Billie

  * * *

  And there you have it—the last pleasant moment in season 1.

  I’ll sum it for you in the recap at the start of the next season: we’re the heroes, the setting is shitty, there hasn’t been much action but there will be more before long, no one gives a crap about the secondary characters, the prospects for the future are zero, for the girl in any case, and the reason all this continues anyway, well, there isn’t one.

  So? You have nothing to say?

  Hey! . . . Are you asleep or what?

  Raise your head, little star!

  There is one reason! And you know it well since it’s precisely because of it that I’ve been going on and on like this for hours!

  The reason is totally idiotic and I can barely dare to say it. The reason is: love.

  After that it got sadder and I’m going to run through it quickly.

  Afterwards, you were looking elsewhere . . .

  First there was summer vacation which put a bit of distance between us (we saw each other three times in two months, once by chance and super uncomfortably because his mother was nearby) and then his going off to school separated us completely.

  He was far away and as for me . . . during that period, I repeated a year of school, developed tits, and started smoking.

  To pay for my cigarettes, I began to fool around, and so that my tits would serve some purpose, I shacked up with someone.

  Yes, . . . shacked up . . . there was a boy who passed by, he had a motorbike, he could take me away from the Morels from time to time, he worked at a garage, he wasn’t all that nice, but he wasn’t mean either, he wasn’t all that handsome and couldn’t have hoped for better than a girl like me for an easy lay. He still lived with his parents, but there was a trailer at the back of their yard—and that was great because I felt completely at home in trailers—so I brought my bag of clothes and moved in.

  I cleaned it; I sat inside and did what he did: I lived stealthily at the back of the yard.

  His parents’ yard . . .

  His parents who didn’t want to speak to me because I was such bad marriage material.

  He was allowed to have his meals with them, but me—no. Instead, he brought me out a lunchbox.

  It bothered him a bit, but as he said: it was only temporary, right?

  Where were you little star?

  Oh . . . I have to go quickly over these moments from my past because it reminds me too much of the present.

  Because, you know . . . I keep going on and on with my story, but I’m waiting for you and feel really cold.

  I’m really cold, really thirsty, really hungry, and really not doing so well.

  My arm hurts; I feel bad about my friend.

  I feel bad about my Francky who’s all messed up . . .

  And I still feel like crying.

  So I’m crying.

  But hey, it’s only temporary, right?

  Suddenly, it came back to me, little star. Monsieur Dumont didn’t only teach me that I was from the underclass of France, he made me write down somewhere that you were dead . . .

  That you had died billions of years ago and that it wasn’t you I was looking at but your remains. The remains of your ghost. A sort of hologram. A hallucination.

  Is it true?

  So we’re really alone?

  The two of us are really lost?

  I’m crying.

  When I die, there won’t be even a trace of my presence left behind. No one has ever understood me, aside from Franck, and if he dies before me, it’s over. I’ll die too.

  I’m looking for his hand and squeezing it tight. As tight as I can.

  If he dies, I’ll go with him. I’ll never let go of him. Never. He has to save me one more time . . . He’s already done it so often that he’s like some hoisting mechanism on a helicopter . . . I can’t stay here without him. I don’t want to because I can’t.

  I pretended that I could escape the underclass, but in truth, I never left it; I tried, though. I tried with all my heart. I tried all my life. But it’s like a disastrous tattoo, that crap; unless you cut off your arm, you have to lug it around until the worms eat it.

  Whether I like it or not I was born a Morel and will die a Morel. And if Franck abandons me, I’ll act exactly like my stepmother and all the others: I’ll drink. I’ll make a hole in the floorboards and I’ll make it bigger and bigger until there’s nothing human left in me. Nothing that laughs, nothing that cries, nothing that suffers. Nothing that could make me risk raising my head one last time just to get smacked in the face.

  I let Francky believe that I had pressed reset, but all that was bullshit. I did nothing at all. I just trusted him. I trusted him because it was him and because he was there, but without him, such a lie won’t hold up for a minute. I can’t press reset. I can’t. My childhood is a poison coursing through my blood and I’ll only stop suffering when I’m dead. My childhood is me, and since my childhood is worth nothing, with me behind it, no matter how hard I tried to thwart it with all my strength, I was never strong enough.

  I’m cold, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, and I’m crying. I don’t give a damn about you, lousy little star, you who don’t even exist in my dreams. I don’t want to see you anymore. Never again.

  I turn toward Franck and, like a dog, like White Fang when he finds his master, I wedge my nose under his arm and lie stock-still.

  I don’t want to ever go back to living in a trailer. I don’t want to eat other people’s leftovers anymore. I don’t want to convince myself anymore that I am anything other than myself. It’s too tiring to lie all the time. Way too tiring . . . My mother left when I was not even a year old and she left because I did nothing but cry. She’d had enough of her baby. And well, she was right, because after so many years, I haven’t made any progress: I’m still the same pain in the ass little girl who cries all night long . . .

