"The algorithms of today are the laws of tomorrow."
— Cathy O'Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction (Crown, 2016)
April, D-7, one week before the election
Alert to the smells around him, Gabriel picked up a lingering scent of flour and yeast.
Gabriel lay on the narrow bed, eyes open in the dark. In the mattress, the clean mingled with the worn, like linen washed too many times. He hadn't slept. He hadn't tried.
Below him, the baker was moving crates.
It was a precise, rhythmic sound. The crack of wood against tile. The creak of an oven door being opened. The heat rose through the floorboards, warm and steady, like a breath.
Gabriel stared at the ceiling.
There was a crack that ran from the corner of the window to the middle of the room. He had followed it with his eyes for hours. It looked like a river on a map. One of those drawings where water divides the land in two.
— 5 o'clock, he said aloud.
His voice sounded hollow in the empty room.
Downstairs, the baker worked.
Ordinary life, Gabriel thought. Life without surveillance.
He wondered what that life looked like. Getting up each day to do the same thing. Kneading the dough. Loading the bread into the oven. Waiting for customers to arrive. Serving them. Closing up. Starting again.
He had never known that.
He had always been in the race. The next meeting. The next vote. The next speech. Always something to reach for, never anything to hold.
He lay there.
The baker opened and closed the oven.
Gabriel sat up. The floor was cold. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand. He checked the screen. No messages. No notifications. Nothing.
He dialed Marianne's number.
The ring echoed for a long time.
He was about to hang up when she answered.
— Gabriel?
Her voice was sleepy, or perhaps already somewhere else. Both, probably.
— I'm not coming back, he said.
Silence.
— Marianne?
— I'm here.
— I'm not coming back to the campaign. It's over. There's nothing left to defend.
He waited.
He could hear her breathing through the phone. Slow. Controlled.
— I know, she said at last.
— You know?
— I think I've known for weeks. I didn't want to admit it.
Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress spring groaned.
— What are you going to do?
— I'm resigning.
— What?
— I can't do this anymore, Gabriel. I can't keep pretending the game is real. The meetings. The press releases. The compromises. All of it for what? To hold on to a place in a system that's already finished us?
He didn't answer.
— Can you hear me? she said.
— I hear you.
— Then say something.
— I don't know what to say.
— You could tell me I'm wrong.
— You're not wrong.
Silence.
— Thank you, she said softly.
— For what?
— For not lying.
— …
He heard a sound on her end. A tap being turned on. Water running.
— Where are you? she asked.
— Somewhere. A room above a bakery.
— Are you alone?
— Yes.
— Do you want me to come?
— No.
— Are you sure?
— Yes.
She sighed.
— What are you going to do, Gabriel?
— I don't know.
— Do you have a plan?
— No.
— Do you have anyone?
— No.
Silence.
— I'm sorry, she said.
— For what?
— For not being strong enough. For not seeing it sooner. For letting you carry all of this alone.
— You don't have to be sorry.
— Yes I do.
— No.
— Gabriel...
— Marianne. You don't have to be sorry.
She didn't answer.
He could hear the baker downstairs. The sound of loaves being pulled from the oven. The smell of warm bread rose through the floorboards.
— I have to go, he said.
— Yes.
— Take care of yourself.
— You too.
— Marianne?
— Yes?
— Thank you.
— For what?
— For believing in me.
Silence.
— I still believe, Gabriel. That's why I'm stopping.
— …
He hung up.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
The phone in his hand. The screen black.
He had no one left.
His campaign was dead. His allies were scattered or imprisoned. His family had no idea where he was. Marianne was gone.
He was alone in a room above a bakery, in a city he had never visited.
The silence pressed down.
Downstairs, the baker hummed. A melody he didn't know.
He stood up. He went to the table where he had set his bag. He opened it. He pulled out an envelope folded in two.
The letter.
The one he had written to his mother.
He hadn't sent it.
He sat down on the chair by the window. The morning light was beginning to filter through the curtains. Grey. Pale. Like mist.
