The Elementary Particles (17 page)

“ ‘So, what are we going to do?’

“ ‘I don’t know. You could publish it.’

“ ‘Publish it in
L’Infini
?’ He burst out laughing, as though I’d just told a really good joke. ‘I don’t think you realize what you’re suggesting, my good man . . . You might have got away with it in Céline’s day. These days, there are some subjects about which you can’t just write anything you feel like. Something like this could make life really difficult for me. You think I don’t have enough problems? You think that because I’m at Gallimard I can do what I like? People keep an eye on me, you know. They’re just waiting for me to make a mistake. No, no—it would be too difficult. Haven’t you got anything else?’

“He seemed really surprised that I hadn’t brought another piece with me. I was sorry to disappoint him; I really wanted to be his
good man,
I wanted him to take me dancing and buy me whiskey at the Pont-Royal. Outside, on the sidewalk, I felt a pang of despair. It was late afternoon, the weather was warm, women walked past me along the boulevard Saint-Germain, and I understood that I’d never be a writer, but I also understood that I didn’t care. But what was I going to do? I was already spending half my salary on sex; I couldn’t believe that Anne hadn’t figured out something was wrong by now. I could have joined the National Front—but why bother getting into bed with those stupid assholes? In any case, there aren’t any women on the far right, or if there are, they only fuck paratroopers. My article was crazy—I threw it into the first trash can I saw. I had to stick to my ‘liberal humanist’ position; I knew in my heart it was my only chance of getting laid. I sat on the terrace at the Escurial. My penis was hot, swollen and aching. I had a couple of beers and then walked back to the apartment. As I was crossing the river, I remembered Adjila. She was a pretty little Arab girl in the
seconde
. Good student, serious, a class ahead of her age. She had an intelligent, sensitive face, not at all cynical. She really wanted to make something of herself—you could tell. A lot of girls like that live with thugs and murderers, so all you have to do is show them a little kindness. Again, I started to believe it was possible. For the next two weeks, I talked to her often and called her up to the blackboard. She responded to my glances, she didn’t seem to think anything was up. I didn’t have much time, it was June already. When she walked back to her desk, I could see her little ass in her tight jeans. I liked her so much I stopped visiting prostitutes. I’d imagine sliding my cock into her long, soft black hair; I even jerked off over her homework once.

“On Wednesday 11 June she turned up in a little black skirt. Class would be over at six. She was sitting in the front row. When she crossed her legs under her desk I thought I’d pass out. She was sitting beside a fat blonde who ran off as soon as the bell rang. I went over and put a hand on her books. She just sat there, and didn’t seem to be in any hurry. All the other kids left and the classroom was quiet again. Holding her exercise book in my hand, I could make out a word or two:
Remember . . . hell . . .
I sat next to her and put the book down on the desk, but I couldn’t manage to say anything to her. We sat there in silence for more than a minute. I stared into her big black eyes, but I was aware of every little movement of her body, the rise and fall of her breasts. She had turned halfway toward me and then she parted her legs. I don’t remember doing what I did next—I think it was half-involuntary—but the next thing I knew I felt her thigh against the palm of my left hand, then it’s all a blur. I remembered Caroline Yessayan and froze with shame. I had made the same mistake—twenty years later, I had made the same mistake. Just like Caroline Yessayan twenty years earlier, she did nothing for a second; she blushed a little. Then, very gently, she moved my hand away, but she didn’t get up, didn’t make any move to leave. Through the bars on the windows I could see a girl in the playground racing off to the station. With my right hand I opened my fly. Her eyes widened and she looked at my penis. Her eyes on me felt like hot vibrations—I nearly came just from her watching me, but I knew that she had to actually do something if this were to be mutual. I moved my right hand toward hers but couldn’t go through with it; imploringly, I took my cock in my hand as if to offer it to her. She burst out laughing; I think I laughed, too, as I started to masturbate. I went on laughing and jerking off as she got her things together, as she got up to leave. When she got to the door, she turned around and looked at me one last time; I ejaculated, then everything went black. I heard the door close and her footsteps dying away. I was stunned, as though I’d been struck like a gong. Still, I managed to phone Azoulay from the station. I don’t remember the train back to Paris, or the metro; Azoulay saw me at eight. I couldn’t stop shaking, and he had to give me an injection to calm me down.

