Hunting and Gathering (42 page)

 
Paulette had a complete grasp of 1930 to 1999 but lost her way between yesterday and today, and things weren't getting any better. Too much happiness, maybe? It was as if she were letting herself float slowly to the bottom . . . And besides, she couldn't really see a thing. Right. So far, so good. At the moment she was taking her nap, and later on Philou would come and watch
Millionaire
with her and give all the answers without making a mistake. They loved it, the two of them. Perfect.

And while we're on the subject, Philibert was Humphrey Bogart and Oscar Wilde all rolled into one. He was writing right now. He locked himself in his room to write, and he rehearsed two nights a week. No news from the love front? Right. No news is good news.

 
As for Franck . . . nothing special. Nothing new. Everything was fine. His grandma was safe and warm and his motorbike too. He only came back in the afternoon to sleep, and he continued to work on Sundays. “Just a while longer, you know? I can't just dump them like that, I have to find a replacement.”

Well, now. A replacement or an even bigger motorbike? Very clever, this boy. Very clever. And why shouldn't he do as he pleased? What was the problem? He hadn't asked for anything. And once the early days of euphoria had passed, there he was back with his nose in the stew pot. At night he probably nudged his girlfriend and made her get up to switch off the old lady's television. But . . . not a problem. Not a problem. She would still rather put up with all this, with documentaries on the swim bladder of gurnards and the old lady's tea-induced nocturnal trips to the toilet, than return to her job at All-Kleen. Of course she could have not worked at all, but she wasn't strong enough to make that leap. Society had trained her well. Was it because she lacked faith in herself, or just the opposite? Was it the fear of finding herself in a situation where she could earn her living, but at the cost of everything else good in her life? She had a few remaining contacts . . . But then what? Spit on herself yet again? Close her sketchbooks and pick up a magnifying glass again? She no longer had the stomach for it. She hadn't become a better person—she had simply grown older.

 
No, the problem was three flights up. Why had he refused to open up in the first place? Was it because he was high, or in withdrawal? Was it true, his story about the detox? He might fool others . . . His bullshit might work on little bourgeois types and their concierges, to be sure! Why did he only go out at night? Was it to turn a trick before he could jab himself below the tourniquet? They were all the same . . . Liars who threw dust in your eyes and partied till they dropped, while you stood there biting your knuckles until they bled . . .

 
With Pierre on the phone two weeks earlier, she had started up with her own bullshit: lying again.

“Camille, this is Kessler. What the hell is going on? Who's this fellow living in my room? Call me back right away.”

Thank you, fat Madame Perreira, thank you.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 
She had to make a preemptive attack: “He's a model,” she announced to Pierre before even greeting him. “We're working together.”

That would take the wind out of his sails.

“He's a model?”

“Yes.”

“Are you living with him?”

“No. I just told you: I'm working with him.”

“Camille. I—I want so much to trust you now. Can I?”

Silence.

“Who's it for?”

“For you.”

“Oh?”

Silence.

“You—you—”

“I don't know yet. Red chalk, I suppose . . .”

“Right.”

“Okay, take care.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“What sort of paper do you have?”

“Good stuff.”

“Are you sure?”

“Daniel's the one who served me.”

“Fine. You okay, otherwise?”

“Actually, I'm talking to the salesman right now. I'll call you back on the other line for a chat.”

Click.

 
She shook her box of matches with a sigh. She couldn't avoid it any longer.

That evening, as soon as she had tucked in a little old lady who wasn't the least bit sleepy, she would go back up the stairs to talk to him.

The last time she had tried to keep a junkie from going out as night was falling, she'd gotten a stab in the shoulder for her trouble. Okay. That was different. It had been her guy, and she had loved him and all, but still . . . a painful sort of surprise. Shit. No more matches. Oh, woe. Our Lady of Fatima
and
Hans Christian Andersen, stay where you are, for Chrissake. Stay just a bit longer.

 
And, like in the story, she got to her feet, gave a tug to her pant legs and went to join her grandmother in heaven . . .

72

“WHAT is it?”

“Oh,” said Philibert, shaking his head, “nothing really, honestly.”

“An ancient tragedy?”

“Noooo.”

“Vaudeville?”

He reached for his dictionary: “ ‘. . . Vatican . . . vaticinate . . . vaudeville. Light comedy based on sudden reversals of plot, misunderstandings and witticisms.' Yes, that's exactly what it is,” he said, closing the dictionary with a snap. “A light comedy with witticisms.”

“What's it about?”

“Me.”

“You?” exclaimed Camille. “But I thought it was taboo in your family to talk about yourself.”

“Well, I'm taking some distance,” he added, striking a pose.

“And, uh, and the little beard you're growing, is that for your part?”

“Don't you like it?”

“Yes, yes, it's quite dashing . . . a bit like the detectives in
The Tiger Brigades
, isn't it?”

“The who?”

“It's true you're only just discovering television with
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
. . . Look, I need to go upstairs, I'm going to see my tenant on the eighth floor. Can I leave Paulette with you?”

He nodded his head, smoothing his thin mustache.

“Go, run, fly and climb up to your destiny, my child.”

“Philou?”

“Yes?”

“If I'm not back down within the hour, can you come up and check on me?”

73

THE room was impeccably tidy. The bed had been made, and he had left two cups and a packet of sugar on the camping table. He was sitting on a chair with his back to the wall, and he closed his book when Camille knocked lightly on the door.

 
He got up. They were both equally embarrassed. It was the first time they had actually been able to see each other. You could hear a pin drop.

“Would you, would you like something to drink?”

“Please.”

“Tea, coffee, Coke?”

“Coffee would be perfect.”

