“No! No, they’re a rock group, they… You really don’t know? They’re… they’re the best band in the whole history of the world!” She starts singing: “And three nights every week, it’s her skin against my skin… No?”
“No, sorry. My mother doesn’t listen to music and Philippe Dumont doesn’t either, and I only listen to… well, not much, really.”
I don’t have a musical ear. My ears are too small, ugly and complicated to catch melodies—I think that, in order to enjoy music, you must need very long sideburns that flap in the wind and funnel notes all the way down a vast, oyster-shaped ear.
“Who’s Philippe Dumont?”
“A makeshift father and a synthetic husband; a handsome man with greying temples, well known to the local middle class, and fond of trips to Venice, from which he comes back with Murano vases that look like multicoloured glass vomit.”
I point at one of them on the windowsill, which currently hosts a long arum lily sticking out its tongue.
“Cool,” says Astrid, unconvinced. “But tell me, Mireille, what did you do, the first time you won the Pig Pageant? Did you close your Facebook account?”
“God no! Are you crazy? I just ordered a Hawaiian pizza, which I ate while reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis because we had a test on it the next day.”
That’s a lie; I’m not the kind to leave book-reading to the night before a test. But I can’t tell poor Astrid the truth, which is that, that night, three years ago, after discovering I’d been awarded the gold medal in the Pig Pageant, I ate a Hawaiian pizza topped with tears and snot, and spent three hours watching videos of cats riding Roombas on YouTube.
“Who’s that guy, Malo whatsisface?”
“A complete dickhead who will be very successful in life.”
“But why… why…”
“Why is he so nasty?”
“Yes, why does he do this?”
“Because he’s very stupid. Probably a birth defect. We were born on the same day, you see, in the same hospital in Bourg-en-Bresse, so I think that the nurses were too busy marvelling that I was the ugliest baby they’d ever seen to notice that baby Malo in the next room needed a bit more oxygen or whatever gas you need in order not to become an absolute arse.”
That’s another lie. Malo and I used to be good friends. In nursery and in primary school, he was neither stupid nor nasty. We had fun together. We’d make bogeys out of playdough. We’d go to each other’s house all the time. We took baths together, had water fights and slapped each other with wet flannels. Then we ended up in the same primary school, and we still kept going to each other’s house after school and playing Mario Kart. In Year 6 we gradually grew apart. He found friends who told him, “Bloody hell, Malo, your friend Mireille is so ugly. She’s a proper minger.” Little by little he started thinking, “Bloody hell, that’s true, I took baths with that ugly girl. I had water fights with that minger.” In high school, it was all over. First day of Year 7, I walked up to him.
I said, “Hi, Malo!”
He was with a group of boys who all reeked of that Lynx shower gel, the one with the advert in which naked girls rub themselves erotically on bottles of said shower gel, even though everyone knows that it stings the genitals atrociously when you put soap directly on them.
He replied, “Yeah, what?”
Me: “Nothing, just hi! You all right? I didn’t get my postcard this summer… You didn’t go to Brittany?”
Him: “Why are you talking to me, you fat cow?”
Me: “Moo!”
And I galloped away, taking care to stick my tongue out at him.
That’s another lie.
I didn’t go “Moo!” I didn’t gallop away with superb wit and detachment. I just stayed standing there with my eyes wide open until my eyeballs fell back inside my skull. I heard them rolling around like snooker balls, and three hours later, when the school nurse managed to fish them out with sugar tongs and slotted them back into place, I recovered my sight in a world where I’d become a fat cow.
The fat cow was wearing a too-tight T-shirt, too-tight jeans and too-tight shoes. She didn’t fit into her clothes or this world.
Anyway: I don’t tell Astrid all that, of course, because she’s very busy crying, the poor dear, on the Ikea stool, which shrieks out that she’s too heavy; and she’s allowed to, after all; I shed a few dozen tears back then too, but now I don’t care any more; it was a long time ago, I was young.
“Oh, no, Fluffles! Don’t throw up on Astrid!”
