La Place De L'Étoile

by Patrick Modiano

  ‘You are going to die in an SS uniform,’ he says. ‘You are touching, Schlemilovitch, very touching.’

  From the windows of number 93, I hear a burst of laughter and the chorus of a song:

  Moi, j’aime le music-hall

  Ses jongleurs

  Ses danseuses légères . . .

  ‘Hear that?’ asks Bloch, his eyes misted with tears. ‘In France, everything ends with a song, Schlemilovitch! So keep your spirits up!’

  From the right-hand pocket of his trench coat, he takes a revolver. I struggle to my feet and stagger back. Commandant Bloch does not take his eyes off me. Sitting on the steps opposite, Isaiah, Saul, Isaac and Lévy-Vendôme are still sobbing. I consider the façade of number 93 for a moment. From the windows Jean-Farouk de Mérode, Paulo Hayakawa, M. Igor, Otto da Silva, Sophie Knout, the elderly Baroness Lydia Stahl, the Marquise de Fougeire-Jusquiames, Princess Chericheff-Devorazoff, Inspector Bonny pull faces and thumb their noses at me. A sort of cheerful sadness washes over me, one I know only too well. Rebecca was right to laugh a while ago. I summon my last ounce of strength. A nervous, feeble laugh. Gradually it swells until it shakes my whole body, doubling me over. It hardly matters that Commandant Bloch is slowly coming towards me, I feel utterly at ease. He waves his revolver and roars:

  ‘You’re laughing? YOU’RE LAUGHING? Well, take that you little Jew, take that!’

  My head explodes, but I do not know whether from the bullets or from my delirious joy.

  The blue walls of the room and the window. By my bed sits Sigmund Freud. To make sure I’m not dreaming, I reach out my right hand and stroke his bald pate.

  ‘ . . . my nurses picked you up on the Franz-Josefs-Kai tonight and brought you to my clinic here in Pötzleinsdorf. A course of psychoanalysis will clarify things in my mind. You’ll soon be a healthy, optimistic, sporty young man, I promise. Here, I want you to read this insightful essay by your compatriot Jean-Paul Schweitzer de la Sarthe: Anti-Semite and Jew. There is one thing you must understand at all costs. THE JEW DOES NOT EXIST, as Schweitzer de la Sarthe so aptly puts it. YOU ARE NOT A JEW, you are a man among other men, that is all. You are not a Jew, as I have just said, you are suffering from delusions, hallucinations, fantasies, nothing more, a slight touch of paranoia . . . No one wishes you harm, my boy, all people want is to be kind to you. We are living in a world at peace. Himmler is dead, how can you remember all these things? You were not even born, come now, be reasonable, I beg you, I implore you, I . . .’

  I am no longer listening to Dr Freud. And yet he goes down on his knees, arms outstretched, he pleads with me, takes his head in his hands, rolls on the floor in despair, crawls on all fours, barks, begs me again to let go of my ‘hallucinatory delusions’, my ‘Jewish neuroses’, my ‘Yiddish paranoia’. I am astonished to see him in such a state: does he find my presence so disturbing?

  ‘Stop the gesticulating.’ I say, ‘The only doctor I will allow to treat me is Dr Bardamu, Louis-Ferdinand Bardamu . . . A Jew like me . . . Bardamu. Louis-Ferdinand Bardamu . . .’

  I got up and walked with some difficulty to the window. The psychoanalyst lay sobbing in a corner. Outside, the Pötzleinsdorfer Park was glittering with snow and sunlight. A red tram was coming down the avenue. I thought about the future being offered me: a swift cure thanks to the tender mercies of Dr Freud, men and women waiting for me at the entrance to the clinic, their expressions warm and friendly. The world, full of amazing ventures, a hive of activity.

  The beautiful Pötzleinsdorfer Park, there, close by, the greenness and the sunlit pathways.

  Furtively, I slip behind the psychoanalyst and pat his head.

  ‘I’m so tired,’ I tell him, ‘so tired . . .’

  * * *

  * Himmler

  * ‘Go on, eat up!’

  NOTES ON LA PLACE DE L’ÉTOILE

  5Léon Rabatête: a thinly-disguised parody of Lucien Rebatet (1903–1972), a French author, journalist, and intellectual; an exponent of fascism and virulent anti-Semite.

  5Ferdinand Bardamu: a character in Céline’s Voyage au bout de la Nuit. Modiano calls him Doctor Louis-Ferdinand Bardamu, echoing Céline’s title and first names. The first pages of the novel are a parody of the anti-Semitic tracts Céline wrote and published.

