* * *
He recognizes Émilie in the distance, walking down the central path, looking around her. She wiggles her hips, waddling as she walks. She has put on weight, she trundles like a ball, she looks devastated. Someone broke into her place and swiped Vernon’s tapes. Always making a mountain out of a molehill, that’s Émilie; she’s capable of having a meltdown just because she’s lost this backpack. Deep down, he’s very fond of her, but you can tell her hormones are all over the place, he’s worried she’ll burst into tears before she even sits down. “Oh, I got a bit lost in the park,” she says. She is panting for breath, fanning herself with a newspaper.
She was a funny little thing, back in the day, with that look of hers like a punk from the Jura—wholesome and a little gruff. The sort of girl you ended up kissing when you were shitfaced, because she craved it, because she was sweet, because she was there and you didn’t have to worry about being rejected. He’d spend a couple of enjoyable nights with her, surprised that she was so sensitive and feminine in the sack. But he’d always avoided her for a few days afterward, feeling like an asshole because he didn’t know how to tell her that it was a one-off. Sober, he wasn’t attracted to her at all. She had the good grace to pretend not to be hurt, even going so far as to pretend she’d forgotten it ever happened. She wasn’t one to kick up a fuss in general. She has been sweating hard and her makeup is shot to shit. The smell of perspiration mingles with her perfume, which is a little pungent for the season. She looks more crumpled than she did two days ago. She probably didn’t get much sleep, and spent less time tarting herself up. Her jaw a little clenched, she leans back in her chair and says:
“I can’t fucking believe it … What the hell is the deal with this backpack?”
“Pity you never listened to the tapes, we might have a better idea of why the whole world is batshit crazy about them…”
“Sure, go ahead, kick me when I’m down. That’s just what I need, someone to make me feel shittier than I already do.”
“Hey, chill, babe … I wasn’t blaming you. If Vernon had left three tapes of Alex Bleach at my place, I would have been in no hurry to watch them either…”
“Ah, you see? Thanks.”
* * *
He had been surprised when Émilie popped up in the WhatsApp group. He hadn’t seen her in an age, he assumed she had better things to do than take an interest in the little group of losers who were searching for Subutex. Pretty quickly he realized that she felt bad for kicking Vernon to the curb when he was staying with her. She was the first person he had turned to. It must have felt weird for him, being treated like a complete stranger. If Patrice’s memory serves, they had been pretty tight in the old days. He also quickly realized that she had changed: these days, she bitched about everything. It was like she spent her whole life making a list of all the people who’d been mean to her, even though she seemed to find it difficult to be kind to anyone. Patrice feels ambivalent, he wants to tell her to go fuck herself, but he feels guilty because he knows that deep down she’s a nice girl who could never catch a break. Particularly when it came to guys. And he feels responsible—it’s because of guys like him that girls who are basically thoughtful and kind turned into harpies.
He had had no intention of spending an hour on the RER to go looking for Vernon with Pamela Kant. The whole thing sounded a little psycho. She hardly knows the guy, so what the hell does she want from him? But when Émilie had gotten involved, he had said, okay, I’m in. He was touched that she seemed so concerned about Vernon, plus Patrice didn’t feel particularly proud of chucking him out on the streets. When Subutex had left his place, he hadn’t said, “I’ve no idea where I’ll be crashing tomorrow night.” He had packed his bag, he seemed chill, he had simply said, “I think I’ve imposed long enough,” and Patrice had let him go. Much later, he had found out that Vernon had found himself a cardboard box and was sleeping on the street. It had felt weird, obviously. Vernon could have stayed two or three weeks longer and it wouldn’t have bothered him. The guy’s clean, keeps his mouth shut during the day, he’s a good cook and a great TV buddy. That was the other reason he joined this motley bunch of freaks trying to track down Subutex. If he got his hands on the guy, he would have said “Quit playing the fucking victim,” and given him a set of keys to his apartment.
He had traipsed all the way to the park, cursing the fact that he was about to waste a whole day on this bullshit. Paradoxically, the thought of seeing Pamela Kant in the flesh softened the blow. Though he finds her obsession with tracking down a former record shop owner baffling, he has come to really like her. They chat a lot, on WhatsApp and Facebook. He’s attracted to her. Though he has always hated porn. He finds it degrading. He doesn’t like the idea of getting hard watching women reduced to behaving like slutty bitches, but he does get hard, and it fills his head with sleazy thoughts he isn’t used to. Not that anyone asks his opinion: he has porn thrust in his face all the time. He finds it disturbing. You can’t download a game or a TV series without pictures flashing up of all the skanks within a hundred-meter radius who are gagging for cock right now. And they’re stark naked, obviously, just in case the message wasn’t clear enough. So he has a look, I mean, it’s inevitable. He finds it disgusting. It makes him horny and he’s disgusted that he’s turned on by it. But guys don’t get to complain. They’re supposed to deal with whatever is thrown at them and get on with it. It’s easy for women: as soon as they start complaining about how they feel sullied, they feel exploited, it’s stop the presses! and listen to them whine. He feels sullied by pornography. He feels exploited, but what can he do? Real men take it on the chin, they don’t bleat like some fucking snowflake. Everyone proceeds from the assumption that they’re obviously up for it. No one bothers to ask whether they mind having their balls busted all the time, same as no one gives a damn whether or not they want to be fathers, or whether they can afford to pay the mandatory child support … it all works on the same basis. Masculinity means “fuck ’em and pay up,” there’s no alternative.
