Vernon Subutex Three

by Virginie Despentes

  When she pushes open the door to the loft, the Hyena has the strange impression of arriving at the camp, but indoors. It’s the same experience, more stunted, perhaps. But something crucial – a sense of being together – survives.

  From time to time, on the pretext of buying some weed for Lydia – who claims it helps her concentrate – she goes out and walks around the concourse of the building. The walls are inscribed with “Weed” and “Skunk”, with arrows, so you don’t go to the wrong courtyard.

  As she waits for the dealers, she rolls a cigarette, carefully sprinkling the tobacco along the paper, leaning against a yellow pillar – a preposterously cheerful colour in this bleak landscape.

  *

  When Vernon called to tell her about his visit from Max, it brought her out of her torpor. She was back on autopilot. Unfortunately, her immediate reaction was not the correct one: she first went looking for Aïcha. At least she knew where to find her.

  She left for three days, just enough time for the non-stop drive Paris–Frankfurt–Amsterdam–Paris. Bowie pouring from the speakers all the way, like the phases of her life surfacing one by one. She had enjoyed the long drive, you can’t cheat the kilometres, you have to get through them one by one. It leaves you time to think.

  When she got back, the flurry of confessions began. First there was Daniel: “Céleste is in Barcelona. I found her online a while back. I didn’t mention it to anyone because she seemed happy where she was.” The Hyena can’t help but wonder whether Daniel isn’t a little bit slow on the uptake. Or maybe it’s the testosterone. If it made people smarter, everyone would know. Then there was Xavier – at least he realised that he had fucked up, and lamely apologised, he had seen Céleste in Barcelona. When he was with Max. The Hyena had felt a faint urge to throttle him. If he had told her straight off, she wouldn’t have gone looking for Aïcha first . . . Meanwhile, Sylvie was sobbing in the kitchen. She had answered every one of Max’s questions. In fact, she had been cheerfully candid, never suspecting he was manipulating her.

  And as she listened to them, one after the other, and the realisation dawned that the journey she had just made was the wrong one, the Hyena was thinking: this is why Vernon left. The conditions for entropy were all present. Discord is a plant that takes time to blossom, but the seeds had been there, just waiting to germinate. Their instincts were wrong. They should have talked to each other.

  *

  The kids from the estate show up, the junior dealers. “Are you looking for something, madame?” Every time she meets them, they are so friendly: not everything is fucked up. At least budding local dealers are trying to do their best.

  As she pushes open the metal door to the loft, she recognises Kiko’s voice. Lydia turns to her, excitedly: “He’s managed to access the bank accounts of Dopalet and Max, there are no direct transactions, but Max bought several tickets to Barcelona on his Carte Bleu, and Dopalet flew there a couple of days later. The dumb fuck flies Vueling – if I had that much money I wouldn’t set foot on their planes . . . You know you should never piss on a budget airline? A stewardess told me that – they don’t have time to clean between flights.” Lydia’s thought processes are not always linear. The Hyena often wonders what it will be like, this book she has spent so much time writing, and whether any human brain will be capable of following her labyrinthine thoughts. When Lydia thinks, she’s like a rabbit on acid.

  Kiko showed up with a tube of vitamin C tablets filled with cocaine. A big, fat, orange tube. With a flick of his thumb and a radiant smile, he pops the cap. He warns Daniel, “I’m only doing one line today. Just one. Care to join me?” and hardly has he snorted the first rail then he looks up at Daniel and says, “After the third one, tell me to stop, yeah?” Then he snorts like a bull and throws his head back and launches into the first bars of Buddy Holly’s “Every Day”, in a demented, disturbing falsetto. He keeps time by clicking his fingers and misses every beat.

