But every time I thought I was finally free, G. would find me again and try to renew his hold on me. Even when I became an adult, whenever someone mentioned his name to me, I would freeze, turn back into the adolescent I had been when I first met him. I’ll be fourteen years old for the rest of my life. That was my fate.
One day my mother handed me one of the letters that, as he didn’t know where I lived, he persisted in sending to her address. My silence, my refusal to communicate with him in any way, hadn’t discouraged him at all. With astonishing nerve, he was writing to ask permission to publish photographs of me in a biography of him that one of his admirers was working on for a Belgian publisher. A lawyer friend of mine wrote him a threatening letter on my behalf. If G. persisted in any way in using my name or my image in the context of a literary work, legal action would be taken against him. G. did not pursue the project. At last I was safe. For now.
A few months later I discovered that G. had an official internet site that featured, in addition to a chronology of his life and work, photographs of some of his conquests, including two pictures of me at the age of fourteen, captioned with my initial, V., which encapsulated my identity from then on (to the point that I still sign my e-mails that way).
The shock was unbearable. I called my lawyer friend, who recommended a colleague more experienced than he in image copyright law. The affidavit we requested was expensive enough and, after lengthy research, my new adviser told me that unfortunately there was not much we could do. The site was registered not in G.’s name, but in that of a webmaster domiciled somewhere in Asia.
“G.M. has taken care of things so perfectly that he can’t be deemed owner of the content hosted by his dummy corporation, which is completely outside French jurisdiction. Legally, the site is the work of a fan, nothing more. It’s a totally cynical move, but it’s absolutely airtight.”
“How could a stranger living in Asia possibly have managed to get hold of photos of me at the age of fourteen? Photographs that belonged to G.? It doesn’t add up.”
“If you haven’t got copies of the pictures, it will be hard to prove they’re of you,” she said, deeply apologetic. “By the way, I made some inquiries: G. has recently become the client of a leading light in intellectual property, one of the most redoubtable lawyers around. Getting into a legal battle with him would be a fool’s errand. It could cost you not only your annual salary but also your health. Are you sure it’s really worth it?”
With a heavy heart, I dropped the case.
IRONICALLY, I WAS NOW WORKING FOR THE PUBLISHER who had originally brought out G.’s notorious essay, Under Sixteen, in the 1960s.
Before taking the job, I checked that the rights to the book hadn’t been renewed: this was indeed the case, though I didn’t know why. I convinced myself that it was because of the publisher’s moral disapproval. The reality was rather more prosaic: it was actually due to the growing scarcity of connoisseurs of this type of publication, or at least to the fact that increasingly they were too ashamed to admit to their predilection.
Unfortunately, G. continued to command respect at most of the Parisian publishing houses. And, more than thirty years after we first met, he couldn’t stop himself from repeatedly verifying that he still had a hold on me. I don’t know how he managed to find out where I was working, but the literary world is the size of a pocket handkerchief, and gossip was rife.
There was no point trying to work out how he’d discovered where I was working. One morning I got to my desk and found a long, embarrassed e-mail from my boss. G. had been pestering her for weeks, sending her messages begging her to act as an intermediary between him and me.
“I’m so sorry, V. I’ve been trying to keep him away from you for a while now so he can’t bother you. But nothing seems to mollify him, so eventually I decided to talk to you and forward you his e-mails,” she wrote.
In their e-mail exchange, which I read numb with shame, G. recounted our relationship in minute detail (just in case she was not aware of it, and as if it was any of her business). Not only was this an unbearable violation of my private life, but his tone was both ingratiating and pathetic. In an attempt to provoke her pity, he claimed, among other nonsense, that he was dying, and told her that his dearest desire was to see me again. He was suffering from a serious illness and would not be at peace bidding farewell to the world of the living without seeing my dear face one more time, blah, blah, blah . . . This was why he was beseeching her at all cost to forward me his messages. As if it went without saying that she was going to pander to his every whim.
Since he didn’t have my home address, he went on to apologize for being reduced to writing to me at my workplace. He was utterly shameless. Disingenuously, he expressed surprise that I had not replied to the letter (in reality, there were many) that he had sent me not long ago, wondering if it might be because of the publisher’s recent move to new offices.
The truth was, I had several times found letters from him on my desk, which I systematically threw in the bin without reading. Once, to trick me into opening it, someone else, whose handwriting I didn’t recognize, had written my name and address on the envelope. It made no difference; the content had remained unchanged for thirty years: My continuing silence was a mystery. I must be consumed with regret at the thought of having destroyed such a noble union, not to mention having made him suffer so! He would never forgive me for having left him. He had nothing to apologize for. I was the guilty party, guilty of having brought to an end the most beautiful love story ever lived by a man and a teenage girl. Whatever I said, I belonged to him and I always would because, thanks to his books, our wild passion would never cease to light up the night.
In G.’s response to the point-blank refusal of the publishing director with whom I worked to intercede on his behalf, one sentence in particular leapt out at me: “No, I will never be relegated to V.’s past, nor she to mine.”
