Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  “…you and me, we’re like two fingers of the same hand,” I went on. “And nothing can ever change that.”

  I probably could have found something more clever to say or, better still, kept quiet. But at the time it seemed innocent enough-a little parade of improvised words. She would have liked that. It was a confection, written in whipped cream, not in stone.

  I counted to seven hundred fifty, then stood up. I took the pillow off her face. The rain was making a hell of a din. For some reason I had a pain in my side. I didn’t look at her. I undid the straps. I put the pillow back where it had been.

  I turned toward the wall, thinking that something was going to happen. Nothing happened. It just kept raining and raining. The light stayed where it was, and so did the walls-and there I was, with my white gloves and false breasts, waiting for some message from death. But no message came. Was I going to get out of this with only a pain in the side?

  I put my wig back on. Just before leaving, I turned and glanced at her for the last time. I expected some horrific sight, but in the end she just looked like she was sleeping. Yet she came up with one more thing to make me happy-she knew how to do it. Her mouth was open slightly. I noticed a pack of Kleenex on the nightstand. It took me a moment to understand, then I started crying. Yes, she was still watching over me, showing me which way to go, even though she was no longer of this world. Her sending me this last sign flooded me with a river of fire.

  I rushed back to the bed and kissed her hair, then grabbed the Kleenex and shoved all I could into her mouth, all the way down. I had a spasm-I almost threw up-but it passed. What I want is to be able to be proud of you, she’d said.

  When I left, everybody must have been on coffee break. No one was in the halls, and almost no one was in the lobby. I went unnoticed. It was totally dark. The gutters were overflowing down the whole side of the building. It smelled bad-dried-out grass that’s been wet again. The rain was a luminous portcullis of electric wire. I turned my collar up, put my purse on top of my head, and dove into it.

  I ran. I had the sensation that someone was chasing me with a flamethrower. I had to take my glasses off to see, but I didn’t slow down. As one might expect, there was no one on the street, so I didn’t worry about my makeup-luckily I hadn’t put on any mascara. I got a lot on my fingers trying to wipe my face off-l must have really smeared it good. Fortunately, you couldn’t see three yards in front of you.

  I ran like a poisoned rat caught in a web of pearls. I didn’t slow down for intersections. Plipliplip went the rain; flap flap flap I went; baroombaroom went the thunder. The rain fell straight down. It stung my face-I swallowed some of it. I ran halfway home like a bat out of hell. My whole body was steaming; my breathing filled the street, no joke. I passed under a streetlight, and everything went blue.

  At an intersection, I saw the headlights of a car. I had the right of way, but I let him go first. In the pause, I tore my wig off, then plunged ahead. The rain wasn’t enough to put out the fire raging in my lungs. I gave it all I could, then forced myself to give even more. It made me moan and cry, it was so hard. I ran because I’d killed Betty. I ran because I wanted to run. I ran because I needed something else. At the same time, it seemed a perfectly natural reflex-it came from the heart, after all, didn’t it…?

  27

  The cops paid no attention to the story-not one of them showed the slightest interest. A crazy girl who tears her eye out, then ends it all by swallowing a box of Kleenex-they visibly couldn’t have cared less. Of course, when I’d stolen the money they’d made a big deal out of it-it was in all the papers, and they threw up roadblocks all over town. But killing her-I could have done it five hundred times and no one would even have gotten up from his desk.

  As for me, everything went just fine. How could a real love story end at the police station? A real love story never ends. It’s not as easy as it seems in the storybooks-you must expect to have to fly higher, your brain light as a feather. Anyway, to this day no one has ever come looking for me. No one has bothered me. I was able to get it out of my system in peace.

  I took care of the worst of it by turning over a small fortune to the people at the funeral parlor. Despite their frightening faces, I couldn’t complain-they handled all the details with the hospital, I hardly had to do anything. In the end they cremated her. I have her ashes. I keep them close by. I still don’t know what to do with them, but that’s another story.

