skinny girl there holding a sign up that said Toujours Plus. We walked up to her but she asked us to stand aside while she sucked at a cigarette with her bony white-knuckled hand and greeted other people with a big bony smile. To us she spoke mirthlessly.

Get your luggage and come back here, she said.

Let’s get our luggage, said Harcourt.

Ok, I said.

But I hadn’t checked in a bag. So I waited. And when I saw Harcourt’s massive suitcase, I felt panic. How would I manage, I thought. I didn’t have enough.

But concerns about being even more shabbily dressed than usual were overshadowed by a big ruckus next to me where a blonde woman in a large hat seemed to rush out to the exit, followed by a small shuffling crowd of nobodies.

Who’s that? I asked.

Who knows, said Harcourt shrugging.

But I looked around me. And instantly made my first acquaintance with the two main branches of the Cannes sub-species. Those who followed people around hoping they were celebrities. And those who gave a name regardless of what they’d actually seen. Thus I heard the latter exclaim with immense and loud confidence: Catherine Debeuve, that was Catherine Debeuve. While the former chased after the woman, small camera in hand. It was pathetic, I thought. Depressing somehow. I didn’t know why. Maybe because it showed how little respect people had to feel for themselves, to run after someone famous like that. Not someone they respected or someone they wanted to meet, but someone famous whose halfwit signature they coveted. It was ridiculous.

But our skinny skank friend had a comment.

It isn’t Catherine Debeuve, she said with immense boredom. She’s already here, she was at the Palais last night.

Ah, I said pretending to admire her knowingness.

But the girl didn’t care. My comment had no ingratiating effect on her. She just sucked harder at her cigarette.

Still, I observed her. And I realized expressing disdain for the hordes was a way of showing you were part of the in-crowd and that you knew what was going on. So I drew my conclusion. I decided to be part of the in-crowd or not be at all.

But then I looked around again. And damn, I thought. I’m in Cannes. I can’t believe it. Bloody Cannes.

It sure was thrilling. Even if this was only Nice and an hour’s drive away from Cannes. But even here you felt it. The feeling of excitement was raw hot and fevered. Like the heat and sunshine that hit you as you landed. All resorts had a sexiness about them. A lustful air of illicit over-wrought artificial enjoyment that had your blood vessels popping the minute you arrived. But the heat and sunshine of Cannes were different. They were the heat and sunshine of Cannes. Of cash, gold, fame and sex. Outrageous fame, phenomenal wealth. Outrageous privilege. Phenomenal power.

Yes indeed. Cannes brought together the most decadent and self-absorbed people in the world. That’s why everyone wanted to be here. The Festival was no longer about art. The days of Louis Malle holding up the ceremony for student protesters were over. Now Cannes was a glitzy promo hangout, a sort of whorehouse for international movie pimps. Where they all came with their expense accounts and movies and lens-fuelled hunger. The fever of pleasure not for pleasure. But to show it off. This was what Cannes was about. Intense and feverish ostentation. You felt it right away. It hit your face like the gust from a sandblaster.

Yes sir, Cannes boiled down to three little words: cash, snatch and power. Not international film and festival. No indeed. That was bollocks. Cannes was all about money, sex and the gigantism of entertainment. Even the allure of cash and power were felt not in your heart, where all the noble faculties reigned. No sir, they were felt in your snatch. The place where everything brought with it with a certain sadness. A certain bluesiness. A disturbing roiling ache that made you aware right away that what you were doing was probably going to hurt you in some way. A sort of premonition of animal triste was what it was. And I felt it right away.

You couldn’t help but feel it. The tingling in your blood, the loosening up of your limbs, the troublesome boiling in your nervous system and that surge of excitement in your nether parts. Your whole body reached out to it. To the allure of fame and money. The madness of industrial-strength desire. If you weren’t a part of it, you felt like shit. And it wasn’t something you felt gradually as you drove into the city either. No sir, you felt it right off. Right here at Nice airport. I saw it in the way people swaggered about already, in the way they deliberately shouted on their cell phones, in the way they laughed and talked loudly as they showed off badges. Already here at the airport, you sensed it. The fever that had taken over the city. I felt it keenly. And I knew everyone else felt it too. The painful turgid cavernous surrender to hysteria. That’s what Cannes was about. Massive and nurtured hysteria.

