"N. TOOK THE DICE..." "An image..." "An image has been going round and round in my head for some time, for a long time now, that of two girls, tall and blonde with cropped hair." "They are like sisters." "I think I know one of them." "A third year student, I occasionally see at the university." "She is called..." "Suddenly I have forgotten her name." "I'm sure I have never seen the other girl before." "And yet the image comes into my head again of these two girls, side by side, with their long legs and their short golden locks." "What has always seemed strange about the stories I hear on television, for example, in what they call dramas, is that events follow on from start to finish, logically, in an orderly fashion, continuously." "You sense that an effort has been made in the studios to place everything in order, each event in its rightful place, bound by the strict rules of cause and effect, both those which precede and those which follow." "Meanwhile, these two girls pass through my mind once again for no reason." "For no reason." "Let me try to explain." "These stories that you see on television, that are linked in such a way as to be logical, continuous, reassuring, are designed to put you to sleep." "When real things happen around you, you will have noticed it is an entirely different matter." "Detective stories on television always end with each element of the investigation being placed in the right order." "There is never an element missing nor is there ever one too many, however small." "Everything is explained at the end." "It all becomes clear." "The whole is transformed into something smooth and closed, round, like a sort of egg, unbreakable and transparent." "It is like sterilised tinned food, hygienic and tasteless." "The history of France for schoolchildren..." "Something like death." "In real life or the newspapers, when you read true stories of crime or passion or everyday news, it is never like that." "There are things which remain incomprehensible, characters which remain enigmatic right to the end, stubborn details that don't fit with the rest and destroy the constructs of the police, lawyers and psychologists." "Most of the time we choose to forget the fragments that don't fit." "We pretend not to have seen them." "We look away discreetly." "Otherwise, there would be no story, no more truth or justice." "Moreover, the accused might be confusing the issue on purpose to avoid being convicted." "But I don't do it on purpose." "What attracts me irresistibly to the things or people around me that I cannot take my eyes off is precisely that which I cannot understand, words taken out of context, gestures left hanging in mid-air, images glimpsed unexpectedly" "whose connection to one another appears to be random, anything that defies explanation." "This story, for example, that I am about to tell, that I am going to try to tell, to tell you." "The guy in the boat is barely recognisable but it is me." "I have a beard and a big hat to hide my face as much as possible." "Perhaps also because of the summer sun." "That boy who has just disembarked from the large sailing boat is one of the Cortez brothers, the elder of the two, although they look like twins, apart from the beard." "I am there, watching, watching the comings and goings, never missing a detail." "And now I am here talking." "I don't know exactly what he does." "He is obviously not one of us." "He is neither one of our relatives nor a lecturer." "He has been hanging around for a while, cropping up all over the place like a cop or a private detective, or a television reporter waiting for his camera crew to arrive." "Ours is a city of two halves, like most of the cities round here." "Always this older man, watching, as if he were the narrator and not me." "Western, relatively modern buildings lining the seafront and a sprawling old town where traditional Arabic architecture has been preserved." "The same contradictions are found in the clothing and the way of life." "This is the other Cortez brother." "He is easily distinguished from the first because he is beardless." "My name is N.K." "but everyone calls me N. for short, as if it were an initial, standing for "Nemo", for example, or "navigator" or "narrator", or "Napoleon" someone or other." "The block of flats I live in looks directly onto the beach and has a view of the fishing port beyond." "It is a good observation post and convenient in summer when you can swim all day long." "But the beach is dangerous." "The water is unpredictable beneath its smooth, flat surface and there are often accidents." "We are used to them and we no longer take much notice." "It is wise, all the same, never to stray too far from the shore and to just splash about in the shallow waters, away from those sudden drops where you lose your footing and are suddenly dragged under by invisible deep currents." "Did I say who this girl was?" "In any case, for the moment her name still escapes me but I know she is more or less engaged to the second Cortez brother, the one without the beard." "Sometimes I think none of this exists, that I have invented it, that I simply saw from my window some friends in the water playing their usual stupid games, the Cortez brothers acting as if they know more than they do," "big Boris pretending to be dead, and then this older stranger who has been hanging around lately, watching the scene from a distance, or, more likely, watching the beautiful blonde endlessly plunging