So, at first, he was a little resistant to Pamela Kant. But now that he knows her, he doesn’t see her as a pathetic porn star. More like a pinup. The best thing about her is that she is funny. She is sexy, he can’t deny it. She doesn’t pull out all the stops—her everyday clothes have no plunging necklines, nothing too sleazy. It pains him to know that she had to do that. Being a porn star is a pleb job—the boys become boxers and the girls do porn.
He had found himself wandering around the park asking every homeless person he came across whether they knew some guy called Vernon Subutex. He had chatted with a hairy young guy wearing a sleeping bag over his head like a turtle; he had knocked back a few beers with a couple of junkies, post–Mad Max freaks so filthy they looked like eco warriors, they’d played him songs on the guitar and couldn’t string three chords together, and they stank, but all in all they were pretty funny; he’d met a haughty, suspicious guy from Mali and had to do the dance of the seven veils just to get him to open up and say, no, he’d never run into Subutex; he had chugged cheap red wine with a wino of the old school who claimed he protected himself from the cold by smearing himself with seal fat, but that was probably moonshine … Eventually, he and the others had gotten well and truly drunk at the Rosa Bonheur, swapping stories about their day with a certain unease—there were so many ways of ending up homeless none of them had ever considered. By closing time, Xavier had been belting out an old song by Les Vierges, “Héy, les garçons, si on allait à la plage? Quoi? Plutôt crever” with Émilie on drums, beating out the rhythm on the table, it was great seeing her so happy, remembering all the lyrics, “On n’est pas le genre de mec à traîner sur les plages, quand on veut nous trouver faut chercher dans les caves, on n’est pas des anges on aime déconner,” and it felt sociable rather than sordid. This was what had surprised him.
Right now, Émilie is in no mood to laugh. She is miserable, her gestures brusque, she snaps open a pack of cigarettes, tak
es one out the wrong way around, brings it to her lips, lights the filter end, heaves a weary sigh, tosses the cigarette away, and takes out another. Patrice does not know what to do to comfort her without her thinking he’s trying to hit on her—this woman’s like walking on hot coals, you have to play it carefully when you try to be nice to her, otherwise she ends up imagining all sorts of things:
“Try to put it in perspective … I mean, it’s not the end of…”
“They broke into my apartment. I feel so vulnerable now…”
* * *
To think that he can still remember back to when the band were on tour in Brittany and this same woman was popping tabs of acid (washed them down with coffee) first thing in the morning “because she’d just found them at the bottom of her handbag.” These days, her hairstyle is like something his mother would have. Jesus fuck, but people change. He doesn’t know what to say. There is an awkward silence. He feels sorry for Émilie. Sorry that men are disgusted by women of her age. This is how Patrice sees things: forty is beyond the pale. He can’t bring himself to think of fucking some woman who reminds him of his mother. Gentleness, tenderness, sure, why not. But sexual desire? No way. Émilie never had a child. That’s what a woman her age needs. A kid of about ten, that’s the only way for them to get the affection they need, the love that men refuse to give them. He is convinced that this is the way of things, that this is the reason that women have children: they create the last human beings who will keep them company late in life. Émilie did not deserve to miss out on life. She stubs out her cigarette and immediately takes another from the pack, realizes what she is doing, replaces the cigarette and toys with her lighter:
“When did you and Xavier get back in touch?”
“Weird, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s strange seeing the two of you together. I didn’t dare mention it the other day.”
They always hated each other’s guts. When he had heard Xavier had been beaten up, he had found it funny. It had been some time after he came out of the brief coma before he was back to normal. At first, when he woke up, he had insisted on being discharged immediately so he could “get back to the film shoot.” He didn’t want the production losing too much money … the poor bastard thought he was a director. His wife had to patiently explain that he was just a third-rate screenwriter, and he could take all the time in the world convalescing, there was no one out there waiting for him. From that point of view, he could relax.
Xavier always had been an asshole. When he was young, he had been wildly ambitious, but just because you’re prepared to sell your ass on the streets, doesn’t mean you’ll make your fortune doing it. His only real quality was realizing before everyone else that there was money to be made from the counterculture. He was prepared to do whatever it took, but incapable of doing anything much. They had always cordially despised each other, though with the grudging respect of rivals learned from years of watching gangster movies. It was here they had learned the bullshit omertà that served them as a moral code.
