Funeral Rites

by Jean Genet

  “Since there're no girls around, maybe I'll be doing him a favor. He could find worse-looking guys than me.”

  By that thought alone he was bestowing his body on the soldier. He realized it, and, sweetly, naively too, he was willing to assume any posture to please him. Suddenly, he thought of the danger of such an adventure: he was afraid that all the soldiers might want to go down on him. They were German, squareheads, rough-hewn, and he, the youngest and weakest, alone and French.

  He tried to conjure up Erik's prick more precisely. He imagined it huge and heavy in his closed hand. He made a slight movement to extend his arm, but he left his hand lying on his thigh. This venturing of a first gesture took his breath away. Behind the simple door that one opens perhaps there awakes a dragon whose body coils round itself several times. If you look a dog in the eye too intently, it may recite an astounding poem to you. You might have been mad for a long time and have realized it only at that moment. Is there perhaps a snake in the bag hanging from the coatrack? Beware. From the slightest patch of shadow, from a spot of darkness, there rise up prowlers armed to the teeth who tie you up and carry you off. Riton waited a bit in order to catch his breath. Erik's whole body from head to foot was lying against his. The fact that his love had been revealed to him at the moment of its greatest danger imparted such great strength that Riton felt he was brawny enough to crush dragons. The peril lay not in death but in love. He had the wit to feign sleep. He breathed noisily. The thought of Erik's prick became obsessive, and, with tears at the rims of his eyes, he wanted to extend his left hand, but, before making the movement, he realized, while executing it mentally, that it would be difficult for him to open the fly. He turned a bit on his left side.

  “The fly, that's all I needed!”

  So what! What did reproval of that love matter to Riton since he would be dead the following day, and what did life matter since he loved Erik! Very skillfully he pretended to be shifting in his sleep and put his right foot, on which was a soft, gray sock, across Erik's foot. He made the gesture very naturally, without any fear, but he felt it was the first phase of an embrace that could tighten to closest intimacy, when, with bated breath, he stretched out his right hand and laid it, hardly touching, on Erik's thigh.

  “If he realizes, there'll be hell to pay!”

  So what? We'll be killed tomorrow! A day of torture would be nothing. He pressed down with his hand gently, then a little harder. Unable to see the spot, he tried to figure out where it was. On the basis of the folds of the cloth and his own position he thought it was the middle of the thigh. If Erik woke up at that moment, he might think that sleep alone was responsible. Mad with fear and boldness, he moved lightly over the cloth, or rather he flew over the area. Erik slept on.

  “You don't get a hard-on when you're asleep.”

  The hand moved upward with the same delicacy. It reached the fly and recognized it. Riton had difficulty breathing. The treasure was found. His light, fearful hand remained as if suspended for a moment. Not a sound in the room. He heard another shot, far away.

  “It's fighting on the Rue de Buenos Aires,” he thought. “It's a hell of a way off.” His hand assumed greater authority and it was blessing or was on the lookout for the nest below. The hearts of the seven German soldiers must have been beating. Riton would surely be killed the next day, but before that he would bump off quite a lot of Frenchmen. He was in love.

  “Those damn jerks. What the hell are they to me, they're just a bunch of idiots. I'm going to bump a few of them off. . . .”

  With, as it happens, that same right hand. He made the movement, despite himself, of pulling a trigger with his forefinger. His pinky struck the cloth—to have done so was to knock at the door of darkness and see that darkness open onto death, and it was with a closed fist that he remained there, first making its pressure light and then gradually letting it sink by its own weight into the moss.

  The building was doomed. A face, a destiny, a boy, are said to be doomed. A sign of misfortune must have been inscribed somewhere, an invisible sign, for perhaps it was at the bottom of a door in the left corner, or on a window pane, or in the twitching of a tenant. Perhaps it was an object that at first sight was harmless—that a second look does not enable you to detect—it was a spider's web on the chandelier (there was a chandelier in the living room) or the chandelier itself. The house smelled of death. It was drifting toward an abyss. If that's what death is, it's sweet. Riton no longer belonged to anyone, not even to Erik. The fingers of his hand spread like the folioles of a sensitive plant in the sun. His hand was resting. He had placed his head under his left arm, and the graciousness of that posture was entering his soul. He had not killed enough Frenchmen, that is, not paid dearly enough for that moment. If the house blows up, that means it is thoroughly mined. If it burns, love is what fires it. With infinite delicacy Riton took his handkerchief from his pocket, wet it silently with saliva, and slipped it through his fly and between his legs, which were slightly drawn up so that he could clean his “bronze eye” properly.

