La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams (11 page)

I live in the annex of a hotel. It serves as a prison as well. A group of prisoners (whose arrest, it seems to me now, I also witnessed) arrives. The henchmen are almost entirely shut up in these shiny metal shackles that bind them like clothes or masks. There is also a man whose neck is held in a leather and steel “platen,” which is actually an instrument of torture. Besides this man, the henchmen are a wolfhound (also wrapped in irons) and a woman. The head of the gang is dressed in a habit.

The jailor’s daughter shuts one of the prisoners in a room that’s next to mine but a bit beneath it. I run into her as she’s coming back up after double-locking the door. Our eyes meet and we smile at one another. I invite her to have a drink and she accepts eagerly.

We’re on a fairly huge esplanade. We’re looking for a bar. There is one, a very narrow one, all the way up (the next-to-last house on the plaza), but we find it ugly (or bad).

F. passes by. We shake hands. I tell him I was waiting for him to visit later. He reminds me that we were supposed to have dinner, and leaves.

The jailor’s daughter is surprised by all the money sticking out of my breast pocket. I tell her that I played, that I won several thousand francs and that I am relieved of the financial troubles that had been dogging me for some time.

We wander through various streets. We remember that there is a pub at the end of rue de Boulainvilliers. I think, “in petto,” that there should also be one on rue des Vignes, on the plaza of the “Ranelagh” cinema.

We go down the rue Raynouard. We’re in a car and I’m driving. I’m not really driving: I have stopped the motor and the car is following the slope, which is also getting steeper and steeper. Far in front of us, there’s a bicycle hurtling downhill alone and, farther still, a car that we recognize as belonging to Harry M. (but there’s nobody in it either).

The descent is increasingly dizzying, spectacular and intoxicating. There are huge bends and at some moments we fall nearly vertically. We’re prodigiously excited. We slalom past all the other cars.

Of course, at the bottom, there is an impossible traffic jam—vehicles have fallen into the river by the hundreds and sailors are struggling to fish them out. People are walking on barge trains. We see our car sticking out of the water; it’s a heap of dripping scrap metal (actually, no: it’s not so much a heap; you can easily make out the form of a car, but it’s an empty form, just the skeleton of the chassis).

We look for Harry M.’s car but don’t find it. Decidedly, every time he is with me, Harry has bad luck with his cars—this is the second time this has happened to him.

We ask the sailors for insurance forms. They tell us that won’t be necessary: our car and Harry M.’s will be paid for entirely, without any trouble, even if the remains are not found.

There is a very simple explanation for the easy reimbursement. The sailors don’t give it to us but let us guess, saying: “In Grenoble and in Romans, they’re only too happy to pay X francs for a trout.”

Which means:

I have been designated to participate in an international conference (in Ireland or in the Netherlands) on authors’ rights. With C.B., director of the French delegation, I review the problem and talk about the other members of the commission, who are, for the most part, family members or friends of mine. Then there is a question of going, on our way back, to report on the conference to the President of the Republic. We recall, laughing, that we used to refuse to be part of the Presidential court. I ask C.B. if the President’s nickname is still “Lulu.” C.B. answers that he has no idea, but that “Lulu” is almost libelous.

With a (poorly identified) woman, J.L., and (a bit later) my aunt, I’ve been invited—or have dropped in without warning—to visit L. My aunt and J.L. have made it in, but the woman and I find ourselves on a little platform that turns out to be surrounded by a ditch filled with water. First we think there’s no water, because it’s covered in water lilies and lotuses, but there is, and lots of it. How to cross this ditch? It
would be difficult to jump: in all probability we’d fall into the water before even taking off.

But here is a wooden bridge. The woman crosses it easily and lands in L.’s arms. He welcomes her, saying, “stay for dinner!” as though our impromptu visit hasn’t put him out at all and he even knew we were staying. Then he reaches his hand out to me to help me cross the bridge; and it’s good that he does, because the bridge is rotten and breaks the moment I step on it, but, thanks to his help, I do not fall into the water.

“O, precious symbolism!” I cry.

/ /

I discuss plans for the conference for a moment with J.L., and then with my aunt, who tells me she’s not going, as she feels too tired; that same day she took a walk with her granddaughter and came back exhausted.

L. does not look like himself. He has a beard. He looks more like Bernard P. would if Bernard P. grew a beard. His wife looks vaguely like Bernard P.’s wife.

On a picnic table there are papers, a pair of glasses, and the book L. was reading when we arrived. It is a volume from the Pléiade, open to a story entitled “Don B.,” or “Madame B.” Which reminds me of a Stendhal story.

It seems I have gone to see Nicholas Ray’s film
Johnny Guitar
.

I live in a house that I rent for 360 francs a year. The house is falling apart. The radiators are collapsing.

I send (surely to the landlord) a letter of apology, in which I pass the blame for the
degradation
of the house onto a second-class officer, while I myself am a reserve captain.

A colleague, M., comes to see me. G., another co-worker, also arrives; perhaps she is bothering us: in any case, our three-person scene gives me a great sense of displeasure.