  6Stay strong, Madelon: a reference to the popular French WWI song ‘La Madelon’ (aka ‘Quand Madelon’) about an innkeeper’s daughter who flirts with everyone but sleeps with no one.

  6Cahen d’Anvers: Louis Raphaël Cahen d’Anvers (1837–1922), French banker, scion of two wealthy Jewish banking families.

  7I was compared to Barnabooth: a reference to the title character in Valery Larbaud’s novel The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth whose story mirrors that of our hero’s ‘Venezuelan inheritance’.

  8‘Laversine’ … ‘Porfirio Rubirosa’: all references to the polo. Porfirio Rubirosa was a famous Dominican polo player; Cibao-La Pampa, the team he founded; the Coupe Laversine is a celebrated tournament; Silver Leys is a polo club in the UK.

  8three photos taken by Lipnitzki: Boris Lipnitzky (1887–1971), famous Ukrainian–French photographer.

  9Jean-François Des Essarts: the name deliberately echoes that of Jean des Esseintes in Huysmans’ novel À Rebours. Modiano’s character is based on Roger Nimier, the founder of the literary movement ‘les Hussards’.

  11The Finaly Affair: Robert and Gérald Finally, two Jewish children born in Vichy France, were taken in by a member of the Catholic network when their parents were arrested. After the war, the woman refused to return the orphaned children, whose parents had died in the camps and illicitly had the children baptised in 1948. A national scandal ensued, which involved Cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier and Abbé Roger Etchegaray. The children were finally reunited with Jewish relatives in Israel in 1953.

  11francisques: ‘double-bladed fasces’ – the fascist emblem of the Vichy regime.

  11PPF: Parti Populaire Française, a French fascist and Nazi political party led by Jacques Doriot before and during the Second World War.

  12‘Saint Jacob X: Actor and Martyr’: a reference to Jean-Paul Sartre’s Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr.

  12‘La Casquette du père Bugeaud’: a French military song.

  13Maurice Sachs (1906–45): (born Maurice Ettinghausen) French writer. The son of a Jewish family of jewellers, he converted to Catholicism in 1925. During the war, he extorted money from Jews to help them flee the Unoccupied Zone and may have been a Gestapo informer. He was later imprisoned and died during the long march from Fuhlsbüttel prison in 1945.

  13Lola Montès: the title of a Max Ophüls film which was based loosely on the life of the nineteenth-century dancer Lola Montez.

  13Le Boeuf sur le Toit: a famous Parisian nightclub.

  14Drieu la Rochelle (1893–1945): French novelist and essayist, la Rochelle was a leading proponent of French fascism in the 1930s, and a collaborationist during the Nazi occupation. After the liberation of Paris in 1944, he went into hiding and committed suicide later that year.

  14Night and fog: a reference to Nuit et Brouillard, the 1955French holocaust documentary by Alain Resnais.

  15Brasillach: Robert Brasillach (1909–45), French journalist and editor of the fascist newspaper Je suis partout. He was executed as a collaborator in 1945.

  16Hitler Youth Quex: a 1932Nazi propaganda novel (Hitlerjunge Quex) based on the life of Herbert ‘Quex’ Norkus.

  16André Bellessort (1866–1942): French writer and poet.

  17This, then, was our youth … regained: a quote from Claude Jamet’s memoir of Brasillach before the war.

  17Julien Benda: (1867–1956): French philosopher and novelist, author of The Betrayal of the Intellectuals.

  17Maurras: Charles Maurras (1868–1952), a French author and poet, he was the principal thinker behind Action Française, a supporter of Vichy, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

  17Je suis partout: (I am everywhere) a right wing anti-Semitic French newspaper fou
nded by Jean Fayard in 1930. It supported the Nazis during the occupation and, during the war, was edited by Robert Brasillach.

  17P.-A. Cousteau: Pierre-Antoine Cousteau (1906–58), French far right journalist and contributor to Je suis partout.

  18Pujo: Maurice Pujo (1872–1955), French journalist and co-founder of the Comité d’Action Française which later became Action française.

  18Maxime Real del Sarte (1888–1954): French sculptor and political activist involved with the right-wing Action française.

  18Jean Luchaire (1901–46): French journalist and politician, later head of the French collaborationist press during the Nazi occupation. He was executed for collaborationism in 1946.

