Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Not bad. Not great for the landscape, though.”

  “Noted, my sweet.”

  I made myself useful by doing the dishes from lunch. We climbed up the hill to see the sun before it went down-stretched the old legs a little. There was a light breeze.

  “I dreamed last night that they published your book,” she said.

  “Don’t start.”

  She took my arm without another word, and we stood there surveying the countryside in silence. I watched a car go down the road in the distance, its headlights on. Suddenly it just disappeared. It took me a minute or two to unlock my jaw.

  “What say we eat?”

  When we got back, there was a badger furrowing in our garbage can. I’d never seen such a big one. We were about thirty yards from it. I took out my knife.

  “Don’t move,” I said.

  “Be careful.”

  I lifted the blade above my head, then tore up the hill screaming at the top of my lungs. I tried to remember how you go about slaying a bear, but by the time I got there, the badger had slunk off into the night. I was glad it was him and not me. I threw a rock at him for good measure, to see his reaction.

  This little episode gave me an appetite-I could have eaten a horse. I made some pasta with cream sauce. The day had completely exhausted me. There was no particular reason for this. It isn’t really so incredible that a guy should feel exhausted when he sees all the people who throw themselves out the window-or those who might as well. It’s quite normal, in a way. I didn’t worry about it.

  After we ate, I smoked a cigarette and dozed off while Betty brushed her hair. I passed out cold. In the middle of the night I opened my eyes again. The badger was just outside the window-we stared at each other. His eyes gleamed like black pearls. I closed mine.

  When we woke up the next morning the sky was cloudy. It got worse in the afternoon. We watched the clouds come, filling up every inch of sky. It was our last day. We pouted. It seemed like the land had suddenly shrunk. There was no more sound, as if all the birds and insects hopping through the grass had simply evaporated. The wind came up. We heard faraway thunder.

  When it started raining we headed back inside the house. Betty made tea. I watched the earth steam outside, as the sky got blacker and blacker. It was one hell of a storm-the heart of it was less than a mile away. Bolts of lightning split the sky. Betty started to get scared.

  “Want to play Scrabble?” I suggested.

  “No, not really.”

  Each time there was a clap of thunder, she froze stiff, her head tucked into her shoulders. Torrents of water pounded down on the roof. We had to talk loud to be heard.

  “Anyway, the rain isn’t so bad, as long as we’re safe inside, and the tea’s still hot,” I said.

  “Jesus, you call this rain? It’s a deluge!”

  Actually, she was right. The storm was getting dangerously close. I suddenly knew that it was coming right for us-was out to get us. We sat down in the corner of the room, on the comforter. It felt like there was some huge creature beating himself against the house, trying to tear it out of the ground. Every so often the lighting from his eyes glared outside the windows. Betty drew her knees up to her chest and put her hands over her ears. Just perfect.

  I was giving her a back rub, when a giant drop fell on my hand. I looked up-the ceiling was dripping like a sponge. We looked around us-the walls were wet. There were small puddles under the windows, and a tide of mud was trying to ooze in under the door. The house had turned into hell; surrounded by lightning, shaken by thunder. Instinctively, I put my head down. I knew that anything I might do would be futile. None of that Man-and-God-are-equals crap. I apologized for ever having thought such a thing.

  When a drop fell on her head, Betty jumped. She glanced with horror at the ceiling, as if she’d just seen the devil himself. She pulled the comforter up over her knees.

  “No… please, no…” she whimpered.

  The storm had moved off by a few hundred yards, but the rain was coming even harder. The noise was infernal. She started crying.

  As far as the roof was concerned, all was lost. I quickly estimated the number of leaks at around sixty. It was easy to see the turn things were taking. The floor was shining like a lake. I looked at Betty and stood up. To try to calm her down would be a waste of time. The only thing to do was get her out of there as quickly as possible, soaking or not. I grabbed a few essential items and put them in a bag. I buttoned my jacket up tight, then went to her. I got her on her feet without hesitation-without fear of breaking her. I lifted her chin up to look at me.