her body into the transparent waters." "I'll call her Eve, because..." "I don't remember her real name." "She looks as if she is in a TV advert for a wonderfully revitalising bath." "And now let us imagine that this stranger is neither a policeman nor a reporter but is instead planning some dastardly deed, a kidnapping or some more complex crime, and that the young Eve, who is now dressed after her swim and walking across the Medina" "on her way home, will soon fall into the trap." "When, where and how?" "We shall see." "Heavy, locked doors, windows too high, lined with strong iron bars." "Images of another world haunt the imagination in these alleys that still echo with the sighs of white slaves captured long ago by handsome pirates whose brightly coloured ships are still anchored in the port." "Perhaps the trap is this small painting." "And yet it looks like a reward, an object fallen from the sky." "And what is Cortez doing lying on the ground?" "He said he was waiting for me." "That must be one of the canvases he paints from postcards." "I think the body lying nearby was part of the painting." "I just took the painted canvas." "Didn't he make any move to stop you?" "No, he stayed lying on the ground, watching me." "He must be jealous of his brother." "They are so alike." "Perhaps." "He scares me." "Have you noticed?" "They have exactly the same voice." "Yes." "No, almost." "So the painting is an affront to the spurned brother for attracting the favours of the chosen one." "But it could also be a sort of mark or sign, not a gift or reward, but on the contrary, the starting point for a search or quest, a treasure hunt or a television game show," "the first stages of which have just unfolded before your eyes." "Eve was drawn into the alleys." "She found a painting and hung it on the wall of her room." "But she is increasingly surrounded by spies who covet the object." "She must now show vigilance and imagination if she is to carry on playing the game we are following on the small screen." "Dear female viewers, whether you are going on holiday or staying at home, there is perhaps a problem you haven't thought of." "You will no doubt have noticed in the office or in the bar, in the street, around you, at home, on yourself, objects disappearing, as if by magic." "I look, therefore I steal." "Everything is ripe for the taking for he who must speak." "To take and not be taken." "If anyone sees me, I'm done for." "I steal without being seen." "To guard against this thief this miraculous small object will ensure your peace of mind." "And that day we saw for the first time, at the university cafe which we consider to be our domain and out of bounds for old people, that man I mentioned who has been hanging around us for a few days" "and who looks like a plain-clothes policeman from the drug squad." "Go and see if I've been followed." "I remember." "It was the day we were playing a version of Blind Man's Buff." "Larissa." "The younger of the Cortez brothers must recognise his fiancée from all the girls of the group." "Sonia." "The girls approach him in silence, one after the other." "Then they rise up on tiptoe, lightly brushing him with their lips as they pass, without saying anything." "Marina." "Vera." "I realised this was the first test, set..." "Sonia." "...not for the boy, but for Eve herself, for the possession of the painting." "Marina." "If you like, I'll teach you a game of imagination and luck, like yours, only played with cards and a gun loaded with blanks." "It's called the Redemption Game." "You start by drawing straws." "This must have been the next test set for Eve on this course she has been led down." "Shot." "Fear." "Shot." "Broken mirror." "Pure water." "A path through the maze." "Prison." "Victim." "Shot." "No!" "Let go of me!" "Eve, abducted by the cruel knights, waits in her dungeon along with the other female prisoners in the dream." "The man who was hanging around our group, pretending to join in our games, has now shown his true face." "The girl's trials now continue far away from us." "At the cafe today we feel dispirited." "If only we could find out where she is imprisoned, then we could recapture her and kill her kidnapper." "I am locked up in a semi-ruined madrasa in the middle of the sands." "From above it is impossible to make anything out." "No, she's not here either." "We must have got the wrong place." "Or they have taken her elsewhere." "We may as well give up." " Don't you agree?" " No, we must continue." "I'm certain we'll find her." "Do you want to bet?" "I think you know where she is hiding, or rather where she is being held." "You all know!" "Now I get it." "Search for her alone if you're so sure." "Why not?" "But stay out of my way." "Tell them I've gone back into town." "Did you get that, you idiot?" " Where are you really going?" " Where I please." "And be careful if you follow me." "Eve..." "listen." "Come here." "I have brought you a magic powder which gives victims superhuman strength." "Put it in your water." "Once you have drunk a mouthful, you will be able to break the prison bars as if they were made of straw." "But if someone who means you harm takes a sip, they will be unmasked and killed on the spot." "The magic powder starts working immediately." "Eve gets new-found strength from the dream factory." "But she must hurry." "Meanwhile, her rivals continue in their quest to take the painting and get to the next stage first." "Faster!" "Faster still!" "But