Bye Bye Blondie

by Virginie Despentes

  “I’m here because my father started yelling at me and instead of keeping quiet, I answered back.”

  Wrong again, you could tell right away from the old guy’s expression.

  “And in your opinion, why are you refusing to be a woman?”

  Gloria decided to keep her answers to herself. Because agreeing to be a woman means suffering in silence, not fighting back. Yes, you asshole, that’s the real answer.

  But for the moment she didn’t know what to say instead. After all, she had breasts big enough to be in a Russ Meyer movie, she knew she had a sexy behind, and when she was allowed to get dressed she was quite happy to wear skirts (with holes in her tights, agreed). She’d threaded pink laces into her trainers, she never went out without makeup, red eyes, black lips, green nail polish, and she was the only girl she knew who could climb out at night wearing high heels.

  The old guy had written pages of observations before he got back to what he considered crucial: “Why make yourself ugly? Why did you cut your hair like that? And dye it that color?”

  If she’d been the lead singer in a group, it would have made good lyrics: Help, I’m in the madhouse, way away from you, the shrinks just want me to have a new hairdo—but of course here it wouldn’t help at all.

  So, keep your mouth shut again, hey ho, granddaddy, it’s called punk! Nothing to do with whether I’ve got a pussy, a prick, or a pair of wings, come to that. But since this old man had probably never left his own backyard . . .

  She was surprised that someone with all these qualifications, in charge of a hospital section, should be so completely stupid as not to realize—in 1986!—that she was just going through normal teenage years and that there were far more distressing forms of rebellion than dyeing your hair a bright color.

  Still, she thought she’d convinced him. When he’d made her wait in the corridor while he talked with her parents, she hadn’t worried one bit. Tongue in cheek, she’d convinced him that she was a nice reasonable girl, capable of answering questions, and not flying off the handle every couple of seconds.

  He called her back in, sat her down between her mother and her father. She was expecting a sermon, advice, the kind of guff you got from counselors at school. When the words “And I think it would be best if you were to stay here with us for a while” were pronounced, Gloria closed her eyes, her mouth, her nose, her skin, closed down everything, to retreat deep, deep inside herself, inside her heart and her stomach. She’d gone away. Between her and the world, that was it, over, she bent her head and held her breath.

  There are moments, like this, that change everything. What had seemed solid and unchanging crumbles in an instant and nothing will ever grow there again as it had before. She once more closed her mouth, her eyes, her nose, and swore she’d get out, get out without betraying herself, and above all without being cured.

  She felt, rather than saw, her parents accepting the decision. How could these two adults, who were themselves exceptionally violent, who flew into tempers every day, how could these two adults, full of pain and depression, how could they not see that she was simply their daughter? How could they leave her here, in the hands of strangers? Interned. Locked up. Battened down.

  Until they were in the corridor, she said not a word. In fact, she was waiting for something to happen. For the old order to reassert itself. For one of her parents to come down to earth and say, “She’s coming home with us, we don’t even know you, monsieur.”

  Finally, in the corridor, she had burst out, begging her father not to do it, “Don’t leave me here, don’t do it,” she had begun to cry. “Not here, not again, I can’t bear it, I’m begging you.”

  She’d never begged him for anything, certainly not in that tone of voice. His face had assumed an expression that she would often inspire by other means in other men, the expression of someone who’s terribly sorry, but he’s about to ruin your life.

  When she’d taken it in that she was really going to have to stay there, she was stunned, knocked out, a foul taste in her mouth and revulsion in every bone. Her parents had brought her an overnight bag, but she wasn’t allowed her own clothes or makeup—and of course they hadn’t thought of cigarettes. They looked as if they were at a funeral, as if they hadn’t slept. And she was the one reproaching herself, the one who felt guilty. Just like when she ended up on the floor, arms wound around her head to protect herself from her father’s blows, and her mother would invariably help her to get up, whispering, in mournful tones, “Why did you get in such a state?” Except that he was the one with the aggression inside him. He must have suffered the same things as a child, humiliated and beaten every day. Some of your dad’s sickness, some of your mother’s, and then good luck to you, but oh my God, however did she get this way? How was she ever going to not drive other people mad, except by being someone else?

