Billie (11 page)

The pig didn't understand a thing. In any case, as he watched Manu's car pulling away, we escaped to the other side of the road. The cop bawled me out for appearance's sake and then hurried back to his pigsty.

I should mention that it was freezing that evening . . .

 

We went to a crappy hotel near the train station and I requested a room with a bath. Franck was blue. Blue with cold, blue about me, blue about everything. Yes, I think he was afraid of me at that moment. No doubt, when twenty years in the Morels suddenly bursts out of you, it must not be a very pretty sight . . .

I ran him a superhot bath and undressed him like a little boy, and yes, I saw his cock, but no, I didn't look at it, and I plunged him into the tub.

 

When he emerged, I was checking out a film on TV. He put on briefs and a clean T-shirt and he got into bed next to me.

We didn't say anything to each other, we watched the end of the film, we shut off the lamp and, in the dark, each of us waited for the other to speak.

I couldn't say anything because I was silently crying, so he was the one who had to do it. He caressed my hair very gently and after a long moment, he whispered:

“It's over, Billie . . . It's over . . . We'll never go back there . . . Shhhh . . . It's over . . . I'm telling you . . . ”

 

But I was still crying.

So he hugged me.

So I cried even more.

So he laughed.

So I laughed too.

 

And I got snot all over us.

I
cried for hours and hours.

It was like a plug had been pulled. It was a purge. Or an emptying out. For the first time in my life since I was born, I was no longer on the defensive.

For the first time . . .

 

For the first time, I felt that finally, everything would be okay. That finally I was safe. And everything came out at once. Everything . . . the abandonment, the hunger, the cold, the filth, the lice, my odor, the cigarette butts, the muck, the empty bottles, the shouts, the slaps, the scars, the ugliness everywhere, the bad grades, the lies, the violence, the fear, the thefts; Jason Gibaud's parents who had prohibited me from taking a shit in their house, eating their scraps; my ass, my tits, and my mouth that had served so well as a form of currency in recent times; all those guys who had profited so much from my situation, and so badly; all those crappy jobs, and Manu who had made me believe that he really loved me a little and that I would have my own house and . . .

And I vomited it all in tears.

 

And the more I emptied myself, the more Franck seemed to fill me up. I don't know how to really explain it but that was the impression he gave me. The more I cried, the more he relaxed. His face became softer. He twisted a strand of my hair around my ear. He gently made fun of me. He called me Calamity Jane, or Camille the Nutcase, or Billie the Kid, and he smiled.

He told me about my unrecognizable face, the way I had beat the neck of that poor guy with the barrel of my rifle while he was driving. He described to me Manu's torn earlobe, dangling at the corners. He imitated the tone of my voice when I had ordered him to round up a cop and how I had swung my weapon in Manu's face while saying, “Your gift,” and he almost laughed at certain moments. Yes, he almost laughed.

 

I didn't understand until long after, until many secrets later, when he too began to tell me a bit about his solitary war before me, before us, that on that night, if he was so happy to see me so miserable, it was because during the time that I sobbed in his arms nonstop and on the verge of an anxiety attack, he was discovering the first good reason not to die.

My tears, they were his fuel to keep going, and his teasing, that was just to reassure me. To prove to me that we could laugh at it all and that, besides, we were going to laugh at it all from now on since, “Look, Billie . . . look, our lives, as rotten as they are, we're finally here in this rotten little bed . . . Hey . . . Stop crying, my darling . . . Stop crying . . . Thanks to you, we've gotten through the hardest part. Thanks to you we've escaped. Oh and then if—cry, go ahead cry . . . That will help you sleep . . . Cry, but never forget: of course, our troubles are only just beginning, but when we're on the edge of death, we can look back and say to ourselves: It's me who has suffered and not some false being created by fear and the feeling of terror that some ignorant asshole inspired in me . . . ”

In reality, he said only “Shhh” but that's what those “shhhs” said.

 

Without Franck's kindness during our rehearsals; without Billie Holiday's childhood, which he had told me about while looking elsewhere, well beyond my headrest; and without his minuscule postcards sent to Claudine's house during my “convent” years, I would never have reacted like such a nutcase. And if I hadn't behaved like a nutcase, he wouldn't have survived either.

 

So that's it, little star . . . And now, I ask you: Is there any point in continuing? Wasn't that last sentence enough to let us skip the rest?

No?

Why not?

You also want me to recount how it was
me
who got us into this shitty situation so you can weigh it all up before delivering your verdict?

Okay, okay, I'll continue . . .

 

When I was too tired to cry anymore, I fell asleep and, just as I was nodding off, I made him promise never to abandon me again. Because I did too many stupid things without him . . . too many really, really stupid things . . .

He laughed one more time and a bit strangely in order to hide his nervousness, adding with a silly laugh:

“Okay, whatever you want! I value my life!”

Then, in a really low voice and in the crook of his elbow:

“Oh . . . Billie . . . I had forgotten . . . ”

 

* * *

 

Hey, little starry . . . Season 2 wasn't bad, huh?

A bit of ass, action, amorous adventures, it had everything!

After, you'll see, it's more conventional.

After, it's two young people getting by. Nothing very original. Especially because I'm not going to be able to go on and on since the sky is beginning to get lighter over there. All the way over there, that must be the East, I think . . .

Yes, I have to hurry up and recount for you the end of the film before the lights come back on.

T
he next morning, we took the train to Paris.

On the train, Franck brought me up to date on his life: To please his father, he had enrolled in law school and was sharing a little apartment with one of his cousins in the suburbs where the rent was less expensive.

He didn't like law or his cousin and he liked the suburbs even less.