  18Carlingue: the informal name for the French Gestapo, which was head-quartered on the Rue Lauriston.

  18Brinon: Fernand de Brinon (1884–1947), French lawyer and journalist, he was among the principal architects of French collaboration with the Nazis. He was found guilty of war crimes in 1947and executed.

  18Abetz: Otto Abetz (1903–58), the German ambassador to Vichy France during the Second World War.

  18General Commissariat for Jewish Affairs: Commissariat général aux questions juive, the administrative committee tasked with enforcing the anti-Semitic policies of the Vichy Government.

  18Stülpnagel: Otto von Stülpnagel (1878–1948), head of the occupied forces and military governor of Paris. He committed suicide while awaiting trial after the war.

  18Doriot: Jacques Doriot (1898–1945), Communist turned fascist who, with Marcel Déat, founded the Légion des Volontaires Français.

  18Déat: Marcel Déat (1894–1955), founder of the Rassemblement national populaire (National Popular Rally), a political party in the Vichy Government; later appointed Minister of Labour and National Solidarity.

  18Jo Darnand: Joseph Darnand (1897–1945), a decorated French soldier during the First World War, Darnand went on to become a leading collaborator during the Second World War, founding the collaborationist militia Service d’ordre legionnaire, which later became the Milice.

  18Franc-Garde: armed wing of the Milice. In 1943–44, it fought alongside the German army against the Maquis.

  20… beautiful lines by Spire: André Spire (1868–1966), French poet, and writer.

  25L’Aiglon: Napoleon I ‘the Eaglet’ who died aged twenty-one.

  25Süss the Jew: the eponymous character in the 1940Nazi propaganda film Jud Süß commissioned by Joseph Goebbels.

  26The ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’: song penned by Horst Wessel in 1929, usually known as ‘Die Fahne hoch’ (‘The Flag on High’), it was adopted as the Nazi Party anthem in 1930.

  26Colonel de la Rocque: François de La Rocque (1885–1946), leader of the French right-wing Croix de Feu during the 1930s and later the French nationalist Parti Social Français.

  28Brocéliande: in French literature, a mythical forest said to be the last resting place of Merlin the magician.

  29Tante Léonie: character in Proust’s In Search Of Lost Time at whose house Marcel stays in Combray.

  29Maurice Dekobra (1885–1973): French writer of adventure novels.

  29Stavinsky: Alexandre Stavinsky (1888–1934), French ‘financier’ with considerable influence among government ministers and bankers. After his death in 1934, it was discovered that he had embezzled 200million francs from the Crédit municipal de Bayonne, a scandal which rocked the French government.

  29Novarro: Ramón Novarro (1899–1968), Mexican actor, one of the great stars of the silent cinema.

  29the anti-Jewish exhibition at the Palais Berlitz: Le Juif et la France, a notorious anti-Semitic propaganda exhibition staged in Paris during the Nazi occupation.

  30Bagatelles pour un massacre: title of a collection of virulently anti-Semitic essays by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, translated as Trifles for a Massacre.

  32Rue d’Ulm! Rue d’Ulm!: the address of the prestigious École Normale Supérieure.

  32Jallez and Jephanion: the writer Jallez and the politician Jerphanion are the inseparable friends in Jules Romain’s novel Les Hommes de bonne volonté (The Men of Good Will  ).

  34to join the LVF: Légion des volontaires français (contre le bolchévisme), the Legion of French Volunteers (Against Bolshevism), a collaborationist French militia founded on July 8, 1941.

  34Rastignac: a character in Balzac’s La Comédie humaine, Eugène de Rastignac is portrayed as a naïve but fervent social climber – he went by the name ‘Rastignac de la butte Montmartre’.

  35… to quote Péguy: Charles Péguy (1873–1914) French poet and essayist, he coined the phrase ‘les hussards noirs’ in 1913to refer to his teachers.

  35He insisted that … to notice him: parodying the phrase ‘if the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him’ in Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew.

  39my old friend Seingalt: Casanova, who signed his Memoirs (as he did many other works) Jacques Casanova de Seingalt.

  41Paul Chack (1876–1945): French Naval officer and collaborationist writer.

  41Monsignor Mayol de Lupé (1873–1955): Catholic priest who served as chaplain for the Légion des volontaires français and later for the SS.

  41Henri Béraud (1885–1958): French novelist and journalist. Virulently Anglophobic and anti-Semitic, he supported the Vichy Government. After the liberation, he was sentenced to death for collaboration. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

  41… attack on Mers-el-Kébir: as a direct response to the signing of the French–German armistice, the British Navy bombarded the French Navy off the coast of Algeria in July 1940, resulting in the deaths of 1,297French servicemen.

