The philosopher is lying with his head on Cordelia’s knees. Jakobson takes his hand and says: “Thank you, my friend.” Derrida articulates feebly: “I would have listened to the tape, of course. But I would have kept the secret.” He lifts his eyes to the weeping Cordelia: “Smile for me as I will have smiled for you until the end, my child. Always prefer life and constantly affirm survival…”
And with these words, Derrida dies.
Searle and Slimane have disappeared. So has the sports bag.
78
“Is it not pathetic, naïve, and downright childish to come before the dead to ask for their forgiveness?”
Never before has the little cemetery of Ris-Orangis been trodden by so many feet. Lost in the Parisian suburb, beside the Route Nationale 7 highway, bordered by blocks of brutalist council flats, the place is crushed under the weight of a silence only large crowds can produce.
In front of the coffin, above the hole in the ground, Michel Foucault gives the funeral oration.
“Out of a fervor born of friendship or gratitude, out of approval, too, we could be content to cite, to accompany the other, more or less directly, to let him speak, to efface ourselves before him … But through this excessive concern for fidelity, we will end up saying nothing, and sharing nothing.”
Derrida will not be buried in the Jewish section but with the Catholics, so that when the time comes his wife will be able to join him.
In the front row, Sartre listens to Foucault, his expression serious, head bowed, standing next to Etienne Balibar. He isn’t coughing anymore. He looks like a ghost.
“Jacques Derrida is his name, but he can no longer hear it or bear it.”
Bayard asks Simon if that’s Simone de Beauvoir next to Sartre.
Foucault does Foucault: “How can we believe in the contemporary? Even if we seem to belong to the same era, whether in terms of historic dates or social horizons, et cetera, it would be easy to show that their time remains infinitely heterogeneous? And, truth be told, unrelated.”
Avital Ronell cries softly. Cixous leans on Jean-Luc Nancy and stares down expressionlessly into the hole. Deleuze and Guattari meditate on serial singularities.
The three little public housing blocks with their cracked paintwork, their rusted balconies, watch over the cemetery like sentinels, or like teeth planted in the sea.
In June 1979, at the “Estates General of Philosophy,” organized in the main lecture hall of the Sorbonne, Derrida and BHL literally got into a fistfight, but BHL is present at the funeral of the man he will soon call, or is already calling, “my old master.”
Foucault goes on: “Contrary to popular wisdom, the individual ‘subjects’ who live in the most important zones are not authoritarian ‘superegos’; they do not possess a power, supposing that Power can be possessed.”
Sollers and Kristeva have come too, of course. Derrida had participated in Tel Quel, at the beginning. Dissemination had been published in the “Tel Quel” collection, but he had broken with the magazine, though no one knew what part personal feelings played in the separation and what part politics. However, in December 1977, when Derrida was arrested in Prague, trapped by the Communist regime that planted drugs in his luggage, he received and accepted Sollers’s support.
Bayard has still not received the order to arrest Sollers or Kristeva. Apart from the Bulgarian connection he has no proof that they were involved in Barthes’s death. But above all, he has no proof, even if he is almost certain, that they have the seventh function.
It was Kristeva who told Bayard about the meeting at the cemetery in Ithaca, and he thinks she told Searle, too. Bayard’s theory is that she wished to sabotage the transaction by bringing together all those involved, thus multiplying the potential disruptions, because she didn’t know or refused to believe that Derrida, in concert with Jakobson, was working toward the destruction of the copy. Jakobson always believed his discovery should not be made public. To this end, he helped Derrida raise the money to buy the cassette from Slimane.
While Foucault continues his oration, a woman materializes behind Simon and Bayard.
Simon recognizes Anastasia’s perfume.
She whispers something to them and, instinctively, the two men do not turn around.
Foucault: “For what was earlier called ‘following the death,’ ‘on the occasion of the death,’ we have a whole series of typical solutions. The worst ones, or the worst in each of them, are either base or derisory, and yet so common: still to maneuver, to speculate, to try to profit or derive some benefit, whether subtle or sublime, to draw from the dead a supplementary force to be turned against the living, to denounce or insult them more or less directly, to authorize and legitimate oneself, to raise oneself to the very heights where we presume death has placed the other beyond all suspicion.”
