Hallucinating Foucault Read online

  I stood in the middle of her room, mystified. Then I scoured her entire flat for Foucault, but could not find any of his books. He had clearly been banned.

  She seemed to be present in her rooms even when she was not there; she smell of her cigarettes, the cumulative effect of the incense she burned, the can of oil she kept on the window sill for her bike chain, the muddy gloves she used for gardening. I liked to sit there, trying to piece her together, as if she were a puzzle to be solved. For she didn’t quite add up. On the one hand she operated with quite terrifying directness. Never before had I been told to take my trousers off while the woman watched. But on the other hand there were sides to her that were fragile, cryptic, hidden. If I touched her when she had not expected me to do so she shrank back, shaking. There were times when she was writing and I would see her covering the page briskly, then she would pause, staring into space, frozen, unmoving, for over twenty minutes, the pen perched like a bird against her cheek. I did not dare to disturb her or ask where she had been. She was like a military zone, some of it mined.

  One day I came down to her flat to find her because she wasn’t in the library and there she was, writing in bed, her face wet with tears. I took her in my arms and kissed her. She let me do that once, then pushed me away. I looked down at her writing and saw that it was a letter addressed to “Mein Geliebter… “—she had written pages and pages in German. I nearly had a brain hemorrhage with jealousy.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted.

  “Writing a love letter to Schiller.”

  “A what?”

  “You heard.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. It helps me to get a grip on him. To think clearly. If you’re not in love with the subject of your thesis it’ll all be very dry stuff, you know. Aren’t you in love with Paul Michel?”

  “No. Or at least I don’t think so.”

  “Can’t see why not. He’s very good-looking. And he likes boys.”

  “I’m in love with you,” I said.

  “Don’t be such an idiot,” she snapped, leaping out of bed and scattering her passion for Schiller all over her Turkish rug. I tried not to treat Schiller as a serious rival, but he was. She spent more time with him than she did with me.

  I come from a fairly ordinary middle-class family. My dad’s a physicist and my mother’s a GP. They met at college. I’ve got one sister who’s six years younger than me. We were brought up like two only children really. I liked her and we used to play together, but we had our own friends, our own lives. The Germanist, however, came from not one broken home, but two. For a while I couldn’t quite get my mind around her family circumstances. She had two fathers and her mother had apparently disappeared.

  “I know it sounds weird,” she said, “having two dads. But I always have had. They don’t live far apart. One’s in West End Lane, the other one’s up the hill in Well Walk. I don’t know if they had joint custody or what. I’ve always halved my holidays between them. My first father, if you see what I mean, the one who gave me the rug, works in the Bank of England. I don’t know what he does. I have to wait for security to let him out at lunchtime and they won’t let me in at all. I did ask him once, you know, what he spends his days doing, and he said, negotiating with other banks, but so gloomily I don’t think he likes it much. Or it could have been a bad day on the Stock Exchange. Mother ran off with my second father when I was two and took me with her. I liked my second father a lot. He made me a huge kite with a dragon on it. He’s a painter, sells masses now, and teaches studio in an art college. It was Wimbledon, now it’s Harrow, or is it Middlesex? Anyway, he does vast frescoes with his students, gigantic, all along barren walls in inner city slums. Mother didn’t stay long with him either. She pushed off within a year and left me behind this time.”

  “No, I’ve no idea where she went, or who with. Nor has anyone. I’ve never seen her since. She must have done well though. She sent me eighteen thousand pounds when I was eighteen. A thousand for each year.”

  “What? You’re making that up.”

  “No joke. I own the flat in Maid’s Causeway outright. It was £27,000. The Bank of England made up the rest. Why do you think I never bitch about rent? I’ve had it since my second year at King’s. But Mother’s obviously not interested in me particularly, nor my dads. They never hear from her.”

  “Haven’t they remarried?”

