The Zahir

At least her remark is spontaneous. One of the women sitting next to me gives a wry laugh, but I applaud.

"Sex is certainly more interesting, but I'm not sure it's a different topic of conversation. Besides, it's no longer forbidden to talk about sex."

"It's also in extremely bad taste," says one of my neighbors.

"May we know what is forbidden?" asks the organizer, who is starting to feel uncomfortable.

"Well, money, for example. All of us around this table have money, or pretend that we do. We assume we've been invited here because we're rich, famous, and influential. But have any of us ever thought of using this kind of event to find out what everyone actually earns? Since we're all so sure of ourselves, so important, why don't we look at our world as it is and not as we imagine it to be?"

"What are you getting at?" asks the director of the car-manufacturing firm.

"It's a long story. I could start by talking about Hans and Fritz sitting in a bar in Tokyo and go on to mention a Mongolian nomad who says we need to forget who we think we are in order to become who we really are."

"You've lost me."

/> "That's my fault. I didn't really explain. But let's get down to the nitty-gritty: I'd like to know how much everyone here earns, what it means, in money terms, to be sitting at the head table."

There is a momentary silence--my gamble is not paying off. The other people around the table are looking at me with startled eyes: asking about someone's financial situation is a bigger taboo than sex, more frowned upon than asking about betrayals, corruption, or parliamentary intrigues.

However, the Arab prince--perhaps because he's bored by all these receptions and banquets with their empty chatter, perhaps because that very day he has been told by his doctor that he is going to die, or perhaps for some other reason--decides to answer my question:

"I earn about twenty thousand euros a month, depending on the amount approved by the parliament in my country. That bears no relation to what I spend, though, because I have an unlimited so-called entertainment allowance. In other words, I am here courtesy of the embassy's car and chauffeur; the clothes I'm wearing belong to the government; and tomorrow I will be traveling to another European country in a private jet, with the cost of pilot, fuel, and airport taxes deducted from that allowance."

And he concludes:

"Apparent reality is not an exact science."

If the prince can speak so frankly, and given that he is, hierarchically, the most important person at the table, the others cannot possibly embarrass him by remaining silent. They are going to have to participate in the game, the question, and the embarrassment.

"I don't know exactly how much I earn," says the organizer, one of the Favor Bank's classic representatives, known to some as a lobbyist. "Somewhere in the region of ten thousand euros a month, but I, too, have an entertainment allowance from the various organizations I head. I can deduct everything--suppers, lunches, hotels, air tickets, sometimes even clothes--although I don't have a private jet."

The wine has run out; he signals to a waiter and our glasses are refilled. Now it was the turn of the director of the car-manufacturing firm, who, initially, had hated the idea of talking about money, but who now seems to be rather enjoying herself.

"I reckon I earn about the same, and have the same unlimited entertainment allowance."

One by one, everyone confessed how much they earned. The banker was the richest of them all, with ten million euros a year, as well as shares in his bank that were constantly increasing in value.

When it came to the turn of the young blonde woman who had not been introduced to anyone, she refused to answer:

"That's part of my secret garden. It's nobody's business but mine."

"Of course it isn't, but we're just playing a game," said the organizer.

The woman refused to join in, and by doing so, placed herself on a higher level than everyone else: after all, she was the only one in the group who had secrets. However, by placing herself on a higher level, she only succeeded in earning everyone else's scorn. Afraid of feeling humiliated by her miserable salary, she had, by acting all mysterious, managed to humiliate everyone else, not realizing that most of the people there lived permanently poised on the edge of the abyss, utterly dependent on those entertainment allowances that could vanish overnight.

The question inevitably came around to me.

"It depends. In a year when I publish a new book, I could earn five million euros. If I don't publish a book, then I earn about two million from royalties on existing titles."

"You only asked the question so that you could say how much you earned," said the young woman with the "secret garden." "No one's impressed."

She had realized that she had made a wrong move earlier on and was now trying to correct the situation by going on the attack.

"On the contrary," said the prince. "I would have expected a leading author like yourself to be far wealthier."

A point to me. The blonde woman would not open her mouth again all night.

The conversation about money broke a series of taboos, given that how much people earn was the biggest of them all. The waiter began to appear more frequently, the bottles of wine began to be emptied with incredible speed, the emcee-cum-organizer rather tipsily mounted the stage, announced the winner, presented the prize, and immediately rejoined the conversation, which had carried on even though politeness demands that we keep quiet when someone else is talking. We discussed what we did with our money (this consisted mostly of buying "free time," traveling, or practicing a sport).