“I spent three days in Saint Anne’s and then they transferred me to a Ministry of Education psychiatric clinic at Verrières-le-Buisson. Azoulay was clearly worried. There was a lot of stuff about pedophilia in the papers that year, as if journalists had put the word out to “come down hard on pedophiles.” It was starting to become a national obsession, all because they hated old people and loathed old age. The girl was fifteen, I was a teacher, I’d abused a position of authority and, to make matters worse, she was an Arab. His file on me could’ve got me fired—and probably lynched. After a couple of weeks he began to calm down; the term was almost over, and it was clear that Adjila hadn’t said anything. I was back to being a typical case: depressed teacher, a bit suicidal, needs to rebuild his psyche . . . The odd thing is that the Lycée de Meaux wasn’t a particularly
tough
school, but he made a big deal of the traumas I’d suffered there as a child, how going back there had brought them back—he did a pretty good job.

“I was in the clinic for about six months; my father came to see me several times, seeming more tired, more considerate. I was so out of it on neuroleptics that I didn’t have any sex drive at all, but sometimes one of the nurses would take me in her arms. I’d press myself against her and stay there, not moving, for a minute or two, then I’d lie down again. It seemed to do me so much good that the chief psychiatrist suggested they continue, if they had no problem with it. Though he suspected that Azoulay hadn’t told him everything, he had cases a lot more serious than mine—schizophrenics and dangerous psychotics—so he didn’t have time to bother with me. As long as I had a doctor treating me, that was enough.

“Of course there was no way I could go back to teaching, but in 1991 the ministry found me a job with the Department of French Curricula. I’d forfeited my teacher’s schedule, and school holidays, but I was paid the same salary. I divorced Anne soon afterward. We worked out a pretty standard formula for maintenance and custody; actually, the lawyers don’t give you much choice, it’s pretty much a boilerplate contract. When we got to the head of the line, the judge read through everything at top speed and the divorce only took about fifteen minutes. We walked out together onto the steps of the Palais de Justice just after noon. It was early in March; I had just turned thirty-five. I knew that the first chapter of my life was over.”

Bruno stopped talking. It was completely dark; neither of them had dressed. He looked up at her. Christiane did something surprising: she leaned close, put her arm around his neck and kissed him on both cheeks.

“The next few years, life went on as normal,” Bruno continued softly. “I had a hair transplant, which took pretty well—the doctor was a friend of my father’s. I kept going to the gym. I tried taking vacations with Nouvelles Frontières, I tried Club Med again and that outdoorsy outfit, UCPA. I had a couple of flings, though not many; women my age aren’t really into sex anymore. Of course they pretend they are, and some of them are looking for feelings they once had—passion or desire or something like that—but there was no way I could provide that. I never met a woman like you before. I never even dared to hope that a woman like you could exist.”

“We need . . .” she said haltingly, “we need a little generosity. Someone has to start. If I’d been in that Arab girl’s place, I don’t know how I would have reacted. But I believe there was something genuine about you even then. I think . . . well, I hope I would’ve consented to give you pleasure.” She lay down again, put her head on his thigh and licked the tip of his penis once or twice. “I’d like to get something to eat,” she said suddenly. “It’s two in the morning, but there must be somewhere in Paris we can go, no?”

“Of course.”

“Do you want me to make you come first, or do you want a hand-job in the taxi?”

“No, now.”

