Paris Noir

The chauffeur[2] by Marc Villard

The Chinese guy[3] by Chantal Pelletier

Ménilmontant

It’s the last thing Luc said to me on his way out: “Don’t be stupid, Sonia, take your pills.” I nodded. I should have started my medication again but I thought I was stable and I was sick of gulping down all that shit every day. Outside, along our windows, the first hyacinths were cutting through the soil in their ceramic pots. We went out in the courtyard and I felt a surge of affection for the two cherry trees that were dying in front of the concierge’s apartment and for the grass blades pushing their chlorophyll between the lopsided cobblestones. Even the faded look of the façades, I liked.

“Don’t worry,” I said.

He hugged me, or more exactly, I hugged him. That’s how we were, us two. An inverted couple. I was taller, heavier. Luc had nothing athletic about him, and I had been a swimming champ as a teenager. Eighteen years later, I still had biceps, shoulders, and thighs to show for it. I think this is what Luc had liked: the masculine side of me. But that day, everything was over. Luc was leaving to face another opponent. We kissed on the cheek.

I watched him go. I knew I wouldn’t take the time to get used to someone else again. Too much work, no more patience. As for Luc, he had started a new slalom without even bothering to train for it. So between the two of us, I was the one who smiled the most. Luc knew that by leaving he was doing a bigger favor for me than for himself. Which didn’t prevent him from feeling guilty. That almost pained me.

He stepped outside the courtyard gate. I pictured him climbing into the overloaded van. He was probably feeling remorseful at that moment: He hated material problems. The inconvenience of moving was going to destabilize him for a long time.

I went back to my Greek salad dressing; I added some lemon and a pinch of ground oregano. I tasted it. Not bad. I entered the recipe, list of ingredients, and all the numbered steps into the computer. I named that banal escarole-tomato-feta-black olives salad Greek Summer Salad. As with everything else, a new title is enough to make an old recipe sound fresh.

Looking out the window, I saw that the cobblestones in the courtyard were less dark, the day brighter than during the previous weeks. Spring was on its way. I felt a kind of exhilaration, suddenly convinced that freedom and spring could be a beautiful wedding celebration if I wanted.

I had not decided to call Jérôme. I’m fine, thanks! Despite what Luc says, I’m polite, especially with my clients, and Jérôme happened to be my main one: I created most of the recipes for his magazine, Foodgourmet. Swamped as usual, more than usual even, he was negotiating the sale of a Chinese edition of his magazine to a publishing conglomerate in Shanghai, and given that he was capable of selling his soul cut up in little pieces to decorate key chains, he was going berserk. One billion three hundred million potential clients. Even a thousandth of that godsend would have been a fortune.

I knew right away he was asking for a favor. It took me longer to understand what kind: For the last three days, he had been playing guide to a Chinese man. Devotedly, and for a good reason: He was the cousin of the guy he was dealing with in Shanghai! But now, honestly, it’s too much. Could you possibly take charge of this burden until 9 p.m. tonight in Orly when the cumbersome character flies off to Milan? He gave me one of his I’ll make it up to you, the future of the company is at stake, or, I’m so overwhelmed by work, I’ll pay you the equivalent of three recipes, you can’t say no. I said no, I couldn’t say no.

Besides, taking a Chinese tourist around the capital wasn’t worse than tinkering with recipes from photographs: If you used your imagination this could pass as a tomato, that as a Béarnaise sauce, and the whole thing as a slice of calf’s head. Because that was exactly what my job had become: I looked at totally lame pictures of totally lame dishes and concocted plausible recipes from them. To tell the truth, you ended up losing your appetite, even me, and I do love to eat.

Without this new turn of events, I would have e-mailed him my autopsy of a salad and stayed home; so I printed my page without any qualms, all excited to go out and look spring straight in the eye.

I saw him right away as I was stepping into the offices of Foodgourmet.What a shock! My Chinese guy stood out against a lovely light and the greenery cascading down the slopes of the Parc de Belleville. In the background, misty Paris bowed down before such beauty, golden skin and turned-up lips, a true piece of China to which amber tea would have given the color of brown sugar. This is when I knew I should have taken my pills. I was losing it. And yet I wasn’t really attracted to Asian men. Too smooth, not sexy at all. There was a kind of eunuch quality about them, I thought, although I had never checked the facts. I probably associated them with the servants in the imperial court of China, castrated so His Highness wouldn’t have rivals under his roof. In short, I had no use for Chinese men. No, it was hoodlums who gave me my thrill: hairy hunks who fill out their shirtsleeves, display shoulders broad enough for two, thick arms and large, rugged hands, surly men who wheedle you into the underbrush with their tenor voices... But on that day, all of my prejudices evaporated. I would have needed heavy medication to restore my judgment which had quickly gone down the drain.

All melted, my legs like cotton, my heart sunk between my thighs and raging as if inside a nest of red ants, I had a hard time resisting the temptation to jump on him and eat him up alive, and yet I hadn’t raped anyone in years.

This fellow smelled of strawberries, the kind you find in woods, not in supermarkets; it activated my saliva like crazy, a sign that I hadn’t completely lost my appetite. His perfect lips flashed me an irresistible smile. The scoundrel wasn’t scared: He had no idea of the risks he was running.

Jérôme came to the poor guy’s rescue by grabbing my arm and whispering that he would reimburse all my expenses. I couldn’t care less; I couldn’t take my eyes off him. As soon as he stood up, I noticed the son of a bitch was terrifically built, not too thin but not paunchy either, strong, straight, good thighs and a nice piece of equipment that showed through his black, flowing pants. He even had shoulders and pecs under his dark blue jacket, and in his golden face, his big eyes were shining under eyelids that seemed painted with a brush. That creaseless curve was incredible! I had never seen such a thing!

He spoke a kind of kitchen English; I did too of course, so that was lucky. He was obviously pleased to stop posing as a piece of pottery in the lobby of Foodgourmet. I was eager to leave. I gave my Greek salad to Jérôme and grabbed the Chinese man. All he was carrying was a small bag; he traveled light, a real plus.

I made him walk across the park, just to show him that Paris had good green lungs and that the most beautiful city in the world had something else to show off besides the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré-Coeur. Very nice! It was indeed very nice. A group of Asian people were doing tai chi between forsythias in full bloom. They must have looked familiar to him. I explained that we were to leave his bag at my place first. What did he feel like doing after that? As you like. He shouldn’t have said that but he had no way of knowing.

Eleven a.m. I had six or seven hours to get him in a stew. Whatever the recipe. I was ready to settle for something quick, cooked al dente. There, in the quiet of the park, I decided not to rush things, not to break anything. Nice and slow. Like a normal, regular woman.

At the intersection of rue des Pyrénées and rue de Ménilmontant, Paris was shamelessly exposing her underwear up to her Eiffel Tower garters; we let the lights turn green twice, the better to enjoy the strip tease. I was thinking of poor Luc, who was hurting his back as he unloaded his van. He really had no luck. I wouldn’t have bet a dime on their happiness as a couple.

