Even at the Nuit Debout protests, women have every reason to complain. If they spend the night on place de la République, they are constantly hassled by drunk guys groping their arses and even physically attacking them. Things have got to such a point that Patrice can’t help but wonder why we don’t hear stories about armies of women with hunting knives disembowelling guys just to restore calm.
If women cannot feel safe at night on place de la République because the men have been drinking and feel entitled to touch them up, whether they like it or not . . . how the fuck can men be protesting about the violence done by economic liberalism when they’re happy to exert their power over women at the first opportunity? Guys who are incapable of accepting that if they make half the population uncomfortable when they’re drunk they should maybe stop drinking and find something better to do aren’t genuinely trying to rethink the balance of power. They’re just guys who are frustrated that they don’t get to wield the power. That said, Olga is a force of law and order unto herself – after dark, she hunts down the drunk lechers and metes out her own brand of punishment, and suffice it to say that, after an encounter with her, they won’t be thinking about groping someone’s arse again for a while. It’ll take at least ten days before they can even get it up. And Patrice has yet to see a guy willing to take on Olga, even when he’s blind drunk. She’s someone else who has changed since she came to the camp. Before, she was a big brute, now she’s one hundred per cent Godzilla. She’s really blossomed in the group.
Whichever way you look at it, these gatherings are merely a beginning. But given that, for once, people seemed determined to come up with something other than a new swastika, Patrice wants to be involved.
THE HOUSE IS SO DRAB THAT IT WOULD ALMOST BE UGLY but for the fact that it is surrounded by century-old elms that mask the unprepossessing building. The path that leads to the front door is flanked with oak trees whose tops converge into a lush vault, it feels like entering a palace.
Between fierce downpours, it is warm enough to go outside. Although it is May, the weather has been dreadful. Olga stubbornly insisted on staying in Paris as long as possible, she spent several nights sleeping on place de la République saying, “It doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it,” and then she gave up. The Seine burst its banks and, ever since, the city has been inundated. Olga draws her own conclusions: “If we want to start a revolution in France, we’ll have to do it indoors. We don’t have the weather for an outdoor revolution. It’s not like I’m used to creature comforts, but ten days up to my knees in water and even I’m forced to give up.” At the camp she wanders around, one hand clutching a bag of crisps and the other holding a tincture of essential oils that supposedly cures the common cold, sipping straight from the bottle – and none of them dare point out that this is not how essential oils are usually applied.
She follows Xavier’s poodle, step by step, to make sure it doesn’t run off. Left to her own devices, the dog sets off through the thickets, across the fields that lead to the nearby farms and stops in the middle of a herd of cows. Then, she grazes. Engrossed in doing something she loves, the poodle doesn’t hear her name being called, so getting her to come home is almost a military operation, creeping between the cattle, trying not to start a stampede.
*
Vernon has made the most of a sunny spell to bring the chaise longue outside. It’s not warm enough for sunbathing, but at least he is getting some fresh air. They have been holed up inside 24/7 ever since they arrived. He feels a joy that he can’t put into words. The outside world is collapsing. It is elegantly crumbling, breaking down, its forms disintegrating, not with a bang but a whimper. A gentle collective euphoria pervades every particle of the house. The reality beyond these walls seems remote. He already finds it difficult to remember that there was a hiatus.
*
Daniel arrived with a new friend, Rodrigue. He strums an acoustic guitar. His forehead is slashed by a long dark fringe. On his neck, he has a tattoo of a raven. He is intensely shy. When he sings, his voice loses its timidity, it is more magnetic than his speaking voice. His voice quivers with emotion as he sings “Under the Bridge”. Last night he told Vernon he spent twenty years playing in a hard-core punk band, and has only just quit. He told his bandmates after the soundcheck, before a gig in the suburbs of Paris. I’m quitting at the end of this tour. None of them asked why. He finished the tour dates and never saw them again. Twenty years of his life, over, just like that. He says they were relieved. I was the one who had trouble making time to tour. I’m the only one who’s got a nine-to-five. I read meters for a water company, I can sort out time off with my supervisor to play gigs, but even so. I slowed them down.