  “You think he'll stick it up me? Oh well, you never know.” He wanted less to be ready for the act than to be ready for love. He rubbed a little, then took out the handkerchief so as to wet it again, happy to smell beneath his nostrils and on his lips the odor of sweat and shit. This discreet and careful grooming enchanted him.

  Around the building and in the building itself, which was being undermined by mysterious insects, the nation was busying itself, as he would have desired. Multicolored paper garlands were being nailed to windows, flowers were being hooked on to electric wires, streamers and lanterns were strung from window to window, cloth was being dyed in the darkness, women were sewing flags, children were preparing powder and bullets for the salvos. People were building up around the apartment a catafalque that was caught in the childish combinations of tricolored ribbons with more complicated intertwining than the arabesques of bindings which are called “fanfares.” In the darkness, half of Paris was silently constructing the new funeral pyre of the seven males and the kid. The other half was on the lookout.

  His hand opened. A harder fold made Riton think he was touching the prick. His chest collapsed. “If he's got a hard-on, it means he's not sleeping. In that case, I'm in the shit.”

  He decided to let his hand play dead. Its being there was no small joy, but the fingers had a life of their own and kept seeking, despite the rough cloth and the stiff edge of the fly where the buttons were. Finally they felt a warm, soft mass. Riton parted his lips. He stayed that way for a few seconds, straining his mind so as to be fully aware of his joy.

  “He's got an octopus there between his legs.”

  “I'll just stay this way.”

  But the fingers wanted full particulars. They very delicately tried to distinguish the various parts of that mass whose abandon in his hands gratified him. All of Erik's power was contained in that little heap, which, though quiet and trusting, radiated despite its death. And all the might of Germany was contained in those sacred and peaceful though heavy and sleeping repositories which were capable of the most dangerous awakenings. They were watchful repositories which millions of soldiers carried preciously in freezing and scorching regions in order to impose themselves by rape. With the skill of a lacemaker, the hand above the dark cloth was able to sort out the confusion of the treasure which lay there all jumbled up. I prejudged its splendor in action and imprisoned it, sleeping little girl that it was, in my big ogre's paw. I was protecting her. I weighed her in my hand and thought, “There's hidden treasure in there.” My cock stiffened out of pure friendliness. I was worthy of her. My fingers squeezed her a little more, with greater tenderness. They stroked her again. A slight movement of Erik's leg disturbed his immobility. I was filled with terrible fear, then immediately with nope, but first with fear. A mass of cries of fear rising from my belly tried to force open my throat and mouth, where my strong, clenched teeth were on the alert. Finding no outlets, those cries punctured m
y neck, which suddenly let flow the twenty white streams of my fear through twenty purple ulcers in the shape of roses and carnations. I kept the prick in my hand. If Erik awoke, I would take my chance. I even hoped he would. I squeezed a bit harder, and as soon as I did, I was astounded to feel the Fritz's cock swell between my fingers, harden, and quickly fill my hand. I stopped moving, but I left my hand there dead and dancing. Since my stroking had just given Erik such a violent hard-on, he was awake, and he did not rebel. I waited wonderful seconds, and it's amazing that there was not born of that waiting, from the moment that begins with the prick's awakening to happiness, the most fabulous of heroes, as Chrysaor sprang from the blood of Medusa, or new rivers, valleys, chimeras, in a leap on a bed of violets, hope itself in a white silk doublet with a feathered cap, a royal breast, a necklace of golden thorns, or tongues of flame, a new gospel, an aurora borealis over London or Frisco, a perfect sonata, or amazing that death itself did not make a fulgurant appearance between the two lovers. My hand squeezed the cock a second time; it seemed monstrously big.

  “If he sticks the whole caboodle up my cornhole he'll wreck the works.”

