MATZNEFF IN TUNISIA, 1966
Gabriel Michel Hippolyte Matzneff (born 12 August 1936) is a prize-winning French writer, who began writing journals in 1953. Presented here are all the passages of Greek love interest concerning his two stays in Tunisia in 1966, taken from Vénus et Junon: Journal 1965-1969 (Venus and Juno: Journal 1965-69), published by la Table ronde in Paris in 1979.. The translation is this website’s.
First visit, January
Tunis, January. Matzneff and his friend, the sociology professor Georges Lapassade, are planning a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Sidi-Saad.
While waiting for this great day, we run around the bars to meet old negresses who are likely to pass on their initiatory secrets to us, and we work to form an orchestra of young people who will know how to combine the rhythms of the ancestral stambeli with those of the more modern music danced to today.
The main merit of this adolescent orchestra is to introduce me to adorable boys of thirteen and fourteen who, between two rehearsals, come and join me in my room at the Claridge. This way, I make love without wasting time flirting. I like flirting, but I’m here to write l’Archimandrite, not to hang out in the streets. That, thanks to the stambeli, love is brought to me at home, on a silver platter, suits me to the core.
As Georges does not hunt on the same territory as me (the under-sixteens leave him cold), we don’t have a rivalry over love, which is excellent for friendship.
With my favourite, fourteen-year-old Ahmed, I go to Carthage to see Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. The cinema is shabby, the print yellowish, the sound shitty, but contemplating the fall of Rome in Carthage, what food for my daydreams! [...]
The driver of the car that, thanks to Jacques Gagliardi, the Tunisian government has put at my disposal, would like to show me factories, works; and I’m only interested in fields of ruins and in the boys one can flirt with on the sides of the roads. […]
The charm of the Moorish bath, then the delights of Ahmed.
I don’t know how Lapassade’s police force works, but every time a boy comes up to my room, he is warned. He’s not interested in the very young: he burns only for the big models, preferably blacks.
With Georges, one never knows where love ends and sociology begins. The stambeli, the exploitation of blacks by the Tunisian bourgeoisie, sex, everything is mixed up with him ― indistinctly. [...]
During my illness, everyone was very kind to me, from Ahmed, who came to see me every day, to Lapassade. But I miss Tatiana[1] very much.
Ahmed’s prettiest friend, who is thirteen and who also sleeps with me, tells me:
“In Tunis, you have to have a car. With a car, you get all the girls you want. He who doesn’t have a car, has to...”
He doesn't finish his sentence, but I complete it like this:
“has to make do with little boys.” [pp. 59-62]
Readers wishing to read Matzneff’s journals in chronological sequence should here continue to Matzneff in the Land of the Soviets, 1966-67.
Second visit, 13 to 29 September
13 September. Departure for Tunis.
... Sidi-Bou-Saïd. The weather is enchanting. Every day I bathe at La Marsa.
Georges’[2] house is small, but pleasant.
Curious. I am here, in principle, to sleep with the Arab boys, and, scarcely arrived, I conquered Dominique, the prettiest European girl in Sidi-Bou-Saïd, and became her lover! Every evening she joins me in my bedroom and spends the night with me. Lapassade, who sometimes knows how to be discreet, makes no comment, but I sense his surprise. Like many people, he doubtless imagined that I only like young boys. In reality, even my attraction to the grace and freshness of boys is a heterosexual attraction.
In Sidi-Bou-Saïd, one can’t take ten steps without someone telling one learnedly: “Gide sat on this stone,” or “This well Gide described in his Journal,” or, about a pot-bellied moustachioed man: “It's little A. who, in 1943, was Gide’s favourite.”[3] [p. 90]
Gabès. I go down to the Oasis, which is the local palace. Georgette chooses an average hotel. Georges, on the other hand, insists on spending the night in a shanty. We separate, but at midnight, after having made love with a little thirteen-year-old Habib, I come across Lapassade, in boxer shorts, busy, just outside the door of the Oasis, exchanging his trousers for those of Mustapha - a huge black man, his latest conquest -, under the mocking eye of the hotel’s attendant, in red livery. [...]
Divine evening in the palm grove of Kebili, in the company of twelve-year-old Béchir. His fresh and soft skin, his fiery kisses. The warmth of the starry night. [...]
In the morning, again with Béchir. The happiness.
Anxiety at the idea I will not see him any more. […]
Between Gabès and Monastir, Georges makes Mustapha get out of the car. Mustapha runs behind us, like a champion runner.
“Magnificent!” Georges keeps repeating, in ecstasy.
“You promised me that in Monastir we would drop Mustapha! He's getting to be a nuisance, your lover! May I point out that I didn’t take with me either little Habib from Gabès or little Bechir from Kebili, who are nevertheless scaled-down versions and wouldn’t have taken up much space in your car... [pp. 93-4]
29 September. At the Amilcar’s swimming pool. German kids, pretty, golden, blond, playing in the water like newts. Extraordinary feeling of health and joy. The youth of the world.
Last day in Tunisia. In La Marsa, lying on the sand, little Mahmoud beside me, I read Cioran. The sea laps peacefully. In the distance, the little white and blue houses... [p. 96]
Continue to Matzneff in France, 1965-69.
[1] Tatiana Scherbatcheff was Matzneff’s 19-year-old mistress (left in Paris) and future wife.
[2] Georges Lapassade (1924-2008), the French sociology professor with whom Matzneff had been in Tunisia earlier in the year. Lapassade was then a senior lecturer at the University of Tunis.
[3] André Gide (1869-1951), winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, had frequently visited Tunisia and Algeria and had many sexual liaisons with boys there, which was well-known since he also wrote about it.