Emilie appears with an orange towel under one arm and announces that there’s no hot water and she doesn’t have the energy for a cold shower. Then she stands next to the guitarist and her voice joins his. She is wearing a black dress that buttons up the front and makes her look like the heroine of some old Italian movie. She has the breasts of a different era, heavy, ponderous, Rubenesque.
Rodrigue segues into the opening chords of “Purple Rain”. Sitting a few metres away on white plastic chairs whose legs are sinking into the wet grass, Sylvie and Pénélope loudly comment:
“Damn, all the times we’ve danced to Prince.”
“Remember Vanity 6? ‘Nasty Girl’.”
“2016, Jesus, what a fucking shitty year.”
“Did you know that Jesus appeared to Vanity when she OD’d? He told her that if she promised to abandon her Vanity persona, He’d save her.”
“The real Jesus Christ would never say something like that. I’m absolutely sure. God is pure love; He’d never tell Vanity to put her clothes back on.”
Xavier comes and stands next to Rodrigue, his hands on his hips. Addressing the company at large, he announces, “Greetings alter-globalists, I’m so fucking happy to be here. I don’t know why. But I’m happy.” His hulking frame seems all the more colossal next to the puny guitarist. He waits for Rodrigue to finish playing then reaches for the guitar, “May I?”, he pulls up a stool. He launches into a punk riff, playing bar chords with his index finger across the fretboard. Idly he sings, “Ils marchent dans la rue comme des soldats perdus / Une croix sur le front comme seule décoration. / Ils n’ont rien prévu pour leur promotion / Même pas de se servir de la révolution.” And Patrice takes his head in his hands and whimpers, “Oh shit, not French punk!” but like all the guys his age who dabble in the music scene, he knows all the words and ends up singing: “Tous mes camarades sont des soldats perdus / Pensent qu’à la musique et aux filles presque nues. / On les accuse d’avoir des idées reçues / Peu importent leurs idées puisqu’il y a l’amitié.”
Vernon grabs his pouch of tobacco pouch, gets to his feet and goes to join the girls. His hips ache a little. It is not the first time he feels pain as he stretches. He is worried that these twinges may be related to changes in the weather, which would mean rheumatism. He’s ready for a lot of things, but certainly not rheumatism.
*
Lydia has her notebook on her lap; she summarises:
“So, I’ve got: Lemmy, Bowie and Roger. Now we’ve just got to decide where to go from here. Where do we start?”
“You mean if we include everyone, it’s not a list, it’s a telephone directory.”
“How about Joe Strummer? What do you think? We’ve got to start somewhere.”
“Joe Strummer – that makes no sense, that means leaving out Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, it means leaving out Elvis! I can’t imagine founding a church without Elvis.”
“Not to mention Nina Simone. And James Brown.”
“James Brown came after Joe Strummer.”
“But why Joe Strummer? Do you have a particular reason in mind, or is this some random shit?”
“It’s just a cut-off date. We have to have one.”
“What we need is common sense, not a cut-off date. So, here’s my list: Joe Strummer Janis Joplin Elvis
Presley Prince David Bowie Lemmy . . .”
“Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Joey Ramone, Dee Dee Ramone.”
“Kurt Cobain. Whitney Houston.”
“Whitney Houston? Really?”
“Absofuckinglutely! Can you imagine a church without Saint Rita?”
“We’ve already got Amy.”
“The lost women, we can have two saints, it seems the minimum, given who we’re dealing with.”
*
They’re planning to redecorate a church. They’re already talking about the next convergence and they’ve asked Pamela if she can find an abandoned church. One they can decorate with icons of the gods of rock, a few drawings, a whole concept. They’re investing a lot of energy in this project. Vernon is sceptical: “But what are you planning to do in this church of yours?” “Take drugs and listen to music.”
Behind him, Vernon hears Xavier and Patrick singing, “Dis, Papa, comment qu’tu faisais / Pour monter à l’assaut / Quand ta jeunesse fondait / Brûlée par des salauds? / Eux, ils faisaient la guerre / Sur cartes d’états major / Toi, tu buvais d’la bière / Pour supporter la mort . . .” Lydia frowns, turns from them to Vernon and says, “What the hell’s got into them?” “I know it’s hard to believe, but they were young once.”
