The Seventh Function of Language

Simon makes friends with a young Jewish feminist lesbian, coming out of Cixous’s conference on women’s writing. Her name is Judith, her family is from Hungary, she is doing a PhD in philosophy, and it so happens that she is interested in the performative function of language and suspects the patriarchal powers that be of resorting to some sneaky form of the performative in order to naturalize the cultural construction that is the model of the heteronormative monogamous couple: in plain English, according to Judith, all it takes is for the white heterosexual male to declare that something is in order for it to be.

Performative utterances are not restricted to knighting people; they also encompass the rhetorical ruse of transforming the result of an age-old balance of power.

And above all: “natural.” Yes, nature—that’s the enemy. The reactionaries’ argumentative coup de grâce “against nature,” the vaguely modernized variation on what used to be known as “against God’s will.” (Even in the USA, God is a little tired by 1980, but the forces of reaction are stronger than ever.)

Judith: “Nature is pain, sickness, cruelty, barbarism, and death. Nature is murder.” She laughs, parodying the pro-lifers’ slogan.

Simon agrees in his own way: “Baudelaire hated nature.”

She has a squarish face, a neat student haircut, and the look of a teacher’s pet from Sciences Po, except that she is a radical feminist who is not far from thinking, like Monique Wittig, that a lesbian is not a woman, since a woman is defined as the supplement of a man, to whom she is, by definition, subject. In a sense, the myth of Adam and Eve is the original performative function: from the moment it was decreed that the woman came after the man, that she was created from the man’s rib, and that she committed the sin of biting into the apple, that it was all her fault, the slut, and that she fully deserved to give birth in terrible pain, she was, basically, screwed. What next? Would she refuse to look after the kids?

Bayard arrives: he missed the Cixous seminar, preferring to go to see the ice hockey team train so he could, he says, drink in the campus atmosphere. He is holding a half-empty beer and a packet of chips. Judith looks at Bayard with curiosity but, contrary to what Simon might have expected, without any apparent animosity.

“Lesbians aren’t women, and they screw you and your phallogocentrism.” Judith laughs. Simon laughs with her. Bayard asks: “What’s all this about?”

68

“Take off those black glasses. You can see perfectly well that it’s not sunny. The weather is foul.”

In spite of his reputation, Foucault is pretty groggy after his exploits last night. He dips a huge pecan cookie in a remarkably drinkable double espresso. Slimane sits with him, eating a bacon cheeseburger with blue cheese.

The restaurant is at the top of the hill, at the campus entrance, on the other side of the gorge spanned by a bridge where depressed students commit suicide from time to time. They are not really sure if they’re in a bar or a tearoom. To find out, the ever-curious Foucault orders a beer despite his throbbing head, but Slimane cancels it. The waitress, probably used to the caprices of visiting professors and other campus stars, shrugs and turns on her heel, reciting mechanically: “No problem, guys. Let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m Candy, by the way.” Foucault mutters: “Hello, Candy. You’re so sweet.” The waitress does not catch this, which is probably for the best, thinks Foucault, noting in passing that his English has returned.

He feels something touch his shoulder. He looks up and, from behind his glasses, recognizes Kristeva. She is holding a steaming paper cup the size of a thermos flask. “How are you, Michel? It’s been a long time.” Foucault composes himself instantly. After rearranging his features, he takes off his glasses and offers Kristeva his famous toothy smile. “Julia, you look radiant.” As if they saw each other just the night before, he asks her: “What are you drinking?”

Kristeva laughs: “Some godawful tea. The Americans have no idea how to make tea. Once you’ve been in China, you know…”

In order to conceal even a hint of the state he’s in, Foucault says quickly: “How did your conference go? I wasn’t able to make it.”

“Oh, you know … nothing revolutionary.” She pauses. Foucault hears his stomach rumble. “I keep the revolutions for special occasions.”

Foucault pretends to laugh, then excuses himself. “The coffee here makes me want to piss.” He gets up and walks as calmly as possible toward the toilets, where liquid will gush from every orifice.

Kristeva takes his seat. Slimane looks at her but does not say a word. She noticed Foucault’s paleness, and she knows he won’t return from the bathroom until he thinks he can fool her about his physical state, so she guesses she has two or three minutes to play with.