Radical Shadows

by Bradford Morrow

  Leclerc vehicles are parked all along the quai des Grands-Augustins, and their occupants are naturally thickly surrounded and feted by the people of the neighborhood. What is immediately striking is the cosmopolitan appearance of this group: pure Frenchmen side by side with Spaniards and people from North Africa. One of the first whom we engage in conversation is a Spaniard, who has already fought in the war against Franco in the Republican army; he offers me a glass of wine (from a bottle that has just been given him), a courtesy I finally accept, not without a little shame at allowing myself, a civilian, to be regaled by one of the soldiers who has just liberated me. Another fellow (who will embrace Z and Jeannette and whom I will also embrace, like a brother) is a native of Aveyron. A third—whose birthplace I don’t know—repeats jovially to the people, who are, in their emotion, rather taciturn: “Well, talk to me … Come now, talk to me!” A fourth, of a distinctly Berber type, tells me he is from Oran. A fifth person (the first to whom we say anything) is a rather large fellow and well proportioned, with regular and slightly worn features; on the side of his face, he has a scar; he is blond, with light eyes, and his skin is very tanned; he has the good looks of a convict or outlaw in a movie; we give him a bottle of champagne, which he wants to drink with us, but we refuse, wanting him to enjoy it with his companions. Of all those with whom we speak, this one is the least loquacious, the saddest; when we ask him what life is like in the division, he answers: “Fighting … Nothing but fighting …” I have no idea what either his background or his social situation might be.

  Back up in our apartment, from the windows we watch the picturesque sight of vehicles with soldiers who are beginning to settle in all around us and are surrounded by people. On the hood of each vehicle, a broad band of oilcloth the color of currants (intended, it appears, to let the Allied aircraft know the vehicle belongs to an Allied division).

  The attack on the Sénat by Leclerc and F.F.I. elements is planned for the beginning of the afternoon. Since yesterday, people have been dreading the explosion of twenty tons of cheddite that has apparently been stored in the Sénat.

  After lunch, Sartre, Bost and Castor come looking for us to go for a walk and we leave, taking Jeanne and Jeannette with us. Along the quai Saint-Michel, American vehicles are parked, all driven by Negroes. We cross the pont Saint-Michel and reach the boulevard du Palais. There is a quite a crowd in front of the entrance to the Préfecture de Police, where official personages are expected (or are already there, just as at the Hôtel de Ville). Many tanks and armored cars of the Leclerc division, all heavily surrounded. We then go up the boulevard Saint-Michel and see there, among other soldiers of the armored division, a fellow with a thick moustache who is saying to the people that he was previously the director of a bank in the Cameroons. Encounter with Pancho Picabia’s brother, who tells us how, that morning, he had to stay flat on his face for a very long time near the Belfort Lion to protect himself from the rifle fire. Sartre suggests going up the boulevard Saint-Michel as far as we can, to see what is happening around the Luxembourg, where the fighting has begun; I agree, even though it scarcely appeals to me. But we have hardly reached the boulevard Saint-Germain when we are urged not to proceed further. We therefore go back home and separate, arranging to meet that evening, since we have planned to have dinner at the home of Olga Kosackiewicz and Jacques Bost, in the Chaplain Hotel, then stroll through Montparnasse, where people were dancing around bonfires the evening before.

  Visit from Moré, whom we then accompany back to his house, where he wants to show us the marks of bullets that entered his living room. A few houses away, we are stopped by some F.F.I. getting out of a car: they are offering to share some war booty with the passersby, namely a bottle of vermouth. The concierge of the house in front of which their car is stopped brings some glasses and we pass the bottle around.

  Going with Castor to Olga K’s, we learn that the Sénat has just surrendered. Consequently we decide to stop in at the home of Jean and Zanie Aubier (who live at 1, rue de Fleurus) to see how they have endured the emotions of the battle. We find them at home; they have come up only a few minutes before from the basement, where they have had to stay for some hours with their young child. While we are there, a group of German prisoners comes out of the Luxembourg, their hands crossed above their heads. From the Aubiers’, I telephone the Adrians (enthusiasts of Kermadec who live on the boulevard Saint-Michel opposite the Ecole des Mines and the Luxembourg greenhouses). I want to hear their news and tell them the Sénat has just surrendered; but I’m forced to give up on this telephone conversation: on their end, the fighting is still so violent that the explosions hurt my ears just hearing them over the telephone.

  Castor, Z and I set off again in the direction of Olga’s. Having arrived there, we learn and we see for ourselves that there are many rooftop snipers (or people under cover in the windows of the houses) at the Vavin intersection and they are systematically firing on everyone who passes in front of the Dôme and the Coupole; thus, at regular intervals, or almost, we see two or three wounded persons being carried away on stretchers.

