No matter how acutely aware one is of the society one lives in, of the prejudices and behavioral patterns that have been ingrained in them, and of the structures that limit them and force them to walk in a certain direction, escaping the system entails such a monumental effort that most people prefer to go with the flow. Even those who believe they have escaped the “flock,” those convinced that they are following a path different from the rest, are playing the same game as everyone else.
In Play the Game, by Fatima Daas, Kayden, a high-school student in her first year of the Baccalaureate, is influenced by her Literature teacher, Garance Fontaine, to pursue a career in Political Science. Mrs. Fontaine sees in her a raw diamond, a jewel to rescue from among the trash that the other classmates, her neighborhood and “her own,” represent, and to turn her into a symbol or, better yet, into her very own creature.
Teachers are responsible for many lives, and that places them in a position of power where it is easy to fall prey to corruption and weariness, especially when one teaches in the public system. Precisely that group embodies a notion that goes beyond individual identity: that everyone should have access to education, regardless of the class they belong to.
Fatima Daas uses Garance Fontaine and her inappropriate relationship with Kayden to show what happens when one of those figures of authority decides to pervert their profession. The Literature teacher manages to draw near to Kayden through her silences, her compliments, her meticulously measured gestures of affection, and her favoritism. As the closeness between the two characters increases, so does the reader’s discomfort and repudiation of the teacher, for it hurls the reader back into adolescence—a time of doubts, influences, and decisions that would shape the following years, if not the rest of life.
The more the author reveals about Garance Fontaine, the clearer it becomes that she does not want to be a teacher, but a Demiurge who selects a mound of clay to mold it to her liking. Kayden, inexperienced, still in the process of understanding herself and eager to please the women, lives for every word and every compliment from the teacher, who manages to sustain a harrowing balance between closeness and distance.
At the same time that Kayden wrestles with the expectations placed upon her and her own emotions, she and her friends contend with how French society perceives them, and how they will always be “savages from the suburbs” who, if they ascend, will do so thanks to the favors that, out of pity, they themselves have granted them.
The reader quickly draws a link between French society and Mrs. Fontaine with the “white saviors” who, out of “compassion” assist those “savages” who, without them, would have to deal with cultures that are uncivilized and uneducated and circumstances that would prevent them from being assimilated by the French — that is, from renouncing entirely their identity in order to advance.
The only refuge left to Kayden is writing. There is a recurring quote throughout the book that very well summarizes the protagonist’s feeling: “Writing is also not speaking. It is keeping silent. It is howling without noise,” by Marguerite Duras.
Kayden expresses through writing her emotions, the stories she should not tell or would like to forget, the doubts she has about her identity and her future. There are even moments when the conversation with loved ones becomes writing, for only through the written word does she find the strength to express her love for others. Writing becomes, at times, a howl and a silence she does not want anyone to forget.
Play the Game is not about a young woman who stands out from the rest and “escapes”; it speaks of the grand game to which each and every one of us has been playing for some time, about how we help it continue to unfold and what happens to those whom the game prevents from progressing because they are not sufficiently malleable, intelligent, or “special” in the eyes of a god who still regards himself as just.
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Author: Fatima Daas. Title: Play the Game. Translation: Lydia Vázquez Jiménez. Publisher: Cabaret Voltaire.