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badly to her letter (a curious thing: after twenty years he had still not fully digested his old defeat), and he did not answer it.
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    Immaculata as her reference: “… you remember, monsieur, the young girl whom you wrote that she was your immaculate virgin who troubled your nights.” Was it possible? Was it possible? Dashing from one end of his apartment to the other, Berck howled and raged. He tore up the letter, spat on it, and flung it into the garbage.
    One day, he learned from the chief of a television channel that a woman producer wanted to do a profile of him. With irritation, he then remembered the ironical remark about his interest in strutting on television, for the producer who wanted to film him was the bird of night herself, Immaculata in person! A vexing situation: in principle, he considered the proposal to do a film on him an excellent thing because he had always hoped to transform his life into a work of art; but until that moment it had never occurred to him that such a work could be a comedy! With that danger suddenly revealed, he determined to keep Immaculata as far away as possible from his life and begged the chief (who was thoroughly astounded by his modesty) to put off the project, as it was premature for someone so young and unimportant as himself.
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    This story reminds me of another I happen to know, because of the library that covers every wall of Goujard’s apartment. Once, when I was venting my spleen to him, he showed me a shelf bearing a sign in his own hand: “Masterpieces of Unintentional Humor,” and with an evil smile, he pulled out a book a woman journalist had published, in 1972, on her love for Kissinger, if you still recall the name of the most famous political figure of that time, adviser to President Nixon and architect of the peace between the United States and Vietnam.
    This is the story: she meets with Kissinger in Washington to interview him, first for a magazine, then for television. They have several sessions but never breach the bounds of strictly professional relations: one or two dinners to prepare the broadcast, a few visits to his office in the White House and to his home, alone and then surrounded by a crew, and so on. Bit by bit, Kissinger takes a dislike to her. He’s no fool, he knows what’s going on, and to keep her at a dis-44
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    tance he offers a few eloquent observations on how women are drawn to power and on how his position requires him to forgo any personal life. With touching sincerity, she reports all these evasions, which, by the way, do not discourage her, given her unshakable conviction that the two of them are meant for each other. Does he seem guarded and mistrustful? that does not surprise her: she has strong views on the horrible women he has known before; she is sure that once he understands how much she loves him, he will forget his worries, relax his guard. Ah, she is so sure of the purity of her love! She could swear to it: there is absolutely no question of erotic obsession on her part. “Sexually, he left me cold,” she writes, and several times she repeats (with an odd motherly sadism) that he dresses badly; that he is not handsome; that he has poor taste in women; “he must be a poor lover,” she adjudges, even as she proclaims she loves him all the more for that. She has two children, so does he, she lays plans—he has no idea—for joint vacations on the Cote d’Azur and is delighted that the two little Kissingers can thus learn French in a pleasant way.
    One day, she sends her camera crew to shoot Kissinger’s apartment, and no longer able to contain himself, he sends them packing like a bunch of trespassers. On another occasion, he calls her into his office and, his voice exceptionally stern and chill, tells her he will no longer stand for her ambiguous behavior with him. At first she is in deep despair. But very soon she begins to say to herself: no doubt about it, she is considered politically dangerous and