Close to the edge of the desk are a few opened letters, lots of unopened letters, other pages covered with scribbles in the same dense handwriting, a few copies of the Nouvel Observateur, newspaper articles, and photographs cut from magazines. Cigarette butts are piled up like firewood. Simon Herzog feels overwhelmed by sadness. While Bayard rummages around under the little iron bed, he bends to look through the window. Down on the street, he spots a black DS double-parked and he smiles at the symbolism. The DS was the emblem of Barthes’s Mythologies, and the most famous, the one he chose for the cover of his celebrated collection of articles. He hears a hammering sound from below: the Vinci employee is chiseling a notch in the stone that will house the metal keyboard. The sky has turned white. Above the rooftops, below the horizon, he can make out the trees of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Bayard tears him from his reverie by dropping a stack of magazines on the desk. He found them under the bed. They are not back issues of the Nouvel Obs. With a snarl of satisfaction, he says to Simon: “He liked cock, this intellectual!” Spread out before him, Simon Herzog sees magazine covers featuring young, muscular naked men, posing and staring out insolently at him. I’m not sure how widely known Barthes’s homosexuality was at the time. When he wrote his bestseller, A Lover’s Discourse, he took care never to characterize his love object in terms of gender, striving to use neutral formulations such as “the partner” or “the other” (both of which, for what it’s worth, are masculine words in French, meaning that the pronoun is always “he”). Unlike Foucault, whose homosexuality was very open, almost as a form of protest, I know that Barthes was very discreet, perhaps ashamed, in any case very preoccupied with keeping up appearances, until his mother’s death at least. Foucault wanted him to be more open, and despised him a little for his reserve, I think. But I don’t know if there were rumors in university circles or among the wider public, or whether everyone knew. Anyway, if Simon Herzog was aware of Barthes’s homosexuality, he hadn’t thought it necessary to inform Superintendent Bayard at this stage of the inquiry.
Just as the sniggering policeman is opening the centerfold of a magazine named Gai Pied, the telephone rings. Bayard stops. He puts the magazine on the desk without bothering to close it, and freezes. He looks at Simon Herzog, who looks back at him, while the handsome youth in the photograph grips his cock and looks out at both of them and the telephone continues to ring. Bayard lets it ring a few more times and picks up the receiver without a word. Simon watches as he remains silent for several seconds. He also hears the silence on the other end of the line and instinctively stops breathing. When Bayard finally says “Hello” there is an audible click, followed by the “beep-beep” that indicates the call has been ended. Bayard hangs up, puzzled. Simon Herzog asks stupidly: “Wrong number?” In the street, through the open window, they hear a car engine start. Bayard takes the porn magazines and the two men leave the room. Simon Herzog thinks: “I should have closed the window. It’s going to rain.” Jacques Bayard thinks: “Fucking queer intellectual bastards…”
They ring the bell at the concierge’s office to return the keys, but no one answers. The workman installing the keypad offers to give them back to the concierge when she returns, but Bayard prefers to go back upstairs and hand them to the younger brother.
When he comes back down, Simon Herzog is smoking a cigarette with the workman, who’s taking a break. Out in the street, Bayard does not get back in the 504. “Where are we going?” Simon Herzog asks him. “To the Café de Flore,” replies Bayard. “Did you notice, the guy installing the keypad?” Simon says. “He had a Slav accent, didn’t he?” Bayard grumbles: “As long as he’s not driving a tank, I couldn’t care less.” As they cross Place Saint-Sulpice, the two men pass a blue Fuego and Bayard says, with the air of an expert: “That’s the new Renault. It’s only just gone on sale.” Simon Herzog thinks automatically that the workers who built this car wouldn’t be able to afford it even if ten of them got together. And, lost in his Marxist thoughts, doesn’t pay attention to the two Japanese men inside the car.
13
At the Flore, they see a man squinting through thick glasses, seated next to a little blonde. He looks sickly, and his froglike face is vaguely familiar to Bayard, but he is not the reason they are there. Bayard spots some men in their twenties and goes over to talk to them. Most are gigolos who pick up clients in the area. Do they know Barthes? Yes, all of them. Bayard interrogates them a bit while Simon Herzog observes Sartre out of the corner of his eye: he is definitely not in good shape; he keeps coughing as he smokes his cigarette. Françoise Sagan pats his back solicitously. The last one to have seen Barthes is a young Moroccan: the great critic was negotiating with a new guy, he doesn’t know his name, they left together the other day, he doesn’t know what they did or where they went or where he lives but he knows where they can find him tonight: at the Bains Diderot, a sauna at the Gare de Lyon. “A sauna?” Simon Herzog asks, surprised, when suddenly a scarf-wearing maniac appears and begins yelling at anyone who will listen: “Look at them! Look at their faces! They won’t look like that much longer! Seriously, I’m telling you: a bourgeois must reign or die! Drink! Drink your Fernet to the health of your company! Enjoy it while you can! Drink to your downfall! Long live Bokassa!” A few conversations come to an abrupt halt. The regulars observe this newcomer gloomily, and the tourists try to enjoy the show without really understanding what it’s about, but the waiters ignore it and continue serving. His arm sweeps the room in theatrical outrage and, addressing an imaginary opponent, the scarf-wearing prophet proclaims victoriously: “No need to run, comrade. The old world is ahead of you!”
Bayard asks who this man is; the gigolo tells him it is Jean-Edern Hallier, some aristocratic writer who is always making a fuss and who reckons he will be a minister if Mitterrand wins next year. Bayard notes the inverted-V mouth, the shining blue eyes, the typical upper-class accent that verges on mispronunciation. He returns to his questioning: What is this new guy like? The young Moroccan describes him as an Arab with a southern accent, a small earring, and hair that falls over his face. Still shouting at the top of his voice, Jean-Edern haphazardly extols the virtues of ecology, euthanasia, independent radio stations, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Simon Herzog watches Sartre watching Jean-Edern. When the aristocrat notices that Sartre is there, he starts to tremble. Sartre stares at him contemplatively. Françoise Sagan whispers into his ear, like a simultaneous translator. Jean-Edern narrows his eyes, which makes him look even more weasel-like under his thick, frizzy hair, is silent for a few seconds, apparently thinking, and then starts shouting again: “Existentialism is a contagion! Long live the third sex! Long live the fourth! Don’t despair, La Coupole!” Bayard explains to Simon Herzog that he must come with him to the Bains Diderot to help him find this unknown gigolo. Jean-Edern Hallier goes over to stand in front of Sartre, holds his arm up in the air, hand flat, clicks his loafers together, and yells: “Heil Althusser!” Simon Herzog protests that his presence is not absolutely essential. Sartre coughs and lights another Gitane. Bayard says, on the contrary, a queer little intellectual will be very useful in locating the suspect. Jean-Edern starts singing obscene lyrics to the tune of “The Internationale.” Simon Herzog says it’s too late to buy a pair of swimming trunks. Bayard laughs and tells him there’s no need. Sartre unfolds Le Monde and starts doing the crossword. (As he is almost blind, it is Françoise Sagan who reads the clues to him.) Jean-Edern spots something in the street and rushes outside, yelling: “Modernity, I shit on you!” It is already seven o’clock, and night has fallen. Superintendent Bayard and Simon Herzog go back to the 504, parked outside Barthes’s apartment block. Bayard yanks three or four parking tickets from under the windshield wiper and they head off toward Place de la République, followed by a black DS and a blue Fuego.