Except now, Céleste is sick and tired of her friend’s mood swings. She decides not to acknowledge her. In theory, she should be serving at that table, but she ignores her. The first thing you learn as a waitress is how to make annoying customers invisible. Your eyes drift over them, past them, anywhere as long as they never meet the eyes of the customer who is about to ask something that will screw everything up. But Miss Thing is in one of her manic phases, so tries to catch her attention by waving her arm over her head until Céleste, exasperated, goes over to her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What’s wrong? Are you angry with me about something?”
“When it suits you, we’re best friends, then from one day to the next you’re giving me the brush-off … For God’s sake, find someone like you to be friends with and leave me the hell alone.”
“I didn’t realize we were joined at the hip. I was away for a few days, I wasn’t being sulky, what’s got you so paranoid? Sit with me. There are no customers, so stop trying to pretend you’re slaving away…”
“I don’t have time for you right now.”
“What time does your shift finish? I want you to come somewhere with me.”
“I don’t like the way you use me.”
“Don’t be horrible, Céleste, I just want you to come with me somewhere … we haven’t seen each other in ages and I just thought … hey, I’ll ask Céleste if she wants to hang out for a bit … I’ve been really busy, that’s all.”
* * *
One of the problems with Aïcha is her smile. Not that she uses it often, but when she does it’s a powerful weapon. Her eyes light up and you just want to start over. Two minutes after telling herself she’s not going to let herself be taken in again, Céleste is back with a café au lait for herself and an espresso for Aïcha, who has a delicate stomach and can’t handle the combination of coffee and milk.
“So, what do you want from me?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Who exactly do you think I’d blab about you to?”
“Swear on the most precious thing in your life that you’ll keep what I’m going to say to yourself. It’s really important, so think hard before you say anything.”
“Jesus, you’re a ballbuster, I’m shocked.”
They watch as a handsome jogger runs past, heads turning in unison as they follow him with their eyes. They play a game where they guess what sport the joggers play. Céleste announces:
“Boxer.”
“Cyclist. Look at his calves.”
“Did you see his back? There’s no way you get back muscles like that from cycling.”
“Pedaling uphill works every muscle.”
This is how they manage to talk about boys without it seeming sexual. Céleste finishes her coffee, tucks her cigarette papers and her filters into the tobacco pouch, announces that she has to work, gets up, and makes to leave. Aïcha is not about to give up.
“Do you get off early?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to be at the Palais de Tokyo by eight-thirty.”
“Give it up, Aïcha, I’m not going to take a métro across Paris to go to an art gallery. Are you raving?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be waiting for you there. I don’t need anything.”
* * *
Two hours later, they are in the métro. Céleste is irritated, she keeps saying that she is tired, but curiosity gets the better of her. She asks:
“So, what are we going to see?”
“It’s a lecture. ‘What Is a Performative Exhibition?’ The guy is the son of a producer who did horrible things to my mother. I want to make his life hell.”
“You’re planning on defending your mother, all of a sudden? A lot of shit has obviously happened in my absence … You’re out of your mind, this is insane … And why are you dragging me into your pathetic plans?”
“You’re part of the plan.”
“In what sense?”
“In the sense that you’re coming with me to put pressure on him.”
“I can only see problems in this plan of yours: for a start, how are you going to put pressure on him?”
“We cough.”
“We cough?”
“Yeah. All the time. It’ll screw up his lecture.”
“Girl, are you telling me we’re making a forty-minute métro journey to cough?”
“Yep. This is first contact.”
“Okay, you really are deranged. Question number two: Why have a go at the son when it’s the father you’re angry with? My father’s a policeman, but that doesn’t mean I get to carry a gun…”
“Well, I didn’t do anything either. I’m my mother’s daughter whether I like it or not. Same goes for this jerk. You think the day he gets his inheritance he’s going to say, no way, I want nothing to do with it? When it comes to ready money and real estate, you bet your life he’ll be his father’s son. So we’re going.”
“I don’t know who’s been messing with your head, but you’re completely brain dead: you don’t have two firing neurons to rub together. And what exactly did his father do that was so terrible?”
“I know you, when you find out, you’ll say, what’s with the coughing, we should be buying Kalashnikovs.”
The more she talks, the quieter her voice gets. Céleste practically has to press her ear to Aïcha’s lips to catch what she is whispering. Not that it matters—no one in the car has even noticed them. In a voice so low it is barely audible, Aïcha says:
“His father is responsible for my mother’s death.”
“Don’t tell me, someone from that gang that hangs with Subutex told you … if it’s something that came from Alex Bleach, I swear, I’m taking you to the hospital … we’ve talked about this already. The guy was fit to be locked up. And that Vernon is a clown. You should stop hanging around with them…”
“It’s true. Of course it’s true … What do you think? It’s so normal for rich people to get away with things, they’ve got no limits.”
