by Anna Gavalda
ALSO BY
ANNA GAVALDA
French Leave
Billie
Life, Only Better
I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere
Someone I Loved
Hunting and Gathering
Europa Editions
8 Blackstock Mews
London N4 2BT
www.europaeditions.co.uk
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
Copyright © Le Dilettante, 2017
First publication 2019 by Europa Editions
Translation by Alison Anderson
Original Title: Fendre l’armure
Translation copyright © 2019 by Europa Editions
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Emanuele Ragnisco
www.mekkanografici.com
Cover illustration by Mariachiara Di Giorgio
ISBN 9781787701731
Anna Gavalda
THE CRACKS
IN OUR ARMOUR
Translated from the French
by Alison Anderson
THE CRACKS
IN OUR ARMOUR
For Bénédicte
COURTLY LOVE
1
I said stop. Don’t push it.”
I didn’t feel like going at all. I was exhausted, I felt ugly and, worse still, I hadn’t shaved. Times like this I’m completely useless, and since I know nothing will come of it I always end up as smashed as a bomb site.
I know, I’m too sensitive but hey, I can’t help it. If I’m not looking my best, with my pussy all neat and tidy, I can’t just leave myself open for anything.
Never mind the fact I got in an argument with my stupid boss while I was finishing my cages, and that really sapped my energy.
It was all over that new ProCanina line, Puppy Sensitive.
“I won’t sell it,” I said to him, over and over, “I won’t sell it. It’s complete bullshit. Enhances cerebral and visual development,” I read, shoving his bag of kibble back at him, twenty-seven euros for a six-pound bag, enhances cerebral development, tell me another one. Hey, if that were true, they should eat it themselves, assholes.
My boss walked off, yelling about his report, and my behaviour, and my language, and how I’ll never get that permanent contract, yadda yadda yadda, but what the fuck do I care. He can’t fire me and he knows it as well as I do. Since I’ve been working there, profits have doubled and I brought all my former clientele from Favrot as a dowry, so . . .
Up yours, time clock, up yours.
I don’t know why he’s so antsy when it comes to that supplier. I suppose the rep has been promising him all sorts of things. Smartphone cases shaped like kibble, toothpaste for his poodle, weekends by the seaside . . . Or hey, even better, a weekend by the seaside masquerading as a sales seminar so he can go get his rocks off, away from his old lady.
That would be just his style.
I was over at my friend Samia’s. I was eating her mum’s pastries and watching her straighten her hair, strand by strand by strand. It took forever. Like, wearing the veil, in comparison, is women’s lib. I sat there licking my fingers—dripping with honey—and admiring her patience.
“But, uh . . . since when you sell stuff for pappies?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“That kibble, you said. Pappy Sensitive.”
“Nah. It’s puppy. Puh-peez.” Samia’s English is not great.
“Oh, sorry,” she laughed, “so what’s the problem? You don’t like the way it tastes?”
I stared at her.
“Hey, take it easy,” she went. “Don’t look at me like that. What, I can’t say anything anymore? And why don’t you come with me tonight? Go on, puh-leez . . . C’mon, girl . . . For once, don’t let me down.”
“Whose party is it?”
“My brother’s old flatmate.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“I don’t either, but who cares! We go check it out, take our pick, go eenie-meenie, then talk about it!”
“Knowing your brother, it’s gonna be another one of those posh things.”
“And so what? What’s wrong with posh? The food’s yummy, honey! They don’t have to call everyone they know just to have decent stuff and in the morning you might even get fresh croissants.”
I really wasn’t in the mood. I wasn’t about to tell her but I had a whole stack of episodes of Sexy Nicky to catch up on and I was really fed up with all her crap plans for lonely hearts.
The thought of taking the RER depressed me, I was cold and hungry, I smelled like bunny shit, and all I wanted was to be in bed, alone, with my series.
She put down her hair straightener thingie and knelt before me, rounding her lips into a heart, pressing her palms together.
Okay.
I walked over to her closet with a sigh.
Friendship.
The only thing that contributes to my cerebral development.
“Take my Jennyfer top!” she shouted from the bathroom, “It’ll look great on you!”
“Uh, this really slutty thing?”
“What d’you mean, it’s really pretty. And there’s a little sequined animal on the front. It was made for you, honestly!”
Yeah sure.
I borrowed her pussy mower, took a shower, and practically dislocated my shoulders to get Messrs. Roro and Ploplo into her size XXS T-shirt with Glitter Kitty on the front.
Downstairs, by the letterboxes, I stopped and turned around to look at myself in the mirror, just to make sure you could see my Mushu’s little beard sticking up above my low-rise jeans.
Nah, you couldn’t, drat . . . I had to give a little downward tug on the waistline.
I love this tattoo. It’s Mushu (the dragon in Mulan) (no seriously I love that cartoon, I’ve seen it at least a hundred and fifty-six times, and cried every time. Especially during the training when she manages to climb to the top of the pole.).