Yes sir, you felt it instantly. The wet shiny tinselly presence of hysteria and the lust it brought with it. It all filled the air to choking. You could see it in the faces of those who were landing, on those who were already here. You heard it in their raucous voices, you saw it in their hungry eyes, on their over-exposed bodies, their overcooked tans. It was important for everyone to overdo it. That too was clear. Cannes was excess. Cannes was hysteria. Cannes was a tsunami of phoniness that hit you like a drill in the teeth.

But of course that feeling was to pale in comparison with what I was about to feel next. Yes sir. And over the next twelve days. Because when we went back and stood near the skinny girl, not only did I sense the same bored hostility emanating from her clogged pores, not only did I sense massive hysteria swirling all around me, but most importantly, most noticeably, I sensed vast overwhelming arrogance swimming around us like sharks near bleeding meat. I saw in my mind’s eye a long step-ladder of arrogance, with yours truly right at the bottom.

Yes indeed. It began with the skinny girl and the way she sucked at her cigarette and insisted on not looking at us when she spoke. But I sensed this trend was going to continue and become alarmingly acute in Cannes, especially around the folks at Paris Plus.

Why did I sense this? Well I had a strong intuition for one thing. And I knew from past, present and generalized experience, that for most of the folks at Paris Plus, Harcourt, Hoffmanstahl and myself were little better than mouse turds. Little better than cat crap. In short, less than nothing. Why? Well because we were uncool. And why were we uncool? Well because we didn’t work in TV. And why didn’t we work in TV? Well because we were uncool.

Yes indeed. It was a circular argument. Of little merit to those of us who had brains and a little-valued commodity (in entertainment circles) called intelligence. But TV was full of people who had started out as assistants and moved forward by dint of ambition, greed and phenomenal servility. Consequently, these people tended to sport insecurities the size of sperm whales. And egos that were rarely smaller than the Eiffel Tower. And therefore, these folks were also filled with a desperate desire to protect their territory while expressing slavish adoration for their superiors. Which for us folks, meant nothing but generalized assholery and an infuriating school-girl ear-whispering cliquishness.

Of course we weren’t treated any better back in Paris. No sir. This was why I sensed Cannes was going to be a radical sort of hell. Because most of the production assistants back in Paris treated us like people treat their toilet-bound air fresheners. Like a totally disgusting but necessary evil. In their eyes we resembled rotting fish in open trash. Vultures near a corpse. So we were neither liked, respected, wanted or even noticed. At every step in fact, we were ignored, excluded, mocked and just about tolerated. With the exception of the higher bosses who made the decisions and hired us and paid us, the rest of the low-thinking bitcherati that staffed production at Paris Plus believed we were useless. That we were overpaid, underworked, intolerably spoiled and therefore deserving of the most relentless unrefined, non-processed nastiness.

Good morning, he said smiling vaguely.

Hello, I said smiling weakly.

And then he went back to his paper. And I looked around, feeling nauseous. Yep. I did that well. Looking around. Feeling nauseous. They were my best known talents.

Then I tried to find something to read while I wondered what to say if Harcourt and I were to speak again. Harcourt and I had worked together once. But only once. And that day it had gone well. Extremely well. I had been loose-tongued, wry and witty that day. But today was different. Today I knew I was going to spend twelve days with the Monsignor. And I wondered would he remember my behavior of that day with vengefulness or kindness. Would he even remember me at all. That’s what I wondered now.

Of course, in the future, Harcourt and I would be friends. He would even come to know me, like me and respect me. But that was in the future. This was now. And now I felt uneasy. As rotten and nervous as on that first day when he’d evicted me like a cat hacks out a hairball.