I fling the cat off the half-Swede at the very last second, as his little ribcage contracts and twitches; hardly has he reached the floor when he vomits up a shapeless little mound of hair, undigested food and thin blades of grass, and, seeing this, runs away at top speed.
“Sorry,” I say to Astrid, and wipe the lump of sick with the rest of the red carpet that is white. “Don’t worry, I know he was just licking your face, but it’s got nothing to do with you. He’s like that: he stuffs himself with grass from the garden as if he never got the message from Mother Nature that he’s supposed to be a carnivore.”
“Who are you talking to, Mireille?”
Mum walks into the kitchen. Astrid raises her eyes towards her, then looks at me, then stares at Mum again, then at me. She’s probably wondering, like everyone else, through which bizarre twist of genetics a gnome like me crawled out of a Cate Blanchett lookalike.
“G-good evening, Madame Laplanche,” Astrid stutters.
“Mum, Astrid, Astrid, Mum. Astrid, Mum, is the Pig Pageant winner this year. She stole my top spot. She was brought up by the sisters and is a fan of Indochine. Do you know Indochine?”
“Of course,” Mum sighs. “I’m so sorry, Astrid; it’s such a horrible contest. I’ve tried to get it banned, but the school can’t do anything, since it’s all happening online. Terrible, I know. I hope you’re not too upset.”
“Thank you, Madame Laplanche,” Astrid whispers. “It’s awful, because I’ve been here less than a year. I hardly know anyone here. I thought people would be nice.”
“There are nice people in this town,” Mum says. “Like Mireille. Stay with Mireille, she’s nice. And strong.”
Me: “Don’t listen to her, Astrid: it’s a dirty pack of lies. She complains all day long that she should have faked a giant migraine the night I was conceived!”
“It was a morning,” says Mum.
She leaves the kitchen and I watch her go, taking care to pretend I’m not at all touched by the impromptu compliment—a rare occurrence with my super-strict mother. But maybe that’s precisely what makes me scream, “I’ve got an idea! Why don’t we go find the other little piggy? I bet she’s sad too. Plus, she’s a minuscule Year 8 who’s likely to lack maturity and critical distance.”
“It’s late,” says Astrid.
“Yes, but if she’s seen the results, I doubt she’s asleep.”
We Google her family name: Idriss. There’s only one address for that name in Bourg-en-Bresse, in the Les Vennes neighbourhood, on the other side of town. We explain to my parents that it’s of the utmost importance that we go there immediately even though it’s late, for the well-being of our co-winner. They let us go.
Philippe Dumont: “Do you want me to drive you there?”
Me: “No, thanks, darling Daddy, best dad in the world, daddy par excellence and king of true and real paternity. We still smell of Fluffles’s vomit, so your BMW might refuse to let us in.”
And anyway, we’d rather walk through the night, walk through the Bourg-en-Bresse night, walk and get to know each other better, Astrid Blomvall and me.
3
Tonight is one of those nights when the moon is small, green and hard like a pistachio. Bourg-en-Bresse, under the brown night sky, isn’t looking its best, and it’s a pity.
Do you know Bourg-en-Bresse? It’s pronounced Bourkenbress, in case you’re wondering. Bourg—Bourk—for short.
It’s a pretty town, Bourg-en-Bresse, a pretty little provi
ncial town with everything you’d want from a provincial town. Two bookshops, a newsagent that sells hologram bookmarks (dolphins, kittens and ponies). Cafes, restaurants, artisans who make traditional enamel jewellery, small shops with windows full of gigantic bras, hair salons from which—whoosh!—big clouds of freshly cut hair get brushed out onto the pavement. Beautiful old houses with old wooden beams, and new developments bearing large billboards: FOR SALE. Few people buy—they go to Lyons or Paris, or leave the town centre to live in big detached bungalows. Other buildings are empty, and wooden planks have been nailed to the windows of closed shops. COMMERCIAL SPACE TO RENT. Small parks where very old people scrunch up the sandy pebbles as they walk; where children hang from metal bars in the soft play area; where high-school kids smoke and look at their phones.