  Afraid of her. They were afraid of her when they got in at night, turning the key in the front-door lock, what would she have been up to now? Afraid when the phone rang, what were they about to hear? She was their own inner demon. And yet, they’d done all they could to suppress it, deny it, but here it was, coming out again through their daughter’s lips. They were afraid, they’d asked for help. And all anyone had been able to suggest was to lock her up among lunatics and stuff her full of mind-numbing drugs. The same pills she’d have paid for in a club or at a concert she now had to scheme ways of spitting out. Result: she hardly slept. At night, they regularly opened her door, glanced in, watching her. What for? No idea. Just out of habit? Or to make it clear there was no privacy. No way of protecting herself from their inquisition.

  Waking up at Jeanne d’Arc, even before she opened her eyes, she would remember where she was, and then in a second the poison came flooding in. And it was even worse than a toothache, first because there was no chance of buying cigarettes, second because there was no knowing when she’d get out—some people had been there three years—and third because it wouldn’t look at all good on a job application.

  No books, no newspapers, no cigarettes. Just all these mad people together and one TV set for the whole floor. At first, she’d refused to leave her room, and since they were still a bit afraid of her, they’d put her in a single: great. Some wards had eight beds. Ever been in a room with eight deranged people on the night of a full moon? Not much fun. The shakers, the anorexics, old women looking lost, men plotting in the corridors, whispering that they’re being followed, then trying to run away shrieking. There was one guy, about thirty years old, who had a real problem with her. Whenever he saw her, he’d run up and grab her arms just enough to hurt, and then he’d snarl: “You filthy whore, I know you’re putting stuff on the toilet seats, so I’ll get crabs, but it won’t work, I tell you.” He was utterly serious, totally into his fantasy. She would push him away, he would insist, she pushed him away harder, and started screaming to get rid of him, a nurse would appear and tell everyone off. She’d become blasé, very fast. There was a woman for instance, blond, about forty, impeccable hairdo and makeup, skimpy gown, skeletal body, who really freaked you out. She adored Gloria and would lie in wait for her and grab her, pulling her into her room to show her photos of her house, her daughters. Then she’d start crying and asking her if she thought she was thin, and Gloria would say, “Yes, you are a bit, but you’re going to go home, don’t upset yourself,” and the other woman would carry on crying and spreading out on the bed the photos of the life she’d had before, that she was destroying. The worst thing was that most of the people in here were old. Between thirty and fifty, but to Gloria they were positively geriatric.

  All that romantic talk about mental hospitals, how the real lunatics were outside and the ones locked up are the only good people, poetic souls, well, that took quite a knock. Here, they dribbled, they raved, they pissed themselves, they cried a lot, they groaned in the night when they weren’t howling. Nothing funny about it, nothing poetic.

  In her room, lying on her back, she stared at the ceiling and c
hanneled her rage, her fear, her shame, and her frustration into a circle around her navel, a knot of dark energy. She waited. She observed everything, thinking, and refused to do any activities.

  She left her square bedroom with its dark red walls for half an hour every other day for an interview with her therapist: a clueless, listless, and unmotivated woman. Gloria could sincerely understand why you wouldn’t have much enthusiasm for your job if you worked at a supermarket checkout, say, or if you were a caretaker or shop assistant. But not to care about your job when you had the power to say stay or go to someone in a psychiatric prison, that was nihilism taken too far for her. And you were obliged to go and see this obtuse dark-haired woman who was looking after your case. She had protruding teeth and wore glasses with big black butterfly frames. Expensive designer ones. Refusing to go and see her was a big no-no. This woman was obsessed with drugs, that was the only thing that interested her.