When Pamela first mentioned a serious coma in a private chat online—she had gotten in touch shortly after Vernon decamped from his place, and they had been chatting on and off ever since—Patrice was surprised to find himself hoping that Xavier would pull through. Out of carelessness or weakness, he had forgotten to hate him. Then he had allowed himself to be dragged into the discussions on WhatsApp, and when Xavier joined the group he didn’t have the heart to tell him to fuck off. On the contrary, he had lashed out on a friendly message in a public forum. A truce of sorts. He is not a sensitive soul. Between justice and his mother, he always claimed he chose justice. But Vernon’s spectacular fall had rattled his convictions. What was the point of being a die-hard, a straight edge, if you don’t even give a shit that your friend is sleeping on the streets? Subutex might be dead. The possibility made him feel vulnerable.
When Xavier had turned up to look for Vernon, scrawny and pale, Patrice had felt glad to see the dumb fuck back on his feet. When he spotted Patrice, he had smiled with that absurd euphoria of a patient who’s just had a monster dose of legal opiods, and had held out his hand as though the two of them were old acquaintances.
“Here I am, just out of a coma, and your ugly mug is the first thing I see?” His voice was faint and reedy. Émilie, Pamela, and Lydia were poring over a map of the park, trying to divide it into zones … Patrice had said to Xavier, “Don’t you think it’s a bit dumb to be getting in street fights at your age?”
“I didn’t really have time to think of it in those terms … I hardly had time to open my mouth before I was KO’d.”
Finding nothing to say to each other, they had watched the pigeons for a while, then, eyes half-closed, Xavier had said:
“‘Come the revolution, we’ll be on opposite sides of the barricades.’ Remember how you used to say that all the time?”
“I never said any such thing.”
“Sure you did. Every time you came down on us for having the wrong color bomber jackets … the radical lefty … you always did have a thing for playing bad cop…”
“Well, excuse me, I didn’t realize that when I criticized the tricolor I’d hurt your feelings so badly you’d remember it twenty years later. What are you bitching about, granddad, history is heading in your direction, isn’t it?”
“‘Come the revolution, we’ll be on opposite sides of the barricades.’ You got to admit you had to be a complete dick to come out with that shit…”
“Are you going to go on about this all day? Don’t sweat it, it wasn’t me. You’re confused.”
“Of course you fucking said it. Don’t be a turncoat now.”
“You took a serious hit in the head, that’s all.”
“And I used to feel like saying: ‘If we’re not on the same side, asswipe, then you’ve got the wrong revolution.’”
“I always knew you were in love with me … you broke two of my teeth one day. We were putting up SCALP posters and you grabbed the brush and tried to plaster my face. You remember that? Right then, I could feel the love between us.”
* * *
It was true, he had forever started his sentences “Come the revolution.” It’s not that he’s become a turncoat. It’s the shame of having been so badly wrong that means he no longer remembers things clearly. He has a feeling of utter defeat. This was a word that had defined his life, a word like a star around which he orbited. And it had never come to pass. All the conditions were there, but something else happened instead. And if someone organized the revolution today, he would not be a part of it. There would be no black flags and barricades, no Das Kapital, Makhno, or Bakunin. It would be about something that people his age would not understand. The wretched of the earth no longer wear the same face as all the other corrupt institutions and Patrice is as much a part of the past they want to make a clean break with as corrupt institutions. A crucial alliance was never made. These days, the conditions are ripe for those who have nothing to take it upon themselves to kill those who have even less, to the gleeful encouragement of the elites: go on, you poor morons, kill each other. The economy no longer means anything to a whole section of the population. They are no longer poor workers, they are unnecessary. The only institution they keep going is the prison system. Someone will have to get rid of them, and the one percent are counting on the people to do their dirty work.
* * *
When Xavier joins them, Patrice immediately offers his hand. In fact, he is happy to see him, and smiles as he hears Xavier say:
“What’s with the coat, Émilie? It looks like a cape for Wonder Woman.”
“Shut up. Like you know anything about fashion.”
“I don’t know shit, but I know a circus costume when I see one.”
“Don’t give me a hard time today, I’m wound up enough as it is.”
“Pamela not here yet?”
“She won’t come, you’ll see.”
“’Course she will. She posted it on Facebook—‘I
’m just jumping in the shower, I’ll be a bit late.’”
Émilie shoots them a black look:
“I think it’s pathetic, recounting every detail of her life the way she does on Facebook. We should ban anyone who takes selfies from our friends list.”
Xavier nods:
“She’s not really into selfies. She just has a tendency to photograph everything she eats.”
“That’s worse.”
Émilie scrapes her hair back. She decides to change the subject:
“Did you find the phone number for the detective you were talking about?” She turns to Patrice. “Xavier said some woman was looking for the tapes long before all this kicked off, said she came to see him…”
Xavier shrugs:
“‘The Hyena.’ She came by to say that if I came across the tapes…”
“What the fuck can he have possibly said that so many people are obsessed with these tapes?”
Émilie sighs loudly:
“Did you find her number?”
Patrice says: “What does she look like, this woman?”
“Hot. No spring chicken, mind. But sexy, you know, a bit of a Sharon Stone vibe. If she hadn’t had plastic surgery.”
“So, more like Françoise Hardy?”
“A little, yeah … I’d say more like Marianne Faithfull, if she was still skinny.”
“In that case, you’ve got to find her phone number, pronto…”
Émilie explodes:
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