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Up to this point, I’d been living off of the royalties I collected from a few novels that had been unexpectedly successful in the U.S., but when I was offered the opportunity to write about the life and work of Tobold the Hamburger King, I was—for reasons that it would take too long to explain here—completely broke. Yet I would be lying if I said that my only motive for throwing myself into this venture was financial. Several factors entered into the decision: a curiosity, more feigned than genuine, about the business world, a certain attraction to an environment that was so resolutely opposed to my own (I mean a place where literature meant nothing), and the desire to meet someone famous (me, who had only ever associated with the hoi polloi). This decision put me at odds with some well-informed friends who considered the job to be unworthy of me and, in fact, compromising to my career.

Back then I hadn’t foreseen the effects my agreement to become Tobold the Hamburger King’s biographer would have on my life. Certain friends predicted that the undertaking would be a guaranteed disaster for me (since, according to them, working for a boss who’s sold his soul for money could only lead to perdition), but, then, others who considered my new situation to be highly enviable predicted that it would make me a fortune.

As for myself, I tried—in order to stifle the useless remorse that was already weighing on me—I tried to convince myself that this experience with Tobold the Hamburger King would only be a short pause in my creative path, a breather, a productive rest, a hiatus that would stimulate my imagination, restore my strength, and open my mind and senses to experiences heretofore unknown. Especially my senses.

Did you get that?

Of course sir, certainly sir, without a doubt sir, I responded, overanxious to please. I complied as quickly as possible.

Since becoming his writer, I’ve been jotting down his every word, feverishly—his every word and every movement. I spent no more time away from him than his shadow did. I was his shadow.

He had offered to let me stay in his hotel whenever his business took him to Paris, and at his home in New York whenever his business took him to New York, so that, as he said, I would be as close to his life, in all its intimate details, as possible. Joyfully, I accepted this invitation, which would give me the opportunity to live in the lap of luxury—for the first, and probably last, time in my life.

We had both agreed that my work would remain a secret and that he would introduce me to others as his hired escort. In order to get them to fall for this ploy, I was forced to do my hair like Chimène Badi’s, to teeter on ten-inch heels, to wear skin-tight dresses, and to act (perhaps enjoying it all at least a little) the part of a sassy, seductive woman who flaunts all of her assets without hiding anything.

And the most extraordinary thing is that no one seemed to find this act of mine unbelievable. In the world of high finance that I’d just begun to discover, nothing seemed unbelievable to anyone. And, in fact, in order to be convincing in my role, I—who was in a constant state of amazement, who had the impression of having just landed on another planet—I had to act as if nothing shocked me either, had to pretend to be completely detached from my surroundings, to take an attitude of indifference or even of complete disenchantment when faced with all the luxury on display around me. I had to act this way when, ten or so days after he hired me, I stood with him in front of the magnificence of a sixty-room house on Park Avenue. It’s much smaller than my place, he pointed out to me. He had been invited here by the banker Moser to come listen to a piano concert. The pianist was a young prodigy that he (Moser) had been fucking for the last three months.

We had traveled there under the escort of an enormously broad-shouldered security guard named Krestovsky. We entered the golden corridors, under the chandeliers, just like in a theater, Tobold in front, followed by his dog, Dow Jones, and then me bringing up the rear. Little sluts, chattering, gossiping that I was Tobold’s whore, sorry, his escort, didn’t seem to bother anyone. Thus, I was perfectly relaxed while playing my role. I was vivacious, wiggling my hips, alluring, swishing about delightedly, and—understandably, I think—I took great pleasure in acting like this (after years of the militant asceticism that I had thought my exclusive devotion to literature demanded). And when De Niro, completely seduced by my French charm, caressed my cheek, I thought I was going to faint with happiness.

Yes, I said De Niro. All of New York’s upper crust was there. Patti Smith was there, dressed like a pauper, George Clooney was there, dressed like a rich man, and Liz Taylor was there in a motorized wheelchair whose controls she’d mastered so poorly that she almost knocked Bill Clinton over after an unintentional reverse. Bill fell onto Hillary, who wobbled, but since she’s a strong woman, she didn’t fall, instead finding herself catapulted onto poor Tom Cruise’s foot, which caused him to yell, Motherfucker! Brad Pitt was there, without Angelina, Leonardo DiCaprio was there, all puffed up, and the presence of these stars—who could be seen in every magazine—fortified the supernatural impression I’d been having since the first moments of this story: feeling that I was living in a movie, that I had left all reality behind; in short, that I was not only Tobold the Hamburger King’s ghost writer, but also my own ghost, a stranger to myself.

Moser asked for silence. We settled in. We assumed the proper expressions. We prepared ourselves for the sublime.

The pianist, extremely pale, tousled his own brown hair, leaned over the keyboard and began to play with such vigor that I worried his neck might break.

Tobold, who was visibly bored by this sort of sublimity, never took his eyes off his big gold watch ($60,000) until the pianist, in the grip of a quasi-epileptic elation, with frantic spasms, artistic convulsions, and not a little jumping around, performed Prelude no. 14, opus 26 with such fury that Dow Jones barked at length, much more in tune with the music than his master was.

Everyone went quiet, visibly upset. They turned around and shot offended looks at the tactless animal.

As a result, Tobold got up abruptly and, grumbling the whole way, forced himself between the seats, dragging behind him the still barking and melodic Dow Jones, as well as myself, completely overwhelmed with shame. Once we finally made it to the elevator, Tobold stated, in the frigid voice that he maintained (I believed) in all circumstances, My dog has more soul than that whole bunch of stiffs.

This was promising.