Public Enemies (23 page)

All of this, of course, runs contrary to the standard clichés. Because women are supposed to be “chatterboxes, gossips,” et cetera. I’m happy to believe it, but it’s the reverse of what I have observed. Similarly, it might seem surprising that
Le Monde
would print vulgar, foulmouthed articles while
Paris Match
is being delicate and restrained; but what can I do, that’s the way it is.

Behind every cliché there’s a theory, however rudimentary.
But when a fact contradicts that theory, we don’t know what to do; we just set it down and wait around for a new theory (we’re always trying to come up with theories, and maybe that’s the problem; it would probably be better to admit that we are quite simply dealing with different human qualities).

However, there’s nothing to stop me from taking the facts into account. And I would, if I could find the energy, feel a certain satisfaction at the thought that with most of the media I no longer have anything to lose. Except that’s not true, the situation is unequal. They have nothing to lose because they know I will never speak to them again. I still have a lot to lose and they know it. Things could get worse; things will get worse.

I am not claiming that my physical existence is being directly threatened. Although people like Assouline, Jacob, Naulleau, or Busnel surely would feel a thrill of joy to find out I’d committed suicide (something which is possible, after all; I more or less fit the profile people associate with suicide; it wouldn’t really surprise anyone).

But, failing a real suicide, what they would like, at least, is for me to stop writing. Or, if I really have to go on writing, for no one to talk about my books. For people to talk about whatever they like, about my advances, my tax returns, my political opinions, my taste for alcohol, my family history; but never, under any circumstances, about my books.

Naturally, they are going to win.

What is curious is that I foresaw this a long time ago. I remember it was when I was awarded the Prix de Flore
^*
in
1996 (at that point I was in my ascendant phase). In the middle of a conversation, for no apparent reason, I remember saying to Marc Weitzmann,
^*
“You’ll see, you’ll all end up hating me.” He stopped what he was saying, and gave me a strange look and suddenly I realized that what I had just said without really thinking about it was an
insight
, a precise, dazzling perception of the future shooting through me. I don’t really believe in intuition, or rather I believe in it absolutely, but I can see nothing mysterious or alchemical about it: I think moments of intuition are simply unpredictable moments of great tension in the brain, a burst of ultrafast reasoning where nothing has time to skim the conscious mind (neither the proofs nor the premises). I was, in a moment of particular lucidity, simultaneously conscious of the fact of being a writer, of what I intended to write, and of the intellectual capacities of the time in which I lived; and I came to the conclusion that I was, that I would soon be, deemed
unacceptable
.

In 2005, when I did my interview with Sylvain Bourmeau for the
Inrockuptibles
DVD, I had already had time to think about this and was able to explain myself more analytically. And my conclusion, on that occasion, was clear: the group always wins.

In Western societies, an individual has the right to stay on the sidelines of the group for a few years and attempt to gallop freely. But sooner or later the pack wakes up, the hunt starts, and eventually they corner him. At that point they take revenge, and their revenge is terrible. Because the pack is scared, and that might seem surprising because they have strength in numbers:
but it is made up of mediocre individuals who are conscious of and ashamed of that fact, and furious that, even for a second, their mediocrity is exposed for all to see.

That is where I am; the pack has caught up with me. It won’t let me go and this will go on until I am dead, and for a little while after that (my death will give rise, I think, to some
lively controversy
).

And then, obviously, everything will calm down; skeletons.

Okay, I think it’s not a bad thing to have talked about these things, that it’s interesting to note that in some sense nothing has changed, and it’s true, for example, that it’s amusing to see
Télérama
,
^*
that deathly dull rag, every time there’s something organized about van Gogh or Artaud portraying them as victims of the bourgeois, narrow-minded, obscurantist societies of their times, the whole shtick with the implication that such a thing couldn’t happen these days because we’re all so much more open, more intelligent.

What is new is the obscene way they go about it these days. The incredible lack of tact, of humanity. For example, I can’t bear the smug way the journalist Demonpion, when he’s called on, professes to be an expert on the subject of me. It’s like vomit, I can’t deal with it, I don’t have the stomach.

By comparison, I can tolerate the sight of blood; and of hatred. Maybe not having had a mother makes you
stronger
, but if so, it does it in a way you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. You never take love for granted; to be honest, you find it difficult to believe in love at all. You remain a sort of
feral child
; never completely at peace, never completely domesticated; always ready to bite.

•    •    •

Never having had a mother? At least I knew she existed; I could situate her genealogically speaking (even if, most of the time, I didn’t know where she was geographically). My sister saw even less of her than I did; to her, our mother was an almost ghostly presence. But it’s striking to note that even children who have lived their whole lives with adoptive parents, often in happy homes, still feel the need (usually late in their teens) to find their “real” parents.

When asked, they all say that they “need to know.” Need to know what? A few of them are happy to know the genealogy, to have a few brief biographical details. But most of them, if it is a possibility, want to meet up with their parents.

There are the pathetic ones who have an idealized image of their parents, who imagine they are going to find a princess (this usually happens when the adoptive home was not a happy one). But most of them are clear-sighted; they realize that someone who abandoned them like an old piece of furniture is unlikely to be a particularly admirable human being. They expect, quite reasonably, that they may encounter a human wreck or a complete shit. And still they desperately want to meet this person, they track them down, often expending considerable effort in the process.

It rarely results in a long-term relationship. Often, they’re happy to meet up just once. A few hours to make up for a whole life. What happens during those few hours is obviously a great mystery; one that, it seems to me, I am better placed than most to imagine.

