Vernon Subutex Three

by Virginie Despentes

  *

  Since hearing of her death, Sylvie has woken up every night to sheets sodden with sweat. Paradoxically, it is almost pleasant. She feels as though she is purging her fears. It is not exactly practical – sometimes she has to get up in the middle of the night to change the sheets. She has had to deal with everything. It’s unbelievable how much paperwork a death entails. Her father is almost ninety, he is in no fit state to close accounts. Her brother was hardly likely to help, he lives in Australia and made only a flying visit to attend the funeral. Sylvie had installed herself at the little desk in the living room where she had seen her mother sit when dealing with the accounts, as she often did, since she managed the family fortunes with great seriousness. Or that, at least, was what everyone in the family had always thought. At first, Sylvie could make neither head nor tail of it all. So many bank accounts seemed like a pointless waste of ink. Amused and a little bewildered, strangely touched by her mother’s scatty accounting system, she had assumed the first revolving credit was an anomaly. When she found the second, she wondered what could possibly have got into her mother. But the more papers she dug out, the more folders she opened, the more she delved into her mother’s affairs, the more the vast edifice was revealed in all its terrifying prodigality: an outlandish series of financial arrangements, a complex network of loans taken to repay other loans, to pay off other loans. She had spent several days deciphering the spidery scrawl, horrified at the extent of the cataclysm. Her mother, a woman whose seriousness bordered on steeliness, a grande bourgeoise who could always trace the line between what was correct and what was deplorable, had actually been a brilliant fraudster. And her father, drunk on Fernet-Branca and tranquillisers knew nothing about it. Sylvie looked around the opulent apartment, remembered what a happy couple her parents had made in this regal splendour. She pored over the accounts. The debts ran to hundreds of thousands of euros. All to keep up the facade. There were many other family secrets that had never gone beyond these four walls that Sylvie knew – how her father could be handy with his fists when he had had too much to drink – other people might have called it domestic violence, in their house they said, “He’s a forceful personality.” Her mother was hit by cupboard doors, her eyes were blackened by unruly branches, she fell down the stairs. But that was alright. The edifice remained solid. It was only as she plunged into the intricate maze of debt so patiently fashioned by her mother that Sylvie realised: it had been nothing but a facade. All this so as not to have to sell the Porsche Cayenne, or give up membership to the Sporting Club that her father had not set foot in in years. It was too complicated. She had called her brother for help, he had said, I can’t come home right now, sell everything. He was disappointed. Like her, he had been expecting a handsome inheritance. Sylvie had taken her courage in both hands and broken the news to her father, who called her a liar and a lunatic. Only to phone her a few weeks later when the first summons arrived from the bailiffs. She had come back to sell the car and the furniture, and file for bankruptcy.

  Her father looked at her as though she were a gutter rat. He was convinced that she had stolen the money. Yet he had to have known. Sylvie could not see how he could have been oblivious to the fact that, for decades, money kept going out when there was no money coming in. This is an equation simple enough for even the rich to understand. He had had no choice but to move to the south, to live with his sister in Avignon. She had never heard from him again.

  *

  Sylvie and Emilie reach the gates of Bercy arena. There are very few people given that there is a concert tonight. An uncannily beautiful bouncer is explaining to new arrivals that he cannot allow a crowd to gather on the corner since it would be an easy target for a drive-by shooting – and he points to the spot, conjuring the image of a car slowing and the ensuing carnage – so everyone has to go through the park behind the stadium. Without even exchanging a glance, Sylvie and Emilie stand facing the bouncer and listen as he gives the explanation several times. Eventually, he notices them and they are forced to follow the others.

  “Jesus Christ, where did they get that guy – he’s sex on legs!”

  “Isn’t there something else we could ask, some other information we need?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “I’m telling you right now, if Madonna sees him, he’s getting an All Access pass.”

