Georges Perec - La Boutique Obscure - 124 Dreams

The Chinese restaurant

I am with Henri G. at a very expensive Chinese restaurant.

We’ve been discussing something in the news, no doubt a scuffle between some kids.

Now we see them, the kids, on television. They’re up on a pedestal, in military dress and performing various mass gymnastics.

I am at a bar with a fairly famous Italian actress. Though she is over fifty, she is a remarkably pretty woman, still in excellent shape. She is imagining without rejecting — on the contrary, with satisfaction — the notion of becoming my mistress. But the clock strikes six and she abruptly gets up and leaves.

P. has given me a battery-operated alarm clock; it is spherical and transparent, and has several little suction pads and two oblong pieces attached laterally on each side whose function is unclear. But Abdelkader Z. is playing with the pieces, losing them. The alarm clock is unusable. I am very angry.

Major railway strike. Red flags on the tracks block the trains. I walk along the rails, suitcase in hand. I enter a city, perhaps Grenoble. I cross an intersection where cops (all in plainclothes, looking almost friendly) are gathered. Before, I had pulled out of the ground one of the innumerable red flags that were planted there and covered my hand with it to carry my suitcase (a gesture I felt was in solidarity with the strikers).

I walk along the palisades. I get to a church. Actually, there are no walls, and the floor is made of macadam, like the street, but only a roof held up by pillars.

I look for the priest, who is not there, but I see him suddenly, hiding above his altar. He comes toward me and says:

“I want to be a father”

“But you cannot you are a priest”

He answers that it makes no difference.

Two herring merchants (the fat Marseillais sort) look at us.

The same scene but another setting.

I am at a friend’s house (maybe H.’s). I am dismayed because I have to return to the army. I haven’t finished my service yet. I calculate that I should be free again around February 15th. They could let it slide, since it’s not worth making me come back for so little time, especially since I’ll have to jump (with a parachute) the following day and all the requisite medical visits will take a long time.

My companions explain to me that they’re going to leave town and go back to Paris, and I won’t see them again.

Maybe the battery-operated alarm clock makes another appearance here.

M/W

In a book I’m translating, I find two phrases: the first ends with “wrecking their neck,” the second with “making their naked,” a slang expression that means “to strip naked.”

The intruder

Someone has managed to enter my home through the thin shower partition. He knocks and calls out to me. There’s nothing hostile in his voice, in any case. It’s a woman, I suppose; I smell her at the foot of my bed, she is whispering something in my ear; I am absolutely convinced I’m not dreaming; I wake with a start, a bit panicked, hearing myself say:

“What is it?”

(a few moments later, someone rings at the door. It’s C., who has come to have breakfast with me and has brought croissants)

The big courtyard

A courtyard, a huge space surrounded by houses. I run into Henri C., who tells me he’s going down to Grenoble too and can take me.

We all have dinner together. I move from table to table. There is nothing to eat except cheese, and in almost all cases the cheese looks fine but turns out to be crawling with worms. I tell P. about this, and she says she knew about it, having gone back up to her place. But she makes me a tart anyway, checking (by opening it all around) that the piece she’s giving me is wormless.

Several times I get up to leave. I kiss everyone (several girls on the mouth). Z. is there, staying a bit off to the side, but smiling. Except for a girl who is crying and refuses to let me kiss her (though she relents later) everyone is relaxed (even though I’m leaving?). The hugs and kisses goodbye restart several times. Henri C. and his wife are taking the plane from Grenoble to Paris and I the train. He reiterates his offer to drive me. I accept, asking that we leave right away, since I like to get my seat on the train fifteen minutes before it leaves. Henri C. answers that we still have time for a cup of coffee (it’s foul but it’s hot). Coffee is served in one of the buildings in the courtyard, the only one with lights on. There are three steps leading up to it. Smoke-filled room, poor people eating, a counter in back. They bring us our coffee outside (we’re crouched on the ground) on a large tray. There are only three large mugs — one black, two very white — and a teacup. I take a sip of black coffee, which was not meant for me (but nothing was meant for me).

Henri C. is very elegant, very youthful; he is wearing a soft black hat, which I tell him looks terrific on him.

Seaside

’Twas a story replete with twists and turns. It took place near Nice, by the sea. Maybe Menton. Alain Delon was involved, or a friend of Alain Delon. I had dinner in a restaurant whose owner knew my uncle. Later, I wanted to go back there; I called, but ultimately I didn’t make a reservation. My uncle, rather dryly as I recall, scolded me; for what I’m not sure, maybe for not telling him about it.

I returned to Paris in a magnificent machine, ultramodern and very sci-fi. I remember panoramic portholes. Dizzying speed.

The Renshaw

Exchanges

Pillars for 4

common word I forget

Ren-Shaw

(Shaw-Ren)

Inhibition

(I scratched these words out in the night; I find them in the morning; none of them evokes any particular memory)

(recurring Renshaw inhibition is, to put it crudely, a loop system controlling muscular contraction)

The masters thesis

It might have been at Jean Duvignaud’s, or maybe at Paul Virilio’s.

I notice a mimeographed work on the table and open it. It’s a masters thesis — devoted to stage design, it seems — written by A. while she was in South America. I hadn’t heard about it, but I am at once surprised and pleased that she did something during her long stay.

There is a particular detail: the title page was composed by (and here some sort of famous name) on an IBM 307 (let’s say).

I remember, on that note, that Pierre G. had once spoken to me of automatic composition.

This might take place at a cocktail party where things like this make for good conversation.

The support polygon

I am on the street with P. and Henri G. There are buses.

We’re talking about the elephant’s support polygon.

Henri G. reminds me that the center of gravity is located slightly toward the front (or slightly toward the back?) of the body; no effort is required to be upright, or only a tiny effort.