Bye Bye Blondie (21 page)

If they'd been in a bullring and he'd waved a red rag under her nose, she couldn't have been more furious.

“So sorry I grew up where I did, you poor mama's boy! How d'you think
you
talk, you wimp? Normally? You and your bourgeois friends, you can't pronounce a syllable without thinking you're king of the fucking with-it world and you tell
me
off when I get cross. You're joking? Tell me you're joking, you can't mean it.”

“Blondie, I've had enough of the class struggle every day at home.”

“YOU started it. You're the one who doesn't understand the way you are, NOBODY wants to be like you, I'm sorry, people imitate Tony Montana, not people out of Desplechin movies. Guess why! NOBODY wants to be like you. Everyone would like your money, yeah, but not your pathetic style, get it?”

And she goes out for a walk. Or the contrary. Other weeks, they stay calm. She likes walking in Paris, it quickly disarms her. She likes the statues of winged lions, gilded eagles, sphinxes, she likes the houses built around the edge of parks, the courtyards, the little round turrets, the roof gardens and the great glass studios. She likes going from a working-class district to an arty one, and then into the really rich parts of town, wide and well lit, where there are no shops anywhere near. She likes the fountains, the Concorde obelisk, the old churches, the angels with swords that turn up unexpectedly, the whole improbable catalog, illogically juxtaposed, with nothing predictable.

She doesn't always understand the role she's playing alongside Eric. And yet, she seems to be indispensable to him, as time confirms. He clings to her, bombards her with text messages and phone calls when he's out. She thinks she must be his guiding thread, his beacon. He needs a girlfriend, like a kid who's been left alone, abandoned. He needed her at this particular moment, because he'd been suffering from some kind of massive panic, perhaps because of his success. If she grumbles and flies into a rage over nothing, her tempestuous brutality reassures him, paradoxically it seems to protect him—from ennui, from death, from apathy. He likes it when she yanks girls away from him when they come up too close, he likes it that she pulls funny faces at the dinner parties he drags her to, when she hears the stupid things people say. He likes it when she jumps five feet in the air in shops when she sees the prices of things. She's an element of the human race he wants to hang on to, his bit of wildness in the world, she feels like an endangered species being protected by this wealthy patron who's in love with her. She trusts him. She loves it that he manages to live in this big city and get by, talks to people without flying off the handle. That he insists on going to see films that aren't funny—worthy documentaries—that he believes in the virtues of effort and work done well. Even when it's to tease him to death, she likes it that he's like this. That he reads boring, long, books, always trying to find out more stuff, understand better. She loves it that he's fond of her, that he's tender toward her when he shouldn't be, when she's being super annoying. She loves it that he loves
her, and that he contradicts her all the time, opens her eyes to the depressing complexities of life, that he calls her a hippie and a nutty leftist. Both of them have the feeling that they're looking down on the teenagers they used to be in a benevolent way, catching up for lost time, repairing what was damaged.

Eric shuts himself up with her at home whenever he can. They lock the doors, touch, have sex, explore each other's bodies in all sorts of ways, with variations more or less disturbing. It's lasted a few months. Their epidermises have had time to learn each other, become acquainted, discover each other in every way, desire each other, identify the other's pleasure, become an extension of each other, mingle, melt, know all the doors that open so willingly now. They've had time to unlock each other's secrets, to roll up and unroll each other.

It weaves their bodies ever closer. He cradles her, caresses her inside, makes her float, become more beautiful. She feels she was made for this. She wriggles and pulls up her knees so that he can fuck her deeper, so she can feel him inside her, opening the door to her womb and helping her take off.

He often brings her presents. He likes going to shops or ordering via the Internet. He likes
things
, just like a kid with toys. Gloria finds it exciting to be treated like a girl from his milieu. It's such forbidden fruit in her universe, as disturbing as finding yourself being fucked from behind by strangers, with a blindfold on—and discovering you like it. Nobody wants to find out that kind of thing about themselves. She likes having private access to his perversion, his weaknesses, and his dark side. He knows this, he brings out the gift, laughing, “You're not going to throw this in my face, are you? It's jewelry, it's heavy. I'm on air tomorrow, I don't want to have a scar on my face, okay?”

