The Walls of Louis-le-Grand 1949–1952 57
from the same collaborationist milieu) was about to set up. Derrida
had no intention of doing so. But the incident seems not to have
aff ected his relations with Claude Bonnefoy in the slightest.
After the exhausting exams and a trip back to Algiers that was both
long and uncomfortable, Jackie allowed himself, not without a sense
of guilt, to fall back into his ‘natural tendency towards concrete
existence’:
Right now I’m completely stupefi ed by exhaustion, the
heat, my family. I’m unable to read or write. The only things
I enjoy are undemanding pastimes, absurd games, the sun and
the sea... I have a strong feeling that I’m not going to do
anything during this vacation. I’m dull and dried up; will I ever
recover?^37He would really have liked Michel Monory to come to Algiers
for part of the summer, but this was impossible, and it was Pierre
Foucher and his neighbour Pierre Sarrazin who joined him for a
few weeks. ‘The Jackie we found when we arrived was very diff erent
from the Louis-le-Grand student,’ Pierre Foucher remembers.
He’d put on his costume as an Algerian Jew, while still remain-
ing on our wavelength. His family, dominated by his maternal
grandmother and his mother, was very numerous and close-
knit, while also being very welcoming. On Sundays, we would
go for big picnics on the beaches at Zeralda, Sable d’Or, etc.
I admired this harmony and understanding, this very toler-
ant style of family life. On weekdays, we’d often head out to
Kabylia, accompanying his father on his rounds. It was always
Jackie who drove the Simca Aronde, very fast and with a great
deal of enjoyment, like the young men from that milieu.* He
had a kind of self-assurance, almost superiority.^38That summer, Jackie, accompanied by his two companions, dis-
covered several Algerian towns and regions that were new to him.
In the evenings, they went out to the cinema or the casino, or played
long games of poker. But in less than two weeks he was tired of this
restlessness and the continual squabbling of the two Pierres: ‘I don’t
have the strength to take them out all the time. I need immobility
and inactivity.’^39 So great was his desire for solitude that he eventu-
ally sent them to stay for a few days with one of his uncles. And,
- Derrida’s lack of caution at the wheel meant his licence was withdrawn for ten
days, as notifi ed on 1 October 1952 by the El Biar police station.