  41‘Maréchal, nous voilà’: a French song pledging loyalty to Maréchal Pétain.

  42Romanciers du terroir: a group of turn-of-the-century French novelists best known for their realistic depiction of rural life.

  43Mistral: Frédéric Mistral (1830–1914), French novelist awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904.

  43Bichelonne: Jean Bichelonne (1904–44), French businessman and civil servant, later head of the Office central de repartition des produits industriels in the Vichy government.

  43Hérold-Paquis: Jean Auguste Hérold aka Jean Hérold-Paquis (1912–45), a French journalist who fought for Franco during the Spanish Civil War and was later appointed Delegate for Propaganda to the Hautes-Alpes region by the Vichy Government. Executed for treason in 1945.

  43admirals Esteva, Darlan and Platón: three admirals who served in the Vichy regime.

  45Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821): Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre, philosopher and writer who famously defended the monarchy after the French Revolution.

  49Maurice Barrès (1861–1923): French symbolist writer, politician who popularised the notion of ethnic nationalism in France. An influential anti-Semite, he broke with the left wing to become a leading anti-Dreyfusard, writing: ‘That Dreyfus is guilty, I deduce not from the facts themselves, but from his race’.

  50Charles Martel (68?–741): Frankish military leader who defeated Abdul Rahman’s son, halting the advance of the Islamic caliphate circa 736.

  50fleurs-de-lis on a field Azure: the heraldic arms of ‘France Ancienne’.

  51I was secretary to Joanovici: Joseph Joanovici (1905–65), a French Jewish iron supplier, who supplied both Nazi Germany and the French Resistance. After the war, he was found guilty of collaboration and sentenced to prison. In 1958he escaped from France to Israel but was refused the right to request to naturalize and returned to France. He was released in 1962.

  52Frison-Roche: Roger Frison-Roche (1906–99) French mountaineer, explorer and novelist.

  52Bordeaux: Henry Bordeaux (1870–1963), French lawyer, essayist and writer. His novels reflect the values of traditional provincial Catholic communities.

  54Capitaine Danrit: penname of Émile Driant, (1855–1916), French writer, politician, and a decorated army officer. He died at the Battle of Verdun during the First World War.

  57Édouard Drumo
nt (1844–1917): French journalist and writer who founded the Antisemitic League of France in 1889. He later founded and edited the French anti-Semitic political newspaper La Libre Parole.

  58Each man in his darkness goes towards his Light: a quotation from Les Contemplations by Victor Hugo.

  61a new ‘Curé d’Ars’: a reference to Saint John Vianney, a French parish priest, known as the Curé d’Ars.

  61My heart, smile towards the future now …: from the poem ‘La dure épreuve va finir’ by Paul Verlaine

  61The fireside, the lamplight’s slender beam: from the poem ‘Le foyer, la lueur étroite de la lampe’ by Paul Verlaine.

  62furia francese: the ‘French fury’ – attributed to the French by the Italians at the Battle of Fornovo.

  64Giraudoux’s girls love to travel: Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944), French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright.

  64Charles d’Orléans (1691–1744): eighteenth-century French man of letters.

  64Maurice Scève (c. 1501–64): French Renaissance poet much obsessed with spiritual love.

  64Rémy Belleau (1528–77): sixteenth-century French poet known for his paradoxical poems of praise for simple things.

  67even a thousand Jews … Body of Our Lord: an oblique reference to the line in Proust’s Sodom and Gomorrah: ‘A strange Jew who boiled the Host’.

  68They strolled together … spring waters: alluding to a Swann’s Way, the first volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time where the narrator dreams that Mme de Guermantes will show him the grounds of her house.

  68‘The energy and charm … eyes of rabbits’: paraphrasing a passage from Proust’s The Guermantes Way.

  68The Embarkation of Eleanor of Aquitaine for the Orient: an allusion to Claude Lorrain’s 1648painting The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.

  69The Fougeire-Jusquiames Way: alluding to Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust. The passage that Modiano follows offers a variation on the Proustian bedtime scenes of Combray.

  69the Princesse des Ursins: Marie Anne de La Trémoille, a lady at the Spanish Court during the reign of Philip V.

  69Mlle de la Vallière: Louise de La Vallière (1644–1710), mistress of Louis XIV.