Once again, I was filled with blind rage, fury, and powerlessness.
He was never going to leave me in peace.
Sitting in front of my computer screen, I burst into tears.
HAVING BEEN LARGELY COLD-SHOULDERED FOR A COUPLE of decades, G. made a triumphant return to the literary scene in 2013 when he was awarded the prestigious Prix Renaudot for his most recent book-length essay. People I respected were eager to appear on television to acclaim publicly the indisputable talent of this major literary figure. So be it. That wasn’t really the issue. My own personal experience prevented me from objectively being able to judge his work, which repulsed me. In terms of its significance, however, I would have preferred the reserve that had been increasingly expressed over the previous twenty years, in terms of both the way he carried on in his private life and the ideas he espoused in some of his books, to continue, and to go further.
There was a disappointingly low-key controversy when the prize was awarded. A few journalists (young, for the most part, of neither his generation nor mine) spoke out against him being awarded this honorary distinction. G., meanwhile, in the speech he gave at the prize-giving ceremony, assumed that the prize was not for one book, but for the whole of his oeuvre, though this was not the case.
“To judge a book, a painting, a sculpture, or a film, not for its beauty, or the power of its expression, but for its morality or supposed immorality, is a spectacularly stupid thing to do; but on top of that, to promote the toxic idea of writing or signing a petition as a way of expressing outrage at the positive reception that people of taste have given the work—a petition whose sole purpose is to cause pain to the writer, painter, sculptor, or filmmaker—is simply despicable,” he protested in a newspaper.
“Simply despicable”?
And going abroad to help yourself to some “young asses,” paid for with the royalties you accumulated with descriptions of having sex with schoolgirls and publishing photographs of them on the internet without their consent and under the cover of anonymity—how would you describe that?
To
day, I work in publishing, and I find it very hard to understand how some of the most renowned editors in the literary world could have published G.’s diaries, complete with first names, places, dates, and enough detail to make it possible at least for those who know them to identify his victims, without first having offered a minimum of hindsight in terms of the books’ content. Particularly when it is explicitly stated on the cover that this is the text of the author’s diary and not a work of fiction behind which he might cunningly have concealed himself.
I spent a long time thinking about this breach of confidentiality, particularly in a legal area that is otherwise strictly controlled, and I could only come up with one explanation. If it is illegal for an adult to have a sexual relationship with a minor who is under the age of fifteen, why is it tolerated when it is perpetrated by a representative of the artistic elite—a photographer, writer, filmmaker, or painter? It seems that an artist is of a separate caste, a being with superior virtues granted the ultimate authorization, in return for which he is required only to create an original and subversive piece of work. A sort of aristocrat in possession of exceptional privileges before whom we, in a state of blind stupefaction, suspend all judgment.
Were any other person to publish on social media a description of having sex with a child in the Philippines or brag about his collection of fourteen-year-old mistresses, he would find himself dealing with the police and be instantly considered a criminal.
Apart from artists, we have witnessed only Catholic priests being bestowed such a level of impunity.
Does literature really excuse everything?
ON TWO OCCASIONS I CROSSED PATHS WITH THE YOUNG woman whose name I had come across in G.’s famous little black book. Nathalie was one of G.’s many conquests during our affair, which he always strenuously denied.
The first time I saw her was in the brasserie where G. was a regular. A table was permanently reserved for him, and he had taken me to dinner there only a few months earlier. I went in to buy a packet of cigarettes late one evening, thinking it was unlikely that G. would be there, since he was very much not a night owl. Unfortunately, on this occasion I was mistaken. I spotted him immediately, sitting opposite a very young woman. I was troubled by her youth and radiance. I felt instantly old. I wasn’t yet sixteen. I had ended the relationship almost a year earlier.
Five years later, I came out of a lecture at the Sorbonne and was walking down Boulevard Saint-Michel, when I heard a voice calling my name over and over from the opposite side of the street. I turned but didn’t immediately recognize the young woman waving at me. She ran across the street and almost got herself knocked over, reminded me that her name was Nathalie, and, slightly embarrassed, mentioned the brief, upsetting glimpse we’d had of each other that evening in the smoky interior of a Parisian brasserie where G. had been vulgar enough to greet me with a triumphant smile. She asked me if I had time for a coffee. I wasn’t sure I had any desire to talk to her about anything whatsoever, but something intrigued me; her face had lost the glow that had so upset me five years earlier and made me believe my youth had been stolen by hers. I suppose I might, narcissistically, have felt some satisfaction, savored the feeling of revenge. She had a hell of a cheek, stopping me like that in the middle of the street, when five years before she’d begun sleeping with G. while I was still in a relationship with him. But I could see she didn’t look very well. Her face was gaunt with anxiety.
