The Seventh Function of Language

by Laurent Binet

  “Who, Giscard?… Pfft, a hypocrite and a degenerate … You know the aristocratic bit of his name is from his wife?… Our dear Roland had it right … a very successful bourgeois specimen, he said … Ah, we wouldn’t be safe from a new May ’68 … if we were still in ’68…”

  “The structures … in the street…” murmurs Lacan, on his last legs.

  “In America, his public image is as a brilliant, dynamic, and ambitious patrician,” says the American woman. “But up to now he hasn’t made much of an impression internationally.”

  “He hasn’t bombed Vietnam, that’s for sure,” rasps Althusser, wiping his mouth.

  “He did intervene in Zaire, though,” says BHL. “And he loves Europe.”

  “Which brings us back to Poland,” says Kristeva.

  “Oh no, we’re not going to talk about Poland anymore tonight!” says Sollers, taking a drag through his cigarette holder.

  “Yes, we could talk about East Timor, for example,” says Hélène. “That would make a change. I haven’t heard the French government condemning the massacres committed by Indonesia.”

  “Think about it,” says Althusser, apparently emerging from his fog once again. “One hundred and thirty million inhabitants, a huge market, and a precious ally of the United States in a region of the world where they don’t have many.”

  “That was delicious,” says the American woman, finishing her clafouti.

  “Another cognac, gentlemen?” asks Sollers.

  Suddenly, the young woman who is still playing footsie with BHL’s balls asks who this Charlus is who everyone’s talking about in Saint-Germain. Sollers smiles: “He’s the most interesting Jew in the world, my dear … And another faggot, as it happens…”

  The Canadian says that she would like a cognac, too. The Bulgarian offers her a cigarette, which she lights with a candle. The house cat rubs against the Chinese woman’s legs. Someone mentions Simone Veil: Hélène hates her, so Sollers defends her. The American couple think that Carter will be reelected. Althusser starts trying to seduce the Chinese woman. Lacan lights one of his famous cigars. They talk for a bit about soccer, and young Platini, who everyone agrees is promising.

  The evening draws to a close. Lacan’s mistress will go home with BHL. The Bulgarian linguist will accompany the Canadian feminist. The Chinese woman will go back alone to her delegation. Sollers will fall asleep and dream about the orgy that didn’t happen. Out of nowhere, Lacan makes this observation, in a tone of infinite weariness: “It’s curious how a woman, when she ceases being a woman, can crush the man she has under her thumb … Yes, crush him. For his own good, of course.” There is embarrassed silence among the other guests. Sollers declares: “The king is he who wears on his sleeve the most vivid experience of castration.”

  40

  This thing about the severed fingers must be cleared up, so Bayard decides to put a tail on the policeman who shot the Bulgarian on the Pont-Neuf. But as he has the uneasy feeling that the police force has been infiltrated by an enemy whose identity—and, in truth, whose nature—he knows nothing about, he doesn’t ask his superiors to organize this tail, but tells Simon to do it. As usual, Simon protests, but this time he thinks he has a valid objection: that policeman saw him on the Pont-Neuf; Simon was with the others when Bayard dived into the Seine, and then the two of them were seen together, deep in discussion, after he emerged from the water.

  Never mind. He can disguise himself.

  How?

  They’ll cut his hair and get him out of those rags that make him look like an overgrown student.

  This is too much. He’s been fairly easygoing up to now, but Simon is categorical: it’s absolutely out of the question.

  Bayard, who knows about public employment, brings up the thorny question of transfers. What will become of young Simon (or not so young, actually; how old is he?) once he has finished his thesis? He could easily be transferred to a secondary school in Bobigny. Or maybe they could help get him tenure at Vincennes?