  *

  A few metres ahead, guys in fluorescent yellow jackets are waving torches and shouting directions, trying to direct the crowd. They are already hoarse. Paris is very different. People have put aside their superciliousness. They are meekly following orders. It is a long walk. No-one complains. If they were told to circumnavigate the entire arrondissement on their hands and knees, not a single Parisian would protest.

  Sylvie and Emilie walk around the park behind Bercy and take their places in the queue. Everyone is probably thinking the same thing. Is that ditch deep enough to hide in? If a sniper were to appear on the balcony overlooking the crowd, how long would it take to overpower him?

  Sylvie gets a text from Max, he has arrived, he’s looking for them. She is dreading the thought of seeing him again. When he offered the tickets, she wondered whether he might be trying to pick her up. Not that she has any desire to sleep with him. But she would be upset to think that he might be thinking about it and then, seeing her, decide, yeah, maybe not, she hasn’t aged well. For her part, there’s no risk of being disappointed: Max was never an oil painting. As a general rule, ugly people age well. And ugly as he was, Max was always a ladies’ man. He had flirted with Sylvie back when she was with Alex. And she had given in. He was the sort of lover you feel ashamed of when you’re young, because he’s not remotely sexy. But he was persuasive. He had never said anything uncalled-for, so she had not worried about him – in fact, she had never even considered him fuckable. They had been going up the steps in front of the Elysée-Montmartre, it was taking ages because everyone recognised Max and everyone had something they wanted to tell him, and as he dropped her off backstage, he had whispered into her ear, “I know I shouldn’t even be thinking this, but fuck I love your smell. I really want to screw you.” Sylvie had found the comment disgusting, and completely out of place. And incredibly arousing. That he should dare. In that loutish, offhand tone, that deep, self-confident voice. And that night, during the second half of the gig, she gave him a blowjob in the toilets while he held her by the hair and told her to suck him good. More than twenty years later, even the thought of it is terrifying. It had been a one-off, they had never talked about it. But he had always paid her special attention. And when Alex had left her, he was one of the few people in her circle who had worried about her. Max had never again found an artist who had the scale and ambition of Alex. In the music business, he lives from hand to mouth. Sylvie heard that he sometimes manages young singers from T.V. talent shows. They lost touch. Then Max had reappeared in the most unexpected way imaginable, during a weekend in Barcelona, with Xavier and Pénélope . . . As it turns out, Stéphanie, one of Max’s exes, had been to one of the convergences and she and Sylvie had become friends . . . so Max got in touch with her, and they agreed to meet up for a drink sometime. And then this gig, and Max offering her a couple of spare tickets . . .

  She recognises him from a distance. From the strange way he has always walked – as though about to fall flat on his face. But mostly from the garish colours. He always did have shitty taste. He’s wearing a shiny purple jacket with a silver collar. Truly hideous. Max always wanted to be a dandy. But he has no fashion sense. He wears clothes two sizes too small that make him look obese. They say hello, Sylvie introduces Emilie – they talk for a couple of minutes about the extraordinary coincidence that brought them back together. The queue slowly trudges forward in the biting cold. And then, within five minutes, they’re back to talking about the terrorist attacks. Terror has slipped inside their bodies like a puppeteer’s hand. Except that Max shows no sign that he is afraid. On the contrary, he seems to fin
d the situation auspicious, exciting. He is a hustler, a con artist – the sort of guy who can turn the most chaotic situation to his advantage. And Sylvie knows enough about his career to know he is not faking it. Max never mellowed, he never joined the bourgeoisie. He’s still the same aggressive working-class punk – someone who’s not fazed by violence because it’s his preferred element. In this turbulent atmosphere, he is like a fish in water. He lights a cigarette and, laughing, turns to Emilie who has just asked whether he has known Sylvie long. “I’m not going to give you the precise date, it would make us both sound old . . . but she was already venomous back then.” Then, turning to Sylvie, he adds, “You’ve hardly changed at all, just enough not to be even more terrifying than you used to be,” and he slips his arm through hers, as though escorting her to a ball. She smiles at him, trying not to make it obvious that she is enjoying his flirtation. The compliments he whispers into her ear have the same effect as slipping into a sweet-scented jacuzzi – massaging and relaxing her. It’s been a long time since anyone flirted with her like this. She presses herself against him gratefully.