I like Bourg-en-Bresse, my lovely town, my beautiful canteen. It’s a town that feeds its people well. There are bakeries with sugar tarts as wide as bike wheels, lumpy with pink pralines. There’s Le Français, the brasserie so gilded and full of mirrors that your eyes water as you eat your filet Pierre—a pillow of raw beef so soft you can cut into it with your fork like a huge strawberry. There’s my grandparents’ restaurant, the Georges & Georgette, two Michelin stars, opposite the recently whitened church of Brou. There they serve whole frogs gurgling in puddles of parsley butter, heavy cast-iron pots containing shrivelled, smoky snails, enormous clumpy quenelles whistling with steam, baked pâtés in glassy jelly…
And cheese boards! Mould-dappled Bresse Bleu, cinder-dashed Morbier, extra-old Mimolette, red as brick, and lumpy fromage frais, sprinkled with chives, lavishly wrapped in thick cream…
And hemispheres of wine in the glasses—and then, when it’s time for coffee, box after box of chocolates and glazed chestnuts…
And brioche and pies, fougasses and baguettes; breads of all shapes and sizes, stuffed with green olives, peppers, figs, onions, nuts or dry sausage; breads that are hot and spongy, stick to your teeth, drink the butter and the yellow wax of the foie gras…
So, yes—it’s only to be expected that I might be a little bit chubbier than the red-haired model in the window of Sandy Hair Salon; not a surprise that I tend to pass on the “ZeroCal Sandwich” option at the canteen—two Krisprolls and a slice of 100 per cent organic chicken, 2 per cent fat, 1.2 per cent carbs. And not a surprise, Malo, that you should be so skinny and so nasty, spending the day, as you do, chewing greyish gum, in this town made entirely of sugar and of cheese…
We’re walking in the Bourg-en-Bresse night, Astrid Blomvall and I, and she’s calming down slightly. She’s already begun to realize, I think, that it’s not such a big deal to win the gold medal at the Pig Pageant, at least not when you’ve got other passions in your life. And she does, and it’s not only Indochine.
“I play video games.”
“Oh really? Like what?”
“Mostly management and strategy games.”
“What are they?”
“For example, Airport Manager. Do you know Airport Manager? No?” (She flushes; you can tell it’s her thing.) “In Airport Manager, you’re in charge of an airport. A big airport, like an international airport. So you have to deal with everything—everything—flights, disgruntled passengers, shops… Sometimes there are planes that crash on the landing strips… Sometimes there are people, right—they just give malaria to everyone. Sometimes there are terrorists.”
“Sounds bloody stressful to me! Why do you play that?”
“Yeah, it’s stressful but it’s great. You have to watch your budget, earn a lot of money, but also spend it intelligently, and if for instance you lose a passenger’s luggage, or if you’ve let the paparazzi in when there’s a star coming in their private jet, that’s it! You have to pay fines, it ruins your account balance.”
“Sounds like a right headache.”
“Not as much as Kitchen Rush. In Kitchen Rush, you’re the owner of a big fast-food chain—or of an über-posh restaurant (you get to pick)—and you have to manage everything! There can be salmonella in the food if the kitchens aren’t clean—that’s such a nightmare, I can’t even tell you. There are people who post nasty comments on consumer websites, even if you’re amazing. And the work inspectors come and check that you don’t underpay your employees. And if a waiter drops a dish on top of a customer’s head…”
“Right, I think I get it. It’s weird, as hobbies go, but I get it.”
“And how about you? What do you do when you’re not at school?”
“I…”
[Honest replies, in order of frequency:
1) I cuddle Fluffles.
2) I read philosophy books written by mein Vater, and other books written by other people.
3) I cook with recipes I find on the Internet.
4) I look for recipes on the Internet.
5) I write things, like stories. That’s so secret that you’d better forget I said it. Go on, forget.]
I reply to Astrid, “Oh, things.”
See, I have a sense of privacy, unlike her. I don’t go about telling all my secrets to strangers with rheumy eyes who could gossip about me to anyone.