  As soon as I had the time, I wrote a long letter to Eddie and Lisa. I explained everything that had happened, without telling them the decisive role I’d played. I apologized for not letting them know earlier. I hoped they’d understand that I wouldn’t have been able to stand that. I’ll see you soon, I told them, love to you both… P.S. I won’t be answering my telephone for a while. Kisses. On my way to the mailbox I realized that the weather had turned lovely again. The heat and humidity had gone. It was mild and dry. I came home with an ice cream cone in my hand. One.

  It seems stupid, but I still found myself cooking two steaks, or leaving the water in the tub for her, setting two places at the table, asking questions out loud. I slept with the light on. It’s the details that are hell-the little things that remain on the branches, like fog, like a gown of tattered lace. Every time it happened, I’d freeze in my tracks, and take my time digesting it. When I accidentally opened the closet and saw all her clothes in it, I almost choked. I tried to tell myself that each time was less painful than the time before. It wasn’t easy to tell.

  Still, I didn’t die. One morning I hopped on the scale and saw that I’d lost only six pounds. What a laugh. Letting yourself go once in a while-chewing your fingers to the bone-is not what saps a man. I was not even too far away from looking good. Some people take it with them when they go, but Betty was the opposite. She left it all. ALL. So it wasn’t surprising that sometimes I felt her there, next to me.

  I let several days go by without seeing anyone. I had explained things to Bob and Annie-had asked them not to disturb me. Bob wanted to come over with a bottle. I won’t answer the door, I told him. I’d decided to climb back up the hill in a hurry. For that I needed peace-telephone off, television on. One morning I got the proofs of my book to correct, and this made for a change of pace. It was her thing, after all. I took my time with it, and it was probably this that got me back on my feet-morally, I mean. When I went back to my notebooks and found that I could still put two or three good sentences together… when I smelled the eerie beauty that they breathed… when I saw that they were like children playing in the sun, then I realized that, though I’d gotten off to a bad start as a writer, the rest was going to be just fine-it was as good as done.

  The next day I was a new man. It started when I stretched out in bed. Getting up, I realized that I was in good shape. I looked at the apartment in a good mood, smiling. I sat down in the kitchen to drink my coffee, something I hadn’t done in a dog’s age-usually I just drank it standing up or leaning on the sink. I opened the windows. I felt so good that I ran out to buy croissants. It was a lovely day.

  To get out a bit, I went to eat in town. The cafeteria was jammed to the ceiling, the waitresses already had sweat circles under their arms. We’d had that job, Betty and I. I knew what it was all about. I sat down at a little table with my chicken, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. I watched the people. Life was like a bubbling torrent. I’d say that this was the image I kept of Betty-a bubbling torrent-and to that I’d add luminous. If I had my choice, I’d wish she were still alive, that’s understood-but I have to admit that, to me, she wasn’t too far from it. You can’t be too picky, after all. I stood up, thinking that sitting down should be left to those who really suffer.

  I went for a walk. On my way back, I ran into a pretty girl looking in the store window. She was blocking the reflections with her hands, blond hairs glimmering beneath her arms. I put the key in the lock. She straightened up.

  “Oh, I thought it was closed,” she said.

  �
��No, why would it be closed? It’s just that I never pay attention to time.”

  She looked at me and laughed. I felt silly. I’d forgotten that-what that’s like.

  “That must get you in trouble,” she joked.

  “Yeah, but I’m going to fix it. I made some New Year’s resolutions. You want to see something…?”

  “Well, I don’t have much time now, but I’ll come back…”

  “Whenever you like. I’m here every day of the week.”

  It goes without saying that I never saw the girl again-it was just to show how bright things looked to me. That was the day I plugged the telephone back in; the day I shoved my face into a pile of her T-shirts, smiling; the day I finally looked at a box of Kleenex without trembling. It was that day that I learned that you never stop learning-that the stairway goes on forever. What did you think? I asked myself, while slicing a melon before bed. I thought I heard laughter behind my back, coming from the direction of the melon seeds.

