37
My Julenka,
I got back from Moscow yesterday. The visit went well, or at least I think it did. I got back, in any case. We had a few drinks, me and the old guy. He was friendly and seemed pretty drunk by the end of the night, but I don’t believe he really was. I do the same thing sometimes, pretending to be drunk in order to win people’s trust or get them to lower their guard. But as you can probably guess, I didn’t lower mine. I told him everything he wanted to know except, obviously, I didn’t mention you. I said I didn’t believe in the manuscript’s power, and that was why I didn’t inform him about the Paris mission, because I wanted to be sure first. But as certain agents in my service did believe in it, I decided it was better to be safe than sorry, so I sent a few agents, and I told him that they’d been overzealous. Apparently, the French services are investigating at the moment, but Giscard is pretending not to know anything about it. Maybe you can use your husband’s connections to find out? Either way, you should be very careful, and now that the old man is watching me, I won’t be able to send you any extra men.
The van driver got here safely, and so did the fake doctor who gave you the document. The French will never be able to find them—they’ve gone on holiday to the Black Sea, and they are the only people who could possibly lead anyone to you, along with the two other agents who died and the one who’s stayed there to oversee the investigation. I know he was wounded, but he’s tough. You can count on him. If the police find anything, he’ll know what to do.
Allow me to give you some advice. You must file away a copy of that document. We are used to keeping and hiding precious documents that must absolutely not be lost but whose contents cannot under any circumstances be divulged to anyone else. You must make a copy of it, one only, and give it for safekeeping to someone trustworthy who has no idea what it’s about. Keep the original on you.
One other thing: look out for Japanese people.
All right, that is my advice for you, my Juleshka. Make good use of it. I hope you’re well and that everything will go as planned, even if I know from experience that nothing ever goes as planned.
Your old father who watches over you,
Tatko
PS: Write back to me in French. It’s safer, and anyway I need to practice.
38
There is some faculty housing at the École Normale Supérieure, behind the Panthéon. We are in a large apartment, and the weary-looking, white-haired man with bags under his eyes says:
“I’m alone.”
“Where is Hélène?”
“I don’t know. We had another row. She had a horrible tantrum about something absurd. Or maybe that was me.”
“We need you. Can you keep this document? You mustn’t open it, you mustn’t read it, and you mustn’t talk to anyone about it, not even Hélène.”
“Okay.”
39
Hard to imagine what Julia Kristeva is thinking in 1980. The idea that Sollers’s histrionic dandyism, his so-very-French libertinism, his pathological boasting, his adolescent-pamphleteer style, and his shock-the-bourgeoisie habits could have seduced the young Bulgarian girl, newly arrived from Eastern Europe … yes, I can buy that. Fifteen years later, one might suppose that she is somewhat less under his spell, but who knows? What seems obvious is that their partnership is solid, that it has functioned perfectly from the beginning, and that it is still functional now: a tightly knit team with clearly defined roles. For him, the pretentious bullshit, society parties, and clownish nonsense. For her, the icy, venomous, structuralist Slavic charm, the arcana of academia, the management of mandarins, the technical, institutional, and, inevitably, bureaucratic aspects of their rise. (He “doesn’t know how to write a check,” so the story goes.) Together, they are a formidable political war machine already, working toward the heights of an exemplary career in the next century: when Kristeva receives the Legion of Honor from the hands of Nicolas Sarkozy, Sollers, also present, will be sure to mock the president for pronouncing “Barthès” instead of “Barthes.” Good cop, bad cop. They get their cake full of honors and they eat it with insolence. (Later, François Hollande will elevate Kristeva to the ranks of commandeur. Presidents come and go, people with meaningless medals remain.)
In summary: an infernal duo, and a political double-act. Let’s keep that in mind.
When Kristeva opens the door and sees that Althusser has come with his wife, she cannot or prefers not to suppress a grimace of displeasure. Hélène, Althusser’s wife, is well aware of what these people think of her and gives an evil grin in return, the two women’s instinctive hatred instantly bordering on a sort of complicity. For his part, Althusser looks like a guilty child as he hands over a small bouquet of flowers. Kristeva rushes off to put them in a sink. Visibly under the influence of the aperitifs he’s had, Sollers welcomes the two arrivals with phony exclamations of delight: “So, my dear friends, how are you?… We were just waiting for you to come … before we sat down to eat … Dear Louis, a martini … as usual?… red!… oh wow!… Hélène … what would you like to drink?… I know … a Bloody Mary!… hee hee!… Julia … will you bring the celery … my darling?… Louis!… how’s the Party?”
Hélène observes the other guests like an old, nervous cat, recognizing no one but BHL, who she’s seen on the television, and Lacan, who has come with a tall young woman in a black leather suit. Sollers makes the introductions while they sit down, but Hélène doesn’t bother trying to remember anyone’s name: there is a young New York couple in sports clothes, a Chinese woman who either works for the embassy or as a trapeze artist for the Peking Circus, a Parisian publisher, a Canadian feminist, and a Bulgarian linguist. “The avant-garde of the proletariat,” Hélène says to herself, laughing.
The guests have barely sat down when Sollers unctuously begins a discussion about Poland: “Now that is a subject that will never go out of fashion!… Solidarnosc, Jaruzelski, yes, yes … from Mickiewicz and Slovacki to Walesa and Wojtyla … We could be talking about it in a hundred years, a thousand years, but it will still be bowed beneath the yoke of Russia … it’s practical … it makes our conversations immortal … And when it’s not Russia, it’s Germany, of course, hmm?… Agh, come on, come on … comrades … To die for Gdansk … to die for Danzig … What delicious nonsense!… What’s that phrase again?… Oh yes: six of one and half a dozen of the other…”
The provocation is aimed at Althusser, but the old philosopher is so dull-eyed as he sips his martini that he looks like he might drown in it. So Hélène, with the boldness of a small wild animal, replies on his behalf: “I understand your solicitude toward the Polish people: I don’t think they sent any members of your family to Auschwitz.” And as Sollers hesitates for a second (just one) before following up with some provocative insult to the Jews, she decides to drive home her advantage: “But what about this new pope, do you like him?” (She plunges her nose into her plate.) “I wouldn’t have thought so.” (She imitates a working-class intonation.)
Sollers opens his arms wide, as if beating his wings, and declares enthusiastically: “This pope is just my type!” (He bites into an asparagus spear.) “Isn’t it sublime when he gets off his plane and kisses the ground?… Whichever country he’s in, the pope gets down on his knees, like a beautiful prostitute preparing to give you a blow job, and he kisses the ground…” (He waves his half-eaten asparagus.) “What can you do? This pope is a kisser … How could I not like him?”