  At every session, Gloria had to answer questions, how much she took, how it affected her. And every time, she refused to say that this was the cause of all her problems, “No, you’ve got it wrong, I’m young, it’s just for fun, to get high. I’m not hooked on anything, and I get over it really fast.” The woman seemed to have cloth ears. There weren’t a hundred ways you could answer her questions. She had her files. They were about the real world, and in them were written a certain number of received truths. She was a psychiatrist because she couldn’t be a priest, she was as rigid as a conservative Catholic faced with someone who was into wife-swapping. This therapist wasn’t unlike the education counselors back home, whom the children regarded with suspicion: “If doing what I’m told means ending up like you, I’m going to be a juvenile delinquent.”

  Every other day, this therapist was back asking the same questions: “What kind of drugs, when, who with, did you vomit, cry, were you a victim . . .?” “No, madame, all I did was have a good laugh and enjoy myself. Before I was brought in here, I promise you, I had no complaints.”

  Very soon, she stopped playing too proud to answer, because she wanted to get out. She was too frustrated, locked in her room, and she knew quite well that they wanted her to say something. But she couldn’t work out what. She tried, “If I say that I’ve been lying all the time, and actually, yes, I do drugs, I’m hooked. It’s really hell, it’s like in that book Christiane F. I’ve had to sell all my records to feed my habit, so can you please help me to stop? Then I can get out, okay?” But that didn’t seem to work. “What if I told you I’d been raped when I was little? Can I go home now?”

  So as to meet people, she’d started taking part in the group activities: ergotherapy, group sessions, role-playing, relaxation, music therapy, anything and everything. Uncomprehending art therapists tried to have a go at her head. They would say, with knowing looks: “Aha! I see you’ve drawn an eye.” Well spotted, dork. Then she’d drawn the head of a girl, and it had two eyes. Many meaningful glances would be exchanged. She’d drawn two eyes now! And that was as far as it went. Experts? These people were paid to do this? She’d quite enjoyed the relaxation class, on the other hand, breathing in to inflate her stomach and thoracic cavity, her shoulder blades, so that her body felt heavy on the floor. At least nobody could pretend to understand anything she said here, since nobody asked her anything. The group therapy sessions weren’t so good. Listening to these adults expressing themselves like wounded and humiliated children was the stuff of nightmares. She didn’t need to know all that about these older people. They were revealing their innocence and their inability to grow up. Nothing to do with her. But she kept going back there with unhealthy curiosity. And anyway, otherwise it was so boring.

  She’d made friends, soon after her arrival, with Isabelle, a little brunette who was a real laugh. She seemed just like a kid. For a few days, life seemed to have returned, they visited each other’s rooms, exchanged T-shirts, and shared cigarettes. The first question anyone asked in this place was, “Why are you here?” Gloria always answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea,” and Isabelle had burst out in giggles, “Same here!” Her hair was dead straight, shiny, reaching halfway down her back. She laughed at everything.

  Before Isabelle was transferred to another psychiatric unit, some well-intentioned people took Gloria aside—people who hadn’t even given her the time of day the week before—and made it their business to fill her in: Isabelle was here because she had tortured her little girl, with cigarette burns and putting her hand on an electric hot plate. Gloria had looked each of these Good Samaritans in the eye and said, “Yes, I know,” to show them she didn’t care. But she did care. It freaked her out, in fact, that someone who was so cute, sweet, funny, etc., etc., could at the same time be capable of taking her little girl’s hand and pressing it down on a hot plate to punish her.

  She’d set about loving Isabelle even more, a sort of emotional contortion, but eventually the other girl had had to leave.

  Life reverted to normal, and since she had to get used to this, she’d get used to it. At least from her room she could look out of the window, through the bars. She could see a parking lot, people getting in and out of cars.

  If she went too far from the end of her corridor, a nurse would come running after her. It was impossible, for instance, to go down to the lower floor to buy a newspaper. Her father had to be with her for that. He came in from Nancy every two days. She saw her mother less often, since she found it too upsetting to come.

