My favorite character in fiction is a 10-year-old boy (give or take a few years) named Momo. He is an orphaned Arab boy in Romain Gary's The Life Before Us. He narrates the story of how he cares for Madame Rosa, a dying 68-year-old, 220-lb. survivor of Auschwitz and retired "lady of the night." This is one of my favorite passages from the story:
The most important parts of a person are the heart and head, and they're the most costly. If the heart stops, you can't go on as usual, and if the head detaches itself from everything and refuses to function properly, the person loses his facilities and can't hope to get anything out of life. I believe that if you want to live, you should start very young, because later on you're sure to depreciate and no one will make you any presents.
Sometimes I'd bring Madame Rosa things I'd pick up without the slightest utility, that were no good for anything but gave pleasure because nobody wanted them and they'd been thrown away. Some people, for instance bring flowers home because it's somebody's birthday or for no reason at all, just to cheer up the apartment; then when they dry out and lose their first flush, they throw them in the garbage and if you get up very early you can rescue them. These so-called castoffs were my specialty. Sometimes there's a little color left and they have a little longer to live. I'd make up bouquets regardless of their age and give them to Madame Rosa, who'd put them in vases without water, because it's no use by that time. Or I'd swipe whole armfuls of mimosa off the market carts and take them home to bring in the smell of happiness. As I carried them through the streets, I'd dream of the battles of flowers in Nice and the mimosa forests which surround that gleaming white city that Monsieur Hamil had known in his youth and still spoke of now and then, though he wasn't the same any more.
We spoke mostly Yiddish and Arabic between ourselves, or French when there were strangers present or we didn't want to be understood, but lately Madame Rosa had started mixing all the languages of her life and talking to me in Polish, her earliest language, that was coming back to her now, because what sticks to old people the longest is their youth. Well, anyway, she was still managing to hold on, except for the stairs, but it wasn't easy and she needed shots in the ass. It was hard to find a nurse young enough to climb the six flights or reasonably low-priced. I made an arrangement with Le Mahoute, who needled legally because he had diabetes and the state of his health permitted it. He was a good kid, who was self-made but mostly black and Algerian. He sold transistors and other stuff he'd stolen, and the rest of the time he'd try to get cured of his hang-up at the Marmottan Hospital, where he had his ins and outs. He turned up all right for Madame Rosa's shot, but we almost came to grief, because he got the ampules mixed and shot Madame Rosa's ass full of the heroin fix he'd saved for the day when his cure would be over.
I knew right away there was something fishy, because I'd never seen Madame Rosa so blissful. The first thing that hit her was amazement, and then the bliss took hold. Frankly, she had me worried; she was so far gone in heaven I thought she'd never come back. I say, to hell with junk. The kids who take it all get addicted to happiness, and that's the end, because happiness is famous for the misery of going without it. Anybody who takes drugs must really want to be happy, and who would do that but a king or a dope? I've never touched the hard stuff, only smoked grass a few times with the boys to be polite, and that's all, though ten is the age when the big guys come around teaching you all sorts of things. But happiness doesn't mean much to me, I still think life is better. Happiness is a mean son of a bitch and needs to be put in his place. Him and me aren't on the same team, and I'm cutting him dead. I've never gone in for politics, because somebody always stands to gain by it, but happiness is an even crummier racket, and there ought to be laws to put it out of business. I'm only telling you what I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but you won't catch me shooting myself full of happiness, or shit as I prefer to call it. I won't say another word about it, because I don't want to throw one of my violent fits, but Monsieur Hamil says I have a gift for the ineffable, which is where happiness is and that's the place to look for it.
The best way to get shit, and that's what Le Mahoute did, was to say you'd never taken any and then the pushers give you a fix free of charge because misery loves company. The number of pushers who've wanted to break me in is unbelievable, but I'm not here to solve other people's problems, I had my hands full with Madame Rosa. I have no intention of plunging into happiness until I've tried everything else.
So Le Mahoute--the name doesn't mean a thing, that's why it stuck to him--shot Madame Rosa full of heroin. First Madame Rosa was stricken with amazement, then she went into a state of satisfaction that was horrible to look at. Think it over, sixty-five and Jewish--that was all she needed. I ran for Dr. Katz, because with heroin there's a danger of what they call overdoze, and you end up in an artificial paradise. Dr. Katz didn't come, because he was too old and forbidden to climb the six flights except in case of death. But he phoned a young doctor he knew, who turned up an hour later. Madame Rosa was drooling in her armchair. The doctor looked at me as if he'd never see a ten-year-old kid.
"What is this place? Some sort of nursery?"
I felt sorry for him standing there so indignant. He just couldn't believe it. Le Mahoute was on the floor, bawling because he'd shot his happiness into Madame Rosa's ass.
"How could such a thing happen? Who supplied this old lady with heroin?"
I looked at him with my hands in my pockets. I smiled at him but I didn't say anything. What was the use? He was so young, maybe thirty, and still had so much to learn.