  Max talks to her about Alex. He says that at terrible moments like this, he misses not being able to talk to him. Sylvie sees Emilie wrinkle her nose when she explains that, during the convergences, they use the tapes recorded by Alex. But Max slides a hand down her back, a casual, elegant gesture. She craves his attention. And she talks and talks until she feels a little dizzy. She is aware that she is telling him things he doesn’t need to know. She wants to talk about what it was like at the camp. Because it is the only thing in her life that is not pathetic. The words come in a torrent, and she makes him laugh, piques his interest.

  “YOU’RE EITHER THE BUTCHER OR THE CATTLE.”

  Men kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs have their throats cut, one by one. In all seriousness, Dopalet wonders: is it better to die by having your throat slit by a cannibal or to have your entrails devoured by a horde of zombies? He has set his laptop on the kitchen counter while he defrosts Cantonese fried rice in the microwave. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he opens a bottle of Coke Zero and pours it into a glass of crushed ice. It’s one of the typical questions raised by “The Walking Dead”: decapitated or disembowelled? You really have to be a hardcore masochist to watch such horrors – the whole show is a series of unbearably tense moments set against a bloodbath of slaughter and evisceration, peppered with pathetic metaphysical dialogue written by some geek who’s probably spent his whole life holed up in his bedroom feeding on doughnuts and comics. But Dopalet is fascinated by “The Walking Dead”. He is watching it for the second time. Every time he thinks, that’s it, I’m used to it, I’m not terrified anymore, some atrocity comes and he is once again a frightened child, teeth clenched, delighted and appalled.

  He did not go into the office today. He did not go in yesterday either. He calls his assistant. He says he has lumbago, the doctor has said to rest up and not to move for a couple of days. The simplest things are becoming complicated. Only at home does he feel alright, he finds it more and more difficult to go out. He needs to get help. He doesn’t know who to turn to. All of his therapists have let him down, he doesn’t want to call them. He is literally consumed with terror at the very thought of opening his e-mail. When he manages to force himself to do so, he forwards every message to his colleagues – he tells himself he needs to learn to delegate. But he simply cannot bring himself to answer them himself. He deletes all his voicemails without listening to them. Just swipe left on his phone and everything is gone.

  Lately, when he went into the office, he would fake it. As he pushed open the main door, he would automatically plaster a smile on his face. No-one could guess how he felt. He let nothing show. He would chat to a few people for five minutes, then go into his office with orders not to be disturbed. He would spend hours on YouTube watching old videos of McEnroe, wearing a headset so no-one would realise that, on the other side of the door, the C.E.O. is at the end of his rope, he is at a complete loss. This is the least that he owes his team: the illusion that someone is at the helm. In the late afternoon, he would emerge, make up a meeting to justify leaving early. He knows what is happening. He knows that things are not right. But he can hardly choose a psychiatrist online. And he doesn’t want to phone a friend to ask for a contact. He doesn’t have any friends. All the people he knows would be only too happy to know he is foundering.

  *

  A zombie devours the intestines of his victims, whose screams fill the kitchen, mingling with the hideous groans of the walkers. The intestines spill out, slick and bloody across the ground. The story of his life. A momentary lapse of concentration and the enemy is on top of you – ripping your skin with his teeth, eating you alive, feeding on your pain. The millions of people who watch this series identify with the situation – you can never rest, never stop. Danger lurks everywhere. That is the reality. There is no safe haven, only brief periods of calm. The outside world is a nightmare. You cannot weaken or they will surround you, flay you alive, feast on your guts. The T.V. show may have been written by some halfwit American, but its message is universal: kill before you are killed. If your hand trembles, if you hesitate, you’re dead. There is no place here for finer feeling. You’re either the butcher or the cattle. There’s no room for nuance. To survive is to be prepared to kill.

