Apocalypse Baby (14 page)

‘No, no time. It'd make us too late getting back to Paris.'

The guy says he has to get on, and asks someone to let us out through the back entrance. My hands are gripping the wheel, I still feel sick and my throat's dry. We drive for a long time in silence. Then she declares that I'm a good driver. And pushes her seat back. I shouldn't be so affected by the scene she caused. I'd been warned, she's well known for that: getting what she wants by force. I feel grubby as well, after hearing what the boy ended up saying.

The Hyena knows I'm upset, I get the feeling she's angry with me for that. I'm afraid of her. She borrows my mobile and talks to Rafik without paying me a scrap of attention for nearly half an hour. Then she cuts the call, looks for some music on her iPod, chooses Fever Ray, puts her feet up on the dash and looks at the road.

‘How long are you going to sulk at me?'

‘I'm not sulking, I'm concentrating on the road.'

‘Come on, spit it out.'

I want to cry. She speaks to me as if she's really annoyed.
I'm afraid she'll get into a mood and start hitting
me
. The creature I saw emerging in the courtyard of the concert venue might come out any minute. The cab of the four-by-four seems tiny. She gives a long sigh.

‘Hey ho. Give me patience… I wonder what the hell you're doing in this job.'

I don't reply. She sits up, full of indignation.

‘All right, OK, I hit him! Just a little tap. He could take a little beating up, couldn't he? It didn't hurt him, for God's sake. It's not as if I'd… torn him limb from limb or suspended him from a hook. That's life, isn't it? You don't think that little kid is made from sugar and spice and all things nice, do you? When he and his pals all stood there and pissed on that girl, do you think they worried if she'd get a good night's sleep afterwards? That's life. What goes around comes around.'

‘Yeah, OK. It's obvious I'm not cut out for this job. I don't want to go on doing it. I didn't ask to do a full-scale investigation, I was perfectly happy just checking on teenagers outside their schools, Deucené insisted…'

My tears prevent me carrying on. Alongside me, the Hyena looks at me with a strained expression, but seeing I'm starting to sob, she laughs.

‘OK, just stop on the hard shoulder, I'll drive. What do you want me to say? Yes, I gave him a hiding, just a little one, so he'd tell us what really happened. I swear to you that right now, he's less bothered about it than you are… I'm sure he's playing away fine at his concert, the little toerag. It made him see sense. I gave him a little mandala to realign his chakras, that's the way it works. Come on, signal and pull over, you
can't drive when you're crying your eyes out, it isn't safe. I don't
believe
it, how you can react like that. I don't
believe
it.'

I stop on the hard shoulder, and she gets down to go round and sit in the driving seat, while I slide across into hers. Then she comes back and opens the door on my side. It's an attack of nerves. I can't stop crying. She pulls me gently out of the car.

‘Look, I'm sorry. I never thought you'd… take it so badly. I'm really sorry. Come on, calm down.'

She puts her arms round me and I'd like to push her away because she disgusts me, and because she's a lesbian, and I don't want her to think she attracts me or whatever. But her body is large and warm, her arms are round me, it's not like a seduction, more like being hugged by a solid reassuring statue. I let my head fall on her shoulder, she strokes my hair and I go on weeping.

‘How can anyone be that sensitive?… I shouldn't have taken you with me. You've got a problem with violence? You were abused as a child? Your parents beat you? You were raped? What's the matter then? PMT? Listen, Lucie, I can't do anything about it; that's how you get people to talk. If not, they just give you nothing but bullshit. Nothing works like a bit of violence to get you somewhere.'

She takes over at the wheel. My eyes are puffy and I have a sudden urge to go to sleep. She keeps on talking, driving too fast.

‘That's how it is, that's the real world. I didn't invent it. There is no dignity, there is no gentleness. All the people who were good and honourable, all the nice guys, have
been wiped out. And not yesterday either. All that's left is people like me, scum of the earth. People like you, what can I say, you're just not going to make it. Do you hear what I'm saying? Even to teach primary school these days, you need to be tougher than you are.'

She is taking me seriously for the first time since we met. I like it. I make a silent promise to cry from time to time. She shoots me a few sidelong glances, to see if I'm on the mend.