  Simon doesn’t believe things work like that in National Education, and that string-pulling by Giscard in person (especially Giscard!) will not help him get a job at Vincennes (the university of Deleuze, of Balibar!), but he is not entirely sure. On the other hand, he is sure that a transfer to somewhere unappealing as a form of punishment is perfectly possible. So he goes to the hairdresser and gets his hair cut—short enough that he feels genuinely uneasy as he contemplates the results, as if he were a stranger to himself, recognizing his face but not the identity that he has unwittingly constructed, year after year—and he lets the Ministry of the Interior pay for a suit and tie. Despite not being cheap, the suit is rather so-so, inevitably a bit big in the shoulders, a little short at the ankles, and Simon has to learn not only to tie his tie but to make the wide part cover the narrow part neatly. And yet, once his metamorphosis is complete, standing in front of the mirror, he surprises himself by feeling—beyond that sensation of strangeness mixed with repulsion—a sort of curiosity and interest in this image of himself, himself without being him, a him from another life, a him who decided to work in a bank or in insurance, or for a government organization, or as a diplomat. Instinctively, Simon adjusts the knot of his tie and, beneath the cuffs of his jacket, pulls at the sleeves of his shirt. He is ready for his mission. And the part of him that appreciates the playful aspects of existence decides to try enjoying this little adventure.

  Outside the Quai des Orfèvres he waits for the policeman with the missing finger to finish his shift, and he smokes a Lucky Strike paid for by France, because the other upside of being under government orders is that he has the right to an expense account. So he has kept the receipt from the tobacconist (three francs).

  Finally, the policeman appears. He’s out of uniform, and the tailing operation begins, on foot. Simon follows the man as he crosses the Pont Saint-Michel and goes up the boulevard until he reaches the junction with Saint-Germain, where he takes a bus. Simon hails a taxi and, uttering the strange words “Follow that bus,” he feels as if he has wandered into a movie, though what genre of movie he isn’t yet sure. But the driver obeys without asking questions, and at each stop Simon has to make sure that the plainclothes policeman has not gotten off the bus. The man is middle-aged, of average height and build and not easy to spot in a crowd, so Simon has to be vigilant. The bus goes up Rue Monge, and the man gets off at Censier. Simon stops the taxi. The man enters a bar. Simon waits a minute before following him. Inside, the man is sitting at a table at the back. Simon sits near the door and immediately realizes this is a mistake because the man keeps looking over in his direction. It is not because he has identified him, just because he is expecting someone. In order not to attract attention, Simon looks out the window. He contemplates the ballet of students entering and emerging from the metro station, standing about smoking cigarettes or gathering in groups, still undecided about what will happen next, happy to be together, excited about the future.

  But suddenly, it is not a student that he sees coming out of the metro but the Bulgarian who almost killed him during the car chase. He’s wearing the same crumpled suit and apparently hasn’t thought it worthwhile to shave off his mustache. He looks around the square, then comes toward Simon. He is limping. Simon hides his face behind the menu. The Bulgarian opens the door of the café. Instinctively, Simon shrinks back, but the Bulgarian passes without seeing him and heads to the back of the room, where he sits down with the policeman.

  The two men begin a conversation in low voices. This is the moment that the waiter chooses to take Simon’s order. The apprentice detective asks for a martini, without thinking. The Bulgarian lights a cigarette, a foreign brand that Simon doesn’t recognize. Simon, too, lights up, a Lucky Strike, and takes a drag to calm his nerves, convincing himself that the Bulgarian hasn’t seen him and that his disguise means no one has recognized him. Or maybe the whole café has spotted his too-short trouser hems, his too-baggy jacket, his shifty amateur air? It isn’t difficult
, he thinks, to perceive the dichotomy between the envelope he is wrapped in and the deeper reality of his being. Simon is overwhelmed by the awful feeling—yes, familiar but more intense this time—of being an impostor, on the verge of being unmasked. The two men have ordered beers. All things considered, they don’t seem to have noticed Simon, just—to his great surprise—like the bar’s other customers. So Simon pulls himself together. He tries to listen to the conversation by concentrating on the voices of the two men, isolating them amid the general hubbub, like a sound engineer isolating a single track on a mixing desk. He thinks he hears “paper” … “script” … “contact” … “student” … “service” … “carrr” … But perhaps he is the puppet of a sort of autosuggestion; perhaps he is only hearing what he wants to hear; perhaps he is constructing the elements of his own dialogue? He thinks he hears: “Sophia.” He thinks he hears: “Logos Club.”

