GauZ grew up in Côte d'Ivoire before moving to Paris as an undocumented student. He worked briefly as a security guard in the French city before returning to his home country. He has stood for long hours outside luxury shops and watched the world go by. Stationed at the frontline of hypercapitalist consumerism, he has witnessed first-hand the changes that come over human consciousness when they are in the company of expensive objects, and more importantly, when they realise they can afford it. There is delight and pride, and an instinctive feeling of superiority – all brought about by baubles we have put imaginative price tags to. This is what GauZ’s debut novel is about.
First published in the French as Debout-payé in 2014, the novel was translated into English by Frank Wynne as Standing Heavy in 2022 and shortlisted the following year for the International Booker Prize.
Instead of romance and high fashion, the reader sees Paris through the vigilant eyes of a humble security guard. Only, it’s not just a job but France’s long legacy of colonialism, racial prejudice, and neoliberalism as experienced by poor, black immigrants.
Looking in
“Standing Heavy” refers to “the various professions that require the employee to remain standing in order to earn a pittance”. The training is minimal and no experience is required. The black man is a “noble savage” – trained by long centuries of subjugation to care for his white masters. Not just the master’s body, but also his wealth and possessions. In a postcolonial world, the black man is the most natural choice for a security guard. He stands right outside the perfumed, air-conditioned stores to guard products made by “skilled, underpaid, non-unionised, easily exploitable” workers from half a world away. The irony is baffling, he knows. He watches the babies of the rich have their first “psychedelic experience” as their mothers shop the sales while pushing their strollers. An early training to buy, buy, and buy some more.
The short, fragmented, journal entry-like recollections of the security guards illustrate just how drab the work is. The pop songs on repeat grate on their nerves. This job is a special fit for all undocumented immigrants till suddenly “The Crisis” occurs. The discovery of oil in the 1970s in the Middle East changes everything. The men are asked to vacate their rooms and all of a sudden, “true-born Frenchmen” become suspicious about their rightful jobs being stolen from them. A new set of laws is passed quickly which requires proper documentation and permits.
Ossiri and Kassoum arrive in the 1990s and work as undocumented immigrants for Ferdinand, the owner of a security company. Things go as smoothly for as long as they can and then, 9/11 happens. Even as they watch the tower fall on their small TV sets, the two know that their profession has changed forever. They will have to go through a humiliating rigmarole just to “stand in front of a fucking billboard.”
In a chapter that reads like clever jottings in a diary, a security guard at a Camaïeu clothing shop watches the shift in a customer’s behaviour as they come in contact with objects they would like to possess. Consumerism turns them into pitiful devotees while the security guard – too poor to shop there – derives pleasure from their helplessness. Women try on clothes and take selfies, the image in the mirror is secondary; others genuflect in front of a miniskirt of a certain coveted brand; someone else is relieved that a dress is made in Turkey – which is practically Europe! The security guards know by sight whom to be suspicious of and whom to let be. At a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées, they know which brands need extra protection. All brands are equal but some brands are more than others.
Watch out!
A chase scene is described thus: “The thief zigs, the security guard zags…The thief’s necktie flutters behind him, hovering parallel to the ground in the headwind. The security guard’s tie does likewise.” You have just begun to relish the action when the scene is cut short by the guard’s realisation of how absurd the whole pursuit is. The thief has stolen from one of the richest men in France – a missing bottle worth a few Euros will make no dent in his wealth. If the guard were to nab the thief, he would only be adding an infinitesimal amount to it. He is overcome by guilt – what will his folks back home think of him if they found out he was essentially a glorified snitch?
With little action in their everyday lives, the security guards spend long hours musing on the ridiculousness of the situations they are a part of. The vignettes are as funny as they are wise. Sample this: “Sephora is Mecca and, within it, Christian Dior concession is the Ka’bah towards which all women turn, Arabic or otherwise, veiled or otherwise, in the name of the most holy perfume.” GauZ’s dry wit is delicious.
Trained in not much else besides watching on impassively, the guards exude almost Zen-like calm while monitoring shoppers and potential thieves. A crack appears in their stoicism when Ossiri and Kassoum begin to get hopeful about getting their first residence permit after seven years in France. A long absence from home and perpetual otherness culminate in Kassoum weeping for the first time on reading Ossiri’s note to him. It says: “Leave the vultures’ work to the vultures.” He has stood alert and heavy through shoplifting and terrorist attacks – when will it be his time to fly?
Standing Heavy, GauZ, translated from the French by Frank Wynne, MacLehose Press.