So I looked around. I saw cool people enter the lounge with cool cigarettes, cool sunglasses, cool hungover faces and cool friendly colleagues. I felt wretchedly uncool compared to them. It wasn't just my clothes. It was my profession. I wanted to be cool too. I too wanted to be easy-going, happy and cool. But I wasn't. I was sickeningly dull and geeky. With a retired bulldog interpreter for company. Oh Jesus, I thought. And predictably, all the tidal waves of self-pity I had kept deep down inside myself surged up and swirled around in my nauseated frame.

Then luckily they announced departure. And as we got up and stood in line, I felt like those bad actors who don’t know what to do with their hands. I didn’t know what to do with my whole body. So I got my passport out. I put it back in. I opened my purse. I closed it up again. I looked at Harcourt. I looked away. It was horrible.

While Harcourt, bless his heart, said not a single word.

Then we inched, painfully, slowly, step by traumatic step, towards the plane, where we were finally face to face with a legion of over-cosmeticized over-happy stewardesses who smiled like their cheeks were held apart with pincer claws. And yet, immediately I noticed how Harcourt’s manner changed. I saw how he smiled, bowed, muttered and crooned, as only a dog might do in the presence of a bitch. Or Lucipher in the presence of Eve. And I smiled as I saw him stretch forward and the stewardess flutter her lashes and actually shrink her smile down so it looked real.

Aha, I thought. Harcourt’s a Don Juan. Harcourt chases tail.

But I moved on, pretending to ignore it. And we made the long painful trudge to our seats where I hemmed and hawed idiotically about putting my bag up in the luggage hold and which seat I should take (the flight didn’t have assigned seats). Then, just to stop myself from talking, I took the window seat. But it was horrible. I felt intensely claustrophobic, hemmed in as I was between the great wall of Interpreter on my left and the over-heated wall of airplane on my right. But I sat there quietly. And we continued to do what we had done at the airport. Harcourt sat reading. I stared out of the window feeling pukey.

Only halfway through the flight did something change. It was subtle but important. The same mildly hysterical extra-skinny stewardess who had beamed at Harcourt came round with coffee, tea and Breton biscuits. The airline’s measly version of breakfast. But since my nausea still had me in a choke-hold, I refused. And Harcourt took full advantage.

And once again as I stared, I saw how he channeled his inner playboy and chatted up the hanger-thin stewardess like he were Porfirio and she were good old Zsa Zsa. He chatted and murmured, she cooed and billed. He smiled and gushed, she squawked and tittered. I almost threw up but still, I watched, sickened but strangely moved.

Harcourt was only asking if he could have my share of coffee and biscuits. But he was doing it with such poetic flourish, such seductive aplomb, such extreme antiquated boyish flirtatiousness, that I simply had to smile. And when the stewardess was done giggling and shimmying and was finally gone, I spontaneously burst into a laugh. Harcourt turned. He smiled. And asked politely if I didn’t mind him wolfing down my share of food. I shook my head.

No, I said chuckling. But I am glad it gave you the opportunity to make some new friends!

And to my surprise Harcourt chuckled. And shook his enormous head as he spoke.

Ah yes my dear, he said bowing his head. Life is too short you know!

And he held up a biscuit.

But it is kind of you to oblige!

And that was that. The iceberg between us melted. After all, I thought. The man’s a glutton. And a philanderer. We just might get along after all.

So as we circled over Nice, I felt relaxed and talked it up a little. I asked Harcourt questions. Whether he’d been to Cannes, whether he’d worked at the Festival, whether he liked being retired. I took the initiative and flattered him defenseless. It must be strange being back among us mortals, I said. It must feel unnatural to be ordinary again. Harcourt smiled. Then he chuckled. He talked. He opened up. And ever so slightly he became someone I could imagine working with. I felt ebullient. I felt relaxed. I felt good.

But all that changed when we landed. At the airport in Nice, I began to feel it. What I always felt in this city. What I always felt when we landed. Up in the air, I had been fine. Now I felt terrible. My nerves seemed to be simmering. My chest was throbbing. The agitation, the frenzy, the flurry of Cannes was taking over. As soon as we landed, I felt it. The agony and ecstasy of Cannes.