On the way down rue de Ménilmontant, my Chinese man was looking all around him, at the Arab grocery and butcher stores, at the bazaars. Wonderful! I realized that I shouldn’t be counting on having poetic exchanges with him. A real advantage. He was nodding and smiling so much he seemed to be laughing all the time, with his plump mouth stretched out over China teeth militarily aligned. I felt pity for Luc — he was missing such an exciting show.

Near my place, the boarded-up buildings and the construction sites didn’t exactly make for an attractive landscape, but apparently he didn’t care. As soon as we passed through the gate into my paved courtyard, everything, the shrubbery, the flowerpots, was suddenly more pleasant. He thought it was so cute!

When he took off his jacket in the living room, I gave in. His wild strawberry scent was unbearable. He agreed to a cup of coffee so I made two small, very strong espressos and I crushed five of my most potent pills inside his cup. He was sitting on the couch, sipping his coffee without flinching. He didn’t last very long. After a Very good, it’s such a nice place, he fell asleep. Milan had gone down the tubes by then. I closed the shutters, took off my dress, and delicately stripped the product of its various cases so I could taste it. A pure delight.

When I got back from shopping at the Chinese supermarket on rue de Belleville, he was still asleep, naked on the couch, his hands and feet tied up, his big body well sheathed in his totally smooth, amber China skin. With just that small accident of imperfect, slightly wrinkled flesh: his penis; a bit darker, with a smallish hard-on between his thighs. He was a good boy. He’d been abused for at least two hours but that hadn’t prevented him from having nice dreams. I was really lucky.

I put away my groceries, had a bite, and went back to work. Munching on his earlobe, I could again verify that not only did he smell of wild strawberries, he also had their taste. I was sorry I had damaged him, though; his perfect lips were puffy and were turning blue; I felt upset. For fifteen minutes I gave him a hard time that left purple marks on his neck and a big scratch on his left cheek. He was grunting in his heavy sleep, his asshole looked sullen around a small, ugly rip. The guy was not used to good things. I washed him with a baby wipe and put some ointment on it. I wanted him to last for a while. In that respect, I’m like any woman, I get attached fast.

At 4:00 a.m., exhausted, I rolled him over onto the wheelchair we had bought from the widower upstairs after the death of his crippled wife, when Luc had a badly broken leg. China was heavy but I managed to lay him down on the guest room bed. I had bitten his left breast so hard it had left a big bruise in the shape of a half moon. I did have good teeth.

I straightened the blanket on my little darling who was blissfully asleep; it almost felt like milk was rising inside my breasts, but I managed to get ahold of myself. I locked him up and collapsed on my bed.

Before taking a well-deserved rest, I remembered that it’s never a good idea to fall in love with guys who are not your type; it always ends up badly and knocks you out for a long time. Luc, with his tiny build and sparrow voice, had been an exception to my professed fascination for hunks — an exception that had brought me bad luck.

I slept until 9 and had a dream about Luc in his wheelchair.

An image which in fact represented the last stage of our love rivalry. A few weeks of recovery and I had been subjected to the whole spiel: lies, scenes. From one physical therapy session to the next, Luc had fallen in love with his physical therapist, and after that I seemed to him like a half-measure at best. He was wrong. My Chinese man, if he ever woke up, could testify to my energy to perform; I could do a beautiful job.

At 10, the breakfast tray was ready but he wasn’t. He had trouble opening his eyes; they had completely shrunk in his swollen face, which was kind of yellow now. How old was he? Slightly younger than me. Thirty-two, thirty-three. But supposedly, Chinese people don’t look their age. Maybe he was a fraud.

I slipped a basin under the blanket and grabbed his penis:

“Pee?” I asked, in case he didn’t understand.

I heard the gurgle and a wave went through my hand. Not bad. I shook his little hose before removing the basin. I think this made him feel good.

I lifted his head, brought the glass of water to his lips. He tasted it first, thought about it; he didn’t trust me. I honestly couldn’t resent him for that; he finally drank half of it but turned down the coffee. I could understand that. I pushed the croissant into his mouth and he ate all of it. Good: I had stuffed the carefully crushed drugs inside the dough.

He regained his spirits briefly and started to scream. I couldn’t care less, no one would hear him; the widower upstairs had been in the hospital for the last three months, and the only window in the bedroom looked out onto a blind courtyard. Faced with my unruffled calm, he stopped and looked at the ceiling.

“I feel sick,” he said in a blank voice.

“You’ll be better soon,” I replied with a shrug.

To tell the truth, if he kept on popping all the pills instead of me, chance was he wouldn’t.

He closed his eyes. Not a fighter. Quite a fatalist. It’s supposed to be an Oriental thing. Back in China, he was used to being mistreated perhaps. He was really calm for someone being held in confinement, I thought.

When I pulled the blanket off him and brandished the whip, he looked at me with an imploring expression, but pity is a feeling I loathe. And please, no bullshit: His dick was half stiff, and that never lies. He must have understood; he turned slightly to present his ass, or rather to protect his more fragile parts. His buns were a lot more fleshy than Luc’s, who loved to be spanked, something I never refused him in fifteen years, something he couldn’t complain about. The jerk should never have left, we had our little ways together, and that’s not easy to lose all of a sudden, especially for someone unstable like I am, and when spring is on its way.

It’s true, we were still very much in love, Luc and I. It was not like before, of course. Aside from the well-polished rituals we had established to relieve ourselves, we both kept twisting and turning to avoid any unnecessary contact with each other. Lips sealed in reaction to hurtful words, legs disentangled after sleep had unfortunately intertwined them, but we were used to it and that counts. So much dodging for some peace; marital art is a martial art, an art we had completely mastered: black belt, fourth dan. Okay even for KOs; we would crash painlessly on the tatami. The Chinese man hadn’t exactly agreed to the situation so he was in pain. It’s all in the head, I say! I thought he might be a bachelor and knew little about women. I hear they lack women in China.

When I had my fill of it, I felt very relaxed; I let him sleep and went to take a shower. Maybe I could keep my Chinese guy for a long time in that state — weeks, months, years even. Paris was a lot better than Milan, after all. All I had to do was feed him right and not mess him up too much. I could set up a TV and DVD player in his room to keep him entertained and then, little by little, he would learn French. That would at least be something positive.

I put on clean clothes. It was beautiful out; I watered my plants. I was happy that Luc let me live here. Our place was becoming my place, for years to come; that’s what he had said and that was nice, he didn’t have to. We had bought that first-floor apartment together fifteen years ago for peanuts with a loan from the bank, and we had fixed it up ourselves, quite nicely. All I needed to do was pay the mortgage every month. Nothing to worry about, I had the means, I couldn’t complain.

That’s when I fell upon my man’s backpack. As light as he was. I found his passport. In Chinese, obviously. One hundred dollar bills. A good-sized stack. It would be for our honeymoon. My honey bun had everything thought out.