  “We’re going to get a little wet,” I said. “But I think we’ll live through it.”

  I gave her a look that could split concrete.

  “Right?” I added.

  I put the comforter over her head and pushed her toward the door, realizing at the last minute that I’d forgotten my transistor radio. I shoved it into one of the plastic bags from the supermarket and made a hole in the bottom for the handle. Betty hadn’t moved an inch. I opened the door.

  We could barely see the car at the bottom of the hill through the curtain of rain. It seemed impossible to get to. The thunder galloped over us in waves-we couldn’t even see the sky. The noise was deafening. I leaned over to her.

  “RUN FOR THE CAR!” I shouted.

  I didn’t exactly expect her to take off like a rocket. I lifted her up and set her outside. I went to lock the cabin door, and by the time I turned back around she was already a fourth of the way down the hill.

  It was like being under a shower, with both faucets going full blast. I stuffed the keys into my pocket, took a deep breath, and off I went. I hoped to avoid making the trip on my back this time-the ground was really slippery, covered by an inch of water.

  No longer having a dry hair on my head, nor a dry anything else that might be considered as part of my body, I paid attention not to confuse speed with progress. I threw myself into the water works, the dogs of Hell barking at my heels, but I watched carefully where I put my feet.

  Betty was way ahead of me-I saw her silver comforter zigzag toward the car like a sheet of aluminum. One more second and she’s home free, I said to myself. At that very moment, I slipped. I threw my left hand behind me and cushioned the fall. I threw my right hand out in front of me and managed to keep from falling forward. The transistor radio went sailing into a rock.

  A huge hole appeared, with multicolored wires sticking out of it. I screamed. I swore. The thunder smothered my voice. I threw the radio out as far as I could, grimacing in impotent rage. I was disgusted. After that I didn’t hurry-nothing else could touch me.

  I sat down behind the wheel of the ear. I put on the windshield wipers. Betty was sniffling, but she seemed to be doing better. She rubbed her head with a towel.

  “I can’t say that I’ve seen many storms like this one,” I said.

  Which was true-and this one had cost me a pretty penny. Still, I didn’t lose sight of the fact that we’d come out of it all right, with limited damage. Instead of answering me, she stared out the window. I leaned over to see what she was looking at. You could just barely make out the cabin on top of the hill, the rivulets of mud running down the slope. Good-bye, little lines of colored soil, and earth that glitters like diamond powder-good-bye to all that. What was left looked more like the mouth of a sewer, spewing out long streams of shit. I didn’t say a word. I started the car.

  We rolled into town at nightfall. The rain had let up a little.

  We came to a red light. Betty sneezed.

  “How come we never have any luck?” she asked.

  “Because we’re just a couple of poor unfortunates,” I snickered.

  19

  A few days later I took the morning off to tar-paper the roof. I worked easily and quietly, then went off in the car, a local station spitting songs out on the radio.

  When I came home I found Betty busily moving t
he furniture around.

  “You heard the latest?” she said. “Archie’s in the hospital!”

  I threw my jacket on a chair.

  “Shit, what happened?”

  I helped her move the couch.

  “The damn kid spilled a pot of boiling milk on his lap.”

  We moved the table across to the other side of the room.

  “Bob called right after you left. He was calling from the hospital. He wanted us to open the store for him this afternoon.”

  We unrolled the rug in a different corner.

  “Shit, he doesn’t miss a trick, does he…”

  “It’s not that. He’s afraid the old ladies’ll block traffic on the sidewalk in front and cause a riot.”

  She stepped back to take in the new arrangement.

  “What do you think? You like it like that?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s a change, isn’t it?”