“Look, we need to stop and talk about this. There’s nothing normal about what you’re telling me. For a start, when did you become your mother’s avenger? And for another thing: Do you listen to all the bullshit those old codgers spout? But most important: you’re told someone killed your mother and you want to go and cough during a lecture? Get a grip, Aïcha, for fuck’s sake…”
“We’ve done it a bunch of times … we go over to their place at night and graffiti the front of their house. It was the Bolivian girls who came up with the idea. They do it in Bolivia when rapists get off. We borrowed the concept. We’ve got a list, Pamela and the Hyena came up with it. Everyone who abused my mother and knew that she was murdered. We’ve got their addresses.”
“You’re giving me a migraine. I don’t see you for a week and everything goes pear-shaped … You’ve been spending your nights tagging a few houses? You’ve got a list? Wow, you’re a real threat … what the fuck do they care?”
“We’re showing them up.”
“No surprise that this idea came from Bolivia. It doesn’t travel well.”
“Trust me. When this guy gets up in the morning and sees RAPIST and MURDERER sprayed on the front of his house in letters ten feet high, he knows what it means and he freaks out.”
* * *
Céleste decides to say nothing, she watches the métro stations flash past. A cute young black guy gets on with his guitar and starts singing, howling “La vie est belle, la vie est belle, belle, belle…” He has a powerful voice and he is pushing it to the limit. His mother probably said: “Go and play that thing outside or I’m going to kill you.” He’s making everyone’s ears bleed. They all remain astonishingly calm. It is even more difficult to make out what Aïcha is saying.
“I didn’t see the point of it either, at first, spraying graffiti on doors and walls, I thought it was kids’ stuff … But they’re right: these guys can’t stand it. It drives them insane. For once, all their money is no
use to them—except to clean it off every day … And they don’t dare call the police or alert the media, because, deep down, they know what we’re talking about … when you’ve spent your whole life with your pants around your ankles fucking girls who are too desperate for money or work to keep their dignity … the day someone rubs your nose in your own shit, you’ve got too many things on your conscience to go complaining to the police…”
“How do you know all this?”
“For a start, the producer that Bleach accused tells the Hyena everything, and every night she passes it on to us … It’s fun to think we’re driving him mad. I’m tired of being the only one who lies awake at night thinking about this stuff. I never did anything wrong. We can hardly call it justice, yet … But I know he has a shitty day, and that’s a start.”
* * *
Céleste does not say what she is thinking. She feels sorry for them. Aïcha has gone off the rails. But you can’t blame her. She told Céleste what Alex Bleach said. Whether or not it was true, it was bound to traumatize the girl when she heard it. She finds it difficult to imagine Aïcha chatting with the oldsters at the park. She’s got absolutely nothing in common with them.
“So your father knows about this?”
“No. He’d be dead set against it. My father’s old school, he still believes in the justice system of this country.”
“Does Subutex go with you?”
“He doesn’t know either. The girls say he’s too unstable. It’s impossible to predict how he’ll react.”
“So all this time you’ve been missing you were hanging out with those crazy old people in the park? I knew it’s like Angel Grove down there, but I didn’t realize that at night everyone transformed into Power Rangers.”
Céleste is upset that Aïcha got involved in this whole scheme without telling her first. She might have been able to dissuade her. Or gone with her. Either way she should have been involved.
At the end of his song, the goofball singer does not stop to pass the hat. He segues straight into another song. The same excruciating melody but with different lyrics. His voice is ear-splitting. Céleste is quietly hoping someone will give him a kicking. The only positive is that they can talk about whatever they like, no one is likely to overhear.
“I find it difficult to imagine that these guys are really pissed about you spray-painting dumb words on their doors…”
* * *
But as she says the words, Céleste remembers what it was like when she was in school, the sound of the telephone echoing through the apartment, and when she picked up the receiver she would hear some wacko say, “Hey, you fucking slut, you’re gonna blow us all at school tomorrow and then we’ll fuck you up the ass, got it?” And that was the best possible scenario, managing to get to the phone before her father did. And she didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. Even now, ten years later, she still wonders why that gang of boys focused their aggression on her. She knows what it’s like to be threatened at home, to go to bed praying that the telephone won’t ring. She does not want to talk to Aïcha about it. She says:
“What’s all this got to do with the Palais de Tokyo?”
“Like I said, the producer’s son is giving the lecture … we just want him to know we’re there. We want people to know that they can’t just get away with this shit anymore. When it’s over I want him to call his father and cry down the phone and for his father to realize that this is going to extend to his whole family.”
“Pretty dark.”
“You feel different when you take action rather than standing around doing nothing. Being passive drives you insane.”
The cringe-making guitarist finally stops. People are so relieved that some of them even give him money. Céleste thinks to herself for a moment, then says:
“Couldn’t you get money out of them? Some sort of blackmail?”
“We’ve thought about that.”
