In the corner of the sauna, on a tiled bench, two youths are kissing and wanking each other off. Bayard leans over them discreetly to check whether either is wearing an earring. They both are. But if they were gigolos, would they really be wasting their time on each other? It’s possible. Bayard has never worked for the vice squad and is no specialist when it comes to this kind of behavior. He takes Simon on a tour of the premises. It’s difficult to see much: the steam forms a thick fog, and some men are hidden away in back rooms where they can be observed only through barred windows. They pass an apparently half-witted Arab who tries to touch everyone’s dicks, two Japanese men, two guys with mustaches and greasy hair, fat tattooed men, lascivious old men, velvet-eyed young men. The sauna’s clients wear their towels around their waists or over their shoulders; everyone in the pool is naked; some have hardons, others don’t. Here, too, all sizes and shapes are on display. Bayard tries to spot earring wearers and, when he’s found four or five, he points one out to Simon and orders him to go and talk to the man.
Simon Herzog knows perfectly well that it would make more sense for Bayard to approach the gigolo rather than him but, seeing the cop’s blank face, he realizes it would be pointless to argue. Awkwardly, he walks over to the gigolo and says good evening. His voice quavers. The gigolo smiles but does not reply. Outside his classroom, Simon Herzog is naturally shy, and he has never been much of a ladies’ man (or a man’s man, for that matter). He manages to make a few banal comments that immediately sound inappropriate or merely ridiculous. Without a word, the gigolo takes his hand and leads him toward the back rooms. All strength gone, Simon follows him. He knows he has to react quickly. In a toneless voice, he asks: “What’s your name?” The man replies: “Patrick.” No o or eu to help him detect a southern accent, and no use of the telltale word con. Simon follows him into a little cell where the young man grabs his hips and kneels down in front of him. In the hope of making him pronounce a full sentence, Simon stammers: “Wouldn’t you prefer it if I went first?” The gigolo says no and his hand moves under Simon’s towel. Simon shivers. The towel falls. With surprise, Simon notices that his cock, touched by the young man’s fingers, is not completely flaccid. So he decides to go for broke: “Hang on! You know what I’d like to do?” “What?” the other asks. Still not enough syllables to detect his accent. “I’d like to shit on you!” The gigolo looks surprised. “Can I?” And finally Patrick replies, without even a hint of a southern accent: “All right, but it’ll be more expensive!” Simon Herzog picks up his towel and rushes out, calling: “Never mind! Another time?” If he has to do the same with the dozen potential gigolos patrolling the club, this could be a very long night. He passes the half-witted Arab again, who tries to touch his dick, and the two men with mustaches, the two Japanese men, the fat tattooed men, the velvet-eyed youths, and rejoins Bayard just as a loud, nasal, professorial voice intones: “A functionary of the powers that be showing off his repressive muscles in the service of biopower? What could be more normal?”
Behind Bayard, a wiry, square-jawed, bald man is sitting, naked, arms outstretched and resting on the back of a wooden bench, legs spread wide, being sucked off by a skinny young man who does have an earring but also has short hair. “Have you found anything interesting, Superintendent?” asks Michel Foucault, staring at Simon Herzog.
Bayard conceals his surprise, but doesn’t know how to respond. Simon Herzog’s eyes open wide. The silence is filled with the echoes of cries and moans from back rooms. The mustachioed men hold hands in the shadows, stealthily observing Bayard, Herzog, and Foucault. The Arab dick-toucher wanders around. The Japanese pretend to go for a swim in the pool with their towels on their heads. The tattooed men accost the velvet-eyed youths, or vice versa. Michel Foucault questions Bayard: “What do you think of this place, Superintendent?” Bayard does not reply. No sound but the echoes from the back rooms. “Ahh! Ahh!” Foucault: “You came here to find someone, but it looks to me like you’ve already found him.” He points to Simon Herzog and laughs: “Your Alcibiades!” The back rooms: “Ahh! Ahh!” Bayard: “I’m looking for someone who saw Roland Barthes not long before his accident.” Foucault, caressing the head of the young man hard at work between his legs: “Roland had a secret, you know…” Bayard asks what it was. The back-room panting grows louder. Foucault explains to Bayard that Barthes had a Western understanding of sex, i.e., something simultaneously secret and whose secret must be uncovered. “Roland Barthes,” he says, “is the ewe that wanted to be a shepherd. And was! That’s as brilliant as it gets! But for everyone else … as far as sex is concerned, he always remained a ewe.” The back rooms moo. “Oh! Oh! Ooh! Ooh!” The Arab groper tries to slip his hand under Simon’s towel, but is gently pushed away, so he goes over to the mustachioed men. “Essentially,” says Foucault, “Roland had a Christian temperament. He came here like the first Christians went to Mass: uncomprehendingly but fervently. He believed in it without knowing why.” (In the back rooms: “Yes! Yes!) “Homosexuality disgusts you, doesn’t it, Superintendent?” (“Harder! Harder!”) “And yet it was you who created us. The notion of male homosexuality didn’t exist in Ancient Greece: Socrates could bugger Alcibiades without being seen as a pederast. The Greeks had a more elevated notion of the corruption of youth…”
Foucault throws back his head, eyes closed. Neither Bayard nor Herzog can tell if he’s abandoning himself to pleasure or thinking. And still the back-room chorus rises in volume: “Oh! Oh!”
Foucault opens his eyes, as if he’s just remembered something: “And yet the Greeks had their limits too. They used to deny the young boy his share of pleasure. They couldn’t forbid it, of course, but they couldn’t conceive of it, and in the end, they did what we do: they excluded it through decorum.” (The back rooms: “No! No! No!”) “At the end of the day decorum is always the most effective means of coercion…” He points at his crotch: “This is not a pipe, as Magritte would say, ha ha!” He pulls up on the head of the young man, who is still pumping away conscientiously: “But you like sucking me, don’t you, Hamed?” The young man nods carefully. Foucault looks at him tenderly and says, stroking his cheek, “Short hair suits you.” The young man smiles and replies, in a strong southern accent: “Thanks a lot!”
Bayard and Herzog prick up their ears. They are not sure they heard him correctly, but the boy adds: “You’re a nice guy, Michel, and you have a really lovely dick, con!”
15
Yes, he saw Roland Barthes, a few days ago. No, they didn’t really have sexual relations. Barthes called it “boating.” But he wasn’t very active. More the sentimental type. Barthes bought him an omelet at La Coupole and afterward insisted on taking him back to his attic room. They drank tea. They didn’t talk about anything special; Barthes was not very chatty. He seemed pensive. Before he left, Barthes asked him: “What would you do if you ruled the world?” The gigolo replied that he would abolish all laws. Barthes said: “Even grammar?”
16
It is relatively calm in the lobby of Pitié-Salpêtrière. Friends, admirers, acquaintances, and the merely curious line up to sit at the great man’s bedside; they fill the hospital foyer, conversing in undertones, a cigarette or a sandwich or a newspaper in hand, or a book by Guy Debord or a Milan Kundera novel. Suddenly, three figures appear: a small-waisted woman, short-haired, full of energy, flanked by two men; one in a white shirt open to the navel and a long black coat, black hair billowing, and the other, beige-haired, birdlike, a cigarette holder between his lips.
The formation moves resolutely through the crowd. You can tell that something is about to happen. It’s all a bit Operation Overlord. They plow into the coma wing. The people there to see Barthes look at one another, and the other visitors do the same. Barely five minutes have passed before the first yells are heard: “They’re letting him die! They’re letting him die!”