I’ll be spared from being ridiculous because I remember at least one evening that was truly unforgettable. A night in Marguerite Duras’s house. A lively get-together, with many guests; I felt like I was in a film, as if I were in the reception room of the French vice-consul’s house in Calcutta, since the music playing on the record player was the soundtrack to
India Song
composed by Carlos d’Alessio.
Among the guests, there was a young actress, with a face of absolute beauty, an actress not yet famous but who would be before long, a girl named Isabelle Adjani. She had just filmed
L’Histoire d’Adèle H
with Truffaut, but the film hadn’t been released yet and on that day she wasn’t yet a famous actress. I thought I could grow to like her more than my platonic love, more than Martine Simonet herself. But I didn’t dare say a word to her the whole of that long evening. In fact, I barely spoke during the entire party, which was carried along, very animatedly, by Dyonis Mascolo, Edgar Morin (who sang several songs by Joan Manuel Serrat), and Duras. I spent the whole night naively waiting for Adjani to fall in love with me. And only at the end of the party, since this hadn’t happened, did I resort to alcohol so I could dare say something; I drank three glasses of cognac in a row and finally, taking advantage of a brief lull in the general conversation, I said that if I were a film director I’d immediately hire Isabelle. I said it like someone writing a love letter, a ridiculous love letter. Then, after the huge effort this took for me, I sank back deep into the sofa. The ceiling fan spun, but as slowly as in a nightmare. Everyone looked at me and laughed thinking I’d spoken ironically, as everyone, except me, knew that she’d just finished filming with Truffaut. I didn’t get it, I thought my brief intervention had gone down rather well, and then, with the help of the fourth cognac, I dared to look Adjani straight in the eye, trying to look at her as steadily and profoundly as possible.
At that moment, an ill-timed fly landed on my left eye and, having to swat it away, I looked away from her. Annoyed, I thought flies were always sticking their noses in where they weren’t wanted. When I resumed my steady and profound gaze, I discovered at that precise instant Adjani was giving me a look as icy as it was terrifying. I was disabled for the rest of that unforgettable evening, as I saw with total clarity and horror that if those eyes could kill, not a soul would be left alive. But every cloud has a silver lining. I realized that, as compensation, I’d found the femme fatale for my book. Now I knew exactly what sort of look my
lettered assassin
would have.
“Thanks for being so gallant,” Adjani said sarcastically. And everyone laughed a lot, as if they found it funny that the nightmarish ceiling fan was turning even more slowly.
42
Among the contributions drugs made to the construction of
The Lettered Assassin
, three stand out above the rest: 1) Grand questions about whether the visual reality accepted by common sense has anything to do with true reality. 2) The discovery of my taste for simulation and transvestism. That unforgettable, dangerous day in the Café Blaise, after the incident with Kikí, I walked home to my
chambre
, and once I was in it, many hours before I returned to normality and to reality, I realized I felt very bad about my body and also my bourgeois, corseted way of dressing and began to change my clothes frenetically, searching the mirror for a different presence from the usual one; I ended up dressed as Hemingway in his female version, that is, I dressed up as a little boy with a girl’s blonde ringlets, just as Hemingway’s mother dressed him when he was little, in pink gingham with a flowery hat, a look, by the way, that has always made me think that Ernest’s entire virile-literary career can be read as an extreme reaction to the image of the effeminate mommy’s boy. 3)
India Song
composed by Carlos d’Alessio.
Among the guests, there was a young actress, with a face of absolute beauty, an actress not yet famous but who would be before long, a girl named Isabelle Adjani. She had just filmed
L’Histoire d’Adèle H
with Truffaut, but the film hadn’t been released yet and on that day she wasn’t yet a famous actress. I thought I could grow to like her more than my platonic love, more than Martine Simonet herself. But I didn’t dare say a word to her the whole of that long evening. In fact, I barely spoke during the entire party, which was carried along, very animatedly, by Dyonis Mascolo, Edgar Morin (who sang several songs by Joan Manuel Serrat), and Duras. I spent the whole night naively waiting for Adjani to fall in love with me. And only at the end of the party, since this hadn’t happened, did I resort to alcohol so I could dare say something; I drank three glasses of cognac in a row and finally, taking advantage of a brief lull in the general conversation, I said that if I were a film director I’d immediately hire Isabelle. I said it like someone writing a love letter, a ridiculous love letter. Then, after the huge effort this took for me, I sank back deep into the sofa. The ceiling fan spun, but as slowly as in a nightmare. Everyone looked at me and laughed thinking I’d spoken ironically, as everyone, except me, knew that she’d just finished filming with Truffaut. I didn’t get it, I thought my brief intervention had gone down rather well, and then, with the help of the fourth cognac, I dared to look Adjani straight in the eye, trying to look at her as steadily and profoundly as possible.
At that moment, an ill-timed fly landed on my left eye and, having to swat it away, I looked away from her. Annoyed, I thought flies were always sticking their noses in where they weren’t wanted. When I resumed my steady and profound gaze, I discovered at that precise instant Adjani was giving me a look as icy as it was terrifying. I was disabled for the rest of that unforgettable evening, as I saw with total clarity and horror that if those eyes could kill, not a soul would be left alive. But every cloud has a silver lining. I realized that, as compensation, I’d found the femme fatale for my book. Now I knew exactly what sort of look my
lettered assassin
would have.
“Thanks for being so gallant,” Adjani said sarcastically. And everyone laughed a lot, as if they found it funny that the nightmarish ceiling fan was turning even more slowly.
42
Among the contributions drugs made to the construction of
The Lettered Assassin
, three stand out above the rest: 1) Grand questions about whether the visual reality accepted by common sense has anything to do with true reality. 2) The discovery of my taste for simulation and transvestism. That unforgettable, dangerous day in the Café Blaise, after the incident with Kikí, I walked home to my
chambre
, and once I was in it, many hours before I returned to normality and to reality, I realized I felt very bad about my body and also my bourgeois, corseted way of dressing and began to change my clothes frenetically, searching the mirror for a different presence from the usual one; I ended up dressed as Hemingway in his female version, that is, I dressed up as a little boy with a girl’s blonde ringlets, just as Hemingway’s mother dressed him when he was little, in pink gingham with a flowery hat, a look, by the way, that has always made me think that Ernest’s entire virile-literary career can be read as an extreme reaction to the image of the effeminate mommy’s boy. 3)
Similar Books