 
Camille sat down on the stool and wondered how she had managed to live there for so long. It was so damp and dark; so inexorable. The ceiling was low and the walls were filthy. No, how had it been possible? It must have been someone else, surely?

 
He busied himself by the hot plate and pointed to the jar of Nescafé.

Barbès was asleep on the bed and opened an eye from time to time.

 
He eventually pulled the chair up and sat down across from her. “I'm glad to see you. You could have come sooner.”

“I didn't dare.”

“Oh?” He paused, then said, “You're sorry you brought me here.”

“No.”

“Yes, you're sorry. But don't worry about it. I'm waiting for a green light, and then I'll leave. It's just a matter of days, now.”

“Where are you going?”

“Brittany.”

“You have family there?”

“No. It's a center for . . . human detritus. No, sorry, I'm just being stupid. A rehabilitation center is what you're supposed to call it.”

Camille was silent.

“My doctor found it for me. Some place where you make fertilizer with seaweed. Seaweed, shit and the mentally handicapped . . . Fantastic, no? I'll be the only normal worker. Well, ‘normal'—it's all relative.”

He smiled.

“Here, have a look at the brochure. Classy, isn't it.”

Two sad sacks with pitchforks stood in front of a sort of cesspool.

“I'm going to be doing Algo-Foresto, a job with compost, seaweed and horse manure. I can already tell I'm going to love it. Well, apparently it's hard at the beginning because of the smell but eventually you don't even notice it anymore.”

He put down the photo and lit a cigarette.

“A great vacation, right?”

“How long will you stay there?”

“However long it takes.”

“Have you been taking methadone?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

A vague gesture.

“Is it okay?”

“No.”

“Hey, you know what, you're going to get to see the sea!”

“Great. And you? Why'd you come up here?”

“The concierge. She thought you were dead.”

“She'll be disappointed.”

“Obviously.”

They laughed.

“You—are you HIV positive?”

“Nah. I just said that to keep her happy. So she'd be good to my dog. No. I did it right. I shot up clean.”

“Is this your first detox?”

“Yes.”

“You think you'll make it?”

“Yes. I've been lucky. I guess you have to run into the right people, and I think I have now.”

“Your doctor?”

“A great woman. Yes, but not only that. A shrink too. An old geezer who cleaned my head out. D'you know V33?”

“What is that? Medicine?”

“No, it's a wood stripper.”

“Yeah! A green and red bottle, isn't it?”

“Sure. Well, this guy is my V33. He coats me with the stuff, it burns and makes blisters, and then the next time round he takes his spatula and scrapes off all the shit. Look at me. Under my skull I'm naked as a worm.”

He could no longer smile; his hands were trembling. “Fuck, it's hard. It's too hard. I didn't think—”

He looked up.

“But that's not all. There's someone else too. A little woman with thighs no thicker than flies' legs who went and pulled up her pants before I could get a good look.”

 
“What's your name?” he asked.

“Camille.”

He repeated it and turned to the wall.

“Camille . . . Camille . . . The day you showed up, Camille, I'd had a run-in with a dealer. It was so damn cold, and I didn't feel like fighting it anymore. But anyway. You were there. So I followed you. I'm a gallant sort of guy.”

Silence.

“Can I keep talking some more or are you fed up with me?”

“Pour me another cup of coffee . . .”

“Oh, sorry. It's because of the old guy, my shrink. I've turned into a real blabbermouth.”

“It's no problem, really.”

“But it
is
important. I mean, even for you, I think it's important.”

She frowned.

“Your help, your room, your food, that's one thing. But seriously, I was really having a bad trip when you found me. I was dizzy, you know what I mean? I wanted to go back and see them, I—And then there was this guy who saved me. This guy, and your sheets.”

 
He reached over for something and put it down between them. Camille recognized her book. The letters from Van Gogh to his brother.

She'd forgotten she had left it there.

And yet it was not as if she hadn't carried it everywhere with her.

 
“I opened it to hold myself back, to stop myself from going out that door, because there was nothing else here and you know what this book did for me?”

She shook her head.

“It did this, and this, and this.”

He took the book and struck himself on his skull and on each cheek.

 
“I'm reading it for the third time. It . . . it's everything for me. There's everything in here. I know this guy inside out. He is me. He's my brother. I understand everything he says. How he loses it. How he suffers. How he's always repeating himself and apologizing and trying to figure other people out, or searching his own soul. How his family rejected him—his parents were completely clueless—and then how he'd stay in the hospital and all of that. I—I'm not going to tell you my life story, don't worry, but it really gets to me on some level. The way he is with girls, how he falls in love with this snooty woman, how everyone treats him with scorn, and the day he decides to set up house with that whore, the one who got pregnant. No, I won't tell you my life story but there are similarities that blow my mind, no shit. No one believed in him, except his brother. No one. But even though he was fragile and crazy, he believed in what he was doing. At least he says so, that he has faith, that he's strong and, uh . . . The first time I read it, almost straight through, I didn't get the bit in italics at the end.”

He opened the book: “ ‘Letter that Vincent van Gogh had on his person July 29, 1890.' It was only when I read the preface the next day or the day after that I understood he'd committed suicide, the asshole. That he'd never sent that letter and I—Fuck, that really threw me, you've no idea. Everything he said about his body, I feel it. All his suffering, it's not just words, you know what I mean? It's—Well, I . . . I don't care about his work. No, wait, it's not that I don't care but that's not what I was reading about. What I was reading about is that if you're not in your place, if you don't do what other people expect you to do, you suffer. You suffer like an animal and in the end you die. Well, not me. I'm not going to die. He feels like a friend, a brother—and I can't do that to him. I don't want to.”