Anastasia: “There will soon be a major event organized by the Logos Club. The Great Protagoras has been challenged. He is going to defend his title. That will mean a huge meeting. But only accredited people will be able to attend.”
Foucault: “In its classical form, the funeral oration had a good side, especially when it permitted one to call out directly to the dead, sometimes very informally. This is of course a supplementary fiction, for it is always the dead in me, always the others standing around the coffin whom I call out to. But because of its caricatured excess, the overstatement of this rhetoric at least pointed out that we ought not to remain among ourselves.”
Bayard asks where the meeting will take place. Anastasia replies that it will be in Venice, in a secret venue that has probably not yet been chosen because the “organization” she works for has not been able to locate it.
Foucault: “The interactions of the living must be interrupted, the veil must be torn toward the other, the other dead in us, though other still, and the religious promises of an afterlife could indeed still grant this ‘as if.’”
Anastasia: “Whoever challenges the Great Protagoras is the one who stole the seventh function. You have the motive.”
Neither Searle nor Slimane has been found. But they are not the prime suspects. Slimane wanted to sell it. Searle wanted to buy it. Jakobson helped Derrida outbid him, but Kristeva did everything she could to sink the transaction and Derrida is dead. The two men are still on the run, and one of them has the money, but—as far as Bayard’s employer is concerned—that is not what matters.
What we need, Bayard thinks, is to catch them red-handed.
Simon asks how they can obtain accreditation. Anastasia replies that they must be at least level six (tribune), and that there will be a big qualification tournament organized especially.
“The Novel is a death; it transforms life into destiny, a memory into a useful act, duration into an oriented and meaningful time.”
Bayard asks Simon why Foucault is talking about the novel.
Simon replies that it must be a quotation but he is wondering the same thing, and it is making him decidedly anxious.
79
Leaning over the bridge, Searle can barely make out the water at the bottom of the gorge, but he can hear it flowing in the darkness. It is night in Ithaca and the wind snakes through the corridor of vegetation formed by Cascadilla Creek. Pouring over its bed of stones and moss, the creek follows its course through the steep-sided valley, indifferent to the tragedies of humankind.
A pair of students holds hands as they cross the bridge. There are not many people around at this time of night. No one pays Searle any notice.
If only he’d known. If only he could have …
But it’s too late now to rewrite history.
Without a word, the philosopher steps over the railing, gets his balance on the parapet, glances down into the void, looks up at the stars one last time, lets go, and falls.
Barely even a spray of water: just a small splash. The brief sparkle of foam in the blackness.
The creek is not deep enough to cushion the impact, but the rapids take the body toward the falls and C
ayuga Lake, where a long time ago fish were caught by Native Americans who probably—though who knows?—knew very little about the illocutionary and the perlocutionary.
PART IV
VENICE
80
“I am forty-four years old. That means I have outlived Alexander, dead at thirty-two, Mozart, dead at thirty-five, Jarry, thirty-four, Lautréamont, twenty-four, Lord Byron, thirty-six, Rimbaud, thirty-seven, and throughout the long life that remains to me, I will overtake all the great dead men, all the giants who dominated their eras, and so, if God spares me, I will pass Napoleon, Caesar, Georges Bataille, Raymond Roussel … But no!… I will die young … I can feel it … I won’t be around for long … I won’t end up like Roland … sixty-four years old … Pathetic … When it comes down to it, we did him a favor … No, no … I wouldn’t make a good retiree … Not that such a thing is even possible … I’d rather burn up … The flame that burns twice as bright…”
81
Sollers does not like the Lido, but he has fled the Carnival crowds and, in memory of Thomas Mann and Visconti, taken refuge at the Grand Hôtel des Bains, where Death in Venice’s highly languorous action takes place. He imagined he’d be able to meditate at his ease there, facing the Adriatic, but for now he is at the bar, hitting on the waitress as he knocks back a whiskey. At the far end of the empty room, a pianist plays Ravel halfheartedly. It should be pointed out that it is midafternoon in midwinter and, while there is no cholera outbreak, the weather is not particularly conducive for swimming.
