You Changed My Life by Abdel Sellou Page A

Am I supposed to pass through it or what? I press again.
    â€œYessssss?”
    â€œYou know Casper the Friendly Ghost?”
    â€œUm . . .”
    â€œWell, I’m not him! Come on now, open up!”
    Click, click, click. Finally, I get it. Like any self-respecting castle, there’s a secret passage . . . and I find it! A human-sized door is barely visible inside the giant one. I step forward, grumbling. Here we go, the interview hasn’t even happened yet, and I’m already annoyed. This better not take too long. Whoever the dude in here is, he’s going to have to sign my paper in double time!

20
    Whatever was strange outside was strange inside, too. I walked through the door and into a desert. A hall like this at Beaugrenelle could have been the rec room for the entire project. But here, nothing, nobody. Not one dude to hold up the wall, or roll himself a blunt. The building concierge came out of his office.
    â€œWhat is this regarding?”
    â€œUh . . . For the terter . . . the terra . . . For the tar-tarpegic?”
    She gives me a threatening look and, without a word, points her finger at the door at the end of the hall. Ding dong, another click, but this time the door opens all by itself. I close it behind me. And the hallucination continues. Someone’s playing a joke on me, I’m the victim of a hidden camera sketch. Allen Funt is going to step out and slap me on the shoulder.
    It suddenly dawns on me that I’m not at the headquarters of some big company, but in a person’s private residence . . . The apartment entrance must be 360 square feet. It opens onto
two rooms: on the right, there’s a desk where I see a man and a woman, both sitting, probably talking to another candidate, and on the left, a sitting room. Well, I call it a sitting room because there are sofas. There are also tables, dressers, mirrors, paintings, sculptures . . . and even some kids. There are two of them, all nice and clean, the kind I didn’t like to share the benches with at school.
    A lady passes through with a tray. Some guys are sitting there, uncomfortably, in cheap suits with folders on their laps. As for me, I’ve got my crinkled envelope in my hands, I’m wearing worn-out jeans and a jacket that’s seen better days. I look like a degenerate from the suburbs who just spent a week outdoors. Actually, I hadn’t. Yesterday I spent the night at my mother’s. I look like I always do, actually. Sloppy, I-don’t-care, antisocial.
    A blonde comes over to me and invites me to wait with the others. I sit at a huge table. When I put my finger on the wood, a print shows up and then disappears after a few seconds. I look around. As long as I’m here, I might as well do some recon for stuff that could be useful. But I’m quickly let down: no TV, no VHS player, not even a cordless telephone. Maybe over there, in the office? I lean back a little in my chair, wedge my fist under my chin, and start to doze.
    Every seven or eight minutes, the blonde reappears and asks the next person to follow her. Each time, the guys look at each other and hesitate, nervous. My stomach is rumbling and I was planning on meeting up with Brahim to eat something, so I interrupt the hello-my-name-is thing and hold my palm up to the indecisive candidates:
    â€œI’ll just be a second.”

    I beeline for the office, the blonde on my heels, unfold the employment agency paper, and put it down on the desk. However, the blond hesitates to sit down.
    â€œHi,” I say. “Can you just sign here, please?”
    I’ve learned to be polite, because it saves time. They look like they’re afraid of me. Neither the secretary nor the guy sitting next to her bats an eyelash. He doesn’t get up to say hello but I’m not surprised by his rudeness: I’ve already had interviews with condescending types who treat me like a dog. It’s routine.
    â€œRelax, it’s not a