Night in Prague 1981–1982 335
The prosecutor, the police chief, the translator, and the lawyer
assigned to me knew very well why this trap had been set, they
knew that the others knew, were watching each other, and con-
ducted the whole comedy with an unshakable complicity. [.. .]
I knew the scenario and I did, I think, everything that had to be
done. But how to describe all the archaic movements that are
unleashed below that surface [.. .]?^6Shortly after midnight, Derrida was taken to the prison of Ruzyne,
next to the airport. The cold, the snow, the huge and sinister build-
ing: all of this, including the insults and brutality to which he was
subjected, gave him a strange sense of having already lived through
it all. To begin with, he was alone in his cell; he kept banging with his
fi sts on the door, repeating the word ‘embassy’ and ‘lawyer’ until one
of the wardens threatened to hit him. Around 5 a.m., a Hungarian
gypsy was brought into the cell, but he did not speak a word of
English. Touched by the philosopher’s distress, his companion in
captivity helped him to clean the place as well as they could. Then,
to while away the time, the two men started to play noughts and
crosses, with Derrida marking out the grid on a paper handkerchief.
On the morning of 31 December, the future author of Force of
Law was subjected to the painful formalities of incarceration. ‘I
have never been more photographed in my life, from the airport
to the prison, clothed or naked before putting on the prisoner’s
“uniform”.’^7 He was taken into another cell, where there were
already fi ve young men, fi ve ‘kids’ he would later call them, with
whom he could make conversation in English. They explained the
fate that probably awaited him: he would eventually be put on trial,
then sentenced to jail, most likely for two years. Derrida started to
imagine what would happen to him during this long period of iso-
lation and without a single book. For several hours, ‘in a terrifi ed
jubilation’, he fantasized that imprisonment could open up onto a
paradoxical deliverance, allowing him to write without constraint
and without anyone asking him to, on and on.
In Paris, news of Derrida’s arrest arrived only belatedly. In the late
afternoon of 30 December, Marguerite had fi rst waited for him in
vain at Orly airport. It had been announced that his fl ight had been
delayed, then cancelled, but there was nothing very alarming about
this in the middle of winter. It was only that evening that Marguerite
received a call from her aunt, who had been alerted by a lawyer: ‘She
was furious: “Jacques has been arrested. You can see what a vile
country we live in! I’m ashamed, I’m really ashamed.. ..”. Since I
supposed that her phone was bugged, I tried in vain to calm her, in
case she in turn ended up being harassed.’ Pierre was in the United
States with Avital Ronell. Marguerite had her parents staying with