All perked up, I sat down in front of the computer to play with the keyboard a little. I had a message from Jérôme: Attachedare three recipes to return to me before this evening, baby. Was everything okay yesterday? How was he?

Great guy, I answered. You’ll have them back very soon.

I clicked on the pictures. The first one was easy. A vegetable casserole. String beans, peas, carrots. I already had the recipe stored in my files. All I had to do was print it out. Same for the chocolate cake. The third one wasn’t so simple. I finally settled for veal shanks with mixed vegetables. I wrote down the recipe card from memory; I was used to it. I sent everything via e-mail by mid-afternoon. Jérôme would be pleased.

I made myself a cup of coffee and finished some leftover lasagna. I even treated myself to a little serving of raspberry sherbet. The veal shank stew had obviously whetted my appetite. I thought it would be a good idea to cook such a typical French dish for my little sweetheart. He’d like that.

So I went to rue de Belleville, near the Jourdain metro station, to the best butcher in the arrondissement.[4] I bought organic potatoes, carrots, turnips, and string beans, then I got a great cheese assortment at a cheese store that takes quality very seriously. My backpack was totally full when I walked back down rue de Belleville; I made a stop at a Chinese grocery — it wasn’t very hard to find as they’re all over the neighborhood — to get three cans of Tsingtao beer and some candied ginger.

When I came back home, not a stir. I got busy in the kitchen, humming away while I cooked. I may be a little rough sometimes but I have to admit that there’s nothing more satisfying in life than concocting fancy meals for a sleeping man. In fact, it felt as if we had already reached the pearly gates, my Chinese man and I. And that Luc who wanted me to take my pills! He was really screwed in the head!

I hadn’t had so much fun cooking in a long time. Everything was coming back to me: the exhilaration of the movements, the elation that smells and flavors give you. I had lots of fun cutting the vegetables into identical little cubes. I was using a ceramic knife Luc had brought back from Japan for me. Light as a feather and sharp as a razor blade. Asia sure was showering me with presents!

While the meat and vegetables were cooking, I stirred up a mixture of chocolate, butter, and ground almonds which I poured on the pieces of candied ginger scattered on tin foil, and I put the concoction in the fridge. Ginger is an aphrodisiac, it’s a well known fact; same for the sage I had stuck inside the meat. The evening was promising.

I set the table with special care as if for a picture. The tablecloth, the matching napkins, my best set of plates and glasses... I had even bought two bunches of daffodils, the first of the season. I trimmed two candles with my Japanese blade and stuck them into the candle holder Luc’s mother had given us. The effect was fantastic, a true promotional ad for Foodgourmet. I was already missing my big teddy bear; quick, quick, I gave myself a vague facelift in the bathroom and went to see him...

Lying there on his bed, my loverboy was still a little sleepy, two narrow slits where his eyes were; as soon as he saw the Japanese knife, he opened them as wide as dessert plates. No reason to get upset, though, as the object was not much bigger than a steak knife, but impressive because it was very pointed, a real hole puncher. To show him I didn’t mean to hurt him, I sat down by the side of the bed, and scraped my knee with the tip of the ceramic blade, at the hem of my checkered skirt. Beads of blood formed right away; very carefully, I traced a thin red line, a C, meaning Chinese, since I didn’t know his first name. The result was very delicate but failed to reassure him. I tapped my heart to show I had feelings for him. He didn’t seem to believe me, so I even came up with I love you. He must have thought I was out of my mind.

But with one thing and another, my veal was running the risk of sticking to the bottom of the pot. I clapped my hands, Come on, let’s get moving, let’s go. He stood up, staggering; I pushed him under the shower, he didn’t respond. He was taking things the right way, the Asian way that is. Zen is Japanese, but they say that the Nippons stole everything from their neighbors of the Middle Kingdom. So Zen has to be Chinese.

I washed him with an almond milk shower gel that smelled very very nice. I was having a terrific time. It’s absolutely true: When a man’s hands are tied up, his penis becomes more important. He was being very sweet about letting me take care of him and we actually got along rather well. The poor man needed to acquire some experience: What one learns is always beneficial.

I dried him up with a bath towel that had been well heated on the electric towel rack. I dabbed all his little wounds with Q-tips soaked in hydrogen peroxide, smeared some ointment wherever it was needed, rubbed arnica on several bruises. I slipped one of my silk bathrobes onto him and combed his hair. He seemed happy. I was in seventh heaven.

When he saw the nicely set table, he was taken aback; he was probably sick of sleeping. I could read fear in his black eyes hidden under his slanted eyelids. The way experience can make an inexperienced man mature is absolutely spectacular!

I shook my hands frantically, like a mute, so he would understand once and for all that things were over, definitely over: The script was different now. Sleeping finished, now eating.

“It’s very good food, you’ll see! Wonderful French food!”

I went to the fridge to take out the hors-d’oeuvre plates: two slices of duck foie gras from the Gers, along with toast and a slab of fig jam on the side. I removed from his plate one of the slices of toast, spread the smooth paste on it, added a little bit of jam, and took a bite to show him there was nothing to be afraid of. When I brought the slice of bread to his lips, he gulped it down. On and on like that through the whole meal. But I allowed myself pauses so I could get some nourishment too; generosity has its limits after all.

He was going like Mmm, very good, great. And honestly, the veal was a complete success; I had slightly spiced it so my darling would feel more at home and it turned out to be a brilliant idea. I pushed forkfuls of meat and vegetables into his mouth. We had found a satisfying rhythm. He was as handsome as when we had first met, his wild strawberry smell lingering on despite the aromas of the meal and the almond-milk scent of the shower gel. My cute little soldier had a strong personality he hadn’t clearly revealed yet. But Luc was wrong: I could be patient.

My man had absolutely gorgeous hands and arms. I hadn’t seen such perfection up close since Eric, the young swimming champion in the 200-meter freestyle I had abused in the locker room. I had gotten into all kinds of trouble because of that, including being fired from the Swimming Federation and one year of scandalous chemical straightjacket. They talk about human rights for men, but what about the rights of women? No one gives a shit about them.

He accepted coffee without me dipping my lips into it first. Trust had been restored. It just goes to show, it doesn’t take much. Then we settled on the couch with small glasses of brandy. He let me do the job. At times, I even seemed to catch a flash of wonder in his weary eyes. A great cook makes a great lover: I knew the proverb and I was able to verify how surprisingly true it was.

At 3 a.m., having had my fill, I took him back to his room, certain he would sleep: I had fixed his second glass of brandy with three pills.

As I was going to bed, I thought I recognized the same feeling of ecstasy I’d had with Luc at the beginning of our relationship. Spring had come. I had no doubt about us being able to form a happy couple. Such a thing does exist, whatever they may say; pushing your luck a bit is all it takes.

The next day, I washed and checked my e-mail. No news from Milan. I felt reassured; it’s always when everything is going smoothly that the worst happens. I know that well.