  Then he feels a presence, a shape that glides past him. He didn’t notice the current of air released by the opening of the café door, but he hears the sound of a chair being pulled back. He turns and sees a young woman sitting down at his table.

  Smiling, blond, high cheekbones, eyebrows in a V. She says to him: “You were with the policeman in Salpêtrière, weren’t you?” Simon feels sick. He glances furtively over at the back of the room: the two men, absorbed by their conversation, can’t possibly have heard her. “That poorrr Monsieur Barthes,” she adds, and he shivers again. He recognizes her now: she is the nurse with the slender legs, the one who found Barthes with his tubes removed, the day when Sollers, BHL, and Kristeva turned up and made a scene. More important, he thinks, she recognized him, which undermines his confidence about the quality of his disguise. “He was so verrry sad.” The accent is light, but Simon detects it. “Are you Bulgarian?” The young woman looks surprised. She has large brown eyes. She can’t be more than twenty-one. “No, why? I’m Rrrussian.” From the back of the room, Simon hears laughter. He risks another glance. The two men are clinking glasses. “My name is Anastasia.”

  Simon is a bit muddled, but all the same he does wonder what a Russian nurse is doing in a French hospital, in 1980, a time when the Soviets have begun to relax certain restrictions, but not to the point of opening their borders. He also didn’t know that French hospitals were recruiting from the East.

  Anastasia tells him her life story. She arrived in Paris when she was eight. Her father was head of the Champs-Élysées Aeroflot office. He was authorized to bring his family with him, and when Moscow summoned him back to headquarters, he applied for political asylum and they stayed, along with her mother and her little brother. Anastasia became a nurse; her brother is still in high school.

  She orders tea. Simon still doesn’t know what she wants. He tries to calculate her age based on the date she arrived in France. She gives him a childlike smile: “I saw you through the window. I decided I had to talk to you.” The sound of a chair scraping on the floor at the back of the room. The Bulgarian gets up, to piss or use the phone. Simon leans forward and puts his hand to his temple to mask his profile. Anastasia dips her tea bag in the hot water and Simon sees something graceful in the movement of the young woman’s wrist. At the counter, a customer is talking about the situation in Poland, then Platini’s performance against Holland, then the invincibility of Borg at Roland-Garros. Simon can sense that he is losing concentration. This young woman turning up has unhinged him, and his nervousness is increasing every minute. And now, God knows why, he has the Soviet national anthem in his head, with its cymbal crashes and its Red Army choirs. The Bulgarian comes out of the toilets and goes back to his seat.

  “Soyuz nerushimy respublik svobodnykh…”

  Some students enter the café and join their friends at a noisy table. Anastasia asks Simon if he’s a cop. At first, Simon protests: of course he’s not a cop! But then—he has no idea why—he makes clear that he is acting as, let’s say, a consultant to Superintendent Bayard.

  “Splotila naveki velikaya Rus’…”

  At the table at the back, the policeman says “tonight.” Simon thinks he hears the Bulgarian reply with a short phrase containing “Christ.” He contemplates the girl’s childlike smile and thinks that, through storm clouds, the sunlight of freedom is shining on him.

  Anastasia asks him to tell her about Barthes. Simon says that he was very fond of his mother and of Proust. Anastasia knows Proust, of course. And the great Lenin illuminated our path. Anastasia says that Barthes’s family was worried because he didn’t have his keys on him, so they wanted to change the locks, which would cost money. We were raised by Stalin to be true to the people. Simon recites this couplet to Anastasia, who informs him that, after Khrushchev’s report, the anthem’s words were altered and the reference to Stalin removed. (This did not happen until 1977, however.) Whatever, thinks Simon, we grew our army in battles … The Bulgarian stands up and puts on his jacket; he’s about to leave. Simon considers following him, but prudently decides to stick to his mission. We shall in battle decide the fate of generations. The Bulgarian looked him in the eyes when he tried to execute him. The policeman never did. It’s less dangerous, more certain that way, and he knows, now, that the cop is mixed up in the business somehow. On his way out, the Bulgarian stares at Anastasia, who smiles at him sweetly. Simon feels death brush past him. His whole body stiffens, he lowers his head. Then the policeman leaves. Anastasia smiles at him, too. Well, she’s a woman who is used to being looked at, Simon thinks. He watches the policeman head up toward Monge and knows he must react quickly if he doesn’t want to lose him, so he takes out a twenty-franc note to pay for the tea and the martini and, without waiting for his change (but pocketing the receipt), he takes the nurse by the arm and leads her out of the café. She seems a little surprised but lets him do it. “Partiya Lenina, sila narodnaya…” Simon smiles at her. He felt like getting some fresh air and he’s in a bit of a rush; would she like to accompany him? In his head, he finishes the chorus: “… Nas k torzhestvu kommunizma vedyot!” Simon’s father is a Communist, but he doesn’t see any need to mention this to the young woman, who thankfully seems amused by his slightly eccentric behavior.