  I squeezed a little harder. Erik did not stir, but I was sure he wasn't sleeping, because the regular sound of his breathing had stopped. Then I ventured a stroke over the cloth, and then another, and each time my gesture was more precise. Erik didn't make a move, he didn't say a word. Hope filled me with a boldness that amazed even me. I slipped the tip of my forefinger into one of the little interstices between the buttons. Erik was wearing neither jockey shorts nor boxer shorts. My finger first felt the hairs. It moved over them, then over the cock, which was as hard as wood, but alive. The contact thrilled me. In the state of ecstasy there is also an element of fear with respect to the divinity or his angels. The prick I was touching with my finger was not only my lover's but also that of a warrior, of the most brutal, most formidable of warriors, of the lord of war, of the demon, of the exterminating angel. I was committing a sacrilege and was conscious of it. That prick was also the angel's weapon, his dart, a part of those terrible devices with which he is armed. It was his secret weapon, the V-1 on which the Führer relies. It was the ultimate and major treasure of the Germans. The prick was fiery. I wanted to stroke it, but my finger was not free enough. I feared lest my nail hurt it if I pressed. Erik had not moved. In order to make me think he was sleeping, he resumed his regular breathing. Motionless at the center of a state of perfect lucidity—so extraordinary that he feared for a moment lest the purity of his vision radiate outside him and illuminate Riton—he let the kid alone and was amused by his playing. I withdrew my finger and very skillfully succeeded in undoing two buttons. This time I put my whole hand in. I squeezed, and Erik recognized, I don't know how, that I was squeezing tenderly. He didn't stir.

  The moon was veiled. Barefoot, I first walked on tiptoe, then I ran, I went up steps, I scaled houses so as to reach the most dangerous crossroad of the Albaïcin. Everybody in Granada was asleep. The few Gypsies who were prowling about in the darkness could not catch a glimpse of me. I was still swept up in my course, but as there was no way out of the square my movement continued in a silent whirl, on tiptoe. I felt, however, that a Gypsy had just awakened: ten houses away perhaps, beneath a porch. His big sleeping body had stirred in the brown woolen blanket. He was crawling. He grazed walls, went through alleys, stood up, walked over to meet me, finally leaped into the darkness. We were alone on the square. The moon was still veiled, but very thinly so. The Gypsy seized me by the waist, broke me, tossed me up, and then caught me smoothly and silently in his arms. The embroidery and white lace of my petticoats whirled in the darkness. With a flip of his cock the Gypsy tossed me up into the sky. From the whole land of Andalusia, from every ornament, from every lock there welled up a music that caressed me. It all took place in the morning. A few streaks of dawn kept watch on the hills. Their blue songs were still sleeping rolled up in the throats of the herdsmen. I fell astride the Gypsy's prick. The flounces of my skirts spread over the countryside like moss. It was April, and the moon lit up a vast stretch of flowering almond trees around Granada.

  Anyway, completely reassured by Erik's immobility, I jerked him off quickly. He was no doubt thinking of that girl's head which surmounted the strong and delicate body that held a tunic of bullets suspended over the frightened city. He beguiled the time by reconstructing her face in his imagination. The greatest happiness was granted him, since it was the kid himself who answered his secret call and came running up to impale himself. The old hallucination of my childhood obtruded itself, and I can render it only by the following image: still rivers that do not mingle, though they have a single source, rush into his mouth, which they spread and fill. One of the soldiers made a slight noise. Fearing that Riton might remove his hand, Erik took hold of it, pressed it down, and made it stay. There was another noise. They waited a moment.

  I have killed, pillaged, stolen, betrayed. What glory I've attained! But let no run-of-the-mill murderer, thief, or traitor take advantage of my reasons. I have gone to too great pains to win them. They are valid only for me. That justification cannot be used by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. I don't like people who have no conscience.

  The Führer sent his finest-looking men to death. It was his only way to possess them all. How often I have wanted to kill those handsome boys who annoyed me because I didn't have enough cocks to ream them all at one time, not enough sperm to cram them with! A pistol shot would, I feel, have calmed my desire-ridden, jealousy-ridden heart and body. Germany was a fiery stake that had been set up for Riton, a stake more beautiful than one of flames, cloth, and paper. In fits and snatches, without regularity, the flames, embers, and brands were earning their living and their death, were biting, here and there, were menacing Hitler. A very slight displacement—ridding it of irony by means of words—is sufficient for humor to reveal the tragedy and beauty of a fact or of a soul. The poet is tempted by the game. Before the war, cartoonists caricatured Hitler as a Maid with clownish features and a movie comedian's mustache. “He hears voices,” said the captions. . . . Did the cartoonists feel that Hitler was Joan of Arc? They had been aware of the resemblance, and they noted it. Thus, the starting point of the features they gave him was that great similarity, since they had thought of it, whether clearly or confusedly, in making their drawings and comments. I regard that recognition as more of a tribute than a mockery. Their irony was the laughter you force for its arrow in order to puncture the agitation that would make you weep in certain moments of overpowering emotion. Hitler will perish by fire if he has identified himself with Germany, as his enemies recognize. He has a bleeding wound at the same level as Joan's on her prisoner's robe.