  I forgave her for abandoning me. I was able to understand that she was still a child and it must have been impossible for her to imagine the rest of her life in the Morels with my father but . . . but the thing that keeps me from forgetting her completely is wondering whether she thinks about me sometimes . . .

  Only that.

  I’ve stopped crushing his hand—I need to move; I may want to die in the next minute, but I’ve had enough of having a sore arm for the next second, and just as I’m rolling onto my back, he starts squeezing me in turn.

  “Franck? Is that you? Are you there? Are you sleeping? Have you passed out or what? Do you hear me?”

  I’ve stuck my ear against his mouth just in case he is too weak to answer me clearly and also to act the way they do in the movies, like, when a dying old man murmurs with his last little breath where he’s hidden his treasure, and so on.

  But no . . . his lips aren’t moving . . . his hand, however, is still squeezing mine . . . Not a lot. Just barely. A weak grip. But for him it must be a humongous effort.

  His hand is too weak and doesn’t really squeeze at all, but he is pressing me a little with his comatose fingers. His fingers, in a last little burst of movement, are saying to me: “But you don’t see that your treasure is there, you big dope! C’mon, stop crying! Do you realize you’re starting to bore us with your miserable childhood? Do you want me to talk about mine a little? Do you want me to tell you the effect it had, growing up with a mother on antidepressants and a father on “anti-the-whole-world”? Do you want me to tell you what it’s like to live with constant hatred? Do you want me to tell you what it’s like being the son of Jean-Bernard Muller and to realize at eight years old that you would only ever love boys? Is that what you want?

  “Do you want me to tell you again all about the bloody war that was waged? The resulting carnage? The domestic terror? So, stop for two minutes, please. Stop. And can we give up on your bogus star there? . . . There is no little sta
r. There is no sky. There is no God. There is no one other than us on this fucking planet; I’ve already told you a thousand times: it’s just us, us, us, and us again. So stop always digging into your shitty memories and inventing your own cosmogony when it suits you. I hate it when you do that. I hate it when you wallow in that type of easy complacency. Anybody can anathematize others’ flaws in place of his own, you know? And I hate to see you like everyone else . . . not you . . . not her . . . Not my Billie . . . The world is nothing but a bottomless pit where the most shapeless families slither and twist on mountains of muck, but there is for us something holy and sublime that they don’t have and that they will never take away from us: courage. Courage, Billie . . . The courage to not be like them . . . The courage to triumph over them and to forget them forever. So stop crying right now or I’ll ditch you where you sit and take off right away with my two well-endowed stretcher-bearers.”

  Oh boy . . . He really sounded angry, huh? You sure are cranky, Perdican, when your fingers come to life . . . Oh boy . . . and . . . uh . . . What’s a cosmogony? And what does anathematize mean? Organize by themes? Oh boy . . . I’m going to shut up now . . .

  * * *

  Okay, little star . . . Come a little closer because I don’t want Francky to hear . . . Shhhh . . . So . . . uh . . . to recap: You’re there, but it’s no longer you, and you don’t exist, but you exist anyway, okay? If Franck doesn’t believe in you, that’s his problem, but I’m used to your company, so I’m going to continue to tell you my little soap opera in secret, ’kay?

  ’Kay, she twinkled.

  * * *

  So where was I? Ah, yes . . . in Jason Gibaud’s rotting trailer . . . oh my God . . . how it stank inside! A mix of smelly feet, cold tobacco, and old moldy cushions. Well, you could say that I would have gladly swiped a few cans of Oust deodorant spray at that time!

  I was there. I was cutting classes. I was sitting on the steps on the side by the shed so that his parents couldn’t see me and I was smoking cigarettes.

  When my morale was at zero, I told myself my life was over and I could just as well turn on the TV, open the butane canister, and suck out the gas once and for all while watching The Young and the Restless, and when there was a ray of sunlight, I told myself I was Camille . . . that I was just in the process of rotting away in a type of convent while waiting to turn eighteen and that one way or another, things were bound to change one day . . . I didn’t quite see how, but okay, that’s what a ray of sunlight is: something that allows you to close your eyes and believe a little . . .

  There was Jason and there were others, needless to say. When his parents had finally had enough, I picked up my bag of clothes and went off to frighten other old folks.

  One day, much later, but roughly around that time, I ran into Franck in town. I know he saw me, but he pretended to be looking elsewhere and I was truly grateful.

  Because it wasn’t me, the extremely vulgar girl who was hanging around the market that day. Dressed like a floozy, mounted on stilettos, and wearing way too much makeup. No it wasn’t the Billie whose wishes he had wanted to respect, it was . . . some sort of slut . . .

  Ah yes, you have to call ’em like you see ’em, little star . . . In those years spent in the crappiest of waiting rooms, there was no Camille of the convent, rather a Billie Holiday of the brothel . . .