Jésus is coasting down the tarmacked driveway on an electric longboard – a bit like an electric scooter with no handlebar that you have to steer without using your hands. Effortlessly gliding along, he makes it look easy, but Vernon has already tried riding this thing, and it turns out it’s an extreme sport. He watches as the young man flashes past and wonders what it must be like to go through life being so astonishingly beautiful. It’s almost a handicap – when talking to Jésus it’s difficult to think of anything else, to get past the magnetic pull he exerts, wittingly or unwittingly, on all those who come within his orbit.
*
A few raindrops splash against their foreheads, they glance up to see whether it’s another downpour. They all scrabble to their feet, collect the ashtrays glasses cups lighters the little amplifier and everyone heads back to the living room. They barely have time to shut the doors before a torrential cloudburst drenches the lawn.
*
Everyone finds a place to perch in the vast living room that is almost empty except for a sofa and numerous scatter cushions. Lydia plugs in her rose-gold iPod, which looks prehistoric, though it’s not even ten years old, and uses her finger to scroll through her library, deciding what to play. As she scrolls through the tracks, the iPod makes the soft clicking sound characteristic of that distant era. When she comes to “Where Did Our Love Go”, she presses PLAY and Vernon gives her a thumbs up.
Lying on her back, surrounded by notebooks, Olga reads aloud in a low voice the texts she has prepared for the next convergence. Her nights at place de la République were rewarding, she has enough material to keep her going.
“How do we hope when hope is dead? Our mission is not to offer a welcome to the wretched of the earth. Our mission is to live cut off from the world by walls. Our mission is to live surrounded by barbed wire, armed guards and customs posts. Our mission is to eat sugar by the ton, to cut down vast forests, to produce billions of rolls of toilet paper, to stroll idly between overladen supermarket shelves, to prize manufactured goods. Our mission is to sink migrant ships before they affect tourism. Our mission is to be inflexible to reject accident to slather ourselves in sunscreen to gorge on ice cream to entangle ourselves in the interweb to swallow the same bullshit theories, our mission is to count the number of extinct species, to plunder those most in need, to swill gallons of soda. Our mission is contempt – contempt for everything that is free, everything that is given, contempt for beauty, for the sacred, for other people’s work, other people’s consent, other people’s lives . . .”
Xavier raises his arms, grabs a wrist with the opposite hand and stretches himself. “It’s too long and it’s not particularly witty, this speech of yours,” he says. “Just listening made me want to top myself . . . You should think about doing poetry slams, Olga. I think you’ve got a future as a poet for primary school kids.” Olga gives him a sidelong glance, but does not rise to the bait. She says, “You’re lucky I’m so magnanimous.” Xavier is depressed. Marie-Ange has gone, leaving their daughter with him. Her company proposed that she manage the launch of an e-consultancy platform in Macedonia. She accepted. Maybe it’s better if I go alone, she said to Xavier. He didn’t try to dissuade her. Actually, I was pretty surprised myself, he says. We’re fond of each other. Financially, we know we wouldn’t be able to survive independently. If I had to pay rent, I’d have to live with you guys and if I was here all the time, I’d go insane, I’d probably kill someone. Besides, this is no place to bring up a child. She’d have to change schools every five minutes, it’s ridiculous. Marie-Ange will be spending a year over in Macedonia. He says, “The most difficult thing is to watch a dream die.” He says, “When I think about my love for Marie-Ange, I’m reminded of my dog, the one that had cancer, when the vet came to put her down. That’s love – the lifespan of a dog. And it’s always the same: one day you realise it’s over, and there’s nothing you can do. You’ll find yourself with a box full of ashes, you can always put it on the mantelpiece. There’s no going back. You can’t bring a dead love back to life.”