  Daniel watches with an amused grin. He sways to the rhythm, rolling his shoulders. Since he transitioned, his dancing has been a problem. He’s sick of people thinking he’s a gay guy when he’s doing his best to dance like a man. He doesn’t shake his hips, doesn’t wave his hands. He just shuffles his feet from right to left, studiously avoiding anything that might pass for gracefulness. Head up, back stiff, he looks like an overheated Robocop. He takes out his phone and tries to regain his composure – he’s not yet ready for dad dancing. He swipes through the photographs on his phone. “I’m always surprised by how fast I’m changing,” he says. When he first started taking testosterone and checked out the forums he thought, fuck’s sake, these guys have no lives, they spend hours discussing every fucking chest hair that sprouts. Now he understands. It is a constant fascination. His features are more angular, the hair on the crown of his head is thinning, the way he looks at people is different. Even a year ago, there was still a slight uncertainty in his gaze – his eyes seemed to be asking for permission. He was feminine. He worried whether people would let him be who he was. That’s over. Now, he owns his look. A guy who’s comfortable in his own skin. He’s handsome. Girls treat him like a little pet. Strangers, passers-by, sales assistants, girls on his course, neighbours, the women who run the local shops – they all constantly fuss over him.

  Sélim shows up with his bicycle under his arm. He is pouring sweat. Since the terrorist attacks, he can’t bear to travel on the métro. The minute he hears a fire engine in the distance, his heart starts hammering. He no longer goes to restaurants. Or to the cinema. He is terrified when he’s on the university campus. He’s terrified when he sees a postman’s trolley or a rucksack lying on the floor of a bus. A lot of Parisians feel like him, apparently. He is supposed to be meeting up with his daughter in Athens. He is traumatised at the thought of taking a plane. Sylvie gives him the number of a hypnotherapist she knows: “It really works. You’ll see. It’s amazing.” And Kiko shakes his Vitamin C tube. “This works for everything. You want to give it a try? A quick toot when you get to the airport, and everything is easier.”

  Xavier is talking about Cologne. Hundreds of women assaulted in one night. He says he can’t help thinking about his daughter, can’t help imagining her in a train station being groped by the strange hands like some fucked-up funfair ride, and the worst of it is the thought of these anonymous hands, these men gathering in packs to molest women they don’t respect – just thinking about it is enough to drive him crazy. This is the first time the Hyena has ever heard Xavier express concern about women’s safety. He’s angry that the others won’t face up to what this means – that we can’t avoid asking tough questions about the so-called melting pot if the people coming to live among us aren’t prepared to live like us. Lydia puffs her cheeks as though about to blow some bubblegum: “You want to know the most shocking thing about your little New Year’s story? It’s that the women managed to go into a police station and complain that some guy groped their arse at night in the middle of a city and the cops didn’t just laugh in their faces. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one of your mates hassling some girl in the street and thinking it was just a bit of fun.” “Not groping them. Never.”

  The Hyena is sitting cross-legged on a corner of the sofa. Tracking down the apartment where Céleste had been living in Barcelona wasn’t difficult. Once Daniel and Xavier admitted she was in the city, she simply tracked the Likes on the tattooist’s new Facebook page, and found her roommates. They told her Céleste had disappeared. She had gone out to do a tattoo and never come back. No, they don’t know anything else. They’re worried. But helpless. They seem like nice kids.

  The Hyena calls over to Kiko, “Hey, patron of the arts, can you pay for my flight to Barcelona?” And Kiko, who is used to such requests, brandishes the credit card he’s been using to cut lines and says, “What the hell are you planning to do when you get there?” And the Hyena retorts, “Not a fucking clue, man. When I get there, I’ll wing it . . .”

  She can hear the vari
ous conversations. The room is full, as it has been every night for the past few days. Words spill out, hissing and crackling like a forest fire, she hears snatches, tongues of flame lapping at her consciousness at regular intervals. A terrible feverishness is making it difficult to breathe. Nina Simone is singing “Mr Bojangles” and someone turns up the volume.

  “I don’t want her to leave her husband I don’t want a relationship with her I like her a lot don’t get me wrong she’s an amazing woman but I’m not in love with her I mean I wouldn’t rule out a threesome you know but the fact that I’m even thinking about that means I’m not in love.”

  “Who’s got the skins? I bought two packs yesterday I don’t know where the fuck they’ve gone.”

  “I was shocked by how much they charged when she said eight euros for a glass of wine I was stunned – I’m not used to drinking on café terraces in Paris anymore.”

  “I signed the petition against T.A.F.T.A. – we’re up to a million signatures I think not that anyone will give a toss.”

  “I paid her a little attention and now she thinks I’m the love of her life but that’s just because her husband neglects her.”

