Piglettes

by Clémentine Beauvais

  But it’s just an old white building, that’s all. I’ve heard it’s nice inside. But it’s closed today, because of the national holiday.

  So we go for a walk, along pavements, through sunlight scattered by the branches above.

  “How about that, Mireille, did you see that on Google Street View?” Hakima asks incessantly.

  “Possibly. You know, it all looks the same. The only difference is that, on Google Street View, cars don’t honk at you every five minutes and people don’t run straight into you. They’re standing still and their faces are blurred.”

  “Like that guy!” says Hakima, pointing at a man smoking under a porch.

  Astrid’s quietly pushing the Sun’s wheelchair. The Sun whispered to me this morning that he thinks he’s pulled a muscle in his shoulder. He asked me to massage his shoulder. I massaged the Sun’s shoulder. I massaged the Sun’s shoulder (repeat as many times as necessary). I said, “Apart from that, youokkader? Did you manage to put on some cream?” And he smiled and said, “Yes, Mireille, thanks.”

  I don’t know if the massage worked. We had to stop at a pharmacy to buy him a heat patch.

  “It’s funny,” Hakima says, “people don’t recognize us much here.”

  To be fair, people don’t really look at us. They walk through the heat and calm of the public holiday, looking up or down, but not at each other. Families, on the large Boulevard Saint-Michel, wear matching Bensimon shoes: his, hers and children’s.

  “It’s beautiful!” (Astrid’s ecstatic.) “Don’t you think, Mireille, don’t you think it’s beautiful? Look at those buildings, they’re like boats! Oh, look, there! A Space Invader!”

  Her tonsillitis was remarkably short-lived, and she now has all the energy of a patient who’s just recovered from a long and life-threatening illness.

  Leaning against the balconies of the boat-buildings, people are making phone calls, smoking or staring at the horizon. Along the boulevard, the only places open are two second-hand bookshops, where customers flick through comics and paperbacks. So many dogs. Near a cash machine a little Roma girl’s begging. Cars go through red lights. A couple brush past us; she’s pissed off at him, but he couldn’t care less…

  “Look, Mireille, look, it’s gorgeous, what is it? It looks like Notre-Dame!”

  “It is Notre-Dame.”

  “Did you go there on Google Street View?”

  “Yes, Hakima.”

  “Look, Mireille, those stained-glass windows, they’re amazing—look at the colours…”

  I don’t know why Astrid’s so excited and so remarkably unstressed. I guess she’s just going to see an Indochine concert, not reveal to the world that Klaus Von Strudel is her father, or that General Sassin is a murderer. Hakima and the Sun, like me, are silent. We’ve got nothing to do until midday, apart from wander through the streets.

  “Let’s go and watch the parade, then.”

  We quickly get bored of the parade. We don’t understand a thing, and the soldiers’ hypnotic marching is exhausting to watch. The Sun, of course, knows exactly what’s going on, which battalion’s which and even some of the people there, and from his embittered face I can tell he’d rather be still propelling himself through the storm between Montargis and Fontainebleau than here, having to watch his former colleagues doing what he’ll never be able to do again.

  “Look, Mireille, look at the horses, how well they’ve dressed them up…”

  Some people do recognize us and come to take selfies. A TV crew, bumping into us, ask us what we make of the parade. We let Astrid reply, since her opinions are exactly what they want to hear: it’s magical, monumental, especially under this bright sunshine… Oh! Planes! It’s amazing, look, they’re leaving blue, white and red trails in the sky!

  The journalists smile.

  It’s almost time. Question: should we, or should we not, accept the offers of the hairdressers and stylists who want to help us? My piglette self screams no—we have to go just as we are, like in Cluny, wearing our long dresses, our hair undone: the whole package, triple chin, pimples and all. Simone Suffragette’s right: it’s shameful that so many people would like to turn us into princesses.

  But, of course… Klaus will be there, Klaus, to whom I’m going to say, I’m your daughter. The kind of occasion that would warrant a slight makeover, perhaps. Of course, deep down, I’d love to be able to go as I am. How easy it would be if I could afford not to wear a shadow of eye shadow, not a dab of foundation, and if people were still to say: “She looks like a princess, just as she is; it’s not her fault, it’s effortless, she’s naturally beautiful; so it’s OK, it’s a feminist kind of beauty.”