“If you think Bleach was telling the truth, you could pump this guy for tons of cash … and you’re just vandalizing buildings?”
“I don’t want to sell myself to the highest bidder. None of us do.”
“The day they find out who you are, you’ll be standing in the dock like idiots, charged with harassment without the money to even pay for a lawyer…”
“We’re very careful…”
* * *
They are fast approaching Iéna métro station when Céleste finally blurts out the question she has been dying to ask since they set off:
“Have you forgiven your mother?”
“No. But Pamela and Daniel have talked to me about her a lot.”
“Don’t tell me you’re listening to a whore and a fucking tranny … They’ve completely fucked your head up, it’s sick…”
“I listen to the people who knew her. Even if they are degenerates. They really cared about her. My mother was lost. She was someone a little like you, but she’d fallen in with a bad crowd. It means a lot to me that she also had a sense of humor, that she was an amazing dancer, that she had friends … That she was a normal person too, not just a freak. I can’t say that I’ve forgiven her. Let’s just say I’ve got some perspective.”
“I suppose it’s not like you’ve got a choice.”
* * *
The Palais de Tokyo is heaving. A vast concrete space with canapés at the front, a bookshop in the middle, and families everywhere with kids running amok. Céleste has not set foot in a gallery since she dropped out of the Beaux-Arts. She always found them dull as shit. Little did she know that, in the intervening years, they’ve come to resemble an Aquaboulevard waterpark, minus the flumes.
They spend a long time wandering lost, before finally finding the basement room, a low-ceiling affair with no windows, where lectures are held. About thirty people perched on uncomfortable chairs are listening to a young man who seems terrified at having to talk into a microphone. Just stepping into the room you can tell that the guy is no orator. “That’s him,” Aïcha whispers as she spots two empty seats in the front row and decides to make her presence conspicuous. Not that she needs to do much to attract attention, the hijab is enough. The audience turns to stare at her, some wondering whether she is a cleaner who has arrived early for her shift, others nod approvingly at the idea of minorities trying to further their education, some hide their handbags, still others are wondering whether she has a bomb in the back pocket of her jeans, while the most radical are whispering among themselves, “Can’t we ask her to leave? Is she even allowed in here? Are you sure?” Aïcha is living proof that, when it comes to style, accessorizing is everything.
* * *
The speaker is a guy of about thirty. He has shoulder-length hair, and though he doesn’t have the standard-issue hipster beard, he has the look. He probably gets around by bicycle and spends a lot of time in Berlin. He grips the microphone in both hands as though clinging to it for support. From time to time, his left hand detaches itself and flaps about in counterpoint to what he is saying. He is reading a prepared text: he would be incapable of ad-libbing three words. He is too scared to look at the girls. Aïcha coughs and Céleste does likewise, but with little conviction. The lecture is so disastrous that a couple of coughs are not likely to ruin the atmosphere. Céleste checks her watch. Time is crawling by even more slowly than it does at work. The guy’s fingers are stubby and graceless. She finds that there is something touching about his struggle to speak in public. She has seen so many people spout reams of bullshit with considerable aplomb. He has caught some sun, or has been to a salon, his skin is slightly tanned. It comes to her completely out of the blue. She wants to fuck him. Precisely because he is second rate. She whispers to Aïcha:
“Your plan isn’t working. If you like, I’ll go back to his place, slip him some tranqs, wait till he’s asleep, and redecorate his bedroom.”
“Where are you going to find tranquillizers?”
“In the bottom of my bag. I work in a bar, we all take speed to get through the night shift,
so I’ve always got some downers to take the edge off when I get home.”
That’s it. She has finally worked out how Subutex’s gang manages to mess with people’s minds: they propose innovative activities. “I’m planning a direct action. You want to come with?” and at the time you say, no way, it’s a dumb fucking idea. But five minutes later, there you are on the starting blocks. Between powerlessness and the great unknown, you choose the latter. At least it means action. It means making something happen. Go home with this guy who’s never done her any harm and get payback for all the assholes who made her childhood a living hell. And she gets to help her friend in the bargain. Prove that she can be counted on. That they form a whole. She wants to be a part of Aïcha’s adventure.
“And how will you get into his apartment?”
“Guess.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I’m hard-core. Can you go up to the lobby bookshop and buy me a couple of thick markers?”
“CURSE THE RANCID PUSSY of the succubus who gave you birth!” “Bourgeois shitdick!” “Filthy money-grubbing bitch!” “Die, fucker!”
He is pleasantly surprised by her spelling and syntax. It is much better than he would have imagined from the way she spoke. The comma between “Die” and “fucker” is full-on grammar Nazi. Antoine wanders through the apartment. She has redecorated every wall, every kitchen cupboard, not to mention the bathroom. She used the fat red marker favored by taggers, the thick strokes dribble down the wall, though she has no real flair for calligraphy. He’s definitely not dealing with a seasoned graffiti artist.
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