So the following Thursday, at seven a.m., I checked in. Henri Harcourt and I were taking the plane together. Philibert would join us later. I was shitting bricks. I might have shat other things if it had been possible. Things that better expressed my fear, loathing and disgust at having to work and travel in the company of someone like Harcourt at this hour of the morning. But bricks was all I could manage for now.

Thus I walked bravely into the lounge, disguising my worries with a well-practiced smile of elegance and refinement. But nobody cared. Nobody noticed me. Nothing new there, I thought. I’m as noticeable as a diaper on a rubbish heap. So I looked around wondering if I could spot any superstars. But no. No superstars either. Then I hoped Harcourt would notice me. I figured it might help with the painful and unavoidable business of introductions. But no. Harcourt didn’t notice me either. He didn’t even look up. And indeed, why should he? I thought. It would run contrary to nature. You didn’t see tigers making way for lambs. You didn’t see snakes bowing politely to eggs. No sir. That’s not how the world worked. Slaves bent low for their masters. Prey dropped dead for their predators. That’s how it worked. And indeed there he was. Wearing a linen suit, reading a newspaper and looking intently at it like death looking at a plague victim.

I walked toward him like a mosquito flies toward a lightbulb. I felt awful. I lacked anything resembling confidence and I was wearing utterly hideous clothes. All my fault of course. I wore clothes I hated because I wanted to hide a body I hated. I also locked myself in a personality I hated. And felt imprisoned in a life I hated. Stated briefly, I hated everything about myself. I felt acutely ashamed and embarrassed about myself everywhere I went and in my clothes right now, I felt like a tent where fleas might hope to die. No it was nothing to be proud of. But then I never felt good. No sir. Not a thing about me spelled happiness, pride or joy. My life had gone horribly wrong, I thought. And that was that.

I was wrong of course. My life wasn’t so bad. Sure it was dull burdensome and clogged with debt penury and obligation. But it wasn’t all bad. I mean I had this work after all. And I had Claudie and her sewage conferences. Now I even had Cannes. And yet, like every sad fool who is unable to see beyond his nosehairs, like all the sad fools who are unable to summon the intelligence to see that their life is doing them an enormous favor by not letting them be in control, I felt terrible self-pity. Miles and gallons and tons of it. Boo hoo hoo I went all the time. Boo hoo hoo.

Yes indeed. In my mind, it was all over. I was finished. In my mind, there was nothing so unbearable, so unmitigatedly disastrous as having to work as an interpreter.

Of course it wasn’t true. Being an interpreter was fine. I mean it didn’t suck like loads of other jobs I could be doing and it paid exceedingly well. Sure, it wasn’t the most exciting thing you could think of doing. I mean there was little that was glamorous or sexy about sitting in a booth and droning on about the cement industry. Or translating how a Japanese lab could now turn sewage into steak. But most people didn’t expect to do something glamorous for a living. Most people were happy to take home a paycheck that didn’t involve blowing a stranger on a sidewalk or hosing dogshit off the street. Only I seemed to cling to the adolescent fancy of happiness, stardom and fulfillment. That’s what I wanted. Fulfillment. And sitting in a closed space and smelling someone else’s stale breath while I rattled off pages of sales figures and chemical formulae was not my idea of it.

Our show was the most popular talk show in France. Toujours Plus came on every evening at seven and ended at nine and during the festival, covered the madness of Cannes. They covered its night life, had their own nightclub to house some of that night life (of which we would be an entirely non-existent part of course), and also covered the famous red carpet with its incomprehensible diurnal hysteria. I of course had never seen any of this. I had only been in France some two odd years, and during that time, had been too deeply absorbed in turning myself into a respectable professional from a penniless, unfashionable blubbery pauper to watch television.

