Arms folded, the friend sitting on the sofa relaxes into the massage, takes a toke on the spliff, and stares up at the giant TV screen. “It’s insane to think that these are, like, real jellyfish … It’s amazing to think that things like that exist and we waste our time on random shit instead of looking at nature and animals, yeah?” Céleste is detached from the conversation, focused on what she is doing—dotwork shadows on the crests of the waves. She needs people to commission her to do big pieces so she can get a rotary tattoo machine to do the dotwork like Mike Amanita, the Russian guy who did the mandala on her shoulder. They cost two hundred euros. It’s not like it costs a fortune. But most people ask for small designs, butterflies and short quotes. She can never manage to save the money. The two friends babble incessantly, both stoned out of their gourds. The customer fidgets a little, Céleste lays a hand on her shoulder to calm her. It can be hard sometimes to concentrate with all the chatter of a hair salon. But she enjoys it— some tattoo artists insist on silence, she prefers to be surrounded by life and to have to detach herself. It’s electropop with jangling guitars, she drifts away. The needles she bought in Bastille are super-fine, tattooing with them is a pleasure. The customer is happy, “It’s cool, Céleste, it’s really beautiful,” and the friend nods. She is still poring over the remote control of her massage mat, she’s been twiddling it for almost an hour.
The customer’s son reappears. He is about twelve. She bawls him out for not phoning like he was supposed to. Céleste thinks it must be hell living with a kid that tall, he could give you a slap and there’s shit you could do about it, you have to be really strict if you’re going to keep him in line. He takes a carrot from the fridge and gives it to the guinea pig.
The girl lives near métro Stalingrad, about twenty minutes’ walk from the bar. Céleste checks the time on the computer screen. It’s a stunning apartment, all tones of gray and burgundy. You need fifteen separate codes to get inside, but once you’re there, it’s quiet and comfortable.
She has no desire to go to work, she would rather take her time, finish up here, then go home and relax. It kills her that she has to do a shift behind the bar after this.
But Rosa Bonheur is a good gig. There are lots of them there who need to swap shifts and it’s flexible hours. Fanny plays futsal, Elsa does her burlesque shows, Mona has her drag king workshops—they all have outside activities, so they work things out so everyone gets to do what they want. Even so, she’ll be happy when she can make a living from tattooing and can give up the day job.
* * *
She finishes, stretches before she puts plastic warp over the tattoo, gives aftercare advice: “Don’t put anything on it for twenty-four hours but wash it four times a day, then apply lots of moisturizer and after the first three days expose it to the air whenever you can and it’ll heal in no time.” She pockets the two fifty-euro notes, slips her jacket on, no, she doesn’t have time for a coffee, she’d love to, but she has to run if she’s going to make it on time.
The weather this year is like Alcatraz. The sky is sullied by a driving rain whipped horizontal by the wind. Late June and people are still wearing down jackets, morale is overcast. It’s not a bloody summer, it’s a penitentiary. The branches of the trees are still bare, with not even the hint of a leaf budding. If Céleste were a man, she wouldn’t be able to walk for the hard-on. It happened when she woke up, it felt like a rush from last night’s MDMA, she felt horny as a cat in heat. If she doesn’t mate in the next twenty-four hours she’s going to spiral into depression. Maybe she should take a couple of ibuprofen, see whether that takes the edge off. She has always had a high sex drive. When she was in school, all the boys called her a slut. They would call her at night on the landline at home and yell it down the phone. Her father was driven to distraction. He moved her to another school. She learned her lesson: she only sleeps with guys she’ll never see again. Not that she gives a shit about her reputation, but she doesn’t want to upset her father.
She runs into Lorenzo, the cute gardener. While he is chatting with her about the effect of the cold weather on the trees, her mind is a torrent of A-grade sleaze. Thankfully, she has something of Madame de Merteuil about her, a red-hot snatch in an icy glove. Lorenzo is always polite to her. Man, here you are talking to me about shrubs while I’m thinking of you running your tongue through my bush—if he could see what’s on her hard drive, he’d change tack.
