CHAPTER 1
one too many somersaults
ALEXANDRE: Socrates?
SOCRATES: Indeed, I am.
ALEXANDRE: Greetings, Socrates!
SOCRATES: Greetings? What is it that you want?
ALEXANDRE: To tell you ... how extremely grateful I am.
SOCRATES: What for? What have I done for you?
ALEXANDRE: You have given me the greatest of gifts!
SOCRATES: Have we met before?
ALEXANDRE: In a certain sense.
SOCRATES: Now you are making me curious.
ALEXANDRE: If you are not in too much of a hurry ...
SOCRATES: I have all the time in the world! Go ahead ... unless, that is, you don't like talking.
ALEXANDRE: Well, then, allow me to introduce myself: my name is Alexandre. I am twenty-three years old, and I am majoring in philosophy at the university.
SOCRATES: So far, nothing out of the ordinary.
ALEXANDRE: Still ...
SOCRATES: Back to your story, then. Proceed with confidence!
ALEXANDRE: As I said, I am twenty-three, and I have embarked on the study of philosophy.
SOCRATES: Go on, step by step. Tell me everything. Stick to the facts and try not to digress. If need be, I will ask the necessary questions. First, tell me about your childhood.
ALEXANDRE: Where to begin? I saw the light of day on November 26, 1975, in a little Swiss village that I had to leave almost immediately. A birth accident wrested me from my family, forcing my parents to put me in a specialized institution — `would-be specialized' is probably more accurate. There, I had ...
SOCRATES: Let's not get ahead of ourselves! What birth accident?
ALEXANDRE: Athetosis.
SOCRATES: Can you be more specific!
ALEXANDRE: As you can see, I have great difficulty controlling my movements, my gait is unsteady, and I speak slowly. These are the long-term effects of a particular form of asphyxiation that goes by the scientific name of `athetosis'.
SOCRATES: And what was the cause of it?
ALEXANDRE: Turning one too many somersaults in my mother's womb, I got my neck all tangled up in the umbilical cord ... You are looking at the fallout now.
My birth transpired in a frenzied atmosphere. My mother told me that what she saw emerging from her womb was a baby that was completely black and did not cry. "Is he dead?" she screamed. "No," the midwife replied, "but we don't know if he'll make it." For a brief moment, the baby fixed its mother's tired gaze, and then they were separated. I was taken to a hospital where I received cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
SOCRATES: Your last chance?
ALEXANDRE: More like my first and only chance! To my mother, the word `resuscitation' meant hope. Deprived of her newborn, she stubbornly insisted with the attending medical staff: "He must live, he must live, no matter how — so long as he lives!" As fate would have it, her wish was granted. Ten days later, she was holding a magnificent baby in her arms. The doctors abstained from making any prognoses about the infant's development. But that didn't matter; her child was alive.