But everyone else in France knew about the show. Oh yes. When I mentioned my Toujours Plus Cannes news to my threadbare collection of friends slash acquaintances they all knew what I was talking about. And their envy helped. I found my feelings of icy self-hatred, self-loathing and generalized disgust warm, thaw and soften under the heat of their vivifying jealousy.

Ah oui, Paris Plus, they all said, oui oui, they always go down to Cannes and do their live show there. It’s pretty wild…

And then they paused while I beamed proudly.

So you’re going for that? they said. You’re going to be with them throughout the festival? Wow, you’re so lucky!

Oh yes, it was music to my ears. The sentence you’re so lucky felt like a delicious hot shower I had once taken after several nights spent out camping and shitting in the desert. Then my colleagues heard about it. And they too paused with a delicious green shining out of their eyes and some utterly predictable (but clearly fake) indifference.

Cannes, they said first. Cannes, sure.

And then they paused.

But you’re going? I mean, you?

Yep, I wanted to say. Me, suckers! Me, Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl.

Those were my colleagues. Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl. Both men and seniawrs in the profession. Harcourt and Hoffmanstahl lent weight and credibility to the recruitment. Claudie was hiring them instead of the usual ruck she hired because they were top dogs in the profession. Harcourt was emperor of Interpreterland. Hoffmanstahl was like a senior court noble.

Harcourt was the Presidents’ man. Whispering, speechifying and dining with a long series of Présidents de la République had turned him into a sort of wax relic of carnivorous snobbery and careerist cannibalism. And he still did it as regularly as I took laxatives. Work for presidents, that is. And crush his enemies. The Elysée palace was where Harcourt belonged. And everyone knew it. Hobnobbing, note-taking and speech-rendering with sphinx-like perfection for cash-soaked, gun-buying, oil-spilling, resource-plundering dignitaries from France and around the world was what Harcourt did best. In fact he did it superbly. And for this, for his murderous efficiency, he was feared and respected by every ditherer in our profession.

I too had met him in distant times. Ah yes. In less than auspicious circumstances. Early in my career, I had met him and been ejected from his office with cool munificent cruelty. He had thrown me out of his Foreign Ministry office like a butcher cleans out his work table. For what exactly? Well for doing the unthinkable. For believing a mangy cur like me could work in Paris. Yes sir. Needless to say therefore, I did not look forward to working with Harcourt. Not in Cannes, not in Hades, not anywhere else.

Philibert Hoffmanstahl though, was nice, if nervous. He was soft-spoken, tall, hunched and bore an uncanny resemblance to Charles de Gaulle. Philibert and I had often worked together. And he too was unhappy about working with Harcourt. Everyone was unhappy around Harcourt. Harcourt was like a feline you let into the monkey cage at a zoo. Not the best recipe for universal harmony, if you know what I mean.

And yet, for my colleagues who were a generally uncharitable breed of toffs, this news was the clincher. To say Harcourt and I were going to Cannes was like telling the King of Denmark you knew what he had done and you had video footage. For this reason most of all, I felt the most ardent and avid enthusiasm. I was over the moon and several planets to be able to stick it to them at last. Oh yes, I told myself. For once I can boast of something. And not just something, but a professional something. And not just a professional something, but Cannes.

You see, it was no secret that I was something of a pariah, a stray, a bum in my profession. That while my colleagues zoomed around the world in business class, I only ever got to distant Paris suburbs whose star attractions tended to be sewage treatment plants and state-of-the-art labs for analyzing sheep catarrh. So it was most riling to hear my colleagues speak casually of shawls they’d bought in Djakarta, or free Mont Blancs they’d acquired while working for the Ministry of so-and-so in Marrakesh. Oh yes, I noticed how casually they pretended to mention those first-class tickets and prestigious hotel rooms on the beach. It was galling.

So I wasn’t about to let them off easily now. No sir. I too spoke casually of Cannes. I too pretended not to care as I laid it on thick. It wasn’t far away. It wasn’t exotic. But it was Cannes. And I wasn’t working for politicians, but I was working for superstars. And I wasn't going it alone. No sir. I was working with über-royalty. Harcourt.