I propose that he put the money into a slush fund, but he shakes his head no.
He asks where my file is.
I think of GABA (gamma hydroxybutyric acid), then of presynaptic excitation, which is — evidently — synaptic excitation, and of presynaptic inhibition.
(long feeling of strangeness upon waking)
No. 31: November 1970
The group
of what may have been a large countryside party, an opera full of twists and turns, there remains the image — static, almost petrified, insidiously upsetting — of a group: Four characters à la Watteau, two men, a woman, a man…….…
No. 32: November 1970
An evening at the theater
I was, with Z., at a public event that Aragon and Elsa Triolet were also attending. Elsa Triolet, a small and gentle woman, waved to me, which surprised me because we don’t know one another.
Later.
We are at the theater.
I am packed in right near the stage, just above the illuminated walkway. At one point one of the actors, who had been sitting with his back to the audience, rises and begins to count off time like a conductor. We hear music from backstage. First it’s just a harpsichord, then a whole orchestra. A character on the right begins to sing. It’s the end of the play. I am overwhelmed, even as I realize there’s nothing to it and wonder vaguely why I appear to be the only one at all moved.
The exit of the theater is mobbed.
I am with Z. at the top of the stairs. Elsa Triolet walks by below, toward another exit perpendicular to ours. Once again she tilts her head toward me. I tell Z.: “That’s Elsa Triolet.” Z. asks how small I was when I met her and tells me she’s going to introduce me to someone who knew me even smaller. But all of this is said in such a way that I can’t tell whether we’re talking about a woman or a man, and whether she really means “even smaller than I am.”
We go home.
My uncle, a bald man, is following us. I recognize him as Z.’s current lover. Walking in front of my uncle and somehow losing him, Z. brings me into a little dormitory, a dark room I identify as one of the annexes of the house in Dampierre.
We tumble down onto a bed. Z. presses against me, panting slightly, but I sense that she plans to rejoin my uncle and wants me to stay here. All told, she doesn’t seem entirely sure what she’s going to do. In any case, I tell her, I don’t feel like sleeping anywhere besides my room.
No. 33: November 1970
The esplanade
A cluster of cops in capes gathers on a large esplanade; not riot police, but rather policemen marking the perimeter for a celebrity to pass through.
I find myself surrounded by cops. I am naked, or only in my underwear, but the cops seem to find this normal.
At one point, I run.
I make it to a car with J. standing nearby. My clothes are on the ground, in the mud, filthy. I find a sock, but I can’t put it on.
We want to take the car (so I can change inside). In front, in the driver’s seat, there is an enormous turd; we wipe it away with a curtain.
Later, J. and I are driving. We are circling a movie theater. A huge animated advertisement announces an erotic film: two neon silhouettes, a man and a woman, in all sorts of positions (implying permutation and recurrence): man and woman on their backs, man on woman, woman on man, man and woman face down, etc.
No. 34: November 1970
The double apartment
There are many double houses and apartments, i.e. where two families live, separated by a common room. The L. family and P. and I share one. Marianne M. comes to see us. We go to meet her downstairs; she comes up in the elevator with a stranger who she tells me is her husband, but it’s no use trying to recognize him: I don’t.
A small bathroom: the toilet bowl is full of shit. I’m surprised, and a little relieved, that it doesn’t smell bad. While closing the lid, I get a bit of shit on my thumb. J. points me toward the sink. I have to rub for a long time before the stain goes away, then suddenly my hand turns black.
A small station, maybe in England.
P. and I have been here several times. There is an open-air newspaper kiosk. P. takes a newspaper and forgets to pay for it.
No. 35: December 1970
1
At the café
M.K. is visiting my apartment. She brings a glass of water from the shower to the kitchen and pours it on a black coffee table. The water spreads out without spilling over, making the surface of the table shine like an instant oil slick.
2
Dampierre. The guests are gathering in the dining room. Z. comes down, looking stunningly pretty. I lead her into a small room, narrow as a passageway. I tell her I’m going to leave her. She says:
“I’m still going to give you a”
(the noun escapes me: tribute, diploma, secret, tablet). She places a necklace around my neck.
3
I am in a bed with P. We’re actually in a café, with a fairly large number of people, but nobody is surprised to see us in bed, nor are we bothered by it. Still, I tell myself, it’s curious to make love in a café; even if we furl ourselves in the sheets as much as we can, you can still see the movement of the covers. Anyway, we begin a complicated gymnastics of undressing. It’s simple enough for me, but for P. it’s much trickier.
At one point she gets up and unhooks her bra. Her breasts are swollen and purple, spangled with stains, or rather with hematomata from exceptionally voracious suction, prolonged and repeated. I am jealous of the man who did this to her.
She rises, gets out of the bed wearing nothing but a transparent T-shirt, goes to put a record on the player and announces the song to the people in the café, then goes into a slightly more discreet corner, takes off her T-shirt and comes back to bed, hiding most of her breasts and privates with her arms and the bit of fabric.
Now someone serves us food on a long table alongside our bed, where two diners are already seated. They toss us a menu: appetizers, entrée and dessert. I order only a steak. They put in front of me a very strange dish, telling me it’s an appetizer, then that no, it’s a dessert for the diner at the end of the table. My steak arrives, but it looks terrible.
No. 36: December 1970
At the department store
I am in New York with P. We want to go to a department store whose roof we saw over the tops of some houses.
We’re in a car. I don’t know who’s driving. We have trouble orienting ourselves and eventually take one-way streets in the wrong direction.
We get to the department store and go into the elevator. The floors are indicated by a black needle on a circular dial, like on a pendulum. We arrive on the 10th floor, but the needle says it’s the 2cd.