She senses that she gives value to his wealth. Added value. For reasons she can't fathom, he feels guilty, and yet he was brought up with this idea of getting on in the world, upward social mobility, domination. Guilty about conforming, possibly.

She often can't sleep at night, gets out of bed at about three in the morning. From their kitchen window, you can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and it lights up and flashes several times a night. Gloria rolls herself a joint, takes her Walkman, and dances around the apartment, looking at everything and wondering,
If tomorrow I decide I've had enough of you, would I ever have the courage to walk out and go back home?
She starts to understand the women she meets when out with Eric, who are married to repulsive pigs, but who stay and don't complain. You wouldn't want to be kicked out when you live in luxury like this. You don't want to go backward, back to your underprivileged town. So Gloria cultivates her hostility to these people, to their luxury, as if she were grooming her wings. Keeping her faculty of being able to piss off all the same. If ever . . . “Come on, suck me off again.”

Every morning he jumps on her when he wakes up. Although she explained to him firmly the first days that she's not a morning person. But he pretends not to hear and she ends up pretending she never said it. There seems to be no limit to their sex getting better and better. If for four days running it isn't terrific, she starts to conclude it's over. Then every time, the fifth day, something new happens, an orgasm so stupefying, pleasure coming from some outer space, or simply a torrent of love enveloping them both. She thought she knew all about physical love and he thought he was a stud. They're like
two beginners, amazed at what's happening to them. He likes it that she's always ready. In fact, he's astonished.

“You know, I can tell you, other women don't like sex. Maybe for a couple of months and then bingo, it's over. Don't believe me? They're all like that, I'm telling you.”

“That's because you've only ever fucked bourgeois girls, they're not brought up with the idea of freedom.”

“Can't you give it a rest?”

AS LONG AS they're inside their bubble with the door shut against the outside world, things go well. She touches the palms of his hands, feels the softness of his lips, all distress is left outside.

But regularly they have to go out. Then the fear returns, metal wheels riding along and slicing her flesh down to the bone.

In the corridors of the metro, the atmosphere's about as joyful as a waiting room in a slaughterhouse. Discouragement, anxiety, poverty can be read on all the faces, a dark unhappy mass covering everything. Extinguishing their bright gazes, making their mouths turn down at the corners. Ashes and bitterness, burning cinders tended by undertakers, mouths of death thrilled with the smell of fear. The palpable and mystical expectation of an anonymous punishment, because in Paris, more than in the rest of France, people fear bomb attacks. Or some other kind of explosion. The imminent menace is almost tangible, in their bodies. And yet people's eyes resist, they try to remain calm.

Because at the same time there's a real kind of gaiety, energy. Kids laughing, girls dolled up to the nines, drunks guffawing in corners, tramps of the holiest kind. Gloria reads the graffiti scrawled on the billboards with spray cans, anonymous hands that deform the messages, so that for once the posters become interesting. Tell you something different. You never know quite what's coming.

In January 2004 poor people of a new kind had started appearing underground in Paris. People you'd never have expected to be there, and who are holding out their hands for the first time. An elegant woman, heavy makeup, in her forties, expressing herself in perfect French, but with a choking voice, standing in the carriage, explaining how many children she has, and what her situation is.