The guy who did the tattoo swore it was a real one, Ming dynasty and all, and I believe him, since he’s Chinese, too.
“Wow. You rock.”
Since she was my best friend, I didn’t really catch her compliment, but when I saw the expression on the face of the guy coming out of the elevator I realized that, yeah, it worked.
He was helpless.
Sami pointed at the wall:
“Hey, M’sieu . . . There’s a fire extinguisher over there . . . ”
By the time it registered we were already running down the street toward the station, laughing and squeezing each other’s hand tight because with those heels we were wearing we might as well have been Thumper and Bambi in Holiday on Ice.
We took the 7:42 P.M. SCOP and we checked to make sure—in case the party got dicey—that there was a ZEUS bus to get us back at four minutes to one A.M. Then Samia got out her sudokus so she’d look like some rocking bluestocking otherwise they pester you on public transport, I swear, nonstop.
2
Posh sort of place, tell me about it. There were at least four coded electronic doors to go through before we could start digging into the potato crisps.
Four!
I swear, the police station in Bobigny is like a Playmobil farm in comparison.
At one point I even thought we’d be spending the night by the recycling bin. I was going crazy. This was Sami all over, what a drag, of the sort my-credit-card-is-maxed-out-but-I’ll-use-it-anyway.
Lucki
ly some guy came out to take his toy Schnauzer for a wee, otherwise we’d be there still.
We rushed over to him. I think the poor guy freaked out. Even though I’d never hurt an animal. Even if Schnauzies, gotta confess, they’re not really my thing. I’ve never liked wire-hairs. The beard, whiskers, hair on their bellies, around their paws and all that, honestly it’s just way too much maintenance.
We made such a fuss on all the entry phones that eventually someone let us in and once we were out of the cold we headed straight for the antifreeze.
While I was sipping a lukewarm, borderline nauseating glass of punch I did a 360 degree reconnoitre of the room to evaluate the merchandise on offer.
Meh. I was already missing my series. Nothing but milk-fed little mama’s boys. Not my drug of preference at all.
If I understood correctly, it was some sort of artists’ do. Photo exhibition of some woman who’d been to India or somewhere. I didn’t really look too closely. Since I was actually in Paris and not in the banlieue for once, I didn’t want people to go showing me more poverty.
I had all I needed at home.
Sami was already alarming some sort of Goth with a flyaway lock of hair and his mum’s Maybelline kohl and honestly I couldn’t tell what her freak-show intentions were until I noticed that her little stud-bejeweled Dracula had a buddy in Gucci right there next to him.
And then: okay. Then it clicked. This would make for a perfect selfie.
Because I know her, my little Sami. The thought that for the first time in her life she might be rubbing hips with a Gucci belt that wasn’t of the flea market variety, that already cleared the way for the guy.
Or for his prick, shall we say.
So I wouldn’t be a third wheel, I went on a tour of the apartment.
Big deal.
Nothing but books.
I felt sorry for the cleaning lady.
I leaned down to look at a photograph of a cat. It was a Birman. You could tell from the little white socks. I like them, but they have a delicate constitution. And then there’s the price tag . . . You can get two Siamese for one Birman, pretty pricey paws. And it reminded me that I still have all the scratching posts and rope trees to unpack. Whew. I hardly have any room left on the shelves. I’ll wait until the sale on the—
“Allow me to introduce Arsène.”
Fuck, he really gave me a fright, stupid prat.
I hadn’t noticed him. The guy in the armchair right behind me. He was hiding in the shadows and all you could see was his leg. I mean, his effeminate sock and black ankle boot. And his hand on the armrest. His big hand, playing with a tiny box of matches.
“My cat. My father’s, to be exact. And Arsène, allow me to introduce . . . ”
“Uh . . . Lulu.”
“Lulu?”
“Yes.”
“Lulu . . . Lulu . . . ” he repeated, adopting a super mysterious tone of voice, “Lulu, that could be Luce or Lucie. Or Lucille . . . Even Ludivine . . . Unless it’s . . . Lucienne?”
“Ludmila.”
“Ludmila! How lucky! A heroine straight out of Pushkin! And what about your Ruslan, my dear? Still out looking for you with that rascal Rogday?”
Help.
Fuck. Whenever there’s one that escapes from the centre for the disabled, you can be sure he’s got a tag with my name on it.
Damn right. How lucky.
“Sorry?” I said.
He stood up and I saw his build was nothing like his feet. That he was even downright cute. Shoot, that really wasn’t going to work for me.
He asked me if I wanted something to drink and when he came back with two glasses that weren’t plastic cups but real glass glasses from his kitchen, we went out on the balcony for a smoke.
