Bye Bye Blondie (5 page)

Now she was inside a huge grinder, with long steel teeth capable of piercing her innermost emotions. Words plunged in, great shards of glass, meaningless but supercharged with hostile power. She was shut in and clinging to the seat. Her father was attacking her with a frightening passion, all his frustration directed at her, like a flamethrower. Normally she had
ways, tricks, and mannerisms to deal with it but just then, her head bursting with LSD, she was visualizing his words as blows to her mental state, with some parts of it irredeemably smashed in.

Two days later, instead of simply slinking off without bothering them, in the normal way, she had taken the rash step (no doubt prompted by too much acid) of telling her folks where she was going. She'd invented a party in Paris, where there'd be parents in attendance, acoustic guitars, and folksinging. A case of teenage folly, assuming everyone else was stupid.

In the dining room, they were sitting side by side, watching TV. She'd cleared her throat and launched into her speech. Her father had said, “No!” without a second thought. Her mother hadn't said anything, just put on her martyred expression, meaning she couldn't bear Gloria to start making a scene.

She'd insisted. It was impossible to describe to them the way he smelled, the way his skin felt, or to make them realize what a fantastic erotic opportunity was on offer. She was even prepared to take the train and come back the same night. But they dug their heels in and didn't see why there was any dispute about it. “But I can't
not
go, don't you see? And why shouldn't I anyway? If I'm going to a party, Nancy or Paris, what's the difference? Except in one of them I'll enjoy myself, and if I can't go my entire
life
will be ruined, and I'll feel like I'm just nothing.”

Suddenly her father got to his feet in a rage. It's easy to see where she gets her habit of yelling like one possessed, trying to wipe out her adversary, knock him down, send him flying. He'd begun his usual rant, saying they'd had enough, with her mother going, “You just don't realize,” and then the first blow, to punish her for insisting, followed by another to teach her to lie down when she was getting a hiding.

Only then, for the first time ever, facing him, she'd picked up a chair and raised it to defend herself. Bad move. It made her father go absolutely crazy. She'd had some serious beatings in the past, but this one went beyond bounds, and in fact it was the last ever. That he was a violent man was one thing, that he wanted to discipline her was another, but at no time did he actually want to kill her. Her father loved Gloria. She had always believed him when he said he loved her more than anything in the world. But, logically enough, it was like her own love affairs later in life: they adored each other but couldn't live under the same roof. Let alone talk normally to each other.

That evening, she had tried to defend herself seriously, refusing to curl up in a corner protecting her arms as she normally did. This time, she wanted to get past him, run away, and somehow manage to join Léo in Paris.

A doctor had arrived, helped the two adults to pin her down, given her an injection. Cotton wool, at once her head was full of cotton wool. Then the house was full of firemen, and she was in a coma on the ground, surrounded by boots.

Waking up in a hospital: the psychiatric ward.

In the yard, behind the window with its thick iron bars, everything was white, covered in white. She came to, finding herself in a hospital gown she didn't recognize. No other clothes in the room. Or any furniture either, except a bedside table, screwed to the floor. Headache. White walls. A square room with a very high ceiling. She got up to open the door and ask what was going on, but the door was locked. Accustomed to trouble, at first she didn't panic. That would take a few more days. She pressed the button above the bed. A man came in,
a black nurse, in a white uniform, very tough looking and sexy, but not at all punk. He asked, “Feeling better now? How are you?”

