Free Funeral Rites by Jean Genet

himself.
    “It can be seen,” he thought. “Does it change shape as much as that?”
    He does not hate the executioner for that. He will think:
    “I'm sure the creases come out again. . . .”
    I have created within myself an order of knighthood of which I am the originator, founder, and only knight. I award to the Erik who is rising up inside me ideal decorations, crosses, orders, grants. They are my gobs of spit.

    I was looking at myself in the wardrobe mirror of my hotel room. The picture of the Führer on the mantelpiece behind me was reflected in the glass. I was stripped to the waist and wearing my wide black breeches, which were tight at the ankles. I was looking at myself, staring into my own eyes, then staring at the Führer's image in the mirror.
    What does spit mean? Can you spit on anyone you like?
    The most important part of my body is my buttocks. My breeches keep reminding me of them because they contain them and are so tight that I can't forget about them. We constitute a regiment of buttocks.
    “What about his cock, what was it like, and how would you like to take it, sideways or crosswise?”
    A scurrilous spirit within me asks this question which I dare not answer and obliges me to look away from his rod and turn to Jean, whom I am ashamed of having left. But I am too mired in eroticism to think of Jean without thinking of our love-making. Moreover, those thoughts are forbidden. I feel I am committing an abominable crime if I recall too precisely the parts of him which I loved most and which are now decayed and being gnawed by worms. What shall I think about? The wallpaper doesn't distract me. Every flower, every damp spot, brings me back to Jean. I've got to think about him. I idealize the memory of making love so that I can avoid sacrilege. The liveliest parts of his body become spiritualized, and his rod itself, which takes possession of my mouth, has the transparency of a crystal rod. In fact, what I am holding by the prick with my teeth and pink lips is a fluid, milky body, a luminous fog that risesabove my bed or over a wet lawn on which I am lying. It is cold to my lips; I thus avoid pleasure. My love-making continues through this icy fog, which veils it. With our hair light and tousled but damp with the droplets of mist clinging to it, after walking in the dew with our arms still around each other's waist, we came to a grove and stood under a beech with red bark. The executioner pressed me against the tree, but gently, laughing as if it were a game, a kind of friendly bullying. All along the way, which he trod with long, very heavy steps—almost as if he were booted and merging with the equally long and heavy steps of Erik in boots—from the path to the shore of the lake, in the fog, only the executioner spoke. Softening his too clear voice, which with a few blasts might have dispelled all the mist in the woods, he had said, looking at the wet grass:
    “Now's the time when mushrooms sprout. We might even find some.”
    And ten yards farther:
    “Won't you have a cigarette?”
    Erik's body was pressed against that of the executioner, whose right arm (the ax arm) was squeezing him. As the boy answered merely by pursing his lips and giving an indifferent toss of his head, the man said:
    “I'll give you one later.”
    Erik thought—but did not say—"the last cigarette, the one the executioner gives you.” They were under the beech. Their clothes were damp and their feet frozen. They sank into a sodden earth. The executioner put out his arms and held Erik by the shoulders against the tree. He was laughing silently. Despite the power of his muscles—and bones—one could feel that his strength was chiefly passive, that he was able to endure rather than to court danger, to lift heavy sacks, saw wood for days onend, push a truck that had bogged down. It was hard to imagine him fighting. His movements were not swift or dexterous, and his gestures were too mild. He asked again:
    “You're not