The Map and the Territory Read Online Free PDF Page A

good price, forty years before, from an owner who urgently needed liquidity. This was a safe and elegant residential area at the time, and he imagined a happy family life; in any case, the house would have enabled him to have a large family and frequently receive friends—but none of that had ultimately happened.
    At the moment when the broadcast returned to the smiling and predictable face of host Michel Drucker, he switched off the sound and turned to his son. “Do you plan to pursue an artistic career?” he asked; Jed replied in the affirmative. “And for the moment, you can’t earn a living?” He nuanced his reply. To his own surprise he had, in the course of the previous year, been contacted by two photography agencies. The first specialized in the photography of objects, had clients for catalogues that included CAMIF and La Redoute, and sometimes sold its pictures to advertising agencies. The second specialized in culinary work for magazines like
Notre Temps
and
Femme Actuelle
that regularly called on its services. Unprestigious, neither field offered much money: taking a photograph of a mountain bike, or a soft-cheese tartiflette, earned much less than a snapshot of Kate Moss, or even George Clooney; but the demand was constant, sustained, and could guarantee a decent income. Therefore Jed was not, if he could be bothered, absolutely withoutmeans of support; what’s more, he felt it desirable to maintain a certain style of pure photography. He contented himself with delivering large-format negatives, precisely defined and exposed, that the agencies scanned and modified as they saw fit; he preferred not to get involved with the retouching of images, presumably subject to different commercial or advertising imperatives, and simply delivered pictures that were technically perfect but entirely neutral.
    “I’m happy you’re autonomous,” his father replied. “I’ve known several guys in my life who wanted to become artists, and were supported by their parents; not one of them managed to break through. It’s curious, you might think that the need to express yourself, to leave a trace in the world, is a powerful force, yet in general that’s not enough. What works best, what pushes people most violently to surpass themselves, is still the pure and simple need for money.
    “I’m going to help you to buy a flat in Paris, all the same,” he went on. “You’re going to need to see people, make contacts. What’s more, you could say it’s an investment: the market is rather depressed at the moment.”
    The television screen now featured a comedian whom Jed almost managed to identify. Then there was a close-up of Michel Drucker laughing blissfully. Jed suddenly thought that his father maybe just wanted to be alone; true contact between them had never been re-established.
    Two weeks later, Jed bought the flat he still occupied, on the boulevard de l’Hôpital, in the north of the thirteenth arrondissement. That most of the neighboring streets were named after painters—Rubens, Watteau, Veronese, Philippe de Champaigne—could be considered a good omen. More prosaically, he was not far from the new galleries that were opening around the Très Grande Bibliothèque quarter. He hadn’t really negotiated, but had gathered enough information to know that everywhere in France prices were collapsing, especially in the urban areas. Properties remained empty, never finding a buyer.

2
    Jed’s memory held almost no image of his mother, but of course he had seen photos. She was a pretty woman with pale skin and long black hair, and in certain pictures you could even say she was beautiful; she looked a bit like the portrait of Agathe von Astighwelt in the museum of Dijon. She rarely smiled in these pictures, and even her smile seemed to hide an anxiety. No doubt this impression was influenced by the fact of her suicide; but even when trying to cut yourself off from that there was something in her that was a bit unreal,