  That’d be convenient right now.

  “Look, Mireille, it’s crazy—they’re so synchronized! It must be so hard to learn to do that.” The soldiers’ boots slam past, perfectly in time, their legs criss-cross like threads on a loom: clack, clack, clack.

  The Sun will never again be one of those threads on the loom. He can only clap. But he doesn’t—nose up, he’s staring at the TV channels’ helicopters.

  “It’s not that hard, sticking to a rhythm,” I say. “We’ve been doing it all week.”

  “Yeah, but not to that degree of precision… Oh, who are they?”

  “Kids from Polytechnique,” the Sun mutters.

  The students from the elite university are wearing navy-blue uniforms, a little bit like Gab and Blondie’s. They’re very proud, you can tell, but they’re careful not to smile. We keep clapping. A lady next to us says to her friend that her niece Léopoldine, who’s a student at Polytechnique, will be marching in the parade next year.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” the Sun grumbles.

  We get out of there. Most of the streets are blocked—behind railings the riot police, like big beetles, are watching out for potential attackers. And so we wander between the boat-buildings for a couple of hours; we run into little parks; we drink the freezing, slightly sweet water of dark-green public fountains. Even Astrid isn’t talking any more, after complaining for a while that we’re so dull, the three of us, looking so gloomy in Paris, where we should be enjoying ourselves.

  “Are you not stressed at all?” Hakima asks. “You’re going to meet Indochine!”

  “Of course I’m stressed! But I’m also… how can I put it… I’m like the milk you put into a cappuccino, you know? Super-stressed, but also frothy frothy frothy and full of little bubbles. You see what I mean?”

  Miss Cappuccino-Milk ends up being the first into the public toilet we’ve found to get changed for the garden party. Public toilets in Paris are nothing like the stand-up, shit-smeared bogs you get in provincial roadside rest areas. They self-clean with a kind of water canon as soon as you leave. Of course, we weren’t aware of that; Astrid helpfully leaves my and Hakima’s dresses inside her cubicle for us, and when we open the door again they’re drenched and smell of bleach.

  We wring them under the small hand-dryer for half an hour.

  “Are you really sure you don’t want to ring the guy who said he’d give us free dresses, Mireille?”

  “I’m sure.”

  We get changed. We look just as silly as we did in Cluny, and even crinklier, but we’re more tanned and, yes, I guess, a bit slimmer. Doubtless Teen Dieting will write a feature about that.

  While the Sun’s getting changed, helped by Hakima (“Kader, I can help too, if Hakima’s not strong enough”; “No, don’t worry, Mireille, it’ll be fine”), we put on some make-up and brush our hair, sitting near the arches of a very chic hotel, whose porter watches us with a look of pure disgust on his face.

  I guess it’s not entirely undeserved. Astrid swore she’d do me some “light make-up”, but I end up looking like a kid who’s had her face painted at a funfair. As a clown. Hakima managed to convince herself she had to put her hair up into a bun, even though her hair is absolutely unbunnable.

  Finally, the Sun comes out again, pushed by his sister, his two empty trouser
legs dangling. We walk slowly to the Élysée Palace.

  Frankly, I haven’t got the slightest idea what we’re doing here.

  But we’re here now.

  And a line of well-dressed people and journalists stretches out in front of us. We’re going to have to go in.

  “Right. Well, let’s go in.”

  24

  On TV, you often see the entrance to the Élysée Palace, with its red carpet unrolled on the gravel of the courtyard, and motionless guards, like little lead soldiers, on either side of the steps. You often see Barack Obamette standing there, in her severe, well-cut dress suits, her blow-dried black hair flecked with grey, shaking hands with other presidents from all over the world before the palace swallows them up.

  Today, at the top of the steps, Barack Obamette is in red, flanked by the four men in her life: to her right, Huey, Dewey and little Louie, wearing almost-identical black suits; to her left, Klaus Von Strudel—namely, my father—in a light-grey suit, like his hair, like his eyes. Like my eyes.