  “Can I have a look at your cigarette packet? I’ve never seen the one with the throat cancer photo. You should keep it, it’s a stunning piece.”

  The room fills with a clamorous hubbub. Olga comes and sits next to her. “I want to go with you.” “You don’t have a passport. Besides, I don’t know where I’m going to crash, I’m sorry, but it’s easier if I go it alone.” “Emilie said she’ll lend me her passport.” “Is she completely nuts? You look nothing like her!” Olga sighs. “Then we can drive there. I want to go with you. I can be useful. If you need to scare the shit out of someone, I can help.” “Honey, I don’t want to sound hurtful, but I don’t need anyone’s help to terrify people.”

  Then Pamela Kant steps into the room and for a brief moment, there is silence. She is not dressed in her usual clothes – she’s wearing Skin Two fetish gear: black leather thigh boots, shorts so minimalist they’re practically panties. The Hyena had forgotten how well stacked she is. Although she has seen a lot of Pamela recently. But this outfit is sublime.

  Aware of the effect she’s created, Pamela does a little twirl, arms raised, radiant. “Hey kids! Guess who I got tarted up like this for? I’ve just been to see Max. Told him I’d had a word with Vernon. That we were interested in his plan for ‘professional’ convergences. He was suspicious, obviously. He seemed very uncomfortable. Almost as if he’d got a guilty conscience. But guess what?” – she arches her back, thrusts out her chest, makes a duckface pout, plants her hands on her hips and smiles – “I eventually got him to relax, he thought I was sincere – either that or he wasn’t thinking at all . . . and when he had to go to the little boy’s room, he forgot to take his phone. Thankfully he’s the kind of dumb fuck who thinks 0000 is a safe passcode.” Pamela takes out her phone, opens the Photos app and hands it to the Hyena. “So, I took a few screenshots of his G.P.S. while he was in Barcelona, and with a bit of luck . . . Céleste should be here,” she says, pointing to a particular address. “I checked all the addresses he visited on Google Maps on the taxi ride here and I think this is the house we’re interested in.” Kiko throws up his hands to heaven. “Blessed be the sluts and their superpowers! Did he realise you checked his G.P.S. while he was off taking a piss?” Pamela does not smile as she says, “By the time I left his place, honey, checking the search history on his phone was the last thing on his mind.” Olga stubbornly insists, “I want to go with you. Have you given back the rental car? Kiko, can you rent a car for us? I’m not staying here on my own, I want sun, sea and sadism. Xavier, can you look after the dogs, please?”

  A BUTANERO WHEELS A HAND TRUCK ALONG THE STREETS OF Barceloneta, tapping the gas cylinders with a spanner. At every corner, he stops and listens for someone to call down and tell him to come up. Gusts of wind billow the laundry, swell drying beach wraps and set Catalan flags fluttering . . . Birds are singing in their tiny cages. Céleste gazes up at the balconies littered with a curious collection of hanging bicycles, water tanks, luxuriant plants and cleaning equipment . . .

  The strangest thing, after everything that has happened, is how normal things are. The notion that, for other people, life has carried on. There is no logic to it. Reason, language, analysis – all these things are useless. We constantly delude ourselves when we pretend that things have an importance, a solidity, that life rests on a stable foundation.

  It happened only a few days ago, yet already it seems to belong to a different era. Céleste heard them breaking the door down, the kick and the body slams, the deafening cacophony. She was accustomed to muffled sounds she could not quite identify, but this ruckus was too unbelievable to be just Franck, stoned, with Crazy Cavan cranked up to eleven, galumphing like a drunken elephant. She thought it might be the feds, she thought it might be her father. But what burst through the splintered door of her cell was Olga, the flame-haired giant. And Céleste’s first thought was, thank God it’s not my father. She could not have endured him seeing her in this state.

  *

  They found her. During the time she was held captive, she vacillated between the mercurial moments of hope that helped her to hold out – this couldn’t carry on much longer, people would be searching for her everywhere, she was not going to die like a caged animal, something was bound to happen. Or she would find some way to escape. She would work herself into a frenzy, convinced that it was about to happen – believing that because the situation was unendurable, it was bound to stop. And less glorious moments, beyond grief and tears, when she tumbled into chasms of despair – there was no end to this pain. No-one could endure such black thoughts without losing some part of themselves.