‘Did you hear, just now? Rafik is making progress. He's getting the mother's address, she lives in Barcelona. Great, I love going there. She's changed her name, she's married an architect. They're loaded. And the story with the cousins, that's intriguing. Better take a look at them before we leave Paris. We'll take the four-by-four to Barcelona, OK?'

‘Why not go by plane?'

‘Because I can't stand airports. Going through all that security, all the stupid pricks with suitcases on wheels who go ahead of you, the stupid pricks in uniform, the stupid families, the stupid people who pat you down… Not being able to smoke or go anywhere once you've checked in, having to show your passport a million times, sitting in some stuffy little departure lounge without knowing when they'll let you out, having to take your shoes off every five hundred metres. For-get it. Pity though. Cos I really like the plane itself and looking at clouds out of the window.'

I wonder whether she wants to drive to Spain so that she can cross the frontier with guns. I prefer not to go there and change the subject. ‘Do you think Valentine ran away because of what happened in the parking lot?'

‘No, I don't think so. She doesn't see those boys any more.
I think that bit's true. Something else must have happened.'

‘But they raped her.'

‘Did you see that gang of little shits? Would you get in touch with them at night to go and have a few beers?'

‘No. Unless he was lying, and he'd been OK with her before, so she didn't suspect what was going to happen.'

‘Yeah, you're right, it could be. But anyway that's not a reason to run away. If all the teenage girls who got themselves raped ran away there wouldn't be many left at home. When I was young, I thought being a lesbian was the most difficult thing in the world, but really you, the straight women, you eat shit as well. They tell you so often it's good that you end up saying yum yum, but you eat it, Christ, you don't half eat it.'

‘And we're not going to tell Valentine's parents?'

‘No, I don't see that it's any of their business.'

Headlights on full beam, we're about the only car on the motorway. Speed cameras flash at us at regular intervals. You can't see the landscape now, it's plunged in darkness. I watch the black night go past, leaning my shoulder against the window.

‘Tell me something. When we go and see Valentine's real mother, are you going to jump up and down on her if she refuses to talk?'

She bursts out laughing and doesn't reply.

Once she's dropped me off at my place, I can't get to sleep. I've noted Valentine's mother's maiden name, and I google it. Up come an Algerian football team, the words of a German pop song, a security firm in Nantes, an article in
El Watan
about a village that's been destroyed. Perhaps in this family,
nobody has a page in their real name. I'm discouraged, as well as tired out and on edge. My tiny living room is lit only by the blue glow on the computer screen, and I soon feel sick from scrolling down all these pages. I'm internet-seasick. I'm working automatically, concentrating and absent. Old friends. A link that could be to an aunt of Valentine's. Lycée in a northern suburb of Paris, Aulnay-sous-Bois, law school, but dropped out, according to the dates. That figures, she must be about forty. Link to her Facebook page, date of birth. The surname is spelled differently there, which explains why I got off on a false start. I note the names of the children. I find a MySpace page for a son, called Tedj. He started one but he didn't keep it up long, almost empty and long since abandoned. The kid had 34 friends. I go to each of them in turn, and end up finding a Facebook link to a girl cousin. Then another cousin, the virtual family's getting bigger. I've got hold of a thread. They leave lots of messages for each other. Someone called Nadja posts hundreds of photos, she's documenting her family's whole life. I do Apple key +F Valentine, systematically, on every new page. I'm not thinking too much about what I'm doing and then bingo, three mentions, I'm on to it. I get a rush of adrenaline, my nerves are jumping. Valentine, in the middle of a family photo, everyone round a table. Taken two months before she disappeared. I look at the faces round her. A little guy with glasses who's laughing, a fat hulk, two little girls wearing headscarves, a cool guy in a Lacoste T-shirt, a sensible-looking girl-cousin, and some others who look more saucy. I recognize Nadja, the original cousin, she's in the photo, and I've been looking at her for two hours now from every angle. She's beautiful, but not
in a friendly way. You wouldn't want to cross her. And her brother Yacine. Who doesn't like to be photographed, but she didn't give him the option. Valentine only appears in one series.

I call Rafik. I am only mildly surprised that he replies at 4 a.m.

‘If I have a Facebook page can you find me the address?'