15

THE MACMILLAN HYPOTHESIS

They took a taxi to Les Halles and ate in an all-night brasserie. Bruno had pickled herring as a first course. Now, he thought, anything is possible. Almost immediately he realized he was wrong, though the possibilities were endless in his imagination: he could imagine himself a sewer rat, a saltcellar or a field of pure energy, but in reality his body was in a slow process of decay; Christiane’s body was too. Despite the nights they spent together, each remained trapped in individual consciousness and separate flesh. Pickled herring was clearly not the solution, but then again, had he chosen sea bass with fennel it would’ve been no different. Christiane was mysteriously, obscurely silent. They shared a
choucroute royale
with traditional Montbéliard sausages. In the pleasantly relaxed state of a man who has just been brought lovingly, sensually to orgasm, Bruno had a fleeting idea. It was a professional preoccupation: what role should Paul Valéry play in the French language instruction of the scientific disciplines? By the time he finished his
choucroute
and ordered some cheese, he was tempted to answer “None.”

“I’m useless,” he said resignedly. “I couldn’t breed pigs, I don’t have the faintest idea how to make sausages or forks or mobile phones. I’m surrounded by all this stuff that I eat or use and I couldn’t actually make a single thing—couldn’t even begin to understand how they’re made. If industrial production ceased tomorrow, if all the engineers and the specialist technicians disappeared off the face of the earth, I couldn’t do anything to start things over again. In fact, outside the industrialized world, I couldn’t even survive; I wouldn’t know how to feed or clothe myself, or protect myself from the weather. My technical competence falls far short of Neanderthal man. I’m completely dependent on my society, but I play no useful role in it. The only thing I know how to do is write dubious commentaries on outdated cultural issues. I get paid for it, too, well paid—much more than the average wage. Most of the people I know are exactly the same. In fact, the only useful person I know is my brother.”

“What has he done that’s so extraordinary?”

Bruno thought for a moment, toying with the cheese on his plate, trying to formulate a suitably impressive response.

“He invented a new cow. That’s a simplistic way of putting it, but I do know that his research led to the development of genetically modified cows which produce more milk which is of higher nutritional value. He changed the world. I’ve never done anything, never invented anything—I’ve contributed nothing to the world.”

“You’ve done no harm . . .” Christiane’s face darkened, and she finished her ice cream quickly. In July 1976 she had spent a fortnight at di Meola’s estate in Ventoux, where Bruno had been the previous year with Michel and Annabelle. When she mentioned this, they were both struck by the coincidence, but at once she felt a terrible regret. If they had met there in 1976, when he was twenty and she was sixteen, how different their lives could have been. This, she thought, was the first sign that she was falling in love.

“Well, I suppose it’s a coincidence,” Christiane said, “but it’s not so strange. My idiotic parents were part of the same liberal, vaguely beatnik movement as your mom was in the late fifties. They probably knew each other, though I’d rather not know one way or the other. I have nothing but contempt for them, in fact I hate them. They’re evil—everything they’ve done is evil, and believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I remember the summer of ’76 very well. Di Meola died about two weeks after I got there; he had an advanced cancer and didn’t seem to be interested in anything much anymore. That didn’t stop him from trying something with me—I was quite pretty back then—but he didn’t push it, I think by then he was really in pain. For twenty years he’d been playing the wise old sage—using spiritual initiation to try and bed girls. At least he was consistent right up to the end. Two weeks after I got there, he took poison, something mild that took hours to work, and then asked to see everyone on the estate one by one—a private audience, very ‘death of Socrates.’ In fact, he was going on about Plato and the Upanishads and Lao-tzu—the usual suspects. He talked a lot about Aldous Huxley—he said he knew him—and about the time they’d spent together. I think he embroidered it a little, though I suppose the man was dying. When my turn came I was very moved, but he just asked me to unbutton my blouse. He looked at my breasts and he tried to say something I couldn’t make out—he was having trouble speaking by then. Suddenly he sat up in his chair and reached out to touch my breasts. I didn’t stop him. He put his face between my breasts for a minute and then fell back in the chair. His hands were shaking. He nodded for me to go. I couldn’t see any sign of spiritual initiation or wisdom in his face; the only thing I could see in his eyes was fear.

“He died at nightfall. He’d asked for a funeral pyre to be built up on the hill. We all collected branches and then the ceremony began. His son David lit the fire, a strange glint in his eyes. I didn’t know him really, just knew that he played in a rock band. The guys he was with looked dangerous—American bikers with tattoos, dressed in leather. I’d gone there with a girlfriend, and that night we didn’t feel particularly secure.