I fixed breakfast. When I went into the bedroom, he was asleep. I didn’t want to bother him; I just stayed there and watched my little angel without a peep, without pulling the blanket off the bed, an inch away from being the submissive woman, lost in admiration before her man and scared to death at the idea of disturbing his sleep. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and my hand shot out. Maybe I wasn’t completely stabilized yet.

When he woke up, I was holding his penis firmly in my right hand, with the tip of it in front of my mouth like a mike, and I was singing, Stranger in the night, I’m so excited...

He gave me a funny look. Okay, I don’t sing very well, it’s true. I put an end to my recital and gave him his breakfast.

In the bathroom, I filled the tub with water warmed up just right and added a Chanel № 5 bath gel. A pure delight! I sat him up on the edge of the bathtub, what with his feet tied up and all... Then splash! I was wondering if I would join him right away when the doorbell rang. Bummer!

After the first moment of panic, I decided I wouldn’t open the door.

And then: “Sonia, it’s Luc, open up, I know you’re there!”

Locking and bolting the door had been a good idea. I had to, our home was his home after all.

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled as he came in.

And who says I’m not polite? Not even Hello, thank you, nothing. The poor guy wasn’t doing so great, actually. He sat down on the couch; there was this scent of wild strawberries and I was wondering when he would notice, but he didn’t care; besides, I had already forgotten: Luc has no sense of smell!

“It’s all over with Georges!”

What? Over with the macho physical therapist who gave him such beautiful bruises? I had never believed in their story, actually. A massage that turns into marriage, that can’t work. So what that I knew it for both of us — it didn’t help!

“Any way we look at it, Luc, we can’t make it work. We’re too different,” I said in a soft woman-victim tone of voice that went with my white blouse...

“I’m coming back, Sonia, I’m moving back tomorrow...”

“Oh! That won’t be possible!”

“We have no other choice, Sonia. This is my home.”

“It’s too late!”

“And why’s that?”

“There’s someone else in my life!”

He looked at me like Keep talking, don’t even think I’m gonna believe you. What chutzpah these guys have! They always think that girls are incapable of managing without them. That girls are only good for whining and for begging them to come back home. Boy, did he have the wrong scenario!

“Stop that nonsense, Sonia. You took your pills, right? I think you’re weird.”

That was pretty incredible! The guy I had was more handsome, younger, fresher. He had traveled thousands of miles to jump into my arms. He was now relaxing in my bathtub, fragrant with Chanel № 5, and the guy who’d just been dumped was putting on macho airs and acting as if he had recently killed the wooly mammoth to save his tribe! The jerk had spoiled my babe’s bath! There are limits, after all, limits I cross with gusto, and when I scream, it gets pretty loud.

“Get the hell out of here, you schmuck! I have someone else in my life now, so fuck you, asshole!”

I was starting to turn red. He remembered what that meant so he left, slamming the door behind him.

I remained in the middle of the living room for a good while, just to calm down; even when you are stabilized, sometimes certain people are good at making you fly off the handle. Leaving me for a physical therapist? You had to be really dumb.

Being dumped for a man and not for a woman wasn’t actually as tough, but... I failed to see the connection! What with one thing and another, I was getting all mixed up. Too many things were happening to me in too little time. I had reached the point where I needed a pill. That was smart! Luckily, there was no risk of an overdose as I had only one pill left in my last bottle. The Chinese man had eaten all of them.

As soon as I opened the bathroom door, I was struck by the absence of the wild strawberry scent. Chanel № 5 had punch, true, but still, I was scared. And rightly so: The foam was all alone in the tub, with no Chinese head sticking out. I saw red. Gone? No, he was all slumped in there, white in the red water. My poor baby! I grabbed his head; the stupid idiot was looking up at the top of his head. I pulled him up some more: The handle of the ceramic knife was sticking out of his stomach which was pouring red into the Chanel № 5... Some people sure know how to annoy you! Why go through so much trouble just to die when it’s the one thing nobody can escape from? Because really, he did go through a lot of trouble to find that fucking knife and put it through his stomach without swallowing it first. I thought this hara-kiri stuff was Japanese but as it turned out, even that was Chinese!

I was disappointed. To put his honor above my delicious dishes, really! You had to be mentally defective! It didn’t make sense. You can’t leave such a dangerous thing lying within the reach of children. Even I wouldn’t have left the knife just anywhere! I saw myself in retrospect cutting my knee and then... then, I totally lost it.

But stay cool! The present was complicated enough, this wasn’t the time to get caught in the past; I had to think of the future. My ex would be showing up the next day with a full van. Great! He was going to like the Chinese guy all right. I hesitated. Should I let them do their dirty business together and go on a honeymoon all by myself? I had the money. I could go far away. To Shanghai even. They lacked women there. Okay then, I was on my way! On the other hand, I wasn’t

It was still nice out. One of the cherry trees thought it was young again and was brandishing its first flower. It’s only normal to have your sap rising a little in the spring! You’ll get treated for a little while and that’ll be that! But I had to admit once and for all that Chinese guys were exactly my type.

Before going to the drugstore, I ran into the kitchen and swallowed the last pill. The guy sure had done a great job.

Big brother[5] by Salim Bachi

Quartier Latin

Man, it stinks in here.”

The commuter station at Saint-Michel did stink. Sour smells slithered along the corridors looking for their prey.

“Let’s get outta here.”

They were ugly, dressed ugly, but they didn’t give a shit, or at least that’s what they wanted you to think. Had to pass unnoticed, melt into the gray mass of the buildings in the projects. They didn’t change when they went to Paris. They were dressed in war clothes, psychiatric ER style. Watch out, high-voltage box! White Nikes, Sergio Tacchini tracksuits, international class. They were untouchable!

“Your ID!”

Not so untouchable. The cops lined them up against the tile wall of the corridor and began going through their pockets. Then they opened their backpacks. New shoes inside.

“You stole them!”

“No, officer. They’re ours.”

The younger guy even took out a receipt. One of the cops sniffed the paper as if he’d wiped his ass with it that morning.

“Yeah, sure. Buncha thieves, fuckin’ Ayrabs.”

The Ayrabs didn’t bat an eyelid. Nothing. So little reaction the cops wondered how to stir them up more, let’s have some fun. Too bad, really too bad we’re not in the middle of the Algerian War anymore when you could pitch the sand niggers into the Seine, not far away, right next door. For these policemen, no doubt October 17, 1961 was a happy day: four hundred towel-heads in the Seine, outta sight! Okay, times change and so do certain methods. But you can still get in their face, make it psychological. But here, nothing doing. You could feel them up, no problem, they were like sheep, the sweat-heads.

“Leave the women alone, Robert. Can’t you see they’re shy?”

The cops laughed and walked away, waddling on their big feet like belly dancers.

“Actually, they are the women,” said Big Brother.

The two guys closed their bags and walked to the exit on the Seine side. It was raining out. They walked along Quai Montebello for a bit, across from Notre-Dame cathedral. The elder spoke to the younger in this way:

“You see, Rachid, never, ever play those assholes’ game.”

