The Elementary Particles Read Free Page B

inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death has, in its brevity, much to recommend it. However, in the case of Martin Ceccaldi, it seems appropriate to set his life in a socioeconomic context, to say less about the individual than about the society of which he is symptomatic. Carried forward by the sweep of history and their determination to be a part of it,
symptomatic
individuals lead lives which are, in the main, happy and uncomplicated. A couple of pages are sufficient to summarize such a life. Janine Ceccaldi, on the other hand, belongs to a different and dispiriting class of individuals we can call
precursors
. Well adapted to their time and way of life on the one hand, they are anxious, on the other hand, to surpass them by adopting new customs, or proselytizing ideas still regarded as marginal. Precursors, therefore, require a more detailed study—especially as their lives are often tortuous or confused. They are, however, merely catalysts—generally of some form of social breakdown—without the power to impose a new direction on events; which role is the preserve of
revolutionaries
and
prophets
.
    From an early age, it was clear to Martin and Geneviève Ceccaldi that their daughter was extraordinarily intelligent—at least as brilliant as her father. She was an independent girl. She lost her virginity at the age of thirteen—a remarkable achievement given the time and place. She spent the war years (uneventful, for the most part, in Algeria) going to dances and balls in Constantine and, later, Algiers while somehow managing to sustain flawless grades term after term. So it was that, with a first-class baccalauréat and considerable sexual experience, Janine left Algiers for Paris in 1945 to study medicine.
    Postwar France was a difficult and troubled society: industrial production was at an all-time low and rationing would continue until 1948. Even so, a privileged few on the margins of society already showed symptoms of the mass consumption of sexual pleasure—a trend originating in the United States—that would sweep through the populace in the decades that followed. As a student in Paris, Janine had a ringside seat during the existential years. She danced to bebop at the Tabou with Jean-Paul Sartre. Though unimpressed by the philosopher’s work, she was struck by his ugliness, which almost amounted to a handicap; they did not meet again. She herself was a stunning Mediterranean beauty and had many lovers before she met Serge Clément in 1952, while he was completing his surgical internship.
    “You want to know what my dad was like?” Bruno liked to say, years later. “Give a gorilla a mobile phone and you’ve got the general idea.” Obviously, Serge Clément could not possibly have had a mobile phone at the time, but he was, it has to be admitted, somewhat hirsute. Though certainly not handsome, he had a simple, uncomplicated virility which seduced Janine. Moreover, he had plans. While traveling in the United States, he had become convinced that plastic surgery offered excellent career prospects for an ambitious young surgeon. The use of sex in marketing and the simultaneous breakdown of the traditional couple, together with the economic boom he sensed was coming to postwar Europe, suggested a vast untapped market which Serge Clément was among the first in Europe—certainly the first in France—to identify. His only problem was money: he needed funds to start out in business. Martin Ceccaldi, impressed by his future son-in-law’s entrepreneurial spirit, agreed to lend him the money. Clément’s first clinic opened in Neuilly in 1953. Promoted in a series of positive articles in women’s magazines—then rapidly expanding—it proved an outstanding success, and Serge opened a second clinic in 1955 in the hills above Cannes.
    Janine and Serge were what would later be called a “modern” couple and it was something of an accident that Janine got pregnant by her husband. She decided,