“Some tom-tom players sat in front of the fire and began to play a slow, funereal beat. Everyone started to dance. The fire was really hot and everyone started to take off their clothes. Usually at a cremation there’s sandalwood and incense; all we had was branches we’d picked up in the forest and probably some local herbs: thyme, rosemary, savory. After about half an hour it smelled just like a barbecue. It was one of David’s friends who pointed that out—a big guy in a leather vest, with long, greasy hair and a couple of front teeth missing. Another guy, who looked a little like a hippie, explained that, in many primitive societies, eating the body of the dead chief was a rite of great spiritual communion. The guy with the teeth nodded and laughed. David went over and said something to them. He had taken all his clothes off. The gleam of the firelight on his body was magnificent; I think he probably lifted weights. I thought that things were likely to degenerate, so I hurried off to go to bed.

“Shortly afterward, a storm broke. I don’t know why I got up again, but I went back to the fire. There were still thirty or so of them dancing naked in the rain. Some guy grabbed me roughly by the shoulders, dragged me to the pyre and forced me to look at what was left of the body. You could see the skull, the eye sockets. The flesh hadn’t burned completely, and there was some of it on the ground mixed with the dirt like a puddle of mud. I started screaming and the guy let go of me. I ran off. My girlfriend and I left the next day. I never heard anything about the place again.”

“You didn’t see the article in
Paris Match
?”

“No . . .” Christiane looked surprised. Bruno stopped and ordered two coffees before going on. Over the years he had developed a cynical, hard-bitten, typically masculine view of life. The universe was a battle zone, teeming and bestial, the whole thing enclosed within a hard, fixed landscape—clearly perceptible, but inaccessible: the landscape of the moral law. It was written, however, that love contains and perfects this law. Christiane looked at him tenderly, attentively; her eyes were a little tired.

“It’s a really disgusting story,” Bruno went on wearily. “Actually, I’m surprised the papers didn’t make more of it at the time. Anyway, it was five years ago, satanic abuse was still a novelty in Europe. The trial was in Los Angeles and David di Meola was one of the twelve accused—I recognized the name immediately—and one of the two who had managed to escape. According to the article, he was probably in hiding in Brazil. The charges against him were damning. They’d found hundreds of videos of murder and torture at his house, all neatly labeled and classified. You could see his face in some of them. The video they showed the jury was of the ordeal of an old woman, Mary McNallahan, with her granddaughter, an infant. Di Meola dismembered the baby in front of the grandmother with a pair of clippers, then ripped out one of the old woman’s eyes with his fingers and masturbated into the bleeding socket. He had a remote control for the camera in his other hand and used it to zoom right in on her face. She was crouched on the floor, manacled to the wall in what looked like a garage. At the end of the film she was lying in her own excrement. The video was three quarters of an hour long, but the police were the only ones to see it all—the jury asked for it to be turned off after ten minutes.

“The article in
Paris Match
was basically just the translation of an interview that the district attorney, David Macmillan, had given in
Newsweek
. According to him, it was not just a group of young men on trial but society as a whole; he believed that the case was symptomatic of America’s social and moral decay since the late 1950s. On more than one occasion the judge had instructed him to stick to the facts of the case; he thought the parallels Macmillan was drawing with the Manson family were spurious, especially as di Meola was the only one for whom they could establish a vague connection to the beatnik or hippie scene.

“The following year Macmillan published a book called
From Lust to Murder: A Generation,
translated into French as
Génération meurtre
. The book shocked me; I was expecting the usual right-wing fundamentalist rant about the return of the Antichrist and how there should be prayer in school. In fact, it was a precise, well-documented book which examined a number of cases. Macmillan was particularly interested in David di Meola and had done a lot of research to put together a full biography.