“The po-lice?”

“You got it. Guys like us turn them on. Gandhi understood all that.”

“Gandhi?”

“What school did you go to?”

“Yours.”

“Gandhi thought force couldn’t accomplish a thing. All it did was legitimize the violence of the occupiers. The cops — they’re our English, get it? And we’re the Hindus.”

Rachid did not understand. In any case he obeyed Big Brother, did like he told him. It had always paid off and it was a lot simpler than getting your head twisted with stories of Indians and English. This guy was an enigma. Sometimes he’d go on for hours about stuff way over your head. To Big Brother’s credit, it had always paid off, you gotta admit.

“Do you know, Rachid, that we’re in the old student quarter — the Quartier Latin, if you prefer?”

“I don’t prefer shit. I don’t like nothin’.”

“Don’t be negative. And you know why it’s called the Quartier Latin?”

He had no idea.

“Because in the Middle Ages they talked Latin here and only Latin. All the literate men in Christendom spoke to each other in Latin. Do you know who lived across the river, behind Notre-Dame?”

“...”

“The monk Abelard lived near the Quai aux Fleurs. You heard of Heloïse and Abelard, Rachid?”

“Never.”

“Abelard was the son of a Breton aristocrat who gave up his birthright to learn to philosophize. Since the Notre-Dame cloister was getting too small for him, Abelard broke away from his masters and founded a school on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. His scholars followed him. He was young, handsome, and very eloquent. At night he would walk down the Montagne to the Seine and return to the house of Canon Fulbert, where he rented a room. The canon had a very beautiful niece, Heloïse. She became Abelard’s studious pupil. Naturally, she got pregnant. Abelard married her, but the canon thought he had been betrayed: He hired some thugs to break into Abelard’s room and castrate him.”

“Castrate him?”

“Cut his balls off, man. Abelard retired to a monastery and Heloïse to a convent. They wrote each other love letters for years. But it was all over, you understand.”

And Rachid did understand, for once. He loved Miquette, who would often give him blowjobs in the basement of his building. He went wild when she licked his balls, there, a little lower. Can you imagine having them cut off? He could imagine this guy Abelard suffered a lot after that, alone in the basement of his monastery writing letters to Heloïse. The story also taught him to watch out even more for Miquette’s father, the Fulbert in an undershirt who walked his German shepherd through the project every night before going out for a good chat with the crime squad so he could tell them about his Algeria, the one during the war. Her old man didn’t talk Latin; he growled at his mutt in French, blew his nose in a dish towel, and gave Rachid dirty looks when he walked by the door to their building. If he had any idea that his daughter and Rachid...

“Let’s keep going, okay?”

Rachid was beginning to like it there on the banks of the Seine across from Notre-Dame. He lacked the knowledge to put a date on the gothic building. Contrary to Big Brother, Rachid didn’t read books. He listened to NTM, Tupac Shakur, 5 °Cent, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg, but he never opened a book, no way.

“You know who killed Tupac?”

“Society, Rachid, society.”

“They say he was still alive in his producer’s car.”

“Now he’s dead. Mozart is dead too. One day you’ll die.

No matter how, you will pass away. There are more dead people than living on this earth, Rachid. And Tupac is part of the multitude now.”

“But the imam in the projects says that on Judgment Day we will rise from among the dead.”

“Who’s we?”

“Muslims.”

“How about the others? The Jews? The Christians?”

“I don’t know.”

“For Jews, Christians and Muslims are dead for good and they won’t rise up at the end of time. According to the Christians, Jews and Muslims are damned because they have the bad luck not to be Christians. And for some Muslims, the Jews and Christians are going to burn in hell to the end of time.”

“So they’re all wrong?”

“Maybe they don’t have the same god. Maybe there’ll be a war of gods at the end of time. Ever think of that, Rachid?”

“You’re blaspheming. There’s only one God. The imam says so.”

“The Jews and Christians say so too. So tell me why you’re not a Jew or a Christian, Rachid? And why Christians and Jews aren’t Muslims?”

“You’re driving me crazy, for God’s sake!”

“And what about the others?”

“What others?”

“Buddhists, animists, atheists, agnostics.”

“They’ll go to hell along with the Jews and Christians,” Rachid decided.

“That’s a lot of people. We’ll be in good company in hell.”

“Impossible.”

“If the god of the Jews is right, we’ll burn in flames, because neither of us are Jewish. If it’s the god of the Christians, then we’ll go to hell with the Jews.”

“Allah is the one true God.”

“One chance out of three, Rachid, once chance in three. It’s mathematical.”

“God doesn’t play with dice!”

“Einstein thought the same thing, Rachid. May He hear you both! Besides, maybe it isn’t the same one.”

Big Brother began to laugh as he looked at Notre-Dame over there, so near, and so far away. Sometimes seagulls would fly up the Seine and get lost. They were having fun too, in a way, they were playing as they flew over the work of Maurice de Sully and Louis VII. An endless project; its construction was still going on. It seemed to him that generations were disappearing into the limbo of history, into the nocturne of memories.

“What about people before us, Rachid? What do you do with the Arabs from before Islam? Will they go to hell? Mohammed hadn’t taught them Allah existed yet. Mohammed himself didn’t exist yet. What do you do with those men, Rachid?”

“They’re dead, that’s all.”

“That’s a lot of dead people, don’t you think?”

They crossed the quay and entered rue du Fouarre.

“Fouarre means straw.”

Big Brother had already gone on to something else. Rachid was still on their discussion about God and his worshippers. It was bothering him some. If Big Brother was right, then nothing made sense. But Big Brother must be wrong, no doubt about it.

“Straw Street. Funny, isn’t it, how the streets of Paris always have a hidden meaning, a new story. Here they used to cover the street with straw so the students could sit down on dry spots to take their classes. The whole street was covered by those studious people. It was closed to traffic. And if a cart happened to go through during the classes the monks were teaching, the students would beat up the driver and they’d dump his load on the ground. To avoid fights, the city authorities would close the street off with chains. Classes began in the morning, after mass. Since bums would come and sleep on the straw at night, they had to kick them awake before they changed the straw for the students in the Middle Ages. Hence the expression the last straw.”

“How d’you know all that?”

“Books. Man’s best companions.”

Now they were walking along rue Dante.

“Dante is supposed to have lived here after he fled Florence.”

“Florence?”

“Shit, man, you really should get out of La Courneuve from time to time!”

Big Brother traveled a lot, crazy as it may seem. He had disability papers that allowed him to take the train free and gave him discounts on most airlines. He had been wounded in Sarajevo while defusing an antipersonnel mine. At eighteen, he had joined UNPROFOR and was sent to Bosnia. After he was discharged, he lit out for Italy, as he told Rachid, who’d never been out of the projects of La Courneuve: The only Italian he knew was pizza and spaghetti. What’s more, he got bawled out by Big Brother whenever he cut his pasta before he gulped it down.