  We fucked in the afternoon, after which I grew suddenly languid, lying on the bed with cigarettes and a book. Betty cleaned the windows. What’s nice about selling pianos is that there’s never a rush. You have time to read Ulysses between sales without even having to dog-ear the pages. Yet it made us a nice living-we paid our bills on time and could fill the gas tank whenever we felt like it. Eddie didn’t ask us for money. All he asked was that we keep the store afloat and replenish the stock whenever we unloaded a piano. We did. I also handled the deliveries. The cash went directly into my pocket-why complicate the bookkeeping?

  Best of all was that we even had some money put aside, enough to last us a month or so. This was reassuring-I had already had the experience of being out of a job, with barely enough in my pockets to buy two meals. Finding myself with money ahead was like finding myself in a fallout shelter. I could hardly ask for more. I hadn’t yet started planning my retirement.

  So I took it easy. I watched Betty cleaning her nails by the window, laying on a coat of blinding red nail polish while her shadow climbed the wall behind her. It was wonderful. I stretched out on the bed.

  “That going to take long to dry?” I asked.

  “No, but if I were you I’d keep an eye on the time…”

  I had enough time to hop into my pants and plant a kiss on her neck.

  “You sure you can handle it alone?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  There were already four or five ladies on the sidewalk. They were trying to see inside, through the windows, talking loudly. I got the key from the backyard and hurried up to the apartment. I spotted the small pool of milk on the kitchen floor. A stuffed animal was floating in it. I picked it up and put it on the table. The milk was cold by now.

  Downstairs, things seemed to be heating up. I went down and turned the lights on. The ladies were shaking their heads. The ugliest one turned her arm toward me so I could see her watch. I opened the door.

  “Easy does it,” I said.

  I plastered myself into a corner while they stampeded through. When the last one was in, I took my position behind the cash register. I thought of Archie and the teddy bear, draining on the kitchen table, losing all its blood.

  “Could you give me a slice of headcheese?”

  “But of course,” I said.

  “Where’s the owner? Not here anymore…?”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “HEY, DON’T TOUCH MY HEADCHEESE WITH YOUR HANDS, YOU MIND!?”

  “Jesus,” I said. “Sorry…”

  “All right, just give me two slices of ham instead. The round kind. I don’t want the square kind.”

  I spent the rest of the day slicing this and cutting that, running from one end of the store to the other, with six arms and ten legs churning, biting my lip. Somehow I began to understand Bob. I realized that if I had to do that job every day, I wouldn’t be able to get it on with a woman either-all I’d want to do at night is watch television. I’m exaggerating a bit, but what’s true is that sometimes life puts on such an abominable show that no matter where you look, all you see is fury and folly. Charming: this is what we have to put up with while waiting for old age, illness, and death-walking right toward the storm, each step bringing us a bit further into the night.

  I closed the store on a last pound of tomatoes. Spirits were at their lowest. This sort of thing can really bring you down-turn your heart to stone. You have to know how to say whoa. I did a quick about-face, grabbing three bananas and eating them one after the other. After that I went upstairs for a beer. I felt neither here nor there. Having a little time on my hands, I wiped the milk off the floor and washed the teddy bear, hanging it by the ears to dry over the bathtub. It had a kind of surrealistic grin on its face, perfectly in keeping with the mood of the day. I sat with it for a while, the time to finish my beer. I split before my ears started hurting.

  When I got home, I found Betty lying on the couch, with a yard-high elephant at her feet. It was red with white ears, wrapped in clear plastic. She lifted herself up on her elbows.

  “I thought it might cheer him up if we went to visit him-look what I bought him…”

  After what I’d just been through, I found the house quite calm. I would have loved to just slide right into it, but there was no way, with a red elephant standing in the middle of the living room, its eyes following me everywhere.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.

  I got a wink as consolation prize.

  “You want to eat something before we go… a quick bite?”

  “No, I’m not hungry.”

  I let Betty drive. I held the animal in my lap. I had a bad taste in my mouth. I told myself that when one lifts the goblet of hopelessness to his lips, one oughtn’t be surprised if one winds up with a hangover. The streetlights were unspeakably cruel. We parked in the hospital lot and walked to the main entrance.

