Page 89 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
what the French police, more than any other, meant to me. Perhaps because of its language, in which I discovered abysses. (It was no longer a social institution but a sacred power, acting directly upon my soul and troubling me. Only the German police succeeded in being—in Hitler's time—both Police and Crime. This masterly synthesis of opposites, this block of truth, was frightful, charged with a magnetism which will continue to perturb us for a long, long time.)
Bernardini was, visibly to me, the manifestation upon earth, perhaps brief, of a demoniacal organization, as sickening as funeral rites, as funereal ornaments, yet as awe−inspiring as royal glory. Knowing that there, in that skin and flesh, was a particle of what I would never have hoped could be mine, I looked at him with a shudder. His dark hair was flat and glossy, as Rudolph Valentino's used to be, with a straight white part on the left side. He was strong. His face looked rugged, somewhat granite−like, and I wanted his soul to be cruel and brutal.
Little by little I came to understand his beauty. I even think that I created it, deciding that it would be precisely that face and body, on the basis of the idea of the police which they were to signify. The popular expression for the entire organization added to my disturbance:
“The Secret Police. He belongs to the Secret Police.”
I cleverly managed to follow him and see him from a distance during the next few days. I worked out a subtle way of shadowing him. Without his suspecting it, he belonged to my life. Finally I left Marseilles. I preserved, in secret, a memory of him that was both painful and tender. Two years later I was arrested at the Saint Charles Station. The inspectors were brutal with me, hoping to make me confess. The door of the police station opened and to my amazement there was Bernardini. I was afraid that he might add his blows to those of his colleagues. He made them stop. He had never noticed me when I used to follow him lovingly. Even had he seen my face a few times, he would have forgotten it after two years. It was not sympathy or kindness that bade him spare me. He was a cop, like the others. I cannot explain why, but he protected me. When I was released two days later, I managed to see him. I thanked him.
“You, at least, were pretty swell.”
“Forget it. There's no use knocking a guy silly.”
“Have a drink with me.”
He accepted. The following day I met him again. It was he who invited me. We were the only customers in the bar.
With my heart racing away, I said, “I've known you for a long time.” “Oh? Since when?”
With tension in my throat, fearing he might get angry, I confessed my love and told him about my ruses for following him. He smiled.
“So you had a crush. What about now?”
“A little still.”
He laughed some more, perhaps flattered. (Java has just admitted to me that he is prouder of a man's love or admiration than of a woman's.) I was standing beside him and telling him about my love; I clowned about it,
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