He had traveled, he said, to set his mind aright after the horrors of the war. A kind of convalescence. Rachid couldn’t really remember all the places on his journey. But he did know Big Brother had a disability card. And he was very discreet about his war injury. He never talked about it. When Rachid insisted, Big Brother would tell him to read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. But Rachid never opened a book, everybody knew that. Actually, that was the problem. If Rachid had the slightest bit of interest in anything written, he would have understood his older friend a lot better. But since hanging out with Big Brother had always paid off, Rachid just said forget it, even if his ignorance could fill the Seine.

“In 1309, Dante leaves Italy. He comes here, to Paris, to attend the lectures of Sigier de Brabant. Right here, on the straw of rue du Fouarre, he absorbs those odious truths, demonstrated with syllogisms.”

Rachid was feeling the pangs of hunger. A sweet, heady aroma of kebab was tickling his nostrils: The only truth he managed to put into a syllogism was not at all odious to his belly.

“I’m starving.”

“One should have an empty belly and a light mind.” Big Brother began to recite, in a loud voice, right there in the street: “Is this the glorious way that Dante Alighieri is called back to his country after the affliction of an exile that has lasted almost fifteen years? Are these the wages of his innocence, obvious to one and all? Is this, then, the fruit of the sweat and fatigue of his studies? Never will the man who is an intimate friend of philosophy suffer the disgrace of being chained like a criminal to be rehabilitated!Never will the man who was the herald of justice, and was offended, accept the idea of going to his offenders as if they were his benefactors, to pay tribute! This is not the way to return to one’s homeland, father. If you or someone else can find a way that does not blacken the reputation and honor of Dante, I will take it, without hesitation. If there is no honorable way to see Florence again, I will never return. What then? Can I not see the sun and stars from any corner of the world? Can I not, under every part of the heavens, meditate on the truth, the most precious thing in the world, without becoming a man who has no glory, dishonored in the eyes of the people and city of Florence? Even bread, I am sure,will not be lacking.”

Big Brother fell silent.

Big Brother was born and grew up in Algeria, in Cirta.

When he was ten years old, his father, an immigrant he had never known, sent for them, his mother and him, to come live on the outskirts of Paris thanks to the new policy of family entry. Ever since then, he’d always felt exiled: Hence his excessive love for Dante and Joyce, his pantheon of the banished.

Above all, he was drawn to lives that had been ripped away from their childhood, broken by political events, wars, famine. Or simply alienated through an absence of attachment to the environment where they were born and grew up, a bit like Joyce fleeing Dublin, which had become too narrow for his genius. He himself felt that France had become a suit that restricted his movements; this explained his enlistment in the army at eighteen and then his flight to Italy, a copy of The Divine Comedy in the pocket of his khakis.

“To return to our conversation, you should know, Rachid, that Dante put men with no religion in Purgatory, that antechamber of Paradise. And do you know where Mohammed is, in The Divine Comedy?”

“No.”

“In hell! Even Averroës — Ibn Rushd to us — the second Master after Aristotle, is in Purgatory, ahead of our Prophet. You see, Rachid, you have to relativize things. Always relativize.”

Big Brother liked to talk. He would hold forth whether or not Rachid was following what he was saying. In fact, he kept himself somewhat aloof in the projects. He didn’t hang out with anybody and was utterly discreet about his little trips back and forth to Paris. Naturally he needed Rachid as a foot soldier, but the boy was kind of simpleminded: Only the neighborhood imam had any concern for him. The other kids his age made fun of him and kept him away from their business — making little deals, stealing motor scooters, taking night joyrides that let them extract a little pleasure from their sordid lives between the huge buildings of the project where the only flowers that sprouted from the asphalt were the ones they smoked at night when they hung out and bullshitted for hours.

Now they were walking down rue Dante. They reached boulevard Saint-Germain and took it toward boulevard Saint-Michel. They went into the McDonald’s at the intersection, waited a few minutes in front of the registers, and ordered two combo meals from the sexy student in a red apron. They walked upstairs with their sandwiches, fries, and drinks.

“The girl behind the counter, you think about what her pussy must smell like?”

“Rachid, I’ve already told you not to be vulgar.”

“She must smell of french fries and grilled meat. I wouldn’t want to stick my nose in it.”

“No one’s asking you to, you know.”

Rachid got out his cell and began tapping on the keys, which lit up and gave out musical notes as he typed.

“What the hell you doing?”

“Sending a text.”

“Who the hell to, for chrissake?”

“My lady.”

“You out of your head? We’re on a job here!”

“I ain’t gonna tell her where we are. She’s working too.”

“Where’s she work?”

“At the Quick on the Champs.”

“What about her? She smell of fries too, your Dulcinea?”

“Dulcinea? You raggin’ on me?”

“No. Or, if you prefer, yes. Show me the message you’re sending her.”

“Rachid, that’s poetry! You should write more often. Miquette must be happy.”

“My Big Mac’s gonna get cold.” He pounced greedily on the two-story structure of bread and meat. He gulped it down with gusto, not forgetting to add the mushy, smelly fries. He drowned the whole thing in a quart of icy Coke. He punctuated the end of his meal with a resounding belch that made Big Brother flinch in disgust.

As for Big Brother, he hadn’t touched his tray. Ate like a bird, Big Brother. Skin and bones. Dry as a reed. A thinking reed. Who didn’t know if he should laugh or cry over Rachid and his lovelife. Over Rachid’s life, whose squalor did not escape him. Over the garish, dirty light that permeated the cardboard set of this restaurant, a food factory for all the poor bums in Paris. And over the confused tourists with no place to go, lost en el corazón de la grande Babylon. But he wasn’t going to cry about their lives. That’s the way they were. Okay.

Often he missed his childhood under silvery skies, at the edge of a sea that seemed infinite. And the shimmering of the waves, bursts of sun under the steel blue. But wasn’t that just a mirage that hit him in front of these walls covered with Keith Haring reproductions? Little stick figures holding hands on the piss-colored yellow. Imitation leather seats and formica tables had become his world, unique, impossible to steal from. There was nothing to take away. You could die here with no regret, he was sure of this.

He grabbed his bag, stood up, and walked to the restroom. Inside, he locked the half-door and began taking off his tracksuit. Underneath, he was wearing a suit jacket and flannel pants. He opened his bag and took out the new shoes. A world apart from the Nikes he stuffed into his bag with the tracksuit; once he was out of the restaurant he’d throw it away. From the pocket of his Hugo Boss jacket he pulled out a club tie that matched his light blue shirt. When he came out of the bathroom he no longer looked like a young guy from the projects, but some kind of yuppie, almost.

“Your turn now,” he said to Rachid.

The same operation witnessed the transformation of Cinderella, but this time the princess had balls, and whiskers on her chin.

“You might’ve shaved this morning.”

“I forgot, Big Bro, I swear to God.”