  They walk about thirty feet behind the policeman. Night has fallen. It’s a bit cold. Simon is still holding the nurse’s arm. If Anastasia finds his attitude strange or cavalier, she doesn’t show it. She tells him that Barthes was very popular—too popular, in her opinion. There were always people trying to get into his room. The policeman turns off toward La Mutualité. She tells him that on the day of the incident, when he was found on the floor, the three people who came in and made a scene really insulted her. The policeman goes down a small street near the square outside Notre-Dame. Simon thinks about the friendship of peoples. He explains to Anastasia that Barthes was renowned for his ability to detect the symbolic codes that govern our behavior. Anastasia nods, frowning. The policeman comes to a halt outside a heavy wooden door, set just below the pavement. By the time Simon and Anastasia get there, he has disappeared inside. Simon stops. He still hasn’t let go of Anastasia’s arm. She says nothing, having noticed the rising tension in the air. The two young people look at the iron gate, the stone staircase, the wooden door. Anastasia frowns again.

  A couple that Simon did not hear approaching walk around them, open the gate, descend the steps, and ring the doorbell. The door is half-opened, and a pasty-faced man of indeterminate age, a cigarette in his mouth, wool scarf wrapped around his neck, stares at the couple and then lets them through.

  Simon wonders: “What would I do if I were in a novel?” He would ring the doorbell, obviously, and walk in with Anastasia on his arm.

  Inside, there would be a secret gambling den. He’d sit at the policeman’s table and challenge him to a game of poker while Anastasia sipped a Bloody Mary beside him. He would ask the man in a knowing voice what had happened to his finger. And the man, equally knowing, would reply threateningly: “Hunting accident.” Then Simon would win the hand with a full hou
se, aces over queens.

  But life is not a novel, he thinks, and they carry on walking as if nothing had happened. When he turns around at the end of the street, however, he sees another three people ring the doorbell and enter. Equally, he does not see the dented Fuego parked on the opposite pavement. Anastasia starts telling him about Barthes again: when he was conscious, he asked for his jacket several times, as if he were looking for something. Does Simon have any idea what it might have been? Realizing that his mission is over for tonight, Simon feels as if he is waking up and, finding himself standing next to the young nurse, he is disconcerted. He stammers that, maybe, if she’s free, they could have a drink together. Anastasia smiles (and Simon is unable to interpret the sincerity of this smile): isn’t that what they just did? Simon, piteously, suggests they have another drink, another time. Anastasia stares deeply into his eyes, smiles again, as if upping the ante on her natural smile, and tells him simply: “Maybe.” Simon takes this as a rejection, and he is probably right because, repeating “another time,” she leaves without giving him her phone number.

  In the street, behind him, the Fuego’s headlights come on.

  41

  “Approach, great speakers, fine rhetoricians, deep-lunged orators! Take your place in the lair of madness and reason, the theater of thought, the academy of dreams, the school of logic! Come and hear the clamor of words, admire the interlacing of verbs and adverbs, taste the venomous circumlocutions of the duelers of discourse! Today, for this new session, the Logos Club is offering not one digital combat, not two, but three, yes, three digital combats, my friends! And now, to whet your appetite, the first joust pits two rhetoricians against each other with the following thorny geopolitical question: Will Afghanistan be the Soviets’ Vietnam?