  My book came out about a month after Betty’s death. My associate was a fast worker, to say the least. He was still a small publisher. I must have come along when he had little else to do. One morning I found myself with a book on my lap. I turned it over in my hands. I opened it. I sniffed the paper. I slapped myself on the thigh.

  “Oh, baby, look what’s finally happened,” I whispered.

  Bob decided to celebrate. We took a little trip. Grandma watched the kids. Bob and Annie brought me home early in the morning. We couldn’t tell if you were laughing or crying, they told me later. How should I know, I answered. It’s not always easy to know if you’re attending a funeral or a birth. Writers’ brains are no more atrophied than anyone else’s. Despite what I’ve become, I’m still in the same boat as everyone else-I have more than my share of things I don’t understand. There must be a Saint Christopher for writers who are a little soft in the head.

  Some guy from a small regional newspaper wrote that I was a genius. My publisher sent me the article. I’m not sending you the others, he said-they’re bad. Applause in one corner, boos and hisses in the other. Still, the summer went by calmly, and I found my pace once again. I got along fine. The store was open. I installed a bell on the second floor that rang when someone opened the door downstairs. It didn’t happen too often. I gave up the idea of moving, though I’d thought it over more than once. Maybe later I wouldn’t be against it, once my book was finished. For the time being, though, I wanted to stay put. The light in the house during the day was great-giant splashes of brightness and shadows; who could ask for anything more? The atmosphere was enough to make you drool. The Rolls-Royce of atmospheres for a writer.

  Toward evening, I’d take walks, and if the spirit moved me, I’d go sit at a sidewalk café and watch the eyes go by in the twilight. It got me out of the house. I listened to the people talking among themselves. I sipped my drink slowly, swallowing the last drop fifty times before I decided to head home. There was nothing to rush for, and nothing to hold me.

  Once I’d plugged the telephone back in, Eddie called me regularly.

  “Jesus Christ, we’re up to our ears in work just now. Can’t come down…”

  He said this every time. Then Lisa would take the phone and tell me she missed me.

  “I miss you,” she would say.

  “Yeah, Lisa, same here.”

  “Keep taking good care of her,” she’d add. “Don’t ever forget her…”

  “No, don’t worry.”

  Then she’d hand Eddie back over.

  “Hi, it’s me. Listen, you know that if anything happens we’ll be there in a hurry… you know that… you’re not alone, you know…”

  “Of course I know that.”

  “Maybe in two weeks or so we can come down…”

  “Great. Love to see you.”

  “Anyway, in the meantime take care…”

  “Right, man. You too.”

  “Right… Lisa is motioning to me to say she misses you…”

  “Tell her same here.”

  “You’ll let me know if anything… you sure you’re all right…?”

  “Yes, the worst is over.”

  “Right, well, we think of you often. Anyway, I’ll call again soon.”

  “Fine, Eddie, I’ll be waiting…”

  It was the kind of phone call that made me melancholy. It was like getting a postcard from the other end of the world that says I LOVE YOU, if you get my drift. If there was something not too horrible on TV, I’d just plop myself down in front of it, with a box of candy on my lap. Going to bed would be a little tougher. Don’t forget her, she’d said… Are you sure everything’s all right, he’d asked… The worst is over, I’d answered. This is how a large bed becomes a bed for two again, and I would lie down on it like it was a bed of coals. Later, people would ask me how I managed during this period-what I did for sex. But I just told them, Nice of you to ask, don’t worry about it-why should I bore you with my troubles? Isn’t there something else you’d like to talk about? People always want to know how famous people live, otherwise they don’t sleep well at night-it’s nuts.

  All this to say that I began to live normally again-Life, the standard model: highs and lows, part of me believing in Heaven and part of me not. I wrote, I paid my bills, I changed the sheets once a week, I killed time, I took walks, I had drinks with Bob, I stole peeks at Annie’s thing, I kept track of sales, I changed the oil in the car regularly, I didn’t write back to my fans, or to the others; and I used my more peaceful moments to think of her. It isn’t rare that I still find her in my arms. Under such conditions, I never expected anything to happen to me. Especially nothing like what happened. But you should never assume that you’ve made your last trip to the checkout counter. There will always be something you haven’t paid for yet.