  Dinner as arranged, but instead of walking around Montparnasse as we had planned, we come back to our own neighborhood, joined by Wanda, Olga’s sister. In the rue Vavin we come upon a French broadcasting van painted entirely black, with its inscriptions in large white letters, a flood of music is pouring out of it. Crossing the rue Auguste-Comte, we see, among other traces of the fighting (a burnt German tank, small blockhouses destroyed by French tanks, etc.) the windows of the Lycée Montaigne with all their panes broken. (At the corner of the Luxembourg Gardens at the intersection of the boulevard Saint-Michel and the rue Auguste-Comte, flowers will be placed (I no longer recall exactly if it was this same day or only afterward that I saw them) for F.F.I. or soldiers who fell at that spot.) Going down the boulevard Saint-Michel, we see, near the Médicis Fountain, a woman collecting wooden paving blocks that were used to make a barricade; an F.F.I. stops her from providing herself with fuel this way. Farther down, tanks from the Leclerc division are lined up on the sidewalks for the night; one of them is parked halfway in the entrance to a movie theater. Among the fellows we talk to, one is very friendly (aVerage size, robust, sunburnt and wearing glasses); he’s probably a cultivated boy, he tells us that at the Sénat they tried to do as little damage to the building as possible, but it was inevitably chipped a little, even so; he explains how distressing it is to fight in Paris, since one doesn’t want to damage its monuments too much.

  At the end of our walk we are in the Saint-Séverin quartier, which is swarming with people: people from the barricades, people from North Africa or colored people, white and black Americans, etc. Impossible to find a spot in a bistro. From the sidewalk in front of our house, when we get back, we see figures leaning out of the window, figures that (in the darkness) we don’t recognize. Jeanne’s voice shouts to us to come quick, because “an American is here.” Z and I immediately think of Waldberg and we take the steps four at a time. It is in fact Waldberg, captain in a special service, who has come by car from Normandy with an architect from Granville (who was working in liaison with his service) and an old Belgian garage mechanic (now in the American army and W’s driver). Effusions; introductions to all our friends, who come upstairs behind us. Exchange of news, etc.

  Waldberg and his two companions sleep here.

  Saturday the 26th

  In the morning, departure in Waldberg’s car to visit Mauss, whose student he was, like me. Everywhere we go, the sight of the American W excites enthusiasm: when we happen to be out of the car for the various errands he has to do, people will come up and shake his hand, saying, “Thank you!”; they will lead children up to him, etc. Others, less discreet, will beg for cigarettes or biscuits. Mauss tells us that that very morning his wife was nearly killed by a rooftop gunman: a bullet entered the window of their ground floor apartment and lodged in the wall just above the bed in which Mme. Mauss was lying. On our way back, as we reach pl
ace Saint-Michel, we see the traffic being directed, spectacularly, by an attractive woman with makeup, wearing blue pants and a white shirt and sporting a broad belt and a red turban.

  Lunch, before going to the Salacrous’, who have invited us, along with a number of others, to come watch from their balcony the ceremony that is supposed to take place at the Arc de Triomphe in honor of the arrival of General de Gaulle.

  {It was shortly before or after this lunch, I think, that we saw, from our balcony, a woman with shaved head and no shoes being walked along the quai des Grands-Augustins. Armed insurgents surrounded her, jeering at her but not touching her; the woman ceaselessly moved her head from left to right and from right to left with an obsessed air, as though saying “No.” (A sight almost as painful as that of the first yellow stars, during the German occupation; in any case, it appeared to be a sort of reply to that.)}

  Z and I go off to the Salacrous’ by bicycle; we are to meet Castor and Sorokine there. On the way, an enormous crowd, traffic diverted in spots. Place de la Concorde, enormous rose of a crowd covering the famous fountains written about in Fantomas. When we arrive at Lucienne’s, we quickly realize that we will see nothing: everything is going to take place on the side of the Arc de Triomphe facing the Champs-Elysées. On the rooftops, firemen armed with rifles, to spot possible snipers. Swarming crowd down below: regular troops, policemen in uniform (who are cheered as they parade past), trucks loaded with armed F.F.I. waving tricolored flags, etc. From time to time, a stretcher carried by two medical orderlies in white smocks crosses the square; these are most likely people who have fainted because of the excessively large crowd and who are being transported to a first-aid station. All that we perceive of the ceremony itself is the clamor of the crowd. We quickly decide to go back, thinking that, all things considered, we will see more by mingling with this crowd than by staying on a balcony so unfortunately situated. When we reach the corner of the avenue des Champs-Elysées and the rue de Presbourg, we decide to stop for a little while and wait for the crowd to become less dense so that it will be easier to move about walking our bicycles. Suddenly, shots ring out, and we see people begin to scatter. At first, we are very frightened that this will degenerate into a deadly panic, but happily nothing of the sort happens. Since the crowd is no longer too thick, there is no jostling. Following the stream, we go down the rue de Presbourg, then the rue Vernet on the left; Sorokine and Castor have gone off on their own. In the rue Vernet, we lay our bikes down on the ground and take cover, Z crouching behind a car, I lying prone along the wall, face to face with a gentleman lying prone like me. The rifle fire, at first fairly heavy, is soon sparser, and we concern ourselves with going back to the quai des Grands-Augustins. We manage this after a rather long time and after various delays and detours, because whereas we thought that once we left the main streets we would have no trouble, we see that people are firing desultorily everywhere, even in very small streets.

