J’ai la mémoire qui flanche

J’ai la mémoire qui flanche is a song bound to the narrator’s memories of her abortion: it once helped her endure that period, but hearing it again can reopen the distress surrounding it. Its changing force makes the song a marker of how the past persists in ordinary encounters.

Place in the Narrator’s Memory

The narrator recalls J’ai la mémoire qui flanche alongside La Javanaise as one of the songs that helped her cope during the period of her abortion. The songs belong to a time that has continued to occupy her mind for years; their significance comes not from any stated lyrics or musical details, but from their association with what she lived through.

Later Encounters

That earlier comfort does not protect the song from acquiring another emotional charge. Whenever the narrator chances upon J’ai la mémoire qui flanche, she is deeply upset, as though the music carries her back into the painful past. The turn from coping aid to trigger shows how the same remembered object can hold consolation and distress at once.

Narrative Significance

The song’s recurrence gives the narrator’s memory a concrete, audible point of return. It belongs to the same pattern as her shock at reading about an abortion in a novel: reminders of the experience can abruptly disrupt thought and bring emotion to the fore. J’ai la mémoire qui flanche thus registers the persistence of the abortion in the narrator’s life without explaining that persistence away.