In an aside in La Place de l’Étoile — a novel steeped in French literature, by the way, for all its modernity — Modiano facetiously lists the clothes to wear and the ambience to arrange in order to read certain classics of the French literary canon there by enhancing the experience. You don’t need to put on your beads and flares and listen to Françoise Hardy to relish The Occupation Trilogy fully, but curiously and most unusually — usually it’s the other way round — your reading of these remarkable and seminal novels will be immeasurably enhanced by a viewing of Lacombe, Lucien, before or after.
William Boyd
London, June 2015
LA PLACE DE L’ÉTOILE
For Rudy Modiano
In June 1942, a German officer approaches a young man and says, ‘Excuse me, monsieur, where is the Place de l’Étoile?’
The young man gestures to the left side of his chest.
I
This was back when I was frittering away my Venezuelan inheritance. Some talked of nothing but my beautiful youth and my black curls, others called me every name under the sun. Rereading an article about me written by Léon Rabatête in a special edition of Ici la France: ‘. . how long do we have to suffer the antics of Raphäel Schlemilovitch? How long can this Jew brazenly flaunt his neuroses and his paroxysms with impunity from le Touquet to Cap d’Antibes, from le Baule to Aix-les-Bains? Once again, I ask: how long can dagos of his ilk be allowed to insult the sons of France? How long must we go on washing our hands of this Jewish scum. .?’ Writing about me in the same newspaper, Doctor Bardamu spluttered: ‘. . Schlemilovitch?. . Ah, the foul-smelling mould of the ghettos!. . that shithouse lothario!. . runt of a foreskin!. . Lebano-ganaque scumbag!. . rat-a-tat. . wham!. . Consider this the Yiddish gigolo. . this rampant arsefucker of Aryan girls!. . this brazenly Negroid abortion!. . frenzied Abyssinian young nabob!. . Help!. . La-di-da-di-da!. . rip his guts out. . hack his balls off!. . Preserve the Doctor from this spectacle!. . in the name of God, crucify him!. . this foreign trash with his filthy cocktails. . this Jewboy with his international palaces!. . his orgies made in Haifa!. . Cannes!. . Davos!. . Capri e tutti quanti!. . vast devoutly Hebrew brothels!. . Preserve us from this circumcised fop!. . from his salmon-pink Maserati!. . his Sea of Galilee yachts!. . his Sinai neckties!. . may his Aryan slave girls rip off his prick!. . with their perfect French teeth. . their delicate little hands. . gorge out his eyes!. . death to the Caliph!. . Revolution in the Christian harem!. . Quick!. . Quick!. . refuse to lick his balls!. . to pander to him for his dollars!. . Free yourselves!. . stay strong, Madelon!. . otherwise you’ll have the Doctor sobbing!. . wasting away!. . oh hideous injustice!. . It’s a plot by the Sanhedrin!. . They want the Doctor dead!. . take my word for it!. . the Israelite Central Consistory!. . the Rothschild Bank!. . Cahen d’Anvers!. . Schlemilovitch!. . help Doctor Bardamu, my little girls!. . save me!. .’
The Doctor never did forgive me for the copy of Bardamu Unmasked I sent him from Capri. In the essay, I revealed the sense of wonder I felt when, as a Jewish boy of fourteen, I read The Journey of Bardamu and The Childhood of Louis-Ferdinand in a single sitting. Nor did I shrug off the author’s anti-Semitic pamphlets as good Christian souls do. Concerning them, I wrote: ‘Doctor Bardamu devotes considerable space in his work to the Jewish Question. This is hardly surprising: Doctor Bardamu is one of us; he is the greatest Jewish writer of all time. This is why he speaks of his fellow Jews with passion. In his purely fictional works, Dr Bardamu reminds us of our Race brother Charlie Chaplin in his taste for poignant details, his touching, persecuted characters. . Dr Bardamu’s sentences are even more “Jewish” than the rococo prose of Marcel Proust: a plaintive, tearful melody, a little showy, a tad histrionic. .’ I concluded: ‘Only the Jews can truly understand one of their own, only a Jew can speak perceptively about Dr Bardamu.’ By way of response, the doctor sent me an insulting letter: according to him, with my orgies and my millions I was orchestrating the global Jewish conspiracy. I also sent him my Psychoanalysis of Dreyfus in which I categorically affirmed his guilt; a novel idea coming from a Jew. I elaborated the following theory: Alfred Dreyfus passionately loved the France of Saint Louis, of Joan of Arc, of Les Chouans. But France, for her part, wanted nothing to do with the Jew Dreyfus. And so he betrayed her, as a man might avenge himself on a scornful woman with spurs fashioned like fleurs-de-lis. Barrès, Zola and Deroulède knew nothing of such doomed love.
Such an analysis no doubt disconcerted the doctor. I never heard from him again.
The paroxysms of Rabatête and Bardamu were drowned out by the praise heaped upon me by society columnists. Most of them cited Valery Larbaud and Scott Fitzgerald: I was compared to Barnabooth, I was dubbed ‘The Young Gatsby’. In magazine photographs, I was invariably shown with my head tilted slightly, gazing towards the horizon. In the columns of the romance magazines, my melancholy was legendary. To the journalist who buttonholed me on the steps of the Carlton, the Normandy or the Miramar, I ceaseless proclaimed my Jewishness. In fact, my actions ran counter to the virtues cultivated by the French: discretion, thrift, work. From my oriental forebears, I inherited my dark eyes, a taste of exhibitionism and luxury, an incurable indolence. I am not a son of France. I never knew a life of grandmothers who made jam, of family portraits and catechism. And yet, I constantly dream of provincial childhoods. My childhood is peopled by English governesses and unfolds on beaches of dubious repute: in Deauville, Miss Evelyn holds my hand. Maman neglects me in favour of polo players. She kisses me goodnight when I am in bed, but sometimes she does not take the trouble. And so, I wait for her, I no longer listen to Miss Evelyn and the adventures of David Copperfield. Every morning, Miss Evelyn takes me to the Pony Club. Here I take my riding lessons. To make maman happy, I will be the most famous polo player in the world. The little French boys know all the football teams. I think only of polo. I whisper to myself the magic words, ‘Laversine’, ‘Cibao-La Pampa’, ‘Silver Leys’, ‘Porfirio Rubirosa’. At the Pony Club, I am often photographed with the young princess Laïla, my fiancée. In the afternoons, Miss Evelyn takes us to La Marquise de Sevigné for chocolate umbrellas. Laïla prefers lollipops. The ones at La Marquise de Sevigné are oblong and have a pretty stick.
Sometimes I manage to give Miss Evelyn the slip when she takes me to the beach, but she knows where to find me: with ex-king Firouz or Baron Truffaldine, two grown-ups who are friends of mine. Ex-king Firouz buys me pistachio sorbets and gushes: ‘You have a sweet tooth like myself, my little Raphaël!’ Baron Truffaldine is always alone and sad at the Bar au Soleil. I walk up to his table and stand in front of him. The old man launches into interminable anecdotes featuring characters called Cléo de Merode, Otéro, Émilienne d’Alencon, Liane de Pougy, Odette de Crécy. Fairies probably, like the ones in the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.