  Like all the other boys of the Reich, Erik's face had retained something of the spatters of a royal sperm—a kind of shame, of deflowering, and at the same time a luster both bright and cloudy (like that of the pearl), precious and triumphant, opaline, the memory of which I thought I discerned in the beads of sweat on his forehead, which I took for tears of transparent sperm. No doubt it was owing to Nazism that Erik wore that thin veil of shame and light, but the executioner once actually did discharge in his face, and Erik was already overcome with dizziness and was sinking into the idea whose pressure was drowning him:

  “He's darkening my sky!”

  We were in bed. At the sight of the jet a very brief admiration coursed through him, perhaps with a bit of fear in regard to me whose oak, instead of being struck by lightning, issued the lightning, but when the drops, which were still warm, touched his cheek and torso, I saw a gleam of hatred in his eyes.

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  The usual image appeared in the Führer's eyes: a fancy white cradle. But at the very moment that he saw the lace and the muslin puffs, he noticed, around the pillow and covering it, the garland of white roses and ivy with which it had been
adorned, since it contained a dead child. Hitler stood up. He wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. As always when he finished playing, he thought of his executioner, who must not be confused with the criminal executioner, the headsman, for we are referring to his private executioner, a killer with a revolver. It was by this male, who was, in short, the natural excrescence of a cruel animal, the poison-gland and the dart, that he had had most of his victims executed—whether political victims or others—but every time that he had dealings with him, and even more often, he thought with anguish that there perhaps existed a list or a notebook with baffling information which this killer, in order to kill time, kept up to date.

  After buttoning his fly, the Führer went to the conference room, where the generals, the admiral, and the cabinet ministers were waiting for him. Hitler's gracious and simple life was going to unleash terrible acts on the world, acts that would give rise to the most prodigious flowering of nightmares that a man has ever generated all by himself. High dignitaries, very noble ones, whose heads and shoulders were covered with gold, surrounded him, preserved him as priests preserve the gold of a relic. Hitler had secrets. Master magician that he was, he could float on carpets through several rooms whose walls were pierced by holes for the barrels of rifles.

  “I'm just an old fossil,” he thought, on his way back from the conference. He felt himself being a dusty fossil. Love-making had drained him. He dared not wipe his nose or even put a finger into it. Am I quite sure I command the world?

  Riton will not kill himself . . . unless. . . . We shall see. I am keen on his continuing until the last fraction of a second, by destruction, murder—in short, evil according to you—to exhaust, and for an ever greater exaltation—which means elevation—the social being or gangue from which the most glittering diamond will emerge; solitude, or saintliness, which is also to say the unverifiable, sparkling, unbearable play of his freedom. To anyone who may point out that Riton is not alone since he is in love, I wish to say that were it not for that love he would not have gone freely to the very top. It was necessity itself that made the militiamen—and especially our militiaman—fire on Frenchmen, but the only thing that counts is this: solitude being given and accepted. Rejection of it when it is inevitable is despair, a sin which is in conflict, I believe, with the second theological virtue. In any case, I am writing this book and proposing these things, and I climb limpingly and often tumble on my way up to my rock of solitude when, along with my eroticism, my friendship for the purest and most upright of adolescents, a saint according to men, conjures up the image of a haloed traitor. It is under the sway of the still-young death of Jean, red with that death and with the emblem of his party, that I am writing this book. The flowers that I wanted to be in profusion on his little grave which was lost in the fog are perhaps not faded, and I already recognize that the most important character glorified by the account of my grief and of my love for him will be that luminous monster who is exposed to the most splendid solitude, the one in whose presence I experience a kind of ecstasy because he discharged a burst of machine-gun fire into his body.