Mickey D’s is a very good place for this kind of metamorphosis: You could stand in the middle of the room, unzip your fly, and jerk off without stirring up the slightest ripple in the public. The people who eat there become deaf and blind, concentrating only on their pouch of ketchup or mayonnaise, sort of like the subway, where the greatest indifference is the norm. One of the rules of this kind of place is to never stare at anyone. At most a glance out of the corner of the eye, but no staring. If you scrupulously follow this one rule, you can easily bump off a stranger and get away without anyone remembering your face. That’s why Rachid admired Big Brother. He had the gift of identifying the dead spots of modern society.

They went out. This time, they walked along boulevard Saint-Michel. They almost decided to follow boulevard Saint-Germain toward Odéon. But something held them back. Some obscure commandment. Almost as if someone far away was laying out the lines for them to follow, the border not to cross. Big Brother often thought he was merely the protagonist of a story told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. It was probably his reading that blurred his judgment. He often had the feeling that life, his life, was burning in the forests of the night.

They crossed rue des Écoles, kept going up boulevard Saint-Michel, walked by the Collège de France without a glance, not far from the spot where Roland Barthes was run over by a milk truck.

“He let himself die.”

“Who?”

“Roland Barthes. He was in mourning.”

Rachid had no idea that a man had written books here, taught students — loved some of them — and died because he couldn’t bear the loss of his one love: his mother.

Big Brother did not have great esteem for his parents. He blamed them for not preparing him for this life. He had to learn everything by himself, and he had begun late, too late no doubt. He got his education after the army, during his long wanderings through Europe, with his backpack and soldier’s pay for all baggage. The pay wasn’t much more than an empty promise. But it still enabled him to buy books.

Yes, his parents had been imported from a foreign country; they’d been used by the huge industrial machine and then crushed, like an old version of a computer program.

But their children had never been part of the program. They had proliferated like errors in a line of code. The change in centuries hadn’t caused the big computer crash, the huge worldwide bug, but a few individuals who became adults at that time had quite simply tripped out in their corner of the world. Of course, not all of them had gotten on the American Airlines plane one morning in September 2001, but most of them had taken risky paths across the world, since the huge machine had spread over the whole planet, using people like simple material, interchangeable and disposable, just as it had used his parents.

That, he couldn’t explain to Rachid. How to explain that the rich no longer needed to import the poor to keep their factories going since they’d now set up the same factories in their own countries — work at home, you might say.

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

“Uhh...”

“Malcolm X.”

They stopped for a moment in front of the Place de la Sorbonne. Where once again, no doubt to make fun of him, Big Brother gave Rachid a lecture.

“On rue du Fouarre, every house was a school. But how could they house all those people who were piling up on the straw during the day and wandering around looking for a place to stay at night? So they created colleges! They were a dormitory, a shelter, and a cafeteria all in one. Robert de Sorbon, Saint Louis’s chaplain... May he rot in hell, King Louis. Robert de Sorbon received a house near the Baths from the King. The man took in sixteen poor students who were studying for their doctorates in Theology. That’s how the Sorbonne was born, on the very same spot as this late nineteenth-century complex, which is quite ugly, with a seventeenth-century chapel in the middle of it that is quite lovely. Cardinal Richelieu is the one who gave the Sorbonne that magnificent chapel, in which he is buried. A masterpiece of classical architecture.”

Big Brother was playing tour guide, pointing to the façade of one of the most famous universities in the world. As for Rachid, he was watching the female students who were coming out of their last classes of the day.

Night had fallen and only the cafés around the Sorbonne lit up the square where these long-haired enigmas were walking by. They intrigued Rachid.

Blondes, brunettes, redheads, tall ones, small ones, some wrapped up in warm clothes, some undressed in spite of the cold or because of the cold, with pink cheeks — they flashed by, their legs like rockets, flashed by like mercury to catch their bus, or to get swallowed up by the Metro, to disappear forever from the face of the earth for at least one night; for the next day, with the first gleam of light, these early-blooming bouquets would swing into motion again, stems in the morning wind.

Rachid was beginning to have a poetic soul. Was he getting all emotional from the contact with Paris, the City of Lights? Were Big Brother’s lectures beginning to bear fruit?

As for Big Brother, he didn’t give a shit about women, cared for them about as much as his first VD, which he got at fifteen from the wife of the super of his building, avid for youth and exoticism. Since then he’d had no time to waste on all that. He didn’t even have the means to do it anymore.

They stationed themselves in front of the first building on rue Gay-Lussac at the corner of boulevard Saint-Michel. Big Brother played the keyboard of the access code box, the big door opened, and they moved into the lobby. A friend in the post office who owed him one had given him the code. Life is hard for those men of letters and a little white powder livens up the deadest days. And then, everybody knows a mailman’s salary doesn’t cover the needs of a runny nose and a brain above it in withdrawal.

The superintendent wouldn’t be in, his cokehead friend had assured him. And it was true.

Big Brother looked up a few names on the mailboxes. He pushed a button on the intercom and waited. Nothing. They shouldn’t hang around too long, he knew. He tried another name. Silence. Then a crackle. He heard a sleepy, slow Yes, no doubt the voice of an old woman.

“Package for you, madame.”

“At this late hour?” said a suspicious voice.

“You are Madame Hauvet, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Special delivery, madame.”

“Fourth floor, first door on the left.”

The glass door gave out a shrill sound and opened.

They took the ancient cherrywood elevator. A little seat was folded up against one of the walls. There was hardly any room for Rachid and him. They hoped nobody had called the elevator on the second or third floor. It had already happened once. Big Brother had to look at his shoes without saying a word for a few seconds which seemed like centuries.

The car rose, then stopped at their floor. Nobody else had called it.

A second miracle was waiting for them on the landing: The door to the apartment had been opened for them.

What was the point of all those armored doors, codes, intercoms with cameras, if you let your guard down at the last minute, when the danger was at its height?

They walked into the apartment and closed the door behind them without a sound. They heard the old lady asking them to put the package on the table and leave.

Big Brother and Rachid did not have a package to put on the console table with a Carrera marble top. They weren’t about to leave the apartment either. Instead, they walked down the long hallway and entered a huge living room, to the great displeasure of the lady; her snow-white, carefully waved hair undoubtedly displayed the finest art of a very chic hairdresser.

“Ah, you probably want a little something?”

The woman got up, lifted her bag, and took out a purse. She opened it in front of them without noticing that they were not dressed like delivery men. She pulled out a five-euro bill and handed it to Rachid. He seemed the most approachable, perhaps because of his youth.

“We don’t want a tip,” said Big Brother, walking toward her. “We don’t want your charity.”

The voice that had uttered these words was sinister. The old lady realized this and her mouth opened wide.

“Whatever you do, madame, don’t scream.”

He showed her his hands and closed them in an oddly gentle way, as if they were already squeezing the woman’s neck. Then he motioned to Rachid, who walked over to their prey and began unwinding the string they’d bought in the Everything One Euro store a little further down the boulevard. He tied her hands behind her back, laid her out on the couch, and then tied her ankles together. They did not gag her.

