It’s Sunday morning, September 18, 2016. I spent the previous day signing books in Lille, in northern France. My head is still foggy. I am making myself a cup of hot chocolate when, at the exact moment the microwave dings, my eyes widen.Article continues after advertisement
What if every human being were born with an irresistible need to do good?
Years later, that question would become the seed of my novel We. But where had it come from? Let’s jump back in time again.
I was living in a world where empathy was not a priority.
I’m in Nice, in the south of France, sometime in the 2000s. I’m taking the bus to the Faculty of Arts and everyone is scrambling for a seat. The students cling to theirs as if they own them—they won’t give them up to anyone, not even that old lady. It’s her fault, she could have taken the bus at another time. At the university, it’s the same story: everyone for themselves. A student insists on paying me because I shared my notes from a class she’d missed. She keeps repeating, “Nothing in life is free.” In the street, I start noticing the averted gazes (mine included), hands that never reach out to help (mine included), the excuses: too tired, none of my business, me first. These thoughts follow me home, to my parents’ house, to the bedroom where I shut myself away, a tiger poster taped to the door to signal, “Do not disturb.”
