September or October 1973 — Location Rue De La Marie

The newspaper kiosk was open, I looked at the front page of the Guardian, (what was that doing in Paris, I wondered). Salvador Allende killed in the CIA supported coup, it explained. I took a short walk (Rue de Canettes, left, three or four streets; young women and young men swarming (how they swarm) into boutiques. Buying, plundering, stealing. (They looked like refugees from a Godard movie). I looked at the titles of books for sale in bookshop windows, new and used books. It was cold, perhaps not as I remember, i left my warmth at the newspaper kiosk. I went and sat down in a cafe, ordered a cafe au lait, a small beer. I was still capable of liberal caring on that day. Buses went by. Empty, full, out of service. I don’t know how to deal with this, I thought. I smoked a cigarette. Ordered more coffee. Distracted I read a few pages. Walked away from the headline about the impossibility of democracy, it followed me down the slope as I walked. Motorcycles and mopeds passed me by on the sidestreets. How does one live with that I wondered…. Missing pieces, I am missing pieces of understanding. Days passed, the numbers of people killed goes up. I used to wonder what it would have been like if been like if that event hadn’t happened… It didn’t rain, it was a nice day. Sometime later in London,(what was the name of the woman left behind in Paris, I wonder) I went to Chilean Support Group meetings… Read, read, read, (and then groupsecules.) Then a short time later Eastern European neoliberal economists saying why Chile was impossible destined for collapse. The chapter on capital had passed him by. This is the best it can ever be they said. It was raining just outside of Stockholm as they said that. A postal van stops in front of the house delivering a few parcels of books for the economist. The three of us had sex on the sunny patio. I stole a penguin copy of Grundrisse(1) from his shelf as I left…the democratic process produces coups and fascism just as it produces mass consumption. I never learnt to play music. (I have no ear for tunes only atonality)…People who are incapable of making such connections are living before the moment when I walked towards the newspaper kiosk that was open…

(1) published by Penguin in 1973