  “She wasn’t married to either of them. Martin, that’s the painter, had a girlfriend who lived with us for a couple of years, now he’s got one who doesn’t. And the Bank of England is homosexual. He has lots of boys. They’re usually great. They all love cooking. So does Dad. We eat like lords.”

  I sat with my mouth open.

  “Your dad’s gay?”

  “Yup. Like Paul Michel.”

  “Is that why you’ve read all his books so carefully?”

  “I read everything carefully,” she snapped witheringly.

  She said nothing for a while. Then she said, “My dad’s read some of Paul Michel. He reads French. It’s interesting having nothing but fathers. Different if you’re a man. Paul Michel was always searching for his Oedipal ogre.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Foucault.”

  And that was the first time she’d mentioned his name. I couldn’t ask any pointed questions without revealing that I’d been digging about in her shelves. Besides, she got up to go back to the Rare Books Room, thereby indicating that the conversation was decisively over.

  That night she went to a film at the German Society which I’d already seen, so I stayed home and looked up the offending passage in L’Evadé. This is what Paul Michel had written.

  The cats are asleep at the end of my bed and all around me, the thundery silence of L’Escarène, caught at last in the rising flood of warm air, carrying the sand from the south. The Alps are folded above in the flickering light. And on the desk in the room beneath lies the writing which insists that the only escape is through the absolute destruction of everything you have ever known, loved, cared for, believed in, even the shell of yourself must be discarded with contempt; for freedom costs not less than everything, including your generosity, self-respect, integrity, tenderness—is that really what I wanted to say? It is what I have said. Worse still, I have pointed out the sheer creative joy of this ferocious destructiveness and the liberating wonder of violence. And these are dangerous messages for which I am no longer responsible.

  It was an important message, disturbing if taken out of context, but there were other things in L’Evadé which contradicted this savage despair. It took me over an hour in the library to find the interview with Foucault because it dated from 1978, but was published posthumously in L’Express, 13th July 1984, and consisted of Foucault denouncing his own work, Les Mots et les choses.

  It is the most difficult, the most tiresome book I ever wrote … madness, death, sexuality, crime—these are the subjects that attract most of my attention. By contrast, I have always considered The Order of Things to be a kind of formal exercise.

  I could see no connection whatsoever between the two passages, beyond the obvious fact that Foucault’s sinister list of obsessions was an excellent summary of all the themes in Paul Michel’s fiction. I read through the entire interview. There was only one other phrase which she had written down, it was not even a complete sentence. It was this:

  the craving, the taste, the capacity, the possibility of an absolute sacrifice … without any profit whatsoever, without any ambition.

  Now I was utterly baffled and very intrigued. The extremity of this kind of language—“craving,” “absolute sacrifice”—common both to Paul Michel and to Foucault, played no part in the Germanist’s daily intellectual discourse. Even if she talked about her work it was often in terms of form, or of one particular poem, play or letter to Goethe. I realized that I had no sense of her overall project, only a fascinating perspective on her engagement with detail. I had no idea what
she was actually doing. On the other hand, she sat me down, almost every evening, and delivered a series of questions worthy of the inquisition. She was much sharper and more aggressive than my doctoral supervisor, who gazed at my pages of typescript with weary indifference.

  I became increasingly fascinated by her antipathy to Foucault.

  Everybody knew her. All the graduates dreaded her appearance when they were giving papers. She had always read everything and had her own, peculiar, controversial, but well-substantiated views. Even when she stepped outside for a cigarette she still seemed to know what had happened in the seminar. She didn’t have any close friends. And she had always lived alone. I lived with an English graduate called Mike who was working on Shakespeare. He was mightily intimidated by the Germanist and fell preternaturally silent whenever she arrived in our flat. I think it was her glasses. She had such thick lenses that they magnified her eyes. The result was an owl-like intensity, combined with an uncanny concentration. Somehow, you found yourself reflecting on the fact that owls ate live mammals.

  “What on earth do you talk about?” Mike asked incredulously, after she had spent her first night in our flat and vanished at dawn.