We make several dates to meet; there are a great many of us. Departure for the procession: view of a big party. Wardrobe problem.

The opera (which I’m watching) looks nothing like it should. The stage is terribly far away.

The stage, this time very close: a large bald man, whose face conveys great tenderness, is smashing the skulls of the King, Queen, and Pope with a mace. Among the innumerable male and female extras is B.

I call Z. on the telephone.

In Philippe D.’s car. He is driving backwards; moreover, he’s in the back seat.

His parents’ accident.

(the old nanny and the matte silver chandelier)

He has just made a round trip, his hair has turned white.

This takes place in a (water) town where I am making a film with the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. We call him on the phone. I send him a three-word message so that he understands who’s asking. Another message, maybe.

In fact, the communiqué is meant for the actor’s mistress, a very tan and callipygian woman whom I recognize, with shock, as P.L. (a man).

I’m talking to a friend about a project for the reissue of
Politique-Hebdo
. We meet two (or three) girls who used to work for the weekly and are preparing to go back there. In theory, there’s no question of my setting crossword puzzles for them. I think about it nonetheless, “in petto”; I have a number of grids at the ready and no shortage of ideas for new ones. The only question to work out would be that of fees. I think of an excellent clue for
“GRANT”—
his most famous children didn’t take his name
. But no, silly, that’s not
“GRANT,”
that’s obviously
“VERNE.”
I find not a new definition for
“GRANT”
but another one for
“VERNE”:
A Jules who wasn’t
.

I’m supposed to write an item (like a
Who’s Who
listing) about my boss.

To make my job easier, Jean Duvignaud gives me a “window notebook,” a notebook whose hard cover has been cut out on the inside, a bit like for a passport.

The “window notebook” isn’t about my boss but about L. This is how I learn that one of his middle names is Bertrand. Flipping through the notebook, I notice that the information it contains isn’t up to date at all.

It’s a window notebook, but it’s not a current notebook
.

I am at S.B.’s house. In a narrow and tortuous hall, she introduces me to her mother, mentioning my height (1.65m and a half). I correct her. I say first: 1.70m., then 1.68m. I feel desperately short.

Now there is a crowd in S.B.’s living room. Someone is telling—or maybe showing—the story of a young man who
begins to levitate, earning the audience’s admiration. But he ends up falling back to the ground (regardless of how gracefully he was floating) and he rushes under a train.

Earlier, I had had a long conversation with her father, and maybe also with her uncle. Both of them were abominably drunk.

I am giving 25 blows with a stick. It’s a performance, which Z. watches without understanding any of it.

For my part, what I understand is something like: from A to Z, where Z is the slash, the cut, the scar.

I am in Israel. The country has just gained independence. We wait for a long time in a hangar. Several trucks pass by.

There are two men in me. One is pro-Israel, the other anti-.

The anti- notices that it’s not all for the worst in Israel.

An actress begins to dance and slowly takes her clothes off. She has very small breasts.

I think of my mother.

I have a date with Z. at the Deux-Magots.

It’s snowing.

The snow turns to ice.

Someone brings a snowplow. It emerges from the snow like a submarine’s periscope emerging from the sea.

Details about how the snowplow works.

Another (is it really another?) snowplow flips over.

Z. pays seven and a half francs for our breakfast.

I visit J.L., who has just moved and now lives near the outskirts of Paris, across from a métro station. At first glance, the house seems to be just an ordinary building; it’s next to an inn, whose sign says in Gothic letters:

The apartment is actually a real three-story house (a triplex). The third floor is absolutely amazing. It’s a living room with a grand piano; gradually you realize it’s a very large room, a very, very large room: it goes on forever, its floor is a lawn that opens onto a horizon of wooded countryside.

The view is spectacular. We rave about it:

“What luck that you found this!”

“Too bad they’ll eventually wise up and begin building housing projects on it!”

From the outside, the house looks like a property
surrounded by high walls,
whose perspectives have been drawn such that no one could imagine an infinite space contained therein
.

I move in indefinitely, to this house where many other people also seem to live already.

One day, I meet a girl on the street. She asks if I can put her up for a while. I say yes, without specifying that there’s nowhere for her to stay besides my room (which seems self-evident to me).

The house looks like Dampierre.

Each morning there is an assembly, like for a flag-raising ceremony.

From my window I see S.B. arriving in a car. She raises her eyes to me and smiles (but maybe there’s something dangerous in her smile).

Later: I’m leaving P.’s and going home by way of rue des Écoles. It seems clear to me that I will meet up with a girlfriend who will spend the night.

I do run into many people I know, but they either don’t see me at all, or too late …

It starts with a few harmless comments, but soon there’s no denying it: there are several Es in
A Void
.

First one, then two, then twenty, then thousands!

I can’t believe my eyes.

I discuss it with Claude.

You might think I’m dreaming.

Look again: no more Es.

Still!

But then again, yes, there’s one, another, two more, and again, tons!

How did nobody ever notice?

Looking at neighbors through binoculars? One has the right to do so, so long as one respects special rules and confines one’s observation to spatiotemporal sequences (as when one plays card games of patience).