“And what is your name, my dear child? No, don’t tell me! I am going to baptize you Margherita, like Lord Byron’s mistress. She was married to a baker, did you know that? La Fornarina … fiery temperament and marble thighs … She had your eyes, of course. They went horse-riding on the beach: madly romantic, don’t you think? A little kitsch perhaps, yes, you’re right … Would you like me to teach you to ride later?”
Sollers thinks of that passage in Childe Harold: “The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord…” The doge can no longer marry the sea, the lion no longer inspires fear: it’s about castration, he thinks. “And the Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, neglected garment of her widowhood!” But he immediately drives away these dark thoughts. He shakes his empty glass to order a second whiskey. “On the rocks.” The waitress smiles politely. “Prego.”
Sollers sighs cheerfully. “Ah, how I wish I could say, like Goethe: ‘I am perhaps known only to one man in Venice, and he won’t be meeting me anytime soon.’ But I’m very well known in my country, my dear child, that is my misfortune. Do you know France? I’ll take you. What a great writer he was, that Goethe. But what’s the matter? You’re blushing. Ah, Julia, there you are! Margherita, allow me to present my wife.”
Kristeva entered the bar discreetly, like a cat. “You’re exhausting yourself in vain, darling. This young woman doesn’t understand a quarter of what you’re saying. Isn’t that right, miss?”
The young woman smiles again. “Prego?”
Sollers puffs up his chest: “Well, what does it matter? When, like me, one inspires devotion at first sight, one does not need (thank God!) to be understood.”
Kristeva does not tell him about Bourdieu, whom he hates because the sociologist threatens his entire system of representation, with which he still manages to play the swaggering dandy. She doesn’t tell him either that he shouldn’t drink too much before this week’s meeting. For a long time, she has chosen to treat him simultaneously as a child and as an adult. She doesn’t bother explaining certain things to him, but expects him to raise himself to the level she believes she has a right to demand.
The pianist plays a particularly dissonant chord. A bad omen? But Sollers believes in his lucky star. Perhaps he will go for a swim? Kristeva notices that he has already put his sandals on.
82
Two hundred galleys, two dozen galliots (those half-galleys), and six gigantic galleasses (the B-52s of their age) speed across the Mediterranean in pursuit of the Turkish fleet.
Sebastiano Venier, the irascible captain of the Venetian fleet, rages to himself: among his Spanish, Genevan, Savoyard, Neapolitan, and papal allies he thinks he is the only one who wants this battle. But he is wrong.
While the Spanish crown, in the person of Philip II, is generally uninterested in the Mediterranean, fully occupied as it is by the conquest of the New World, young Don John of Austria, the hotheaded commander of the Holy League’s fleet, illegitimate son of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and hence half-brother to the king, is seeking in this war the honor that his bastardy denies him elsewhere.
Sebastiano Venier wants to preserve the vital interests of La Serenissima, but Don John of Austria, fighting for his own glory, is his best ally, and he doesn’t know it.
83
Sollers contemplates the portrait of Saint Anthony in the Gesuati church and thinks that he looks like him. (Does Sollers look like Saint Anthony or Saint Anthony look like Sollers? I don’t know which way around he considers it.) He lights a blessing candle to himself and goes out for a walk in the city’s Dorsoduro quarter, which he loves so much.
Outside the Accademia, he sees Simon Herzog and Superintendent Bayard in the line.
“Dear Superintendent, what a surprise to see you here! What brings you to Venice? Ah yes, I’ve heard about the exploits of your young protégé. I can’t wait to see the next round. Yes, yes, you see, no point in keeping secrets, is there? Is this your first time in Venice? And you’ll go to the museum for some culture, I suppose. Say hello to Giorgione’s Tempest from me; it’s the only painting there worth the hassle of all those Japanese tourists. Have you noticed how they snap at everything without even looking?”