  “Oh, everything. Her work. My work. She’s got two fathers.”

  “I suppose one of them is Zeus,” said Mike.

  She was never affectionate. She never used any terms of endearment, never told me that she loved me, and never held my hand. When she took me to bed she kissed me as if there was some distance to be covered and she was intent on getting there without interference.

  It was the end of May, exam time for the undergraduates. We were all infected with exam paralysis as well as thesis paranoia. I was playing chess with Mike in our kitchen on the freshly bleached formica table from which the Germanist had eliminated all traces of stickiness, when she bounced in unannounced. This was unheard of. If she intended to come around she rang up in advance and made meticulous arrangements. If I wasn’t there she left messages with Mike, which she recited at dictation speed as if he were an illiterate secretary.

  “Get dressed sweetheart and put on your best glad rags. The Bank of England just rang from Saffron Walden. He’ll be arriving in his Merc within the hour.” She danced around the table. “And he’s taking us both out to dinner.”

  I had never seen such uncharacteristic bumptiousness. I sat there thinking, she called me sweetheart. Mike was stunned. I thought I might soon need a blood transfusion.

  The prospect of meeting your girlfriend’s father, or at least one of her fathers, is very intimidating. I began to panic.

  “Should I put on a tie? I haven’t got a tie.”

  “Then you can’t wear one,” she said with devastating logic, through a cloud of smoke.

  “I could borrow one off Mike.”

  “Oh, don’t bother. Father doesn’t care. We’re students. Anyway, none of his boyfriends wear ties.”

  “But I’m not his boyfriend. I’m yours.”

  “Oh? Are you?” she said scornfully.

  “You called me sweetheart,” I accused.

  “Did I? Slip of the tongue.”

  We stood on the steps of the Fitzwilliam peering down Trumpington Street in the golden evening light. Her father really did drive a sleek black Mercedes, equipped with car phone, CD player and a locking system which responded to a radar device on his car keys. If he pressed the control the car answered, even at long distance, with a hum and a click, a quick flash of the lights all around, and rested, open and waiting. I wondered if it worked around corners.

  She didn’t look like her father, but they had the same grin. He was about fifty, grey-haired, clean-shaven, handsome and unnervingly sinister, rather like a CIA agent in a 1960s film. He had all the trimmings, dark suit, pearl cufflinks and expensive French shirt. He got out of the car and stretched out his arms. I’d never seen her so happy. She let out a great shout of uncomplicated joy and he engulfed her in a hug. He even dislodged the glasses.

  “How long can you stay?” she demanded, without introducing me.

  “Just tonight.” He kissed her on both cheeks, like the French do. Then turned to me.

  “Now, my girl, let me take a look at this young man who has captivated my daughter.”

  I suddenly felt oily, coated in dandruff and spots, but I was delighted to hear this statement. I was under the impression that the Germanist didn’t have any passions. She certainly hadn’t appeared amenable to captivation. He shook my hand, then suddenly gave me a hug too. I was very taken aback and very pleased.

  “If she doesn’t give you a good time, boy, cruise on down to us in London.” He delivered his pick-up line with the same broad, mischievous grin she had lavished upon me.

  “Give over, Dad. I saw him first,” she giggled and poked her father in the ribs. I changed color several times with embarrassment.

  All my ideas about the Bank of England underwent a sudden and rapid transformation. The evening, depending upon your morals, went downhill from there. I now understood where my Germanist’s absolute sense of license and liberty came from. She was her father’s daughter.

  He took us to Brown’s, and there amidst the pot-planted splendor of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid he proceeded to eat like a student. We all had mushroom and Guinness pie. He ordered extra chips. She couldn’t finish her baked potato and sour cream. He changed plates and ate the lot. He took a look at the wine list, shook his head sadly, and ordered two bottles of house red. He suggested that I put some extra cream on my Tarte Tatin, called for some more without waiting for a reply and then added a little to his own ice cream and apple pie. He was clearly fearless in the face of cholesterol.

