The Seventh Function of Language

“We need you. Can you keep this document? You mustn’t open it, you mustn’t read it, and you mustn’t talk to anyone about it, not even Hélène.”

“Okay.”

39

Hard to imagine what Julia Kristeva is thinking in 1980. The idea that Sollers’s histrionic dandyism, his so-very-French libertinism, his pathological boasting, his adolescent-pamphleteer style, and his shock-the-bourgeoisie habits could have seduced the young Bulgarian girl, newly arrived from Eastern Europe … yes, I can buy that. Fifteen years later, one might suppose that she is somewhat less under his spell, but who knows? What seems obvious is that their partnership is solid, that it has functioned perfectly from the beginning, and that it is still functional now: a tightly knit team with clearly defined roles. For him, the pretentious bullshit, society parties, and clownish nonsense. For her, the icy, venomous, structuralist Slavic charm, the arcana of academia, the management of mandarins, the technical, institutional, and, inevitably, bureaucratic aspects of their rise. (He “doesn’t know how to write a check,” so the story goes.) Together, they are a formidable political war machine already, working toward the heights of an exemplary career in the next century: when Kristeva receives the Legion of Honor from the hands of Nicolas Sarkozy, Sollers, also present, will be sure to mock the president for pronouncing “Barthès” instead of “Barthes.” Good cop, bad cop. They get their cake full of honors and they eat it with insolence. (Later, François Hollande will elevate Kristeva to the ranks of commandeur. Presidents come and go, people with meaningless medals remain.)

In summary: an infernal duo, and a political double-act. Let’s keep that in mind.

When Kristeva opens the door and sees that Althusser has come with his wife, she cannot or prefers not to suppress a grimace of displeasure. Hélène, Althusser’s wife, is well aware of what these people think of her and gives an evil grin in return, the two women’s instinctive hatred instantly bordering on a sort of complicity. For his part, Althusser looks like a guilty child as he hands over a small bouquet of flowers. Kristeva rushes off to put them in a sink. Visibly under the influence of the aperitifs he’s had, Sollers welcomes the two arrivals with phony exclamations of delight: “So, my dear friends, how are you?… We were just waiting for you to come … before we sat down to eat … Dear Louis, a martini … as usual?… red!… oh wow!… Hélène … what would you like to drink?… I know … a Bloody Mary!… hee hee!… Julia … will you bring the celery … my darling?… Louis!… how’s the Party?”

Hélène observes the other guests like an old, nervous cat, recognizing no one but BHL, who she’s seen on the television, and Lacan, who has come with a tall young woman in a black leather suit. Sollers makes the introductions while they sit down, but Hélène doesn’t bother trying to remember anyone’s name: there is a young New York couple in sports clothes, a Chinese woman who either works for the embassy or as a trapeze artist for the Peking Circus, a Parisian publisher, a Canadian feminist, and a Bulgarian linguist. “The avant-garde of the proletariat,” Hélène says to herself, laughing.

The guests have barely sat down when Sollers unctuously begins a discussion about Poland: “Now that is a subject that will never go out of fashion!… Solidarnosc, Jaruzelski, yes, yes … from Mickiewicz and Slovacki to Walesa and Wojtyla … We could be talking about it in a hundred years, a thousand years, but it will still be bowed beneath the yoke of Russia … it’s practical … it makes our conversations immortal … And when it’s not Russia, it’s Germany, of course, hmm?… Agh, come on, come on … comrades … To die for Gdansk … to die for Danzig … What delicious nonsense!… What’s that phrase again?… Oh yes: six of one and half a dozen of the other…”

The provocation is aimed at Althusser, but the old philosopher is so dull-eyed as he sips his martini that he looks like he might drown in it. So Hélène, with the boldness of a small wild animal, replies on his behalf: “I understand your solicitude toward the Polish people: I don’t think they sent any members of your family to Auschwitz.” And as Sollers hesitates for a second (just one) before following up with some provocative insult to the Jews, she decides to drive home her advantage: “But what about this new pope, do you like him?” (She plunges her nose into her plate.) “I wouldn’t have thought so.” (She imitates a working-class intonation.)