She's hawking some magazine produced for the homeless. People turn around to look at her quickly, surprised to hear that kind of accent. She can't keep her composure, goes on talking in the corridors, the words pour out unstoppably. Her hands are impeccable, she holds herself very erect. The kind of lady you expect to be teaching catechism classes in the vestry, not begging in the metro. Nobody gives her a centime. Farther along, on the steps up to the street, a girl of about twenty, all in black, nice hair, nice shoes, holds out her hand. She looks more like a student than a homeless teenager. Surely she must have a little place somewhere, a room, a wardrobe, a university degree? Sitting on the stairs, leaning against the wall, avoiding people's eyes, she is begging for charity. An entire slice of the population, educated, brought up to think they would have jobs, has collapsed suddenly, the ground giving way underneath them. They're not completely resigned, but they're not exactly on their feet either. Gloria thinks of Paris in the eighties, when she used to beg for money too. Those years seem very far away, and strangely festive, in retrospect.

BUT GLORIA THESE
days only meets people who are not directly concerned with the
problems of poverty. She hates going out to dinner parties.

Every time, she sets off in a good mood, but once over the threshold, disillusion hits. It's like a friend of hers once who developed a fear of flying. Overnight, she found she couldn't go near an airport without starting to sweat, panicking and trembling all over. Gloria feels the same kind of thing with these rich people's dinners and their stupid parties. And yet she shouldn't be complaining—the food's pretty good, the people don't smell bad, and there are some choice wines. Anyway, nobody ever speaks to her. She tries in vain to tell herself all this over and over—before, during, and after—but it doesn't change anything. She has this psychological reaction, like some people have allergies. It's uncontrollable and involuntary. Physically oppressive. A deep desire to lash out at the infuriating types she sees at these soirees: such a lot of crass stupidity dressed up in such expensive clothes.

That particular night Eric wants to go out, she wants them to cancel and stay home eating chocolate almonds and watching DVDs—Hong Kong movies or American soaps. But he refuses to make an excuse or to go without her, he follows her into the kitchen arguing.

“We're together, we're a couple. If you beat someone up in the street, I'm there for you. And if I take you out to a party, you should be there for me. It's depressing otherwise, you give me the impression that my whole life is so disgusting that you don't even want to look at it.”

“It's not that, it's the company.”

“But I like you to be there, do you understand? You make me laugh, with your funny face and rolling eyes, as if you were a virgin who's chanced on an orgy, and I like talking about the people afterward in the taxi. I want to know what you think about them, it's important to me, because you're very good at putting your finger on things.”

Since she adores being flattered, she protests a little less strongly. He continues to persuade her, filling the kettle.

“Anyway it's not really a dinner party. It's just a little gathering, mainly people who make films. I've got to go, Gloria, otherwise when we invite them to come on the show they'll pull all sorts of excuses, do you understand? Come with me, we'll be home before midnight, I promise. And my sister will be there, you're always asking me about her.”

Gloria pretends still to be hesitating, but the final argument was the clincher. She really wants to know what Amandine is like nowadays. Although Eric claims they're not close now, they call each other every week. It's the only conversation he holds in private, he shuts himself in the bedroom or goes into the kitchen. Gloria would like to see the brother and sister together, out of simple curiosity. She opens the oven door to see how the cake's doing and a cloud of acrid white smoke comes out. She jumps back, swearing, bats at the air with her hand, and opens the window, while Eric leaves the kitchen laughing, a cup of tea in each hand.

An hour later, they're in a taxi heading for the west end of Paris, the Eiffel Tower flashing in the background.

This is a soiree “with buffet supper,” hosted by a film producer. In the hierarchy of show business, cinema people come at the top. They're way above people who work in records (currently distraught by the crisis of the CD) or in TV (less prestige, and threatened by the Internet). Anyone employed by the big screen can boast that they have the sexiest stars, the ones who really sell advertising, and a flourishing DVD market. The producer in question lives in a
huge Parisian apartment (two hundred square meters). You can tell at a glance that his lady wife doesn't need to work, all she has to do is leaf through the interior decorating magazines and choose curtains to match the season of the year.

Their salon is full of disconcerting furniture—a lot of it built from junk: a table with a lopsided leg, a bookshelf that's asymmetrical, a stool like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Gloria leans toward Eric and whispers, “Why on earth do they buy stuff like that? They're already unbalanced anyway. They should try and keep their feet on the ground.”