  She was transformed from the intense, abrasive graduate into a merry child. She chatted, giggled, told stories, wolfed chips, demanded news of her father’s last boyfriend, who appeared to be the same age as she was. She was even irreverent about Schiller. He drew her out, encouraged her, teased her unmercifully and begged her to let him pay for contact lenses. He asked, with a wicked grin, if I was any good in bed, urged her to have driving lessons and choose a car. He ticked her off for smoking; then smoked half of my cigarettes. He was like a passing king, arbitrary, generous, dispensing largesse.

  When we reached the cappuccinos he turned his strange grey eyes upon me and asked about Paul Michel.

  “All I’ve read is La Maison d’Eté, the one which carried off the Goncourt. I suppose that gives me a false impression of his work.

  My daughter tells me that it’s his most conventional novel.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “in some ways it is. I still prefer La Fuite, which talks about his childhood. And, well …” I hesitated.

  “Growing up gay in rural France,” said the Bank of England, grinning. “Being homosexual isn’t a taboo subject at this table. Poor lad, it must have warped him for life. He had a touch of the James Deans though, didn’t he? A brutal butch version of homosexuality and we all end up doomed, damned and gorgeous. What’s happened to him? I know that he was locked up in an institution for a bit. Not dead of AIDS, I hope.”

  “No,” I said, “not as far as I know. He had a complete nervous breakdown of some kind in 1984. And he hasn’t written anything since.”

  Suddenly I became aware of the Germanist. Midnight had struck, the pumpkin was gone and the magic was dissolved. She was glaring at me with her lenses alight, shining with fury.

  “Then you don’t know? You’re studying his work and you don’t know what they’ve done to him?”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded, very startled.

  “He’s in the madhouse. Sainte-Anne in Paris. He’s been there nine years. They’re killing him with their drugs, day after day.”

  I stared at her.

  “Calm down darling,” said her father peacefully, looking around for the bill, “I didn’t know that he was still in there.”

  “But you aren’t writing a thesis on Paul Michel.” She was a column of accusation. I thought that she was goi
ng to hit me.

  Her father leaned over and kissed her cheek, something I would never have dared to do, and said sweetly, “You make scenes at your lover in front of the restaurant, my dear, never at the table. It’s not the done thing.”

  The Germanist melted slightly, glared at me once more, then stormed off to the loo. Her father turned back to me.

  “I didn’t know that he’d been sectioned for good and all. That’s a pity. Just being gay used to be enough to get you locked up, but I’d have thought things were more enlightened now. Might be worth investigating.”

  He helped himself to another of my cigarettes and then said, smiling, “If I were you I’d find out if the family had a hand in it. Families usually take it upon themselves to bump off their homos—dykes and gays—if they can do it with impunity.”

  I felt the need to defend myself.

  “I’m not writing about his life. I’m studying his fiction.”

  “How can you separate the two?”

  “Apart from La Fuite he’s not an autobiographical writer.”

  “But his experiences—the ones he sought out for himself as well as the things that just happened—must be relevant.”

  “I think that’s a trap. You can’t interpret writing in terms of a life. It’s too simple. Writing has its own rules.”

  The Germanist had reappeared like a magical apparition and pitched in on my side. “He’s right, Dad. It’d be as if I explained away all Schiller’s work in terms of his economic situation and the jobs Goethe got for him.”

  “But he couldn’t have written anything if Goethe hadn’t bailed him out. You’ve said that yourself.”

  “Yes. It’s true. But it’s still not the most important thing about his writing.”

  “Then,” said her father emphatically, “why is it so important to know that Paul Michel is barking mad in some asylum in Paris?”

  “Because,” said the Germanist, turning her predatory eyes upon me, “if you love someone, you know where they are, what has happened to them. And you put yourself at risk to save them if you can.”