  In front of us, in front of them, a line of guests. I feel like I’m in Cinderella, when all the princesses are queuing up to be introduced to the prince in his ballerina tights.

  “Are you going to scream out your big revelation here and now?” Hakima whispers to me.

  My heart’s beating in my lower lip, under my tongue, inside my ears.

  “I don’t know, it’d probably be better to get in first…”

  The line moves fast, because it’s just a very quick handshake: hello, introduce yourself, shake hands, go through. Klaus and the three boys only bow to the guests (Louie, you can tell, doesn’t give a damn, but then he’s only eight years old.)

  “He seems in good shape, wouldn’t you say?” a plump lady in front of us in the queue tells her husband. “He’s less skinny. The remission must be going well.”

  “Hmm—you know, that stuff can come back at any point,” the husband replies. “Especially if you first have it when you’re young.”

  “He wasn’t that young. He was, what, fifty-five? That makes me think, actually—weren’t you supposed to get your prostate checked soon?”

  “Anne-Cécile, for goodness’ sake, keep your voice down.”

  What are they talking about?

  I have no idea, so I butt in: “What are you talking about?”

  Anne-Cécile and her husband (who’s glaring at her now) turn to me.

  “The president’s husband,” Anne-Cécile whispers. “He’s just coming out of chemo for prostate cancer.”

  The Sun takes over, noticing that I can’t utter a single word. “That’s strange, we haven’t heard anything about it.”

  “That’s why my dear wife shouldn’t be broadcasting it at the top of her voice. For all we know, you might be the editors in chief of Elle.”

  “Do we look like we’re on the editorial board of a fashion magazine?” Astrid snorts.

  “Oh! Wow! That’s too funny!” Anne-Cécile clocks. “You’re the Three Little Piglettes they’ve been talking about on TV!”

  “Was the cancer bad?” I ask weakly.

  “Oh no, it was a lovely, friendly little cancer!” Anne-Cécile chuckles. “Course it was bad. He was in treatment for months. That’s why he couldn’t be there when the King and Queen of England came. Poor man, he must have been all bald and skeletal, throwing up all the time…”

  “Anne-Cécile, for heaven’s sake, shut up…”

  It’s their turn: they’re climbing up the steps, shaking hands with Barack Obamette—disappearing into the palace…

  It’s our turn.

  “It’s our turn, Mireille,” says Astrid softly.

  Since I’m not moving, she takes my right hand, and Hakima takes the left. I feel like I’m one of those little paper dolls, attached for life to her friends once the chain unfolds. An Élysée guard pushes the Sun’s wheelchair up the disabled ramp, to the right.

  Here they are. Barack Obamette’s white smile and unsmiling eyes. Klaus’s equally weary expression; the glazed looks on the three boys’ faces.

  I’m going to have to climb those steps, now.

  I reshuffle my features, quickly and clumsily, into a happy expression.

  Le Point @lepoint

  #gardenparty Exclusive picture of #3littlepiglettes holding hands

  on the #élysée palace steps…

  “Miss Mireille Laplanche, Miss Astrid Blomvall and Miss Hakima Idriss.”

  Barack Obamette’s hand, warm from dozens of previously shaken hands.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you with us today.”

  How many times has she said this in the past thirty minutes?

  Itsapleasuretohaveyouwithustoday.

  “Monsieur Kader Idriss.”

  “Itsapleasuretohaveyouwithustoday.” Desperately, I turn to Klaus; Klaus bows; I bow—his stare is empty. Yet he knows who I am, surely—he got my letters, he must have been following our journey in the news…

  Surely our resemblance is blindingly obvious to everyone!

  …I become blind myself, my vision blurred. Fatigue from the trip, and all the anxiety of finding myself here, on the Élysée Palace steps. Astrid’s and Hakima’s hands have found mine again.

  “Everything all right, Miss Laplanche?” asks (my half-brother) Huey.