He unfolded the letter.
His handwriting looked strange to him.
Maman,
I'm writing because I can't call you. I can't tell you where I am. I can't tell you what I'm doing. But I wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you.
I know I haven't been a good son. I know I haven't called often enough. I know I've left you alone.
I'm sorry.
I love you.
I may not be able to call you for a while. But I'm thinking of you. Every day.
Gabriel
He read the letter again.
The words didn't sound like him. They were too simple. Too direct. As if written by someone else.
He folded the letter.
He had no idea where to send it.
His mother had moved the year before. He had written down the new address somewhere, but he had lost the piece of paper. He hadn't called her in weeks.
Weeks.
He counted in his head. Two. Three. Four, maybe.
Weeks.
He hadn't called his mother in weeks.
—
He sat there.
The letter in his hands.
The baker downstairs.
The light growing.
The image of his mother surfaced. Her face. Her voice. The way she said his name. Gabriel. With the stress on the first syllable. Ga-briel. As if she held it in her mouth for a moment before letting it go.
He couldn't remember the last time he had seen her.
Christmas, maybe. Or the year before. He wasn't sure.
He had always thought he would have time.
I'll call her next week. I'll send her a message. I'll take the train to see her.
But next week never came.
And now here he was. In an unfamiliar room. With a letter he couldn't send.
—
He wept.
Not loudly.
Just sitting on the edge of the bed, the letter in his hands, the sound of the baker working below.
He wept for Kenza.
For her hands. For her voice. For the way she had said his name in the dark. Do what you have to do.
He wept for Marianne.
For everything she had carried. For her courage. For the way she had said I'm resigning as if it were simple.
He wept for the campaign that had never been real.
For the speeches. For the promises. For the hands shaken in meeting rooms. For all that time spent believing he could change things from the inside.
He wept for his mother.
Who had heard nothing from her son.
—
The tears fell.
He didn't wipe them away.
He let them fall onto the letter. The paper buckled. The ink bled.
Kenza's words echoed inside him. The only thing they can't control is what people remember.
He wondered what memory he would leave behind.
Nothing, perhaps.
A name in a file. A photograph in a folder. A footnote in a report no one would read.
But maybe that was enough.
Maybe the only thing you could do was leave a trace. Even a small one. Even an invisible one.
—
He stopped crying.
He wiped his face with his sleeve.
He stood up. He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He tucked it into his bag.
He went downstairs.
The bakery was small. White tile. Glass display case. The warm bread perfumed the room.
The baker was a man in his fifties. White apron dusted with flour. Thick hands. He looked at Gabriel and smiled.
— You're the guest from upstairs?
— Yes.
— Can I get you something?
Gabriel looked over the counter. The loaves. The pastries. The golden croissants.
— A croissant, he said.
The baker picked up a croissant with a pair of tongs. He put it in a paper bag. He held it out to Gabriel.
— One euro twenty.
Gabriel fished a coin from his pocket. He set it on the counter.
He took the bag.
He walked out the door.
—
Outside, the street was quiet.
The sun was rising. The light was soft. The air smelled of wet earth.
Gabriel stopped on the pavement.
He opened the bag.
He bit into the croissant.
The dough was warm. The butter melted on his tongue. The crust crackled under his teeth.
It was the best thing he had tasted in months.
He chewed slowly.
He swallowed.
He took another bite.
He stood there on the pavement, eating his croissant, watching the street come to life.
A woman passed with a dog. A delivery driver loaded crates into a van. An old man opened the door of his café.
Ordinary life.
Life without surveillance.
—
He finished the croissant.
He crumpled the bag.
He dropped it in a bin.
He stood still for a moment, hands in his pockets.
He had no plan.
He had no destination.
But he had one thing.
He had a story to tell.
And he would tell it.
Not live. Not in a broadcast. But somewhere people could see it, read it, verify it.
He would find a way.
He just had to find a way.
—
He started walking.
The street was long. The houses were low. The trees were green.
He walked without knowing where he was going.
But he was walking.
And that was already something.