(I did, once upon a time, confide in a girl called Aude, who liked me so much that all her profile pictures on Facebook were of her and me together. Since she was so nice, I did her homework for her and I let her crib from my tests in class. I also told her everything about how unhappy I was re Malo, for those were the days when I still cared, because I was young and immature. Unfortunately, my friendship with Aude went down the drain, firstly, when I realized that it was precisely because I was a pig that she loved pictures of her and me together—the contrast, it must be said, was staggering; next to me, she looked like a supermodel—and, secondly, when I found out that she was laughing about my Malodramatic life with her real friends while I was doing her homework at break.)
(Since then, I’ve learnt to be less trusting.)
We’ve reached Les Vennes. The short, square tower blocks are pierced by yellow rectangles, across which silhouettes occasionally pass.
“Isn’t it a bit too late to knock on someone’s door when we don’t even know them?” Astrid asks.
She’s right, it is 10.10. But in the Idrisses’ building, almost all the lights are on. We check the intercom: they live on the third floor. We look up: a line of yellow windows, like a winning line at Connect 4.
Bzzzzzzzzz!
“Yes?” comes a warm, deep voice out of the star of dirty holes.
“Good evening. We’re friends of Hakima’s. Is she here?”
“Friends of Hakima’s?”
The revelation seems to reduce Mr Warm and Deep Voice to incredulous silence for a few seconds. Then we hear: “Hakima! You’ve got friends here!”
(It is entirely possible that the exclamation mark is in fact a question mark.)
A small voice in the background: “What?”
“There are friends of yours here.”
“Who?”
“Who?” asks the man with the enchanting voice.
I say mysteriously, “Two little piggies.”
He repeats this to Hakima.
Silence.
Click, and the door opens.
“Third floor, left.”
We pass by the lift and climb up the badly lit staircase, smelling of potato dauphinoise on the ground floor, pizza on the first, chicken curry on the second and chocolate cake on the third.
Grzzz! goes the doorbell when I press the little plastic disc, next to which a strip of paper reads IDRISS FAMILY.
The door opens. First it looks like there’s nobody behind it. Then I look down, and I realize a god has opened the door.
4
Well, when I say a god, I don’t mean an ugly old guy with a long white beard. I’m obviously not talking about the God of the Bible, who is zero per cent interesting. No, I mean the god of nature, the god of space, the god of bears, of cats and of cherries, the god who made the world by pinching the highest mountain tops into shap
e and by gouging out the vertiginous canyons with his mighty heels. The sun god who, every morning, drags a flaming star across the sky so that all life down below can grow!
No; not even the sun god: the Sun himself.
A blinding Sun.
And you know what—to see the Sun there, on the doorstep, it just—watch out, bad joke coming up—it just sweeps me off my feet!
Why is it a bad joke, Mireille? Because it so happens, dear reader, that the young man who’s just opened the door has no legs.
Why not? I didn’t find out straightaway. I was paralysed by shock and adoration.
So: the Sun bids us good evening gravely, and lets us in, moving back his chariot, well, his wheelchair, by gently palming it on the side.
Astrid pushes me and I walk into the flat, breathing in deeply, since I’ve just fallen in love, after all, with the number one star in our solar system.
The flat, strewn with bright, warm fabrics, smells of a chocolate cake to die for. Hakima comes in, carrying said chocolate cake; clearly, she’d just taken it out of the oven when we rang the doorbell: it’s still shrouded in steam.
Here she is, then, our third little piggy. She’s littler than I thought, actually, and as shy as a sparrow. She gestures to us to sit around the coffee table to eat with them. I realize her eyes aren’t red, unlike Astrid’s. She has bags under them instead. Hasn’t she been crying? Why is she so tired?
“Cake?” she offers.
“Oh, if it needs eating.” I nod politely.
“I really shouldn’t,” sighs Astrid as if she’d just recently decided to go on a diet. “Ah well, all right then.”
She couldn’t have resisted long anyway: it’s one of those cakes that are as runny as mature Camembert. Around the table, Hakima, her father and her mother are sitting on little pouffes, whose brown-leather cheeks are powdered yellow by the light of a nearby lamp. There’s currently a solar eclipse, as Hakima’s brother has vanished somewhere in the depths of the flat. The TV is muted, on LCI, a live news channel.
Piglettes Page 2