  The spinal column of every day was the telephone. When it rang in the supervisor’s office, everyone with a room on the corridor froze, all the doors opened, waiting for a name to be called. Someone from outside, from the real world, the world of people free to live without trying, people who didn’t roll on the ground, didn’t hear voices, and weren’t possessed by evil spirits. In a comic and pathetic ballet, every time the phone rang in that little office, the doors opened in a sinister kind of synchronized movement, heads popped out, the lucky inmate walked along beaming and delighted, while all the others returned disappointed to their rooms or to the TV lounge.

  There was a smell everywhere of old people and piss. One little old lady came trotting along whenever she saw Gloria, right up to her, and slapped her face. She had wicked eyes. She only reached up to Gloria’s chest, which made her easy to deal with. Sordid, like everything else.

  When Eric arrived there, he was sufficiently different for her to spot him at once. A funny guy, because there he was, blond and bourgeois, squeaky clean, and convinced his name was Karim. Well, it could have been, perhaps, but the address he gave seemed to rule it out. And he had this very odd way of talking in the slang of the housing estates. The beurs, second-generation young Arabs living in France, weren’t fashionable yet, but they already existed. Still, they didn’t talk in the really weird way Eric did. When he began to explain to the doctors, in a tone of confidentiality, that people on the radio spoke to him directly to warn him about an earthquake, he lost all credibility. The victim of some chemical imbalance, evidently, he was living in a parallel universe, and wearing expensive clothes. When Gloria had glimpsed him between two corridors, he had on a striking black-and-white sweater. Of course, to make him feel better and return to his senses, they quickly confiscated his clothes for the old hospital-gown look.

  He spent his first day there chatting, affable and relaxed, with the young anorexics and the ancient crackpots, he could have talked to the walls and it wouldn’t have surprised anyone. The only cool thing, in fact, about this kind of place was that no one would think of passing a disobliging remark. For instance, if someone took it into their head to scold a chair, get down on all fours, or sit on the floor, huddled up and singing old nursery rhymes, no one would turn a hair. They were left in more peace here than in the Paris metro. Eric obviously took himself for some kind of prophet, you could tell from his eyes and the way he put his hand on people’s shoulders. If that was his speciality . . .

  It took a week for his parents to catch up with him. In fact,
he had entirely recovered his memory, spontaneously, by the second morning in Jeanne d’Arc. The short circuit was over. But he didn’t tell anyone. Because he wanted to get to know Gloria, who at first wasn’t too keen.

  She’d realized that she appealed to him in a lot of ways, which was not exactly flattering, since she had no wish to get involved with some weirdo who believed in aliens.

  The day after Eric arrived, a woman in a white coat had come into Gloria’s room. Whether she was a psychiatrist or someone who cleaned the toilets or just a troublemaker, she didn’t say, all she wanted was for Gloria to stop playing her music so loudly—on her Walkman! In that place, one of the basic principles, no doubt for everyone’s good, was that anyone could just walk into your room at any time to tell you anything. At night for instance, they’d open the door wide, several times, letting the light in, to look at you. Perhaps to check if you were lying on your back when, this week, you were meant to lie on your side. Another thing they checked was that no one was having it off with anyone else. Not at all advisable, mad people getting together. Apparently they’d only harm each other. It’s a well-known fact, cuddles are very bad for them and don’t help anyone recover. (You had to wonder who were the ones with the most damaged heads, the staff or the patients.) So in this woman had stormed, in a great rage. Gloria removed her headphones, politely, without showing how much she would have liked to go on listening to her Motörhead album uninterrupted by some killjoy. And the woman had screamed, “We can hear it in the corridor!” grabbed the headphones, put them to her ear, and pulled a face. Not a rock fan, obviously. Intimidated, Gloria experimented with a goofy smile, meant to express, “It takes all sorts, eh?” But the old witch didn’t see it that way, and grabbed the Walkman with a toss of her shoulders. “You think you’ll get better, listening to stuff like that?”