‘Who is Pauline Réage?’
The eyes of Albert Camus are about to leap from their sockets, and the woman to whom the question is addressed, Dominique, is so drawn to his eyes that she forgets the question. Not only is the question delivered with an inquisitorial stare, it is delivered with the thunderous crack of a manuscript hitting the large oval table at which they are sitting, along with five others in the committee reading room of Gallimard publishing. The question and the sound of the manuscript hitting the table hang in the air.
This is where they decide what will be published and what will not. And all afternoon committee members have been banging manuscripts on the table, accompanied by a yes or a no as emphatic as the banging. To anyone listening outside, the meeting would sound like a series of explosions and heated arguments. Almost a brawl. Which, in many ways, it is. For this, after all, is the clearing house of Gallimard: to those at this table not just a publishing house but a world unto itself, almost a wing of government, the clearing house of the committee room a kind of cabinet. What they publish here matters. Only the best. Only that which defines the nation: what it is thinking and feeling, from the vacant eyes of small-town squares in the middle of a drowsy summer’s day to the acrid, tobacco-drenched cafés of Paris, where habitués sit arguing into the night like some unofficial parliament. What they publish here must not only be the best but must define the nation at this particular time – in all its meanness and majesty.
For the war and the occupation are still close enough to be yesterday, feelings are still raw, everybody still growing back a layer of skin. Peace, Dominique notes to herself, can be ugly. There are scores to be settled, memories both true and invented to be aired, fingers to be pointed. There, all the time, underneath the apparent normality of everybody going about their business, getting on with things after a bad dream that is best forgotten. For as much as the cafés may be full of furious debate, most of the country just wants to get on with things, let the past be and drink the medicine of blissful amnesia: not so much forget things as pretend they never happened.
What they decide to publish, to those here in this room, has possibly never mattered so much as it does now. Specks of dust rise from the table as Camus, temples pulsing, bangs the manuscript with his fist, his unanswered question still hanging in the air. And then, with a raising of the eyebrows and a puff of smoke, he moves on to judgement.
‘I say yes. We must publish this.’ He pauses briefly, looking at Dominique and the others at the table, then continues. ‘But no woman could have written such a book!’ he says, staring down at the table. ‘It is a fine book. An elegant book. Shocking. Brutal. Honest. But only a man could have written it!’
It is at this point that the head of Gallimard himself, the imposing seventy-four-year-old Gaston Gallimard, leans forward, patrician forehead and nose thrust out, and speaks, as emphatically negative as Camus is positive.
‘No!’ He too holds up his copy of the manuscript, bringing it down on the table, the crack of the impact ringing out around the room. ‘Smut! This,’ he thunders, ‘is nothing but a little bit of porn!’
There are cries of agreement and disagreement all around the table, but Gaston Gallimard, who founded the house, is determined it will not publish this thing.
‘It is nothing but filth, Albert. And not only filth but demeaning to all women! Do you really want your wife to read this? Or your daughters, gentlemen? Or your mother? Heaven forbid! We are Gallimard, for god’s sake! This book will never go into the world with my name on it.’ He fixes Camus in his sights. ‘Albert, how can you, a man of such culture, intelligence and artistry, not recognise smut when you see it?’
‘Not smut,’ Camus fires back. ‘Art!’
Gaston Gallimard is incredulous. ‘Art?’
Again there is a divided chorus of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, of ‘smut’ and ‘art’, Camus and Gallimard eyeballing each other and, all the time, the conservatively dressed, petite figure of Dominique Aury (who, before the meeting started, passed around a tray of visitantes, her favourite biscuits, which she bakes for every committee meeting) sits silently watching the whole spectacle. Impassive, giving nothing away, except for the slightest hint of amusement.
Camus’s face rises up like a full moon in front of her and she could almost laugh. Her eyes twinkle. There is now a clear hint of a playful smile on her lips. High seriousness, like politics, amuses her. To all outward appearances she is a quiet woman in her mid-forties: one of those who hide in plain sight; a woman who brings freshly baked biscuits to every meeting like a mother or a dutiful wife.
But everybody knows that she is the first woman to ever sit at this table, and for all the small theatrics of baking biscuits for the meeting, for all the appearance of being quietly unremarkable, everybody steps lightly around Dominique Aury, knowing full well there is a formidable intelligence behind those twinkling eyes. Opposite her sits Jean. The two of them, silent collaborators, giving nothing away.
Camus sinks back into his chair, smoke streaming from his nostrils. A glance passes between Dominique and Jean, the slightest raising of his eyebrows, and, Dominique notes, what eyebrows they are! Together, they observe the scene, their secret safe. And while the words smut, filth and porn are being thrown about, and while Camus and another committee member defend the book, Dominique watches. Utterly unmoved. Untouchable. As if the words dirt, filth and porn, and phrases such as degrading to all women, defiling, demeaning, were being spoken about another book altogether.
And so while Gaston Gallimard is telling the room that this is Gallimard and we do not publish sordid little tales for the trench-coat brigade to smuggle into their sordid little rooms to light their sordid little lives, while he is telling the committee that to publish this book would be to soil the company’s name, that nobody ought to publish it, that if ever a book deserved to be burnt, this is it, Dominique watches, with something close to fascination, the passionate reaction the book has provoked.
But above all – like the impassive Jean in front of her – she is amused. And she knows already that when the meeting is finished and everybody has had their say, when she and Jean go for drinks afterwards, they will laugh about it all. Loud and long. For it is inconsequential to Dominique if the book is published or not. But the reaction of the committee, she knows, will only make Jean more determined. For, he will surely tell her later, if a book like this can create such a storm in the reading room of a publishing house, imagine what it might do out there in the world. For her, though, the book has done its job.
If only they could see themselves. Supporters and naysayers alike. Shouting and jabbing their fingers in the air, and all over what is apparently meaningless dirt that leaves them feeling defiled, yet somehow revelling in it. Like inquisitors who have found the very thing they sought – the work of the devil itself – exalted into a frenzy by their discovery. And as she watches the spectacle, amusement is giving way to curiosity. For something intriguing is happening here. A seemingly insignificant piece of porn has set off a storm.
And it is while amusement gives way to curiosity, and she is asking herself just what is happening and why, that all of them, having exhausted themselves, fall back into their respective chairs, and for the first time all afternoon there is silence in the room.
She allows the soothing silence to wash over her, until Camus turns once more to her and speaks.
‘Who is Pauline Réage?’
And as the question is directed at her, she feels compelled to answer, and replies as if it were perfectly obvious. ‘The author of Story of O.’