She smiled, because when she wasn't screaming her head off and hurting herself, she was usually sweet and smiling. In short, she tried to retain her humor, her dignity, and to stay calm. She tried playing the girl who can't remember anything. A girl this kind of thing never happens to, a girl who says, “What's going on? When can I go home? Are my parents here?” He said he didn't know, someone else would come. She insisted politely, “Could you tell them I've woken up? I need to leave now.” She had only one thought in her head, catch the train that Léo would be on. She was well used to cops, teachers, counselors, social workers, janitors, etc., etc., the wretched fauna that surrounds problem teenagers. She was used to finding the right thing to say to them and disarming them. But this time it didn't seem to work, the nurse spread his hands in a gesture of powerlessness: “You'll have to see a psychiatrist before being discharged. You'll have to wait.” He wasn't even unpleasant. He was paid to be there, and free to get out of the place, when she wasn't. Sitting on her bed, she looked at the walls again for a long time. Tall white walls, how totally boring was that? Before ringing the bell again. This time, the nurse was a woman, and visibly harassed. Gloria again asked politely when she could see the specialist, and the woman shook her head: “Not till tomorrow, it's New Year's, we've got twice the patients and half the staff.” She was annoyed at being called out, and left at once.

Gloria shook her head. Tomorrow would be too late, impossible to get to the station by late morning. She'd been awake for two hours now, sitting twiddling her thumbs in this cold and hostile room. She knew it was probably not the best tactic in the world, but she couldn't stand this atmosphere anymore, so she threw her head back, took a deep breath and howled, for the first time. Then as nothing happened, she decided to carry on, howling nonstop and throwing herself against the walls. “Let me out, fuck it, I need to get the fuck out.” She could see that she must look like a crazed bird, skidding around bashing its head against the wall. People came running pretty quickly, but she was too busy playing her part to calculate what they might do, and kept protesting, “But I haven't done anything,” crying like a neglected child. You could tell at once that they were used to this, they very quickly overcame her and strapped her down on the bed, efficiently, with practiced hands. She felt herself dropping off to sleep before she had even stopped shouting. Like an animal in the slaughterhouse, slipping sideways, collapsing, giving one final shudder, and then it was over, she was out for the count.

She woke up, still strapped to the bed, feeling sick and groggy as if she'd swallowed stones. For a few seconds, she thought she must have been in an accident, until it all came back . . . Then she saw her father sitting, waiting, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes looking empty with dark circles around them. His expression was so sad, she had never seen him like that before. Even if she had been free of the straps, she still would not have attacked him—she would rather have strangled herself. It was as if this was the only thing she had ever succeeded in doing—giving pain to everyone around her, pain to her father.
I didn't want to make my father cry, I didn't want to see him looking so sad, so devastated and powerless. I was desolate that he didn't understand. I didn't want things to be like this. I'd have preferred to comfort him, give him a hug, say anything he wanted me to say, be the person he wanted me to be, and be it willingly. I didn't want to make my father cry, but I didn't want a living death, crushed in the life he wanted for me.

Seeing him sitting by her bed, as she lay there tied up, she could see his love, his anxiety, his unbearable pain. Her father was from Longwy, the son of a coal miner, and from a large and poor family. He was a perfect example of social mobility under the postwar French republic, the 1970s, education, meritocracy, and all the rest. For him it was impossible to understand that she didn't want a nine-to-five job, that she didn't believe in his world. His generation had believed in collective progress, corresponding to the amount of effort you put in. They'd had thirty years of economic improvement, the so-called
Trente Glorieuses
. She was only fifteen, but she already knew, like many kids her age, that it wasn't going to be the same again, it wouldn't work out like that for them. Punk rock was the first warning that the postwar world was in trouble, a condemnation of its hypocrisy, its inability to confront its old demons.

She began to groan, for lack of the right words, and even in that moment, she wouldn't have been able to reproach him with anything. She closed her eyes again. He stood up by her bed, he was crying quietly, like a man not used to it. He wept and she groaned. But she didn't yet know that he was weeping for the death of his daughter, the one who'd gone into Brabois Central Hospital on December 29, 1985, and would never come out. Another Gloria would take her place, pretending to be the same one, with pieces missing from her heart and a brain split in two.

When she asked, without being able to look at him, when she'd be getting out, he'd said gently, “You've got to see some specialists. It'll take a few days.”