“Just after the death of his father in September 1976, David had sold the seventy-five-acre estate and bought a lot of property in old buildings in Paris. He lived in a big studio on the rue Visconti, and he had the rest renovated to be rented out. He divided up the old apartments; the
chambres de bonne
were knocked together and kitchenettes and showers added. When the work was done, he had about twenty studio apartments, which would themselves guarantee him a comfortable income. He hadn’t given up on the idea of being a rock star and thought that maybe in Paris he might get the break he’d been looking for. But he was already twenty-six. He took two years off his age before touring the record studios; all he had to do was tell them he was twenty-four—no one ever checked. Brian Jones had the same idea long before. Once, at a party in Cannes—according to Macmillan’s witnesses—David had run into Mick Jagger and recoiled as though he’d come face to face with a cobra. Jagger was
the
biggest rock star in the world: rich, adored, cynical—he was everything David longed to be. To be so seductive, he had to personify evil, to be its perfect embodiment—and what the masses adored above everything was the image of evil unpunished. Only once had Jagger’s power been threatened, a clash of egos within the group—with Brian Jones. But the problem had been resolved in Brian Jones’s swimming pool. Though it wasn’t the official version, David
knew
Jagger had pushed Brian into the pool; he could see it happening. It was this original murder which made him leader of the greatest rock band in the world. David was convinced that man’s greatest achievements were based on murder, and by the end of 1976 he was ready to push as many people as he had to into as many swimming pools as he could find in order to succeed. In the years that followed he only managed to appear as a session bassist on a couple of records—none of which was at all successful. On the other hand, women continued to find him attractive. Sexually, he became more demanding. He got used to sleeping with two women at a time—preferably a blonde and a brunette. Most of them agreed because he was exceptionally handsome, with a strong, virile, almost animal beauty. He was proud of his long, thick phallus and his big, hairy balls. He became less and less interested in penetration, but he still got off on watching a girl get on her knees to suck his cock.

“Early in 1981 he met a California guy visiting Paris and looking for bands to put together a heavy-metal tribute album to Charles Manson. He decided to go for it. He sold the studio apartments—which had quadrupled in price—and moved to Los Angeles. He was thirty-one now; officially he was twenty-nine, but even that was too old. Before meeting the American producers, he decided to lose another three years. Physically, he could easily pass for twenty-six.

“Production was delayed, and from his prison cell Manson demanded huge sums for the rights. David took up jogging and began to hang out with Satanist groups. California had always had more than its fair share of Satanists, from the very first ones—the First Church of Satan was founded by Anton La Vey in Los Angeles in 1966, and the Process Church of the Final Judgment was founded in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in 1967. These sects still existed, and David sought them out. Most of them just indulged in ritualistic orgies with the occasional animal sacrifice thrown in, but through them he was able to get in touch with more secretive and extreme groups. Notably, he got in touch with John di Giorno, a surgeon who organized ‘abortion parties.’ After the procedure, the fetus was ground up and kneaded into bread dough to be shared among the communicants. David quickly realized that the most advanced Satanists didn’t believe in Satan at all. Like him, they were pure materialists who quickly abandoned all the ritualistic kitsch of pentagrams, candles and long black robes, trappings which were mostly there to help initiates overcome their moral inhibitions. In 1983 he took part in his first ritual murder—a Puerto Rican baby. While he castrated the baby using a serrated knife, John di Giorno ripped out and ate the eyeballs.

“By now David had more or less given up on the rock star dream, though he still felt a twinge whenever he saw Mick Jagger on MTV. The
Tribute to Charles Manson
had gone belly-up, and though he pretended to be twenty-eight, he was actually five years older and beginning to feel too old. In his fantasies of domination and power, he began to identify with Napoleon. He admired this man who had rained fire and blood upon Europe and killed hundreds of thousands of people without even a fig leaf of ideology, faith or political conviction. Unlike Hitler, unlike Stalin, the only thing Napoleon believed in was himself. He had succeeded in establishing a radical separation between himself and the rest of the world, and considered others mere tools in the service of his imperious will. Thinking about his distant Genoese origins, David imagined that he was related to the dictator who, walking through a battlefield at dawn and surveying the thousands of mutilated and eviscerated corpses, said nonchalantly: ‘Bah! One night in Paris will replace these men.’