  It happened just as we went through the door. I don’t know why. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in a hospital. I knew about the odor, the people ambling around in pajamas. I even knew about the strange presence of death. I knew it well, and it had never gotten to me before-never, No one was more surprised than I was when my ears started ringing. I felt my legs get stiff and wobbly, all at once. I started to perspire. The elephant tumbled to the floor.

  I saw Betty gesticulating in front of me, leaning toward me with her mouth moving, but I could hear nothing except the ringing of blood in my veins. I leaned against a wall. I felt horrible. An icy shot went through my skull. I couldn’t keep my balance. My heels slid out from under me.

  A few seconds later, the sound started to return a little. Eventually everything came back. Betty was wiping my face with a handkerchief. I was breathing deeply. People kept coming and going, without paying any attention to us.

  “Jesus, I can’t believe this-what happened to you? You scared me to-”

  “It must have been something I ate… must have been the bananas…”

  While Betty cheeked at the information desk, I went and got myself a Coke out of a machine. I had no idea what was going on-I didn’t know if it was the bananas or a sign from the Beyond.

  We went up to the room. There wasn’t much light. Archie was sleeping, Bob and Annie sitting on each side of his bed. The baby was asleep too. I put the elephant down in the corner. Bob stood up to tell me that Archie had just dozed off-the poor kid had really been through the mill.

  “It could have been worse, though,” he added.

  We stood there quietly for a moment, watching Archie move around softly in his sleep, his hair stuck to his temples. I felt sorry for him. I also felt something that had nothing to do with him. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t rid myself of the sensation that I had been sent a message I could not decipher. It made me nervous. It’s always unpleasant when you feel uneasy and don’t know why. I bit the inside of my month. When I saw that things weren’t getting better, I motioned to Betty. I asked Bob if there was anything we could do for them, told him not to worry about a thing. But no, no thanks, so I b
acked out the door as if there were snakes falling from the ceiling. I took off down the hall. Betty had trouble keeping up with me.

  “Hey, what kind of bee’s in your bonnet? Not so fast!”

  But I continued straight down the hall. I nearly tipped over an old man folded up in a wheelchair, who tried to enter my lane, jackknifing his vehicle. I didn’t catch what he called me-I was out the door in two seconds flat.

  The fresh air relaxed me, made me feel better immediately. I felt like I’d just come out of a haunted house. Betty put her hands on her hips and gave me a sideways, worried smile.

  “What’s wrong? What did that stupid hospital do to you?”

  “Must be that I haven’t eaten-feel a little weakish.”

  “A little while ago you said it was the bananas.”

  “I don’t know. I think I better eat something…”

  I turned around at the bottom of the steps to look back. Betty didn’t wait for me. I examined the building carefully, but couldn’t see anything abnormal-nothing particularly terrifying. It was rather pretty, in fact-well lit, with palm trees all around and nicely trimmed hedges. I really couldn’t fathom what had gotten into me. Maybe they’d been poison bananas after all-enchanted bananas, mysteriously breeding fear in one’s stomach. Add to that a small burned child, rocking his head in a dark room, and you have your answer-no more complicated than that.

  I would be lying if I said that a slight feeling of uneasiness didn’t linger. It was barely perceptible, though-nothing to drive myself crazy over.

  I knew this joint uptown where the steak and fries were edible and there was lots of light. The owner knew us-we’d sold him a piano for his wife. We sat down at the counter, and he got out three glasses.

  “So… things working out all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, great. The scales are driving me out of my gourd…” he said.

  There were quite a few people in the place-a few single men, a few couples, and a bunch of brush-cut twenty-year-olds without a wrinkle on their brows. Betty was in a good mood. The steaks were good enough to make a vegetarian wobble. My fries simply swam in their catsup. It put the hospital incident completely out of my mind. I was lighthearted. The whole world was swell. Betty smiled. I fired off jokes at the drop of a hat. We ordered up the Super Giant Strombolis-one full pound of whipped cream.