‘That's what I'm paid to do, kiddo.'

HE NODS TO THE YOUTHS HANGING AROUND
at the bottom of his tower block. Short silence as he passes. Good, bit of breathing space. He knows once his back is turned they'll start talking again, but to his face they keep their big traps shut. He has his reputation. Knife man. Guns, yes, fascinate them all, but with guns in a fight, you'll miss your target two times out of three. Got to be a crack shot to make it worthwhile. But a knife, if you can handle it, you score every time. Just got to be able to take it, as well as dish it out. And be motivated by a philosophy, some idea bigger than you are. Be someone who's ready to pitch in. They all want to challenge him, but he's too strong for them to risk it. They're stoned out of their minds anyway, can't stand up straight, no backbone. Nobody speaks to him. See if he cares. Just because he was born here doesn't mean he's got to be like the rest of them. Layabouts. And he couldn't care less about their cheap hiphop. He listens to the same music his father used to. Funk, soul. Real music. When the blacks weren't yet eating shit from the backsides of the
whites, and flexing their abdos for any TV camera. In the stairwell, some young kids are messing about with a dog. He motions them to get out of the way. The ankle-biters push off without answering back. They're scared of him. What are they there for anyway? To get mauled by a pitbull? It'd be all over the front pages, because this estate, if ever you see anything about it in the papers, it's because someone's been killed. He wonders what the fuck their mothers are doing all this time. Painting their faces again, even though they've no idea about makeup. If they really want to look like trash, they should make an effort, learn to do it properly. But even that's beyond them, they can't even get the slap right. Too much to ask, eh, to wipe their kids' behinds, or work out how to look beautiful. They can't do a fucking thing. And the ones who ponce about in headscarves are no better than the rest. They can parade all they want at the school gates, the Darth Vader brigade, they'll never be the true faithful. Back home, they're just bitches, layabouts, know-nothings. No surprises, then, if their kids turn into the riffraff he meets every day. His own mother has never let them hang about all day on the stairs. His home wasn't like that. No man around, but she'd take out a belt and nobody batted an eyelid. Now that he's a man, if anyone gets out the belt, it's him.

In the hall, he holds his breath. A smell of cumin, stale cigarette smoke and piss. Animals. They talk about Allah all day long, but they live like animals. And that's just the adults. And not only the ones who drink. All of them. Incapable of holding in long enough to find a corner to piss in. Worse than dogs. If it was up to him, he'd soon show them. All of them. How to behave. He'd chop the balls off the first guy
he caught pissing in the lifts. That'd teach them.

School's a waste of time. His mother wants him to keep going, she says she doesn't want any problems with the family allowance, or some busybody social worker turning up at the door. One time, his older brother got into trouble at school and his mother had to go and see his teacher and the headmistress. She let him have it when they got back home, she hammered him so hard his shoulder was put out. Then she left him lying there on the floor in the living room. She looked at her other son and her two daughters: next time I have to go up there and spend ten minutes being condescended to by those creeps because one of you's in trouble, I'll kill the lot of you and put a bullet in my own head, is that clear? And they obey. They respect their mother. Yacine understands where she's coming from. She doesn't want to sit in an office up at the school, and have those stuck-up bastards read her a lecture. She doesn't insist the kids get good grades. She doesn't look at their school reports. She doesn't mind if they repeat a year. She just asks them to keep their mouths shut, and to keep attending until they're sixteen. No funny tricks. She doesn't want trouble. She's right. But he doesn't listen to anything they say at school. That culture's not for his people. You can't force it into their heads. It's education for kids who were born French. Nothing to do with him. He has this aunt who went on studying, she thinks she's the cat's pyjamas because she got to teach at a university, and she's writing a thesis. She can show off as much as she wants. What planet's she on? She imagines they'll forget she's an Arab, because she copies their culture. Yeah, sure, Laïla, sure, all your colleagues treat you just like one of themselves. In
your dreams, sister. To Yacine, it seems worse than being the neighbourhood whore or the local crack dealer. It isn't even as if she makes any dough. She drives a Renault Clio, and she doesn't live any better than the rest of the family. She has to watch what she puts in her supermarket trolley, and she can't afford country holidays.