  *

  For as long as he doesn’t leave his apartment, Dopalet doesn’t feel too bad. He’s not bored. Morning coffee, he puts on an episode, lounges around in sweats. He keeps peripheral thoughts – unpleasant thoughts – at bay, by concentrating on the heroes’ journeys. He knows that his assistant didn’t believe him when he said he could barely move. She wanted to set up Skype meetings, wanted to e-mail him files. He refused to give in. He stood his ground. The attitude of people in the office is beginning to change. Dopalet is aware that they are talking about him behind his back, saying that he is behaving oddly. Thankfully, the Christmas break is coming up soon. At least he’ll get ten fucking minutes’ peace.

  His daughter won’t be with him this year. She is going to visit her mother. He will make the best of it, get some rest, rebuild his strength. In a few days, things will be fine. Tomorrow, he will go for a run. Every day – or almost every day – he works out on his exercise bike while watching an episode. It’s by working on his body that he’ll get back on his feet. His mind will follow. He really should call his personal trainer. He cancelled his sessions a few months back.

  He would love to produce a series. He enjoys the company. You set out with a group of characters, a rhythm. It’s like a tap. It keeps running. No-one lets you down. No-one asks you to think. People look after each other. No-one ever abandons you.

  Things were so different when he was young. Kids like him went to a cinema club. They would emerge from screenings of Kurosawa, Pasolini, Wenders and listen to each other talk for hours. Dopalet would pretend to understand. He has never been an intellectual. He read “Cahiers du Cinéma” every month without understanding a word. He would memorise phrases, expressions, learn the names by heart so that he could keep up with conversations. Kids today don’t bother with all that shit. When they’re fed up kicking arse in some massive multiplayer game, they watch violent T.V. shows. These days, no-one pretends to be an intellectual. It’s old hat. They’re right. What was it for, all that brain juice?

  Dopalet wishes someone would bring him a good idea for a T.V. series. But the French are morons. From time to time, a good pitch comes in, he meets with the screenwriters, they come to his office and do a whole number, they win him over, he says, O.K., let’s work up a shooting script. And six months later he finds himself with a third-rate cop show ripped off from “Julie Lescaut”. Regardless of the premise of the show, that’s how it always ends up: Julie Lescaut with her battered AK-47 lurking against a dark background. That’s French television. Dopalet dreams of fighting tooth and nail to produce a first-rate project. If he got his wish, everything would cha
nge. He’d make an effort. He’d forget the fears, the attacks, the disappointments, the betrayals. He would move mountains. If he got his wish. If someone brought him a half-decent proposal.

  The cinema as he has always known it is dead. People like him are on borrowed time. At least he knows that. It’s exactly like “The Walking Dead”: the world is divided into two groups. Those who realise that this is war, and those who cling to their former lives. A lot of people in the business persist in believing that everything will carry on as usual. But the whole thing is fucked. He can’t raise the money to fund his projects. And he’s not the kind of producer who takes unnecessary risks – he’s not interested in arthouse films, low-budget projects or ambitious movies that don’t sell tickets. He has no interest in producing the next Palme d’Or. He thinks box office. He thinks dream cast, comedy, family entertainment. But it’s not enough.

  Why would the public bother to trek to the cinema to see a French movie? They stay at home. They can get everything they need online. He’s the same. He torrents like everyone else. What choice does he have? He’s not going to wait six months to watch the next episode of some T.V. show just because syndication contracts take time to nail down! Anything that’s not on an official site, he watches for free on a streaming site. Netflix, because Antoine has given him his login. A site that stops you streaming T.V. shows via a video projector . . . The difference between him and other people is that he doesn’t delude himself that things are going to be fine. They’re not going to be fine. They’re going to go from bad to worse.