I smiled at her and agreed to a brief chat, despite her slightly rambling and agitated air. We sat down and her words began to spill out. Nathalie told me about her childhood, her broken family and absent father. How could I not recognize myself in her words? The same scenario. The same suffering. She told me how G. had hurt her, manipulated her in order to alienate her from her family and friends, from everything that makes up the life of a young woman. Then she reminded me of how G. made love, so mechanical and repetitive. Another poor little girl who had mistaken sex for love. I recognized everything she said, it all came back to me, every detail, and as the words poured out, I felt feverish, desperate to relate with the same precision how painful the memory of that experience remained for me.
Nathalie kept talking, apologizing, biting her lip, laughing nervously. If G. had witnessed our encounter, he would certainly have been horrified; he had always made sure that his mistresses never met, presumably for fear of seeing them turn into a furious horde hatching some joint revenge against him.
We both felt that we had broken a taboo. What was it that linked us, brought us together, deep down? An overwhelming need to confide in someone who would understand. It was a relief as well for me to find myself in solidarity with this girl, who had once been one of my many rivals.
In the solace conferred by our newfound sisterhood, we tried to comfort each other: this episode was well and truly behind us, and now we could even laugh about it, without jealousy, pain, or despair.
“To think he thought he was a champion, such a great lover, when in reality he was completely pathetic!”
We began to laugh hysterically. All of a sudden Nathalie’s expression grew calm and radiant again. She looked like the young woman I had admired five years before.
Then we talked about the young boys, Manila.
“Do you think he’s homosexual? Or an actual pedophile?” Nathalie asked.
“I’d say more an ephebophile.” (I’d studied literature, and had come across this word, which I was very proud of, when reading some author whose name I’ve forgotten.) “He’s turned on by puberty, which is presumably the age he’s stuck at himself. However brilliant he is, his psyche is that of an adolescent. And when he’s with a young girl, he feels like a fourteen-year-old boy. That’s the reason he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong.”
Nathalie burst out laughing again.
“You’re right! I prefer to think of him like that. I feel so dirty sometimes. As if I was the one who’d been sleeping with eleven-year-old boys in the Philippines.”
“No, it’s not you, Nathalie, it’s not our fault. We’re like those boys: we had no one to protect us then, we felt like he made us exist, even though he was just using us. Maybe he didn’t even mean to; it’s just his pathology.”
“At least we can sleep with whoever we like now, not just old men!” Nathalie giggled.
I had proof now: I wasn’t the only one carrying the burden of my relationship with G. And, contrary to what he recounted in his books, he did not leave his young mistresses with nothing but warm memories.
We didn’t exchange phone numbers or anything that would have allowed us to see each other again one day. We had no reason to. We embraced, holding each other tight, and wished each other well.
What became of Nathalie? I hope she met a boy her own age who loved her along with her suffering, who helped rid her of her shame. I hope she won that fight. But how many other girls are out there, clinging to the shadows, their faces, like hers that day, gaunt with defeat, desperate for someone to listen to them?
IT’S INCREDIBLE. I’D NEVER HAVE BELIEVED IT POSSIBLE. After so many romantic disasters, such a struggle to accept love unhesitatingly, the man whom I eventually met and with whom I now share my life was somehow able to heal my many wounds. We have a son who is just entering adolescence. A son who has helped me grow. Because you can’t remain fourteen years old forever once you become a mother. My son is handsome, with a gentle expression in his eyes, a bit of a dreamer. Fortunately, he never asks me much about my childhood. Which is just as well. In the imaginations of our children, at least when they’re young, our lives only began with their birth. Perhaps they sense, intuitively, that there is a shadowy zone it’s better not to venture into.
Whenever I go through a period of depression or suffer an uncontrollable panic attack, I tend to take it out on my mother. Pathologically, I am constantly trying to force an apology from her, or at least an iota of contrition. But no matter how much I berate her, she not only never concedes; she digs her heels in e
ven more. Whenever I try to make her change her mind by pointing out all the young teenagers around us—“Can’t you see, a fourteen-year-old girl is still a kid?”—she replies, “That’s irrelevant. You were much more mature at the same age.”
And then, the day I asked her to read the manuscript of this book, dreading her reaction more than anyone else’s, she wrote back: “Don’t change a thing. This is your story.”
Now G. has reached the venerable age of eighty-three. As far as our relationship is concerned, the statute of limitations has long passed and the moment has come when—blessed be the passage of time—his fame has finally dimmed, and his most transgressive books have sunk into oblivion.
Many long years passed before I decided to write this book, and even more before I could bear to see it published. I wasn’t ready until now. The obstacles appeared insurmountable. First there was the fear of the consequences such a detailed account of this episode would have on my family and my career, which are always difficult to evaluate.
I also had to overcome my fear of the tiny circle of friends who might still be prepared to protect G. This was not trivial. I was worried that if the book were published, I’d be subject to violent attacks not only by his fans but also by some ex-soixante-huitards, veterans of the May ’68 revolution, who might feel they were being attacked for having signed his notorious open letter; and perhaps even a few women opposed to the new so-called neo-Puritan discourse on sexuality; in other words, all the self-appointed critics of the policing of public morals.
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