I asked him what he wanted to do.

He told me that his dream was to do an internship that would help him get into a terrific jewelry school.

“You want to be a jeweler?” I asked. “You want to sell necklaces, watches, and all that?”

“No, not sell then, design them.”

He turned his computer on and showed me his designs.

They were beautiful. It was as if he'd lifted a lid off an old chest covered in sand and revealed a treasure.

I asked him why he didn't do what he loved rather than obey his father.

He answered that in his whole life he had never done what he wanted and he had always obeyed his father.

I asked him why.

He acted like someone who was busy closing the windows.

 

After a few minutes, he answered that it was because he was afraid.

Afraid of what?

He didn't know.

Fear of disappointing his father yet again.

And fear of disappointing his mother.

Fear of sinking his mother a little bit deeper in her depression.

I said nothing.

As soon as the discussion focuses on parents, I can't be of help anymore.

So he put away his dreams and we continued our trip in silence.

 

When we arrived in Paris, he suggested we leave our bags at the baggage claim and tour around before going to his place. That is . . . to his cousin's place . . .

We went more or less the same way as we had during our class trip four years earlier.

 

Four years . . .

What had I done in four years?

Nothing.

Given blow jobs and sorted potatoes . . .

 

I was numb with sadness.

 

It wasn't at all like the last time. It was winter, it was cold, the Seine no longer danced, the walkway was deserted, and the love padlocks had all been cut off and thrown in the trash. People were no longer picnicking in the gardens, turning their faces to the sun; they were no longer chatting away on the café terraces, drinking glasses of Perrier; they were walking just as quickly, but they were no longer smiling. They were all sulking.

We each drank a cup of coffee (small) that cost €3.20.

€3.20 . . .

How was that possible?

 

I was also afraid.

I wondered if Manu had had to go to the ER and if he had remembered to empty the washing machine before the laundry started to smell like mold. I almost looked around for a phone booth to leave him a message.

It was horrible.

 

* * *

 

Franck's cousin may have come from an aristocratic family with a string of names, a long nose, manners,
 
and a Lacoste shirt, but he greeted me exactly as Jason Gibaud's parents had.

Actually no, as a matter of fact. Because of his education, which had taught him to confuse politeness with hypocrisy, he behaved even worse than they had: he talked about me when my back was turned.

For the moment, he said, “Ah, a friend of Franck's. So nice to meet you. Welcome.” But in the evening, when I was in the bathroom, I heard him acting all serious as if he were talking about nuclear missiles pointed at NASA: “Listen, Franck . . . This wasn't part of our agreement.”

 

I was ready to leave right then. Because it was true . . . This little Billie was beginning to be a lot of trouble now, she who had never taken the train and who was still thinking about the towels she had left behind.

Wherever I went, since I was born, I disturbed things. Wherever I went, whatever I did, however much I tried, I was always in the way and was punished with a slap.

I didn't hear Franck's answer, but when he entered the bedroom we were going to share from then on (he had given me his little bed and set himself up on a piece of carpet, explaining that all Japanese sleep like that and they live a lot longer than we do), yes, when he entered and he saw my expression, he sat down next to me, took my head between his hands, and said while looking into my eyes:

“
Hey, Billie Jean?
Do you trust me?”

I nodded yes and he added that I should just continue on then and all would be okay. He didn't say, like Jason had, that this was all just temporary, but fine, he could have . . .

 

And because I trusted him and because I didn't have a job, I went back into servant mode. The boys left in the morning, I cleaned the house, I took care of the laundry, and I prepared a meal for them to eat in the evening.

I loved to cook. I had quickly discovered that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I tried plenty of things and gained seven pounds by just tasting to make sure I had exactly the right amount of seasoning.

That all helped His Royal Highness chill out. He acted more cordial with me. Not nice, just cordial. The way those types of people were surely used to behaving with their servants. But I didn't give a damn. I made myself practically invisible and tried to bother Franck as little as possible. And this time I think it worked for me, that defensiveness I always had inside me. For the first time in my life, I was no longer afraid of my own shadow when I turned around too quickly or when I heard footsteps behind me.

I enjoyed the feeling.

 

In the afternoons, I took a route that passed by all the bus stops so as not to lose my way, and I went to hang out at a big shopping mall on the other side of the highway. I loafed around, pretending to be a demanding bourgeois type who has her husband's debit card but can't make up her mind, and out of boredom, I annoyed the saleswomen, who were really bored as well. Some of them began to hate me and others told me about their lives.

I never bought anything, but one time, I went to the hairdresser.

The girl who washed my hair asked if I wanted a little extra treatment. I was about to say no but then nodded my head. Even if no one knew, it was my birthday after all.

 

Then, it was Christmas and New Year's and I was alone on those occasions too. I swore to Franck that I had become friends with one of the cashiers at Franprix supermarket— “Yes, you know, the blonde who grumbles all the time”—and that she had invited me over because she was divorced and wanted company for the kids. As I said it in just the right way and even bought toys, he believed me and left reassured.

It was my gift.

 

At any rate, I didn't give a damn.

The magic of Christmas?

Well . . . uh . . . How should I put it?

 

* * *

 

The only thing I began to fret about was the cheap brew.

Because, since I was alone, I, too, began to knock back a few.

The boredom, the isolation, the disorientation, the pretext that all this housework made me thirsty and deserved compensation, with all this I started drinking.

I went to the Turkish grocery store below our place and bought 12-ounce cans of beer.

Then 16-ounce ones.

Then a pack.

Like the drunks.

Like the homeless people.

Like my stepmother.

 

It was sad.