La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams

No. 57: March 1971

The return

Since I left her, Z. has been living with two men whom she does not love but who are incredibly rich; one is an engineer and the other some sort of Maharajah who has engaged him to build a fabulous house.

I watch as the house is built.

I arrive at the bottom of a high white wall; it’s run through, fairly high overhead, with a large opening (future window or bay window) at the edge of which are two tilers, a man and a woman. I think I know them; in any case, they know me, because the woman asks me whether the third printing of Things has come out, then thanks me for having written that book, then tells me that, while we’re at it, there ought to be a translation for people who stutter. This idea amuses me greatly.

Meanwhile, with great difficulty, I’ve managed to climb up to the opening with the help of (in the absence of a ladder) a rather thin but extremely sturdy wooden frame, and with a painful maneuver I stand myself up at the edge of the room where the tilers are working. Though it’s forbidden to walk on freshly laid tiling (you move on little bridges made from planks and bricks), the tilers give me permission to enter the house. The tiling, which at first I think is the same as in the little house in Filagne, which is to say quadrangular, is hex- or octagonal; and the tiles vary in size, from minuscule to enormous, and the tilers’ very art consists in resolving the delicate (and impossible) topological problems created by this disparity.

I move forward — reciting to myself, laughing, the first few sentences of Things while stuttering — sinking imperceptibly (but with a very distinct sensation) into the fresh cement. Some tiles are elevated above others; at first I think they’re meant to be walked on, or that they’re accidents; then I understand that they’re decorative elements, like floating islands, like the rocks emerging from the sand of Zen gardens.

Memories of my life with the Maharajah begin to blur: I was the personal valet of the Maharajah, his right-hand man. I carried his briefcase and spent my time organizing it even though it contained nothing of importance. We had to leave for an official trip; the departure was scheduled for a certain time, but the Maharajah kept everyone hopelessly waiting. The Maharajah is a capricious man: he is never ready, he no longer wants to go, etc. I spend my time coming and going between my room and his apartments, and explaining his whims in nearly Racinian terms to a confidant. Once I went to beg him to go, not for my sake but for that of the soldiers in his escort, knights with chain-mail coats, one of whom stood trembling right before me. Furious, the Maharajah threw his glass of vodka in my face (or, more precisely, over my head, like in a baptismal aspersion), then shattered the glass while cursing at me. This didn’t bother me that much; what frustrated me most was that, all the way down the long hallway leading back to my room, the soldier whom I wanted so badly to help, and his wife (who was none other than P.), wouldn’t stop making fun of me.

Another time, on the other hand, the Maharajah awarded me a decoration. It was a rectangular silver plaque, roughly the size of a 10-franc bill, very complexly corrugated: you could imagine it divided into, say, twelve squares, alternately hollow and embossed; each hollow and each embossing divided in turn into twelve hollows and embossments, and so on …

Ultimately, the Maharajah’s hesitations had no consequence whatsoever. I thought it was six o’clock and that the departure had been irremediably compromised, but according to the big clock in my room it was only one p.m. Moreover, even later, I was in line at the métro station and it was only eleven a.m.

The line at the métro station was either to not buy a ticket or to buy a ticket out of the métro. Everyone found this grotesque, in any case. We could see, down below in the distance, train cars. On the left, at the bottom of a small iron staircase, were three doors; on the first nothing was written; on the second, something like CHORISTS’ ENTRANCE; on the third KITCHENS. My confidant told me, or rather reminded me (I had been informed shortly before) that the RATP served affordable meals, even free for those unable to pay, but in the latter case they served only a cheaper plate of just cold meat, and I concluded from this that no hot meals were available there.

Back to Z.’s house.

“Strange,” I tell myself, “usually she covers her floors uniformly, with stones or with a carpet; here she’s chosen an altogether different approach, doubtless under the influence of the Maharajah and his architects; true, she has a great deal of means at her disposal, whence these differently sized tiles, these large rocks emerging from the stones, this marvelous parquet of blond wood and the intricate pattern …”

Her room is a veritable sea of blue carpet. All the rooms where she normally lives have been reconstructed faithfully. I’m certain I will find my old room (haven’t I come to take a book — a man asleep — from my library?).

At the end of the corridor, I open a door and find two men, very tall, dressed in business clothes; they seem nervous to see me, almost afraid, and flee out the other side.

Another door. I am in a sort of dressing room. Z. appears, her back to me; she is naked; in passing she grabs a red bathrobe and disappears through a side door.

/ /

I tell Z. I’ve come to find a book. Where is my old library? She tells me it’s in her son’s place. I go to see her son; he is seated at his work table.

“How’s it going?”

“Fine!”

I don’t see my library, but I’m not even thinking about it anymore.

Walking in front of the two men, Z. and I prepare to leave the house. We are crossing the patio. It’s a very long room (the one I watched being built) whose sides are taken up by terraces and in which you move around on thin stone paths, on top of narrow canals filled with water. Lots of flowers. Tables with lots of people. Party ambiance. Hullabaloo. I hear things like

“Your party is, was a smashing success,”

then, more distinctly,

“Champagne and Perrier.”

Z. says a few words in English.

We go down rue Soufflot. We are walking, Z. and I, fairly far ahead of the two men. Z. can’t stop laughing:

“I was so sure you’d come, I didn’t even need to wait for you. You see, this morning nothing, the telephone didn’t even ring, and here you are!”

She seems perfectly reassured, ironic and mean. I realize I have no cigarettes with me. I spot a little tobacco shop on the right. I run over (across the street, I think). It’s a tiny room where they sell mostly haberdashery. There is a partially screened counter. Some young girls all dressed in red are crowded in front of the counter, no doubt schoolgirls or boarders. On the other side of the counter are two young women dressed the same way, and a few more schoolgirls.

I get impatient.

“I’d like filtered Gitanes and a box of matches.”

“We don’t have filtered Gitanes.”

I’m preparing to ask for different cigarettes when I see, on a shelf to the right, a whole bundle of random, unsorted packs of cigarettes, among them a pack of filtered Gitanes. I point to it. They give it to me. I pay and leave.

I look for Z., but she has disappeared along with the two men. A moment of despair, followed by an almost reassuring feeling of irrevocability. My error in seeing her again wasn’t so great, then, because now she’s disappeared once more. As is my habit, I tear off the translucent paper covering my pack of cigarettes. I then realize with anger that I’ve been sold not a pack of cigarettes but a large box of matches.

I walk down boulevard Saint-Michel on the right-hand sidewalk. It’s Friday. Though it’s only 4 p.m. it is dark, or almost dark. I decide to call M., though I am convinced it will be useless. I go into a tobacco shop. I wait in front of the register. The customer in front of me leaves holding a newspaper that had been covering half of the newsman’s counter. I find a five-centime piece, go to put it in my pocket, and instead give it to the newsman (an old man), who commends me for my honesty. I give him a ten-franc bill and ask for a pack of filtered Gitanes and a box of matches, or 2.10 francs. But he makes several mistakes while trying to give me my change.

Ultimately, I have to do as follows:

ask him for a pack of cigarettes, or 2 francs, with a 10-franc bill. He’ll give me 8 back;

give him a 1-franc coin and ask for a box of matches, or 10 centimes, so that he gives me back 90 centimes.

But it’s not even clear that this transaction will work.