  It was a day like any other, except that I’d gone to the trouble of making myself a nice pot of chili. I’d gotten up out of my chair several times during the afternoon to taste it. It made me smile. I hadn’t lost my touch. I just had to make sure it didn’t stick to the bottom. When the writing was going well, I was always in a good mood… and with chili as a reward I was practically in paradise. When I had chili I heard her laughing.

  When I noticed it getting dark, I closed my notebook. I got up to pour myself two fingers of gin with a few necessary ice cubes. I set the table without letting go of my glass. There were still a few red streaks in the sky, but it was the color of the chili that interested me, and a lovely color it was.

  I served myself a big helping. It was a little too hot to eat, so I sat back peacefully with my drink and put on some music. Not just any music, but “This Must Be the Place,” which I love so much. I closed my eyes. Everything was copacetic. I rang my ice cubes like little bells.

  I was so into it that I didn’t hear them come in. I couldn’t have been more relaxed. The house was flooded with the smell of chili. The blow to my arm paralyzed it. The pain made me fall over in my chair. I tried to grab onto the table but all I did was tip over half my plate, falling down on the tile. I thought they must have used a crowbar on me. I yelled. A kick in the stomach took my breath away. I rolled over on my back, drooling. Somehow, through the fog, I managed to see them. There were two of them, a big one and a little one. I didn’t recognize them right away they weren’t in uniform, and I’d long since forgotten the episode.

  “Scream again and I’ll cut you into little pieces,” the fat one said.

  I tried to get my breath back, but it was like someone had doused me with gasoline. The fat one took his front teeth out of his mouth and held them up in his hand.

  “Perhapth you recognithe me better like thith,” he thaid.

  I curled up slightly on the linoleum. I couldn’t take it-not this. The fat one was Henry, the one whose big toe I’d shot off, and the little one was my lover boy, the one I’d enchanted, the one who wanted to go away with me. For a second, a vision of myself running across the fields with a purse full of bills passed before
my eyes-only now the scene took place in twilight, filmed through a frozen lake. Henry let out a little whine as he put his teeth back in, then he came at me, all red in the face. I got his foot in my head. Had it been twenty years earlier, when men wore heavier shoes, I would have woken up in a hospital. Today my aggressors wore tennis shoes. The shoes had plastic soles on them-I’d seen them on sale at the supermarket-they were worth about the price of a pound of sugar. All Henry did was give me a slight cut on the side of my mouth. He seemed very agitated.

  “Shit, I can’t let myself get too worked up,” he complained. “I’ve got to take my time…”

  He grabbed the bottle of wine off the table and turned to the kid, who was staring at me.

  “Come on, let’s have a drink. Don’t just stand there like a jerk. I told you he wasn’t a woman.”

  While they were drinking, I sat up a little. I had practically gotten my wind back, but my arm was useless. There was blood running down my clean T-shirt. Henry emptied his glass, smiling at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m glad to see you’re getting your strength back,” he said. “So we can talk a little.”

  That’s when I saw what he had, slipped through his belt suddenly I couldn’t see anything else. With the silencer, it made a hell of a big gun. I knew he had used it to smash my arm. I nearly hiccuped. I felt as if I’d just swallowed a toad. I wished I were invisible. The young man looked like he’d been struck by lightning-he hardly touched his drink. Henry poured himself another. His skin was shiny, like the skin of someone who’s just wolfed down three pepperoni sandwiches and half a dozen beers on a stifling summer night, electricity in the air. He came and stood in front of me.

  “So… aren’t you amazed to see me?” he said. “Isn’t this a nice surprise?”

  I preferred to look at the floor. He grabbed a handful of my hair.

  “I told you you’d signed your death warrant, remember? Thought I was kidding? I never kid.”

  He slammed my head into the wall. I heard bells.