Céleste has no desire to go to work. At first, she enjoyed being at the bar, the atmosphere is dope, the nightlife the drunks the jerks the lesbians with their tits out dancing on the tables and the old guys who think they’re still young strutting their stuff and swaying their hips. It’s funny to watch them. She hopes that she won’t be like that when she’s thirty, making a show of herself and refusing to go home. She’s been working here for almost a year now. The time flies. These days, the customers bore her. Eighty percent of them are jerks. They think she’s there to serve them, that that’s what they’re paying for, so they act like assholes. She thought it would happen quickly, being able to make a living from her tattooing. That some veteran artist would notice her and suggest she gave classes in his tattoo parlor. You have to be patient. She’s sick of being on her feet for eight hours straight, of cleaning up broken glasses, dodging the puddles of vomit, the hands on her ass, the fake banknotes, and earning just enough to pay the rent at the end of the month—the tips are lousy at Rosa Bonheur, the place is always rammed, people spend three hours waiting to get a beer, they’re brutal, not a cent for the barmaid …
After the baccalauréat, she studied at the Beaux-Arts. But before long she’d had a bellyful of the atmosphere. Too much bullshitting. She is interested in doing things, not learning how to pontificate about piss-weak art installations. After that, she dabbled in this and that—some theater, a little video editing—and each time her father would tell her about an exam for some civil service job and sulk when she said, “That’s all over, Papa, no one gets a job for life these days, just let me do my thing.” Not that there was much else she could say. When she turned twenty, her friends clubbed together and bought her a tattoo machine—a Lauro Paolini Prestige … and that was what triggered it. She practiced on bits of pigskin, she didn’t enjoy doing it and they rotted quickly and filled the whole house with a disgusting stench. Luckily, there was Chris, the guy was tattooed from head to foot and he had a thing for her. Chris had said: “I’m giving you my body, practice all you want.” That’s when it had really taken off. She loves Russian tattoos, black and white. But customers have bad taste, they want multicolor lotuses or corny fucking swallows. It won’t last forever. You have to be patient. In the meantime, every time anyone at the bar finds out she’s a tattoo artist, they spend hours telling her about the tattoo they’ve always wanted to get. She feels like saying: “I don’t need to hear your life story, make a fucking appointment and be done.”
By the time she arrives, Rosa Bonheur is open. This is not always the case, sometimes she ends up hanging around outside for half an hour before the guy who has the keys shows up with his head up his ass … In the main bar, it’s colder than a witch’s tits. Everyone is wearing scarves and hoodies. They’re listening to Bjork with the volume jacked up, it doesn’t make you want to put down roots. Straight off, Mimi, the manager, tells her to get down two crates of food for the disciples of Subutex. Like this is the most important task of the day. Mimi met up with some girl she used to know who hangs with them, says she used to be a bassist and she worships her. Looking at the old hag these days, you’d have a hard time imagining her swaggering onstage. At first, the manager used to send them food left over from the night before that they couldn’t sell, but now she makes tacos for them, sends down bottles of beer and chocolate … She’s been indoctrinated by the sect. She says that one day, she spent the evening with Subutex and the next night she had the most amazing dream, with dead people visiting her and telling her important stuff, like life-changing shit. Yeah, right, at her
age, with all the pills she pops, it’s hardly surprising she has Technicolor dreams. Ever since, she’s stopped smoking weed at night because she wants to be able to remember her dreams. And it’s true, she does look a lot better … but this whole Subutex thing is wack. They all hang on his every word like he’s a prophet. The big dork with his red cowboy boots. Oh well, we all have our own heroes … It can’t be much fun being old. There are about twenty of them who rock up every day, a horde of old fogeys—not that all of them are old, but the average age is prehistoric. But they must be happy hanging out there, because otherwise, with the cold weather, they’d call it a day. They spend their time running off at the mouth. It’s hard to know what to think: on the one hand the whole thing is too cute, on the other it makes your flesh crawl.