Sollers points to two Japanese men in the line, and Simon makes an imperceptible gesture of surprise. He recognizes them from the Fuego that saved his life in Paris. They are indeed armed with the latest Minoltas and are photographing everything that moves.
“Forget the Piazza San Marco. Forget Harry’s Bar. Here, you are in the heart of the city; in other words, in the heart of the world: the Dorsoduro … Venice is a convenient scapegoat, don’t you think? Ha ha … Anyway, you must absolutely go to the Campo Santo Stefano; just cross the Grand Canal … You’ll see the statue of Niccolò Tommaseo there, a political writer, therefore not of interest, known to the Venetians as Cagalibri: the book-shitter. Because of the statue. It really looks like he’s shitting books. Ha. But above all you must see the Giudecca, on the other bank. You can admire the churches designed by the great Palladio, all in a row. You don’t know Palladio? A man who did not like things to be too easy … like you, perhaps? He was in charge of constructing an edifice opposite the Piazza San Marco. Can you imagine? What a challenge, as our American friends, who have never understood art, would say … they’ve never understood women either, for that matter, but that’s another story … Anyway, there you have it: rising up from the water, San Giorgio Maggiore. And, top of the list, the Redentore, a Neoclassical masterpiece: on one side, Byzantium and the flamboyant Gothic of the past; on the other, Ancient Greece resurrected eternally by the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation. Go and see it, it’s only a hundred yards away! If you hurry, you’ll get there for the sunset…”
Then a cry rings out in the line. “Thief! Thief!” A tourist runs after a pickpocket. Instinctively, Sollers puts his hand in his inside jacket pocket.
But he pulls himself together instantly: “Ha, did you see? A Frenchman, obviously … The French are always easily taken in. Be careful, though. The Italians are a great people, but like all great peoples they’re bandits … I should leave you, I’ll be late for Mass…”
And Sollers walks away, his sandals slapping against the Venetian cobbles.
Simon says to Bayard: “Did you see?”
“Yes, I saw.”
“He has it on him.”
“Yes.”
“So why not take him now?”
“First we have to check it works. That�
��s why you’re here, remember.”
An undetectable smile of pride flickers on Simon’s face. Another round. He has forgotten the Japanese men behind him.
84
Two hundred galleys pass through the Straits of Corfu and head toward the Gulf of Corinth. Among them is La Marchesa, commanded by the Genovese Francesco San-Freda, carrying Captain Diego of Urbino and his dice-playing men, among them the son of a debt-ridden dentist also here to seek glory as well as riches, a Castilian hidalgo, an adventurer, a penniless sword-wielding nobleman: the young Miguel de Cervantes.
85
On the fringes of the Carnival, private parties proliferate in Venice’s palazzos, and the one currently being held in the Ca’ Rezzonico is among the most popular and the most private.
Drawn by the voices coming from the building, envious passersby and vaporetto passengers look up toward the ballroom, where they can glimpse or imagine the trompe-l’oeil artworks, the massive chandeliers in multicolored glass, and the magnificent eighteenth-century frescoes decorating the ceiling, but invitations are strictly by name only.
Logos Club parties are not exactly announced in the newspaper.
And yet the party does take place, in the heart of the Floating City. A hundred people rush in, their faces uncovered. (Evening wear is required, but this is not a masked ball.)
At first glance, there is nothing to distinguish this party from any other chic gathering. But listen closely and you will hear the difference. The conversations are of exordiums, perorations, propositions, altercations, refutations. (As Barthes said: “The passion for classification always appears byzantine for those who do not participate in it.”) Anacoluthon, catachresis, enthymeme, and metabole. (As Sollers would say: “But of course.”) “I do not believe Res and Verba should be translated simply by Things and Words. Res, says Quintilian, are quae significantur, and Verba: quae significant; in other words, in terms of discourse, the signified and the signifier.” Of course.
The guests also talk of past and future duels. Many are veterans with severed fingers or young guns of the debates, and most have memories of glorious or tragic campaigns, which they like to dwell on below Tiepolo’s paintings.
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