He gets to his feet, goes over and carefully cuts thin slices from a huge, round wheel of Edam cheese. Sélim pushes open the door, he is drenched. He says, I parked just outside the gate, Jesus, it’s bucketing down, and Emilie hands him a towel. He takes off his jacket and hangs it over a radiator. He is just back from seeing his daughter in Athens. He is bubbling with energy. Before he even sits down, he has launched into a detailed description of the refugees who have settled there, the solidarity of the Greek citizens in spite of the terrible poverty afflicting all of them. “How’s Aïcha?” the Hyena asks. Sélim stops in his tracks, he considers. “She’s changing so fast. Sometimes I feel like the Aïcha who starts a sentence isn’t quite the same as the one who ends it. She’s pregnant. She wouldn’t talk to me about the father, but I’m guessing it’s not an immaculate conception . . .”
The Hyena turns to him. “She’s keeping it?” Sélim rolls his eyes to heaven. “I didn’t even dare mention the word abortion.” “Is she happy?” Xavier asks and Sélim says, “She’s learning Greek, and, weirdly, I think she’s pretty alright.” All eyes turn towards the stairs, where Céleste has just appeared. She repeats, “She’s having a baby?” Then, with a joy so feverish it is unsettling, she races down the steps and throws her arms around Sélim’s neck. “I’m so happy. You’ve no idea.”
Sélim pours himself a glass of wine. He says, “I feel too young to be a grandfather, but I feel ready. On the other hand, I’d like to persuade her to come back to France. It’s hard bringing up a kid on your own, I should know. I wish I could help.” Olga says, “Why don’t we just kill Dopalet? He doesn’t know me, he’s never seen me, I’ll just wait outside his building, cut his throat, and go straight home . . . Who’s going to work out what happened? Huh? Who?”
*
Then Céleste opens the door and walks out into the rain. She walks straight ahead. Without a word, the Hyena follows, allowing her a few metres’ advantage. Vernon watches the scene from a distance – the shadowy figure of Céleste, screaming. Her arms stiffly pressed against her body, fists probably clenched, head thrown back, she screams like a woman possessed, then raises her arms, shadowboxing, she stumbles, recovers, starts throwing punches at the empty air. A panic attack, like a storm suddenly breaking, but when the Hyena comes closer and touches her arm, Céleste turns towards them and Vernon sees she has an absurd fit of the giggles. He goes to join them. His boots sinking into the long grass make for difficult going. He is not sure that he’s doing the right thing, he has no right to get involved – Céleste has not asked anything of him, or even shown him any particular affection. A voice says “try” and he steps closer. Céleste turns around, a
nd her smile has transformed into a mask of hatred, she stares into his eyes and says, this is your fault, all of it, from the very beginning, you were the one who started it. It’s you. Then she pummels his face, his chest, kicks at his shins in a wild fury, she howls, but Vernon does not step away. He can feel the blows. He can smell the earth, that distinctive, reassuring scent. Then Céleste slows, her screams give way to a choking cough, she bends, her body gives way. Very slowly, Vernon lays a hand on her back. She is sobbing. He opens his arms, she hesitates, then she presses herself against him and collapses. Her whole body is wracked with tears. Hands in his pockets, Xavier comments: “Fuck’s sake, you alter-globalist snowflakes are such drama queens.” Standing next to him, glass in hand, Sylvie bites her lower lip, and says, “She’s doing what she needs to. There’s not much you can do in this kind of situation except scream. Scream, and wait . . .”
Back inside, someone cranks up the volume, and through the curtain of rain, unfurling in the darkness, comes the smoky drawl of Leonard Cohen singing “You want it darker”.
“PAPA, DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE LIGHTER FUEL FOR MY ZIPPO is? I found the gas in the sideboard, but not the lighter fuel.”
*
In the bathroom, Solange doesn’t hear his reply. Her nose is pressed to the mirror. She has torn a Kleenex in half and is carefully popping blackheads. There are a lot of spots that she hadn’t noticed. Disgusting, repulsive. She splashes her face with cold water and looks again – she is finding it hard to breathe. Tomorrow is the big day. It’s weird how normal everything feels.
Her father cuts the bread on the same red plastic plate he has always used. The kitchen table has never changed, either. She grew up in this house, just as her mother and her grandmother did before her. The kitchen is huge. The chimney breast was taken out when she was a little girl and replaced with a big freezer.
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