  Even when she saw Olga, she was still terrified. She thought they didn’t realise that Franck was armed, that he was capable of anything. She had shrieked in horror because she immediately thought of failure and of the punishments that would follow. In that moment, she did not believe. She had lost all faith in a reality where her gaoler did not win every round of every imaginable game. Franck, who appears whenever he likes, does whatever he likes, while she obeys and cajoles – Céleste, meek, gentle, docile – prepared to do anything for the promise of an extra crust of bread, prepared to endure anything to avoid another beating. In a few short days, it had already become normal. She had quickly lost her humanity. What people call dignity, when they have not been exposed to torture on a daily basis. People get so worked up about it; but it is the first thing you lose.

  Olga had wrapped her in a blanket that she found in one of the other rooms. The giant scooped her into her arms as though Céleste weighed no more than a child. She could not face climbing the cellar steps. She was raving – convinced that when they reached the top, they would find her torturers waiting. Olga had patience, she did not flag, her arms never faltered, she hugged the girl to her and Céleste felt a fierce anger emanating from her body, and, gradually, she realised that she was like an electrical appliance set back onto its base, she was recharging. She was not recovering her wits, that would not come until much later, but she felt an energy surging through her, a strength that, after long minutes, made it possible for her to say “I’m ready”.

  Upstairs, Franck was in no fit state to call the shots about anything. The image is burned onto Céleste’s memory: the Hyena was kneeling on his chest, having to make no effort to keep him on the ground because he had stopped moving, Franck’s face was turned towards the cellar door and, between punches, Céleste’s eyes met his. He was streaming blood. At first, she felt pity. Then fear of the moment when he came round. Only as an afterthought did it occur to her that she could run – that it was finally possible to escape this hell. The daylight burned her eyes. And she wept. She is weak. It took only a few days for her to completely lose her mind. Mental well-being is a fragile thing, something we realise only when it implodes.

  Olga did not let go
of her. Céleste paid her no heed, but she could feel the massive body just behind her, within reach – her terror was palpable. Little by little, the words swirling around her became intelligible. The Hyena emerged from the house, shielding her eyes with her hand. Céleste noticed that she had washed them, that there was only a fine trace of blood around the fingernails. She had closed the door behind her and said to Olga, “What do we do now? Call the cops?” and Céleste had said, no not the police not now. The Hyena glanced over her shoulder and said, “I think they’ll take care of the clean-up themselves,” and the three of them got into the car, like three girls leaving a restaurant where they’ve just had afternoon tea. Except for one minor detail: Céleste was wearing nothing but the thick blanket given to her by Olga.

  During the drive, they did not say a word. Céleste was shivering. Not with cold – the heat was oppressive. With fear. Fear dogged her like an old acquaintance. She did not want to talk. She did not think to say I’m relieved or thank you or how did you find me? Still less: sorry – you told me to lie low and I didn’t listen. Something in her was not yet free. She stared out the window, saying to herself, all you could think about was this moment, your freedom. Well, here it is. See? But she was not here, she could not connect. She watched the scenery flash past, but she felt dissociated from it. Disconnected from events. The feeling persisted. She does not know how long it lasted, but by the time she was finally able to speak, they had been back at the hotel for some time. She had put on the clothes offered by the Hyena. She hadn’t wanted to shower. Not yet. She felt she did not have the strength to stand, or to pull the curtain to cut herself off from the world. When she had recovered some strength and a little lucidity, her first words were: “Fuck, did you see the looks on their faces down at reception when we walked in?” Because, seeing Céleste struggling, Olga had once again swept her up in her arms, and this was how they had made their entrance, like the couple from “Corpse Bride”, with the bride wrapped in a blanket. When she said this, the other two exchanged a distressed look, but the flame-haired giant played along, “Probably thought I’d given birth to the Little Mermaid,” and this had made Céleste laugh. Since that moment, she has behaved as though nothing happened. When she went back to the apartment to pack up her things, she simply said, “I got into a spot of bother,” and her roommates had looked at her bizarrely. But she didn’t care. It was obvious that they were expecting something more from her. Something she couldn’t give.