Curiously, they hardly ever feel hatred; no, what’s at stake is something colder, something sadder.

Nor is there any
forgiveness
, and I confess that I take exception to hearing my mother say, “We should all forgive each other,” and so on, when she comes on like Dostoyevsky at his most infuriating. To me, it’s just another sham, and a cruel one at that.

What is at stake is recognizing that a wrong has been committed, a wrong whose consequences are still spreading like ripples. It is the recognition, too, that this wrong is permanent, that what is done cannot be undone. Finally, it is the recognition that the wrong is limited; it is the transformation of a limitless, ignoble wrong into one limited in space and time. It is an attempt to halt the indefinite uncoiling of causal chains, the endless propagation of misery and evil.

Some go a step further: they attempt to define themselves in terms of the wrong done to them; they use their unfit parent as an anti–role model. Some go much, much further, and I know that my sister (I hope she will forgive me for citing her) went so far as to refuse to work so she could devote herself to her vocation as a
housewife and mother
; and I know that she did so successfully. One in a thousand, maybe, might succeed; but there is nothing inevitable about it. It is possible to break the chain of suffering and evil.

But everyone, even those who do not have this strength, learns a great lesson from their encounter. It is, in a sense, the dark face of the
Tat tvam asi
,
^*
the “Thou art that,” that Schopenhauer posits as the cornerstone of all morality. The radiant face is compassion, recognizing one’s own essence in every victim, in every creature subjected to suffering.

The dark face is recognizing one’s own essence in the criminal,
in the executioner; in him through whom evil has come to pass in the world.

You are faced with your own essence and at the same time you are its chief victim.

What happens at this point is difficult to describe, but it has nothing to do with Christian forgiveness. It is more akin to an understanding, a light; a knowledge of both good and evil and of one’s own nature. And a wish, which may take the form of a prayer, to be delivered, as far as possible, from the wrong path.

Maybe I have come back to somewhere not far from philosophy. I hope so; to be honest, the detour was rather painful, and I hope it was simply a detour, and I hope, though I can’t be sure, that I have come through it
once and for all
. I would very much like to discuss the status of philosophy, if you’d like to, but I don’t feel up to starting it, and besides, I want to send this letter to you as soon as possible, and I’m already waiting impatiently for your reply; our letters have become one of my few joys.

Dear Michel, I know all that.

I knew it from day one, even though you had, I think, a sort of reprieve when your first books were published.

And I know how slander, malicious gossip, and lies can leave indelible traces.

You tell yourself, “It will go away, one image will displace another, one piece of information will replace the previous one.” But no, it takes root. It’s like a background noise that you know you’ll have to live with until the end of your days. And there’s no point in rebelling, revolting, protesting. I’ve lived through thousands of stories like the one of your sister’s letter of denial published by
Les Inrocks
, which made no impact. I know by heart the golden rule of the literary nuclear war, according to which there is never, absolutely never, the possibility of a second strike. And if I never take action against that bullshit or look for compensation, it’s not because it “costs a lot” or because I don’t want to provoke the newspapers. It’s, first and foremost, as I think I told you in one of my first letters, because ultimately part of me couldn’t give a damn about any of this and is well “fireproofed.” But even more so, it’s because it doesn’t make any difference. Not one iota. You could bring all the legal actions you wanted and
for some people you’d still be only a nauseating matricidal killer, a racist and an Islamophobe. I could attempt to set the record straight in every possible and conceivable way and I would only strengthen their case that I’m a bourgeois bastard who knows nothing about social questions and takes an interest in the world’s disowned only in order to promote himself. Kant said politics is destiny, but he was wrong. It’s your reputation that’s your destiny. In our Ubuesque societies, rumor is one of the faces of fate. And I’ve paid for the knowledge that there is nothing you can do to combat a rumor, gossip, or false information that spreads like a virus.

I’m going to relate an anecdote, one that’s minor but telling. It was at the time when a series of atrocious books about me appeared. They were dashed off, contained almost an error per page, and were nothing more than a tissue of malevolence and invention disguised as biography. Among the pile, there was one that said that, on top of being a bad writer, a show-off, a liar, an uninteresting narcissist—the only cause for surprise being that so much had been written about me—I was an actual villain, who had been denounced as such by some British NGOs (
sic
!). Allegedly I had thousands upon thousands of slaves working for me in obscure African shipyards. Then, one morning I opened
L’Express
and found a review of that book, entitled “BHL Does Good Business.” The article was brief and not malicious. I even remember that the journalist was sympathetic and felt a real curiosity for my “case.” Except that what the article basically said was “This guy has some good points. He wrote a very respectable book on Sartre but now we know that this humanist, this character constantly prattling about human rights and the fate of the oppressed, is himself a slave-owner, denounced as such by some British NGOs, etc. Isn’t life strange? Writers are mysterious. It’s a fascinating mystery …” I must emphasize again
that the journalist had nothing but goodwill toward this man who was complex enough to be the author of a good book on Sartre and yet also to exploit people. The paradox was presented just like that, as a fact, without the least note of outrage and in the cold analytical tone of someone who has added his little contribution to the great and eternal reflection on the oddities of literary history. “Why didn’t you attack the book that information came from?” asked the paper’s editor, Denis Jeambar, dumbfounded, when I met him by chance and explained that this story was absolutely untrue and that it was regrettable that his paper had endorsed it. “Because it wouldn’t have changed anything,” I replied. Because once that type of information has been printed, it will be repeated, whether or not there has been a trial. Because there’s no second chance, ever, when someone launches that kind of missile at you.