I asked him whether Arsène was named after Arsène Lupin and his white gloves so that he’d get right away that I wasn’t as dumb as I looked and that’s when I saw a flicker of disappointment in his gaze. He congratulated me, in a kind of heavy-handed way, but you could tell he was thinking, Shit, she’s not going to be as easy a lay as she looks, the bitch.
Yup. Don’t judge a book, etc. I’m vulgar, but that’s my camouflage. Like geckos on tree trunks or Arctic foxes whose coats change in winter, what you see does not reflect my true colours.
There are these hens, I can’t remember what they’re called, that have feathers behind their claws, that way they can erase their tracks as they move along—well I’m the same except it’s the other way around, I cover my trail before I even come into contact with anyone.
And why? Because this body of mine distorts my nature.
(Even more so when I wear my friend Samia’s flypaper T-shirts, I must confess.)
So we started with his cat then cats in general and then dogs and blah and blah how they’re not as noble but way more affectionate and from there, no getting away from it, we came to my job.
He thought it was terrific when he found out I was the one in charge of all those critters over at the Animaland in Bel-Ébois.
“All of them?!”
“Yeah . . . Fishing worms, dogs, guinea pigs, gerbils, carp, parakeets, canaries, hamsters and, uh . . . rabbits—dwarf rabbits, lop rabbits, angoras . . . Then all the ones I can’t remember because of the rum, but they’re there, all right.”
(To be honest I’m not the one in charge, but since he lived across from Notre-Dame and I live behind the Stade de France, I felt duty-bound to even out the playing field, so to speak.)
“That’s magnificent.”
“What is?”
“No, what I mean is, mesmerizing. Quite romantic.”
Really? I thought. Lugging stuff around, labelling, lifting, piling bags of feed almost as heavy as you are, putting up with the customers—the fucking know-it-all breeders, the dog handlers who piss you off with their rates, the little old ladies who go on for hours with their tales of old abandoned kitties and then the folks who ask if you’ll exchange their kid’s dead hamster while they give a sigh, super pissed-off as if the hamster had been the wrong size. Dealing with bosses, seeing your schedule change because of some brown noser, fighting to go on your break, feeding the entire menagerie, checking the water dishes, keeping the dominant males apart, speeding the dying ones to a merciful death, disposing of the corpses, and changing over seventy litter boxes a day, you really think it’s mesmer-thingy?
He must have, since he asked me a zillion questions.
And what about exotic pets, was it true that people kept pythons and cobras in their one-bedroom apartments, and did those mint snackies for dogs really work because his grandfather’s lab had foul breath (after that he never said “my grandfather” when he referred to him, he always said “my Bon-Papa” as if it were some sort of Bonne Maman jam for rich people, really cute) and did I like rats, and was it true that the movie Ratatouille had started some sort of rat-mania, and had I ever been bitten, and was I vaccinated against rabies, and had I ever picked up a snake, and which breeds were the most popular, and . . .
And what happened when they didn’t get sold?
What did we do with puppies who’d outgrown their sell-by date?
Did we kill them?
What about mice? Did we give them to labs when we had too many?
And was it true that people flushed their turtles down the toilet, that punks with dogs were real softies, that rabbits didn’t like cannabis plants, that there were crocodiles at large in the Paris sewers and . . . and . . .
And I felt tipsy. In a good way. Not grumpy, just light-headed.
Pickled, in other words.
And because I love my job, frankly I didn’t mind putting my smock back on. Even in some swanky apartment and long after closing time.
I told him about every aisle, from the shavings to the ceiling and he was listening really attentively and saying, Brilliant. Br
illiant.
Brilliant.
“And fish, too?”
“Fish, too,” I nodded.
“Go on. Tell me about them.”
It was weird. I was having a really good time even though I wasn’t completely wasted.
It was . . . What was that word of his?
Mesmerizing.
“Well, Monsieur, first of all you have to choose between fresh and salt water, because it won’t be the same equipment. But otherwise, if you want a decent aquarium, I would recommend the very attractive angelfish, which swims majestically with its long, elegant fins, and then there’s the discus, which is shaped like a disc and is truly magnificent . . . Then there are danios, brill, harlequin rasboras, and neon tetras, which are like jewels, with their fluorescent scales . . . Like glowworms, only in the water . . . And let’s not forget the otocinclus, which are regular cleaners, the way they eat seaweed, and the hypostomus, which clean the windows as well and, uh, personally I really like the Indian loaches, with those triple black stripes on their body, very classy, but they tend to stay hidden at the bottom. You don’t see them often. Then there are guppies . . . and gouramis, too. But you have to watch out for them, they’re troublemakers. They like to eat the neons, that’s the problem. Anyway, I’d advise you to get them very young, and raise them all together. And of course we have a wide range of aquariums. Aqualantis, Nano, Eheim, Superfish, and all the accessories available on the market, as well as a prime selection of exclusive imports. Gravel, pebbles, seaweed, plants, decors, filtration systems, water heaters, air pumps, and pH kits. So you see . . . it’s all here.”