“If you yell, you’re dead, you get me?”

The woman nodded, her mouth open and empty. Something couldn’t get through, the words remained stuck in her throat.

Big Brother walked out of the living room to explore the rest of the apartment. He went into a big kitchen and walked over to the counter. He opened a drawer and took out a large knife. Then he headed to the end of the hall, opening all the bedroom doors. In one of them, in the back, near the bathroom, he made a discovery that seemed to him, all things considered, rather natural. He came back to the living room and spoke to Rachid in a low voice.

It was Rachid’s turn to go out. He crossed the hallway, passed by the kitchen, saw a second living room full of ugly vases and statuettes, then walked into the bedroom darkened by royal-blue cloth covering the walls. His eyes had to get accustomed to the lack of light to finally understand why he had to be there.

At the same time, Big Brother was pacing up and down the huge room with the knife in his hand, examining the paintings on the walls, the little Native American figurines, and even a Berber vase he picked up from its stand.

“That comes from Algeria,” said the quavering voice. “You can take it if you like. I’ll give it to you. It’s my father... You know, he loved that country. We had property over there.”

Big Brother put the vase down and walked up to the paintings.

“Jean Dubuffet,” he said, pointing to a portrait; it was highly simplified, almost mad — broken lines traced by a child of genius.

“You can take that too, you can take everything.”

Madame Hauvet was getting more and more restless on her couch. She was coming back to life. She thought she had identified a ransom. Everything would be all right again soon. He would take the painting and go away with his horrible sidekick. Perhaps she would offer him a few trinkets and it would all be over with.

“It’s fine right where it is,” Big Brother answered. “I won’t touch it. These works have a soul, madame. They belong to no one. They should be in a museum. And museums should be free.”

She didn’t understand: These drawings belonged to her and she could wipe herself with them if she wanted to. Her ransom had been devalued by those stupid words. These guys were total morons!

“You see, madame, I was sent to Yugoslavia during the war.”

“Oh! It must have been frightful,” she said, feigning great compassion. “You must have suffered a great deal.”

“Me? Oh no, don’t worry. But the Bosnian farmers, yes. They suffered a great deal, as you say.”

He stopped talking for a moment.

“Have you read Dante, madame?”

“When I was young. How boring!”

“Too bad,” he said, very curtly.

She was sorry she’d given her opinion about Dante. She had almost forgotten she was at their mercy. At his mercy. He terrified her. He was not like the others. Not like the ones you see on TV. The ones who had burned cars for two months. Those people were far from her world, far from her. This one was getting too close to be harmless, like the sun to the earth. He was in her home! In her home, my God! She’d been so dumb she felt like crying.

He interrupted her thoughts and began speaking again.

“Yes, madame, hell exists. I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it in those devastated farms where everything had been looted, destroyed, trampled on. I’m not talking about human beings, I’m talking about objects, madame, just objects. Believe me, they have a soul. Like you and me.”

He was preventing her from thinking. He was trying to distract her — worse, he was lecturing her. He horrified her now.

“So leave the paintings and take my jewels, take all of them. They’re in the safe, behind the Dubuffet you like so much. The key is stuck to the bottom of the frame.”

She was on the verge of hysteria.

“That is not very prudent, madame. Anybody could find it there.”

Rachid came back into the living room. He wasn’t alone anymore. When she saw him, Madame Hauvet began blubbering softly.

“Silence!”

He was accompanied by a pale girl. For Big Brother, she seemed to have come out of a Modigliani. For Rachid, she was just kind of skinny and tall. Above all, she was scared to death.

Her whole body was trembling, her eyes still foggy with sleep. She couldn’t be more than sixteen.

“That’s my darling granddaughter!”

The old woman was sobbing now.

“Shut the fuck up!”

She stopped sobbing and Big Brother turned the portrait over, removed the key, and opened the safe. Inside, an ebony box: He lifted the cover. Necklaces, bracelets, several pairs of earrings. He examined the contents under the light of a lamp and closed the little box of black wood again.

“I thought I could trust you,” he said. “You’re really disappointing me.”

“I don’t understand... no, I don’t understand.”

But she did understand. The jewelry was fake. That’s why she wasn’t protecting it. The Dubuffet was a copy as well. Big Brother knew that too. But he liked to give any human being a second chance, even a third one. In Bosnia he had learned that men and women in some places never even got the slightest chance.

He walked up to the old lady, turned her over on her belly, grabbed her hand, and cut off her little finger with the large knife. He threw it onto the white carpet. A spot of blood began flowering like a rose. He had stuck her head into the couch cushion to stifle her screams.

Rachid hardly had a chance to hold her up in his arms — the girl who looked like a Modigliani model fainted. He laid her gently out on the carpet.

When the old woman stopped moving, Big Brother turned her over so she wouldn’t get smothered to death. When she came to, he said, “Now let’s stop playing games. Where are the jewels?”

The old woman was trying to speak through bloody lips. She had bitten them out of pain. Pink bubbles welled up in her mouth and exploded on her chin. Big Brother had to put his face up close to hear her tell him where the jewels were.

He got up and this time walked over to a little writing desk. He ignored the only visible drawer, kneeled down, and stuck his head under the desk. He groped around and found it. He slid a little wooden panel and the precious objects tumbled onto the carpet. He picked them up and shoved them into the pocket of his Hugo Boss jacket. What cop would search a man dressed like him? Especially if he was coming back home in a taxi.

“I have some bad news,” he said to the old lady. “My friend and I cannot allow ourselves to be recognized. By anybody.”

“Oh my God! Oh, my God! I beg you. Please, I’m begging you. Let me live, please! I won’t say a word. I swear to you. I’m imploring you. I don’t deserve to die.”

“No one deserves to die, madame. And yet, one day or another... And just think: You have lived well up to now. You have never wanted for anything.”

“I implore you, for the love of God, take her! Take her. Take my granddaughter. Isn’t she beautiful? You’ll like her a lot, I’m sure of it. Please, please don’t kill me. I don’t deserve it. I’m giving her to you, take her!”

This kind of reaction no longer surprised him. It was, after all, a very human reaction. An old she-bear would have reacted differently, but not a grandmother.

“She deserves to live too,” he said very gently. “She’s so young. Consider what a long way she has to go in life. All the good things she can do for humanity. And believe me, I know something about humanity.”

The old woman began to spit blood.

“She’ll be of no use to anybody. She’s a slut. A lousy bitch.

She’s, she’s... she’s a whore, that’s what she is.”

Big Brother had heard enough and took care of the old woman.

The girl was still lying on the carpet, languid as an odalisque. She was beautiful. And she was sleeping like a princess in a fairy tale. Big Brother was happy she hadn’t seen all that. He was happy for her. Perhaps she would even sleep through her own night, a night without end, a night without glory.

Berthet’s leaving[6] by Jérôme Leroy