America. Группа авторов
in Culver City in 1921 by the film director Harry Oliver, then transferred to Beverly Hills in 1934. Its irregular architecture—the wooden frame with misshapen windows, the gardens stocked with gnarled trees, the bridge (another bridge!) crossing over a ditch—all offer the visitor a unique experience, along with the feeling of being a character in a book of fairy stories, as when the house was still in Culver City and used as a setting for silent movies. Today it is a private residence that can be rented for short leases, and many Californians still believe it was built by one of the seven dwarves from Snow White, or that one of its former occupants reappears at Halloween dressed as a witch, handing out sweets to children . . .
I’d have understood if, after visiting these “scary” locations, you’d felt the need to relax in the evening and immerse yourself in the night scene to see how Californians party. We’d have gone to the Circle Bar on Main Street, in Santa Monica, a short distance from Venice. This bar-cum-discotheque, which dates back to the 1940s, is considered one of the trendiest on the west side of Los Angeles. There you’d have met young people from every corner of the States, hoping to be spotted by people in the business. Customers cluster around the centerpiece of the interior, an oval-shaped bar, discussing ideas for stories or adaptations, or simply hanging out in the hope of glimpsing some celebrity, before launching onto the crowded dance floor. What with the old photos on the walls and glaring lights, you’d have been astonished to learn that Jim Morrison and Truman Capote were regulars here . . .
A real writer?
I mention the Circle Bar because I have special memories of it, and whenever I go back there, I am reminded of an experience I had a few years ago that was rather odd, to say the least. I think it might make you smile—at least I hope it will.
Back then, I had a female novelist friend who was writing a book set in Los Angeles. She was spending ten days or so in town, and I have to tell you she did not stop for one minute; she wanted to see everything, do everything, photograph everything, to gather as much material as possible and get all her facts exactly right. She didn’t have a driver’s license, so she took the bus, walked for miles, got lost, called me for help, and often I’d discover her in districts that were completely new to me. She had, to put it mildly, a loathing of discotheques, because you had to dance, and she was paralyzed at the thought of dancing. I’d had quite a job persuading her to come with me to the Circle Bar, and as soon as we stepped inside she took up her seat at the bar, firmly planted on her high stool, giving off the message to any potential suitor that no way was she cutting through the crowd to go and make a fool of herself on the dance floor.
She had warned me in advance:
“If anyone asks me to dance, I will deliberately tread on their toes, and it will be their own fault!”
I didn’t insist. I was on the dance floor, executing the trickiest steps of the ndombolo, the dance of the two Congos, while some people must have been wondering what planet I was from, with my choreography so out of step with most of the other revelers’.
I was concentrating so hard on what I was doing, I lost sight of my novelist friend. I was starting to get worried, when I caught sight of her, surrounded by four young men with biceps that had clearly been blown way out of proportion in the gym. They wore tight T-shirts and were talking to her about screenplays for feature films and television series she might write, which they’d hand on to the greatest film directors in Hollywood.
I was familiar with this kind of pickup line and had advised my friend to take care, not pay too much attention, and avoid being seduced by empty promises. Alas, she was more than a little receptive, and there was a definite spark between her and the four unknown young men.
By the time I suggested we go on somewhere else in the hope of detaching her from the group, it was one in the morning.
“What? You must be kidding! It’s only one in the morning, the bar shuts at two!”
To my utter amazement, she had dashed onto the dance floor and was cutting some moves to the applause of her four admirers.
By now I was feeling pretty impatient and irritated. I left the Circle Bar and went home. Somewhere around three in the morning, I heard a knock on the door. The four Californians were there, with my friend and another woman. The noise level was close to a nocturnal disturbance of the peace, so I decided to shoo the untimely visitors away.
Though at first they resisted, once I threatened to call the forces of law and order, they cleared off, along with the unknown woman. An hour later, my friend told me that the group had taken her overcoat, which she had bought in Germany.
“You know, I really love that coat,” she said. “It cost me my ass. I mean, I just can’t lose it! I’ve got the phone number of the girl who was with us, I’ll call her, please, can we go and get my coat?”
So the next morning, having received a text from the unknown woman giving the address where the group lived, we set out for Pacific Palisades, a quarter of an hour from Santa Monica. The block was quite high up in the hills, the house itself a very modern building with a glass façade, set in a huge park. The doors were wide open, and the whole place was bathed in silence, which we found quite unsettling, especially as there were signs on the grounds that a struggle had taken place. The trunk of the car was half open, which I didn’t find very reassuring, having seen enough films in which dead bodies were hidden in trunks.
We crept up toward the vehicle. The overcoat was there, hooked over the driver’s seat. We grabbed it quickly, ran back to my car, and shot off, waiting until we were safely away before bursting into peals of laughter. Since that day, I have not heard a whisper of those so-called “producers,” not to mention the young woman they had with them . . .
California, still Democratic . . .
My dear Marc-Antoine, this city of mine, Los Angeles, is a mosaic of little stories like this. I could go on forever. I still haven’t written an “American novel,” though my French publisher would like me to. Maybe I never will. Because the freedom I enjoy here brings me more peace of mind than inspiration. But I also find it increasingly stifling, which comes from the political atmosphere in the country as a whole. I’ve lived through the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, each of whom occupied the White House for two successive terms before Donald Trump came to power. I could just have rejoiced in the privilege of living in California, a state that votes overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party in the primaries: over 60 percent for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, with a peak of 85 percent in a city like San Francisco . . . So I completely understand that some Californians, recognizing the danger of an America folded in on itself, as envisaged by the current powers that be, favor a veritable “Calexit.” But, my dear friend, I am keeping my head here, because it would be easier to pass an elephant through the eye of a needle than to obtain independence for California. In the absence of such a step, we are witnessing a wave of protests in Los Angeles, but also in most large cities in the country, particularly in Chicago and New York, with the motto “Not My President.” And the presidential decree on immigration is seen here as a backward step and a denial of the tradition of hospitality that is special to Los Angeles, the whole of California, and indeed a nation that rose to greatness thanks to the support of migrants.
For my own part, I need hardly say that my door will always be open to you, and that next time we really must make sure we’re in tune, so we don’t miss one another again.
Till we meet, then, and with good wishes,
A.
FROM CHICAGO TO NEW ORLEANS
By
Philippe Besson
Translated by
Sandra Smith
Idon’t exactly know which of us had the idea. But I think that it was S. who first said: “We could travel across America by car.” I believe he was thinking of taking Route 66, which runs from Chicago to Santa Monica. Romantic pipe dreams seem to last forever. I objected at once (I am undoubtedly not romantic enough, or quite simply I’ve gotten too old):