Céleste takes the two crates of food down to them, they wave when they see her coming—not surprising they’re happy to see her: good food, gratis. Vernon is peacocking around under the big tree in his brand-new Canada Goose parka, a gift from a humble admirer—a woman who can drop a grand to make sure some homeless guy is tucked in warm at night, gotta say, he must be giving them some kind of motivation. The guy is a lot more chill than he used to be, Céleste can go right up to him without him staring at her breasts like a perv. There are rumors that at night, girls go down to the train tracks and hang around in the cold waiting to slip into his tent … Probably an urban myth. But with these guys, anything is possible. And Jesus can they talk! It’s, like, their favorite hobby. They eat and they talk shit. Story of their lives. They’re getting more and more batshit paranoid, “Not a word about what’s happening down here is to go on social media.” Just as well they warned her. Otherwise, how could she resist Instagramming thousands of photos of #washedup #hasbeens picnicking and yakking about rock at the Buttes-Chaumont? And the guy with the name like an orthopedic mattress, Subutex … She could flood the socials with photos of their afternoon gatherings, there was zero chance it would go viral. They’ve even got a hairless poodle, ffs, that should tell you how zoned they are.
Aïcha’s father is sitting astride a crate talking about “la République, la République, la République,” he sounds like a crow on a branch … But that’s what he’s like, he knocks off work and rushes down here to rant about stuff no one gives a shit about. The national debt, public services, corruption … he’s always got something to say about problems he’ll never do anything to fix. If what people actually want made the slightest change in politics, we’d have heard by now. She is a bit of a gerontophobe. It winds her up seeing these people believing in stuff that doesn’t exist. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for old people. They act like they’re still young. Except they’re shriveled and moldy. They can iron out the wrinkles all they like, it doesn’t change anything. They’re still living in the steam age when everyone else has moved to touchscreen. They are still harking back to May ’68, every right-wing reactionary like her father.
Daniel gives her a smile, she ignores him. Though he’s a good customer. Someone who comes to her to get beautiful tattoos, who lets her get on with it and doesn’t come out with bullshit comments when he sees what she’s drawn … Every time he asks her to change something, he’s right … The guy has good taste when it comes to ink. Not a single phony tat. It’s almost an honor to have him as a showcase … He flirts with her. He disconcerts her. She’s used to dealing with older guys who come to get inked and get turned on when she slips on the black gloves. It comes with the job. But Daniel is sexy. And cute. He’s macho but sweet. If he was really what he claims to be, she’d do him, just to see what he’s like. Despite the age difference. But she knows. She picked up something in conversation one night when he dropped in for a beer. He’s trans. Céleste has no problem with that. But she doesn’t want to investigate. There’s girls, there’s guys, it’s been that way for, like, twelve million years—can you imagine telling your dad and saying: “I’ve got a boyfriend and when he was young he used to get his period”? So she avoids him. She doesn’t bother to ask how the panther has been healing. She feels a bit bad about it, but it’s better this way.
She goes back to Rosa Bonheur, Mimi has already left, the speakers are blaring out Pissed Jeans. The manageress claims that the afternoon customers with their baby buggies aren’t fans of hardcore. But at least it gives you a boost before your shift. Vernon was the one who turned them on to Pissed Jeans. Because sometimes he does a DJ set here. She’s heard him spin a set, not exactly *Mind = Blown*, but okay, does the job.
Aïcha is sitting on the terrace, all smiles. This, this kills Céleste. The girl disappears for a week, not a word, not a text, nada. Now Miss Kebab is back, fresh as a rose, expecting her BFF to rush over with a big hug, no questions asked. Aïcha is completely bogus. She’s always fifty-fifty. Half the time she’s chill, half the time she’s #zerofucksgiven. That’s not how friendship works. You don’t show up at the bar looking for me one day and blow me off the next. Aïcha has manic phases, she laughs, she’s gassed, she talks about her life, takes an interest in your life, gets you to trust her, and then suddenly, without warning, she flips, she’s depressed, she disappears. Nothing. You had a friend and now you’ve got nothing. Céleste isn’t having it. She’s not a punching bag, something for Aïcha to take her rage out on. The trouble with Aïcha is that she thinks she’s responsible for everything, including other people’s lives. Which means Monday they’re inseparable but Tuesday her conscience is nagging and, bang, she’s throwing shade, Céleste is a bad influence, and she’s gone, as if she’s going to be tainted by just sitting next to her. Céleste is who she is, take her or leave her, but no part-timers. Either Aïcha thinks she’s a heathen slut who might contaminate her in which case she doesn’t have to talk to her, or they’re friends and they can count on each other. She’s had enough of the mood swings. If Aïcha is freaked that demons in human form are trying to “turn her from the truth,” as she puts it, she shouldn’t be hanging out in bars.