  Of course, I was acting like a slut . . . I knew it . . . But what of it? I had discovered that with my body, I could obtain a certain amount of peace, something to eat, and even . . . even . . . if I tried hard to find it, a bit of affection. So . . . I would’ve been pretty stupid to deprive myself, right? I didn’t love all those boys who made it possible for me to live far from the Morels, but I didn’t take up with the worst of them either. And, then . . . between a slut among the rich and a slut among the poor, there isn’t too big a difference, is there? It’s really just a question of how much clothing you own . . . Mine fit in an Auchan supermarket bag while other people’s clothes could fill beautiful walk-in closets, but okay . . . everyone has his own view of things, right? I did what I could and, while waiting until I could do something else, I did it with my ass.

  I was obsessed with turning eighteen. Not because I could then take my driver’s test and ride around in a Mini Cooper (ha ha) or go gambling at the casino (ha ha ha), but because I knew I would be more relaxed shoplifting at the stores. Before that if I stole something and got caught, they would inevitably call my father. No way was I letting that happen. That was the direct route back to the infernal hovel. So I stole only small items and it took longer for me than others to get respect.

  So there you have it. That was my life and those were my great plans for the future . . .

  So yes, it was really classy of Franck Mumu to pretend not to see me.

  Since then, I’ve spoken to him several times about that day, about that really strange moment when I was embarrassed and relieved at the same instant and he continues to swear that he really didn’t see me. But I know he did, and I know it because of Claudine . . .

  Later on, one morning, I ran into her at a café. I was buying cigarettes and she was buying revenue stamps. Of course, she smiled at me and all, but I saw in her face that look of disappointment that she’d had ever since our play rehearsals.

  Yes, I saw it. It was quick and very well camouflaged but because I’d spent my childhood on the defensive, I was quite adept at detecting the least little secret thought in the faces of people who looked at me. Very, very adept . . . She kissed me like there wasn’t any problem and said, laughing, that she wouldn’t pay for my nicotine habit but that she wanted to buy me a lollipop and a scratch-off and that I just had to choose them and then . . . then, she must have seen, under my tarted-up eyelashes loaded to death with stolen mascara, that I was already on the verge of tears since it had been so long since anyone had offered me a gift . . . Yes, she saw, but instead of saying, “Oh, my sweetheart . . . Oh how difficult life is . . . ” and “Oh how unrecognizable you are in that outfit which doesn’t suit you at all and which makes you look old,” she said something that communicated the same thing but in a much nicer way.

  Yes, when we were about to go our separate ways in the street, she said something she just remembered and blurted it out like this:

  “Say, Billie . . . you have to come by the house sometime because I have a letter for you . . . Two even, I think . . . ”

  “A letter?” I said. “But a letter from who?”

  She was already far away when she added in a half cry:

  “From your Perdicaaaaan!”

  And I’m crying.

  But in this case, I can, right?

  Yes.

  In this case, I can.

  Because those are happy tears, madame . . .

  I waited several days before going to see her.

  I no longer know what reasons I gave myself, but the only one that was legit was that I was afraid. I was afraid of returning to her house all by myself, I was afraid of going back there period, and I was especially afraid of what Franck had to tell me. Was he going to ask if it was really me, the slut he had seen the other day in front of the chicken vendor? Was he going to ask me how many cocks I had to suck to get a beautiful leather jacket like that one there? Was he going to tell me he was disappointed and that he preferred never to see me again since I embarrassed him so much?

  Yes, I was afraid and it took me at least five days before daring to knock on her door . . .

  I went there like the Billie from before, that is, on foot, in jeans, no makeup. Of course, for her it was surely trivial, but not for me. For me, it was like happily returning to a happy childhood.

  I no longer even remembered what my face looked like without all the muck I had plastered on in order to hide behind it. Yes, I was afraid to go to Claudine’s but when I put my hair up in a ponytail that day, I smiled at myself in the mirror. Not beca
use I thought I looked beautiful, but because I looked like a kid and . . . oh . . . that made me feel good, that little unexpected smile.

  Oh how good it made me feel . . .

  * * *

  It was really my name on the envelopes . . . Mademoiselle Billie c/o Madame Claudine Whatever and so on.

  Mademoiselle Billie . . .

  Shit, that sounded weird to me. It was the first time in my life I had received a letter . . . Letters, even! The first time . . . With an actual stamp, an actual envelope, and the actual writing of a human being.

  Of course, I didn’t stay. I didn’t want to open them in front of her; I think I didn’t want to open them at all. Like my memories of Easter break, I wanted to line them up in my display case and leave them unopened forever.

  I put them in my pocket and started walking.

  I walked without knowing where I was going. At any rate, my legs knew but not my head. Since my legs were smarter than me, they took one detour after another and ended up leading me to Camille’s crypt.

  I pushed open the old door, squeezed my way in, and sat down under the little altar like last time.

  The oblivion, the calm, the silence, the designs made by the lichen, the singing of the birds, the wind that shook the rusty chains, and so on. That made me feel good, too . . . It reminded me of the little Billie who didn’t sleep around with a vengeance and who wanted to resemble a girl a lot more dignified than she was . . . It reminded me of a time in my life when I learned by heart, and easily, emotions that were beautiful and that made me believe I had potential.