The Seventh Function of Language

And Simon replies, as a flash of lightning streaks across the Paris sky:

“The real kind!”

96

The French Open men’s final, 1981. Borg is crushing his opponent yet again, this time the Czechoslovakian Ivan Lendl; he takes the first set 6–1. All the heads in the crowd turn to follow the ball, except for Simon’s, because his thoughts are elsewhere.

Maybe Bayard doesn’t care, but he wants to know; he wants proof that he is not a character in a novel, that he lives in the real world. (What is it, the real? “You know it when you bump into it,” Lacan said. And Simon looks at his stump.)

The second set is tougher. The players send clouds of dust into the air when they slide around on the dry court.

Simon is alone in his box until a young North African–looking man joins him. The young man sits on the seat next to his. It’s Slimane.

They greet each other. Lendl snatches the second set.

It is the first set Borg has lost in the entire tournament.

“Nice box.”

“An advertising agency rents it, the one that did Mitterrand’s campaign. They want to recruit me.”

“Are you interested?”

“I think we can call each other tu.”

“I’m sorry about your hand.”

“If Borg wins, it’ll be his sixth Roland-Garros title. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Looks like he’s got a good chance.”

It’s true: Borg will pull away quite quickly in the third set.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I was passing through Paris anyway. Was it your cop friend who told you?”

“So you live in the U.S. now?”

“Yeah, I got my green card.”

“In six months?”

“There’s always a way.”

“Even with the American government?”

“Yep, even with them.”

“What did you do, after Cornell?”

“I ran off with the money.”

“I know that bit.”

“I went to New York. To start with, I enrolled at Columbia University and took a few courses.”

“In the middle of the academic year? Is that possible?”

“Yeah, sure, you just have to convince a secretary.”

Borg breaks Lendl for the second time in the set.

“I heard about your victories in the Logos Club. Congratulations.”

“Actually, that reminds me: isn’t there an American branch?”

“Yes, but it’s still embryonic. I’m not sure there’s even a single tribune in the whole country. There’s a peripatetician in Philadelphia, I think, one or two in Boston, maybe, and a few dialecticians scattered over the West Coast.”

Simon doesn’t ask him if he’s planning to join.

Borg takes the third set 6–2.

“Got any plans?”

“I’d like to get into politics.”

“In the U.S.? You think you can get American nationality?”

“Why not?”

“But you want to, uh, stand for election?”

“Well, I need to improve my English first, and I need to be naturalized. After that, it’s not just a question of winning debates to become a candidate; you have to—what’s the expression?—do the hard yards. Maybe I’ll be able to aim for the Democratic primaries in 2020, who knows. Not before that, though, ha ha.”

Precisely because Slimane sounds as if he’s joking, Simon wonders if he isn’t serious.

“No, but listen, I met a student at Columbia. I have a feeling he can go far, if I help him.”

“What do you mean by ‘far’?”

“I think I can make him a senator.”

“To what end?”

“Just because. He’s a black guy from Hawaii.”

“Hmm, I see. A suitable test for your new powers.”

“It’s not exactly a power.”

“I know.”

Lendl hits a forehand that speeds ten feet past Borg.

Simon remarks: “That doesn’t happen very often to Borg. He’s good, this Czech guy.”

He is delaying the moment when he will touch upon the real reason he wanted to talk with Slimane, even though the ex-gigolo knows exactly what he has in mind.

“I listened to it over and over on my Walkman, but it’s not enough just to learn it by heart, you know.”

“So it’s a method? A secret weapon?”

“It’s more like a key, or a path, than a method. It’s true that Jakobson called it the ‘performative function,’ but ‘performative’ is just an image.”

Slimane watches Borg play his two-handed backhand.

“It’s a technique, I guess.”

“In the Greek sense?”

Slimane smiles.

“A technè, sure, if you like. Praxis, poiesis … I learned all that stuff, you know.”

“And you feel unbeatable?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I am. I think I could be beaten.”

“Without the function?”

Slimane smiles.

“We’ll see. But I still have plenty to learn. And I have to train. Convincing a customs official or a secretary is one thing, winning elections is something else. I’ve still got a long way to go.”

Simon wonders how great Mitterrand’s mastery of the technique is, and whether the Socialist president could lose an election or if he’s destined to be reelected until his death.

In the meantime, Lendl fights against the Swedish machine and wins the fourth set. The spectators shiver: this is the first time in ages that Borg has been taken to the fifth set at Roland-Garros. In fact, he hadn’t lost a single set here since 1979 and his final against Victor Pecci. As for his last defeat in Paris, that goes all the way back to 1976, against Panatta.

Borg hits a double fault, offering Lendl a break point.