They only met a little while ago, but there have been so many ups and downs since then that Céleste feels like she’s been riding a roller coaster for ten years. The first time they talked, she was just showing up for her shift and she spotted Aïcha lying stiffly on the grass, arms by her side, gazing up at the sky. Some guy who looked really sus was crouching a couple of yards away, staring at her with a mixture of hatred and fascination. Céleste had seen the guy before, he buttonholed girls on their own and offered to give them “an Egyptian massage” and when they refused to talk to him, he’d get aggressive. It was obvious that right now he was on some sleazy trip—it was probably the hijab that did it for him. When pervs aren’t dissing you for wearing shorts, they’re insulting you for covering your hair. So Céleste sat down nearby. When the guy went over to Aïcha, Céleste kept a close eye on him, ready to intervene. She wasn’t scared of him. Aïcha must have sensed something was up, she turned her head, and, seeing the guy standing over her, she jumped to her feet, he made as if to spit in her face and Céleste screamed at him, “Fuck off, asshole, just fuck right off now or I’m calling the park keepers.” He’d had trouble with the keepers before and ran away. Aïcha had looked at Céleste in silence, and it had taken a moment’s thought before she said, “Thanks.” It’s as though it pains her to be friendly. They didn’t say much else, they walked toward Rosa Bonheur together. When they reached the bar, Céleste was about to say, “Well, this is my stop,” but at that moment, Aïcha broke down. Her body was racked with sobs, she looked at Céleste, her eyes wide—she was like someone who is bleeding and cannot believe it. Céleste could hardly just leave her standing there like that, even though they didn’t know each other. She had taken her upstairs to the staff room and given her a Coke. Coke heals all wounds. She had not gone down to start her shift immediately, there were no customers that day. It had been raining since earlier, no one came back to the park and the bar was deserted. Aïcha was in a state of shock. They had started chatting—her mother with her vajayjay on display all over
the net, this girl who’d thought she was the daughter of a self-effacing, depressive woman when in fact she was the daughter of a notorious, shameless hussy. The story was mixed in with details of Satana’s death and her father’s grief. Céleste had talked about her own life, about the mother who’d woken up one day and decided she’d never wanted a child, that she wasn’t cut out for maternity, and had herself transferred to Shanghai and now only saw her daughter for a month every year, and even that seemed to be a burden. Her father had been inconsolable too. This was how they had become friends—by telling each other the things that mattered. As daughters of absentee mothers, they found they had a lot in common.
She had liked Aïcha from that first day. She had wanted them to be friends. Though Céleste doesn’t have much time for people who think they’re superior and spend too much time studying the behavior of others. But she likes this girl who talks like a man. She is driven by a secret fury mingled with timidity. There is a howling truth inside her. A repressed violence. When she speaks, she barely enunciates, as though she does not dare open her mouth. It distorts her features. Aïcha keeps her chin up, but her eyes lowered, her arms folded defensively across her chest, and there is a constant pain in her eyes that makes everything she says more interesting. She is fiercely intelligent. She needs to be tamed, but once you have earned her trust, you realize you haven’t gone to all that effort for nothing. You want to know what she is thinking, she is capricious, and categorical. Before now, Céleste has never been a fan of smart-asses. She had to deal with a bunch of them at school. They weren’t the cruelest to her, but nonetheless she had been happy to leave them behind after the baccalauréat. What she likes about Aïcha is her body language. She has an intensity, a style.
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