  Back in the house, from the balcony we see a soldier of the Leclerc division (or the Larminat?—because he is wearing a red garrison cap) performing elegant and perilous acrobatics on the roofs of the houses across the street as he chases—though without success—the rooftop snipers.

  Dinner at home with Waldberg, Sartre, Castor, Chavy (at whose house W spent the morning and whom we agreed he should invite). During the course of the evening, bombing, several blasts quite close: to our right, a big fire (involving, as we will find out the next day, the Halle-aux-Vins); we hear airplanes, we see flares. We all go down to the cellar. As I am about to cross the threshold of the apartment (waiting for Jeannette, who was in bed, had to dress and is lagging behind the others), a rather heavy strike from which I feel the wind, which reminds me unpleasantly of the bombing of Boulogne-Billancourt. Waldberg—who witnessed a few other raids in Normandy!—laughs to see us all go down into the cellar. Once we come back up, we continue talking for quite a long time in the darkness (while watching, from the dining room windows, the Halle-aux-Vins in flames), then separate.

  (Writing finished November 30)

  Addition to Friday the 25th.—Leaving our house with Moré on our way to his home, we encounter a German prisoner on the quai de la Mégisserie flanked by two F.F.I.: he walks peacefully, almost smiling, with the look of someone for whom it’s over at last. His two guards flank him, but are not holding him. Z and I notice that this prisoner is a pleasant exception: those we have seen up to now (especially the officers, pale with rage) never had this nonchalant bearing and offered no opening for the least possibility of fraternizing.

  December 7

  Have relapsed, with the coming of the Liberation, into my former depression. Must believe those who say that neurotics were in better health during the four years of the Occupation.

  1It was that day, I think, that the rumor went around that an agreement had been concluded according to which the retreat of the German armies would take place through the northwestern and northern outer boulevards.

  2On the way—along the rue de l’Universitié, I believe—we buy an issue of Temoignage chrétien, the first newspaper we see for sale.

  ***

  AFTERWORD

  The Instant of My Death

  Maurice Blanchot

  —Translated from French by Jeff Fort

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  THE FOLLOWING WORK WAS published in French in 1994 and this is its first appearance in English. It is, more than any other narrative work by Blanchot, an autobiographical text. This is clear from its many concrete historical references: Blanchot writes of himself as a young man, of his family, of the large house that remains standing in Burgundy and of historical events of World War II. There is no reason to believe that the experience it relates did not actually occur. Blanchot himself attests to this in a letter (cited by its recipient, Jacques Derrida, in Demeure, 1998), which begins: “20 July [1994]. Fifty years ago I had the good fortune [le bonheur] of almost being shot to death.” The autobiographical dimension of the story is nevertheless far from straightforward. Blanchot even seems to have deliberately signaled this by including certain inaccurate dates among those that he mentions: 1807 instead of 1809 (the facade) and 1806 (Napoleon). (This is pointed out both by Derrida and by Blanchot’s biographer, Christophe Bident.) These slight displacements mark the way in which this text, like the moment of bonheur at its center, hovers uncannily between literature and history, fiction and testimony.

  Blanchot’s career is marked by many shifts and ruptures, both political and aesthetic, involving the relation of writing to politics and history, and one of the most important of these occurred around the time at which this story takes place. Before the war, Blanchot wrote political essays for right-wing journals in which, from a nationalist and anti-German position, and with a shrill and incendiary style, he called for quick and radical solutions to France’s political problems. After the surrender of France in 1940, Blanchot, apparently disgusted and demoralized, turned away from any overtly political writing and concentrated on his novels and literary criticism, eventually withdrawing to the house depicted here. But this activity, too, was not without its compromises, for the critical writing appeared in a literary journal supported by the Vichy government and subject to German censorship, the Journal des débats, by whom Blanchot was paid for his work. (Some of these essays were collected in Faux Pas, published in 1943 by Gallimard.) At the same time, it is known that he had ties to the Resistance and helped transport Jews and others in danger across the border to Switzerland. (After the war, Blanchot’s political stance was decidedly leftist.) The following piece is heavily charged with many of the associations surrounding this complex wartime situation.

  There are two significant translation problems worth pointing out. First, “Le pas au-delà,” which means both “the step beyond” and, by a play on words, “the not beyond,” is the title of one of Blanchot’s previous books. Second, the final words of the text read: “… l’instant de ma mort, desormais toujours en instan
ce.” The phrase en instance carries a range of meanings which no English expression can cover. By itself, instance can mean “the site of administrative or juridical authority, the site of a judgment or verdict … such as a court of justice …, but also [in expressions with en instance] the imminence or the reprieve, the supplementary delay before the “thing” … that is just about to occur” (Derrida). It is the condition of waiting indefinitely for an event that is already well on its way. In a legal context, en instance can mean “pending,” but it can also be applied, for example, to a letter about to be posted. But instance can also mean “insistence,” one form of which I have chosen in order to maintain the literal association with “instant” (both derive from the Latin instare), and in order to underline the constant urgency of such an instant—which Blanchot, born in 1907 and now one of the last living authors of his generation, relates here, across a breach of fifty years, to his own impending death, and thus to all the writing in between.