Then, unable to stop herself, she'd opened her mouth and started howling once more. An unexpected hoarse cry coming from some low point in her body. At once, another nurse appeared: rolled her over onto her side, thrust a needle into her buttock, under the sheets—stop, it's all over, back to sleep.

On New Year's Eve, the dessert was lemon sorbet. They had to wake her up to ask if she wanted some—surely she would? Because they'd given her another shot, since she'd made another scene that morning upon waking up. She was obsessing about the concert she was missing, and the idea that she wasn't going to be there made her go crazy every time she remembered. She didn't have any cigarettes either, which was bad, but naturally nobody in the place would have allowed her to smoke them, because if she didn't have nicotine at least that was one less thing that was bad for her. Sugared lemon sorbet. She found that a sick joke. Her mouth felt sour, full of the horrible taste of enforced sleep. She'd eaten a spoonful all the same. She wasn't strapped down now. But nor was she in a state to get worked up. She'd fallen back heavily, letting a mouthful of lemon dribble onto her pillow. In her dream, an alligator lying on her stomach was keeping her warm, protecting her.

Next step, interview with the specialists: give the right answers, show she was squeaky clean, mentally clean. So everything was all right, yes, no health problems, no, she was eating okay, friends, yes, girls, boys, school, fine, nothing to explain a breakdown, no need to be in a mental ward . . . add a bit of humor. As a result, on January 2, they'd announced to her parents there was nothing wrong with her, her mental health was normal, so they'd have to take her back home.

She was in her room, they'd brought her the newspapers, but still no proper clothes. She could hear her father yelling at them in the corridor—no, she
wasn't
normal, she
wasn't
in perfect health. In the 1980s, psychiatry wasn't really fashionable yet, people thought of the brain like the engine of a car. He wanted them to say, “We've opened up her skull, fixed a few neurons, put a spot of oil in there, it should run sweet as a nut now.”

In the end, instead of discharging her, they'd taken her by ambulance to Toul. After her
previous sessions with the specialists, she wasn't too worried. They'd said, “Just one more interview,” and she'd gone in there convinced she'd be out by nightfall. And be able to put on something different from badly fitting hospital gowns that didn't do up the back properly.

At Jeanne d'Arc Hospital, she'd been taken into the office of this handsome elderly man, graying at the temples, aged about sixty. She imagined the Nazis exactly like him: calm, free of doubts, perfectly satisfied with themselves, sitting in elegant surroundings where everything was tasteful, clean, and impressive.

He didn't like her dyed red hair. Straight away, in the tone of someone competent, who has spent time thinking about it, he'd announced that she
wished
to appear ugly and asked her why. Why did she do that, didn't she know she could look quite pretty if she tried? Not a very promising beginning, in Gloria's opinion. She didn't think she looked as bad as all that. Not repulsive anyway. On the other hand, she wasn't setting out to appeal to ancient psychiatrists with white hair. You can't please everyone, but this man was convinced that if she didn't look attractive to him, that was her fault. For once, hearing this, she resolved to keep her mouth shut.

He started asking questions about sex, staring hard at her, probably to gauge her reactions. She'd have liked to jump up on the desk and start kicking his head in, to teach him to live and let her live. But of course it wasn't the moment.

There was no way she was going to talk about sex to this weird old guy, completely uncool, in this room with the light coming through the blinds, in the heavy silence. She avoided his eyes and stammered out a few laconic replies. At least she felt entirely confident that she was bright in school terms, bright enough anyway to satisfy the questions of a man like him. Or else it would really have panicked her.

“Why do you think you're here?”

“That's just it, I don't know.”

Wrong answer. One of those damned times when honesty is not the best policy. And she dug herself even deeper in.

“I'm here because my father started yelling at me and instead of keeping quiet, I answered back.”

Wrong again, you could tell right away from the old guy's expression.

“And in your opinion, why are you refusing to be a woman?”

Gloria decided to keep her answers to herself. Because agreeing to be a woman means suffering in silence, not fighting back.
Yes, you asshole, that's the real answer
.