here, alas, arriving too soon, is Boris, the man who pretended to drown." "You're wondering who it is." "It's me, I am the first to reach your prison, having crossed sea and fire." "Come on, stand up." "I knew you'd come and save me." "I love you." "Yes, from the bottom of my heart, for a long time." "You can trust me." "Drink my water and you'll know my thoughts." "My innermost thoughts." "Funeral march for the death of our friend Boris." "But Eve still hasn't reappeared, neither at the cafe nor at the maths lecture." "And her friends are not sad about the feigned death of the man who pretended to drown, but about her prolonged absence." "Dividing, doubling." "Compassionate sister." "Reflection in the water." "She regains her strength." "Eve, triumphant, makes her return." "But now let us return to the kidnapper." "I go off in search of him myself." "Narrator, voyeur, message, bicycle." "2, 6, 5." "Boat pulled ashore, stranger, message." "5, 6, 1." "Message, stranger, stone jetty." "6, 2, 3." "Stranger, boat pulled ashore, upside-down bicycle." "4, 1, 6." "Heroine, stone jetty, stranger." "The stranger has dived into the water and seems to have vanished." "Or did he jump into the truck as it was passing?" "4, 1, 5." "Heroine, stone jetty, message." " So you're here?" " Yes." "See?" "They passed the houses and shrubs and headed for the beach." "The story seems to have lost the plot." "Eve too, perhaps." "She seems to have given up the race, at least for now." "Meanwhile, her rival, who hadn't seemed to be a threat, takes advantage of this time to score an important point and now looks set to overtake the favourite." "Will Eve succeed in regaining the lead over this last-minute rival?" "Here she is, adopting the casual appearance of an ordinary tourist looking for souvenirs, regaining her foothold on the prescribed itinerary, mistakenly thinking she had lost the thread along with all trace of the game leader after he dived into the troubled waters of the fishing port." "Yes, that's the one." "You're on the right track." "East or west?" "West and straight on." "What is she doing?" "This time I think she's on the right track." "I hear you fought Cortez No.2." "Meanwhile, Sonia stole his map of the course." "Why are you fighting?" "I think he's cheating." "He is helping her on the sly, giving her information." "That's not fair, given that he had the map." "He was hoping to replace his brother in the girl's affections by acting as her saviour." "And now?" "But Eve is so tired by the successive trials of the course that she weakens again." "Helpless and lost, she is disorientated above all by the absence of logic in this inexorable sequence of events, the order of which has been fixed by someone else and which resembles a nightmare." "It's no use." "She feels her powers of intervention gradually draining away." "Here you see her at home, ready to drop everything." "Luckily, her boyfriend, Cortez No.1, who is also her fiancé, as I have already said, urges her not to give up so close to her goal." "I will walk a bit further with you but then I'll have to leave you." "Yes, I know." "Do you know where you're going?" "Straight on." "It's not always easy." "What are you looking for exactly?" "It wasn't specified." "A reminder, no doubt." "An identical object." "Someone's return." "Are you there?" "I think I'm lost." "No, you're not." "Don't give up." " Can't you help me a bit?" " You know that's impossible." "Don't go." "Why won't you stay with me?" "Because"." "Because it's forbidden." "Because it's forbidden by the rules of the game." "Congratulations!" "You have won a washing machine!" " Was that the final test?" " Yes." "To find the postcard." "It doesn't look like the same postcard." "It is, give or take a few details." "The light looks slightly different." "That's the house in the medina where I found the painting." "The place is unimportant." "It's the journey that counts, not the goal." "Television game shows are always stupid." "A washing machine!" "That's even more laughable than I thought." "What can I say?" "Or rather, what did I say?" "This face, watching the small screen of the television, continues to look for a possible solution through the maze of alleyways, gestures, words and faces." "V equals zero up to infinity minus 1 to the power of V." "Factorial N plus 2V over factorial 3V plus 2." "T to the power of 3V plus 2." "But already the faces merge and the words are lost." "Can it be true that this itinerary, so patiently and passionately devised, leads to nothing else?" "Already the roads are forking again, turning back on themselves, merging, passing the same point again." "The faces, glimpsed here and there, resume their blankness, the town its insignificance and the landscape its dullness." "So it was just a game." "But who was playing?" "I placed the dice back on the table in the middle of the red felt mat in front of me." "Three dice, each with six sides." "Chance is said to have its own rules." "Dear viewers, whether you are going out or staying in front of the screen, perhaps there is one small thing you haven't thought of." "A game means nothing in advance." "It is the player who invents the game, and the player is you." "The random images stolen by your gaze are only images." "They have no inherent meaning attached to them." "They have no other meaning than that which you choose to give them." "A reassuring order?" "A hopeless order?" "It is you who decides." "Out of laziness or fear."