The Seventh Function of Language

Unexpectedly, Mitterrand’s response is almost composed: “And I don’t claim to! My opinions concern the public man. I reserve judgment on the private man, whom I don’t know.” Having made this necessary concession and thus demonstrated his spirit of fair play, he is able to conclude: “But we were talking about technique, weren’t we? And it has become so important to him that he is no longer capable of the unexpected. The difficult moment in life—his, yours, mine, the life of anyone ambitious—is when you see the writing on the wall telling you that you are starting to repeat yourself.”

Hearing this, Barthes plunges his nose into his glass. He feels nervous laughter welling up inside him, but he contains it by reciting this saying to himself: “Every man laughs for himself.”

Reflexivity. Always reflexivity.

PART II

BOLOGNA

47

4:16 p.m.

“Fuck me, it’s hot!” Simon Herzog and Jacques Bayard wander the jagged streets of Bologna, the Red City, seeking refuge under its intersecting arches in the hope of a second’s respite from the blazing sun that in the summer of 1980 is beating down once again on northern Italy. Spray-painted on a wall, they read: Vogliamo tutto! Prendiamoci la città! Three years earlier, in this exact spot, carabinieri killed a student, triggering genuine mass protests that the minister of the interior chose to put down by sending in the tanks: like Czechoslovakia in 1977, but in Italy. Today, everything’s calm: the armored cars have returned to their burrows, and the entire city seems to be having a siesta.

“Is that it? Where are we?”

“Show me the map.”

“But you’ve got it!”

“No, I gave it back to you!”

Via Guerrazzi, in the heart of the student quarter of the oldest university city on the continent. Simon Herzog and Jacques Bayard enter an old Bolognan palace, now the headquarters of the DAMS: Discipline Arte Musica e Spettacolo. From what they are able to decipher from the obscure headings on the noticeboard, it is here, each week, that Professor Eco gave his biannual course. But the professor is not there; a porter explains in perfect French that classes are over (“I knew it was stupid to go to a university during the summer!” says Simon to Bayard) but that he will in all probability be at a café: “He usually goes to the Drogheria Calzolari or the Osteria del Sole. Ma, the Drogheria closes earlier. So it depends how thirsty he is, il professore.”

The two men cross the sublime Piazza Maggiore, with its unfinished fourteenth-century basilica, half in white marble, half in ocher stone, and its fountain of Neptune surrounded by fat, obscene nereids who touch their breasts while straddling demonic-looking dolphins. They find the Osteria del Sole in a tiny alleyway, already packed with students. On the wall outside they read: Lavovare meno—lavovare tutti! Having a bit of Latin, Simon is able to decipher: “Work less—work for all.” Bayard thinks: “Lazy-ass whiners everywhere, workers nowhere.”

In the entrance hall is a huge poster of a sun drawn in the style of an alchemist’s sign. Here, you can drink wine pretty cheaply and bring your own food. Simon orders two glasses of Sangiovese while Bayard asks after Umberto Eco. Everyone seems to know him but, as they say: Non ora, non qui. The two Frenchmen decide to stay for a while anyway, sheltered from the oppressive heat, in case Eco turns up.

At the back of the L-shaped room a group of students is noisily celebrating a young woman’s birthday; her friends have given her a toaster, which she shows off gratefully. There are some old people, too, but Simon notices that they are all sitting at the bar, near the entrance, and he realizes that’s so they don’t have to make a trip to order a drink, because there is no waiter service in the café. Behind the bar, an old, severe-looking woman dressed in black, her gray hair tied neatly in a bun, directs operations. Simon guesses that she is the manager’s mother, so he scans the room and soon spots him: a tall, gangling man playing cards at a table. From the way he grumbles and his exaggerated air of unpleasantness, Simon guesses that he works here and, given that he is not actually working, since he’s playing cards (Simon doesn’t recognize the type of cards; it looks like some kind of tarot deck), that must be him, the boss. From time to time his mother calls out to him: “Luciano! Luciano!” He responds with grunts.

In the corner of the L is a door that leads to a small internal courtyard, which functions as a terrace; Simon and Bayard see some couples kissing there and three conspiratorial young men in scarves. Simon also detects a few foreigners, their non-Italianness betrayed in one way or another by their clothes, body language, or facial expressions. The events of the previous months have left him a little paranoid and he imagines he can see Bulgarians everywhere.