  Two ribbons of tears unroll from my eyes; I nod, and leave with the others. We’re taken to a garden. I would like to say—to scream—that I must absolutely talk to the president and to her husband, but I remain as dumb as a fish and almost as wet. With each breath, I half-drown in tears.

  “We’ll see them again later,” whispers Astrid, who’s now holding me by the waist. “You’ll tell them later.”

  “He didn’t recognize me,” I try to say—but it comes out as a croak.

  So I sit down on the corner of a bench in the garden, and I wait for Hakima and Astrid to get me something to eat and to drink.

  I eat: six mini black puddings; four prunes wrapped in Parma ham; fourteen grilled almonds; three caviar canapés; three blini with smoked salmon; six tapenade canapés; five mini toast slices with foie gras; a small glass of avocado cream with chilli powder; two melon and prosciutto skewers; and three mozzarella and cherry tomato skewers.

  I drink: a glass of Coke, a glass of pineapple juice, a glass of sparkling water, a Bellini and a glass of white wine.

  I’m still not feeling great.

  “Have a cry, Mireille. You’re allowed to cry,” says the Sun.

  “I’m not crying!” I sob.

  “Oh, OK then.”

  Then he does something that should pulverize me into a million soap bubbles: he puts his right arm around my shoulders and, with his (blistery) left hand, carefully dries my cheeks with a paper napkin.

  And wipes my nose.

  Great. The Sun’s wiping my nose. Nothing sexier than all the snot in my body, pumped up from the deepest abysses of my lungs, going straight into his paper napkin.

  Me: “Must have caught Astrid’s cold.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Have I got mascara smeared all over my face?”

  “All over. But it’s cute, you look like a raccoon now.”

  “Brill. I was just thinking, not enough people come to the Élysée garden party dressed up as forest animals.”

  “It’s a pity,” the Sun confirms.

  “If you want, I could lend you my eyeliner; you could go off and draw yourself a zebra face, and then we could run around screaming.”

  “You’ve got very nice eyes,” says the Sun, brushing my locks aside. “I’d never noticed, because your hair’s always in front of them.”

  OK. OK, fine. He’s just said I have very nice eyes. OK, fine. My whole existence from now on will only be a long disappointment.

  “I’d better buy a hair clip then.”

  “It would be a good investment,” the Sun agrees.

  “But if my hair doesn’t fall over my face any more, everyone’ll see me blush all the time.”

 
; “Is that why you keep it that way?”

  “Partly. And also because, well, I’m butt-ugly.”

  “Oh, give it a rest. Firstly, some butts are very beautiful, and secondly…

  So deep are your two eyes, my dear,

  That as I drank their water clear

  I spotted in one curvy globe

  A Mireille shiny Suns disrobe.”

  “A Mireille shiny Suns?”

  “Myriad. ‘A myriad shiny suns disrobe.’ As in, lots of suns. Louis Aragon, ‘Elsa’s Eyes’… Come on, Mireille, play along, for goodness’ sake! I’m reciting one of the most beautiful love poems ever written; you should have an expression of pure rapture on your face.”

  “But wait, I don’t get it—so the suns have come to look at themselves getting naked in her eyes or something? Because they make good mirrors?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Then later on he says:

  “The brightest rays are those that pierce

  Through the thick cloudedness of tears;

  The eye is only at its bluest

  When sadness paints the pupil blackest.”

  “What’s that about?”

  “It’s, like, your eyes are all the prettier when they’re crying.”

  “Oh, sod that. I don’t like the idea that you’re only beautiful when you’re sad.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, it’s a stupid idea, actually.” He sits up. “But don’t worry,” he whispers, they’re also beautiful when you’re happy. Like my sister, and Astrid. Six rays of sun. Look what you’ve done, this past week… You’ve lit everything up, wherever you’ve been. You’ve warmed people’s hearts. Who cares about who’s beautiful and who’s ugly?”

  “Everyone does. At least a bit.”

  “Yeah. A bit. Well, your eyes aren’t running so much any more. That cold didn’t last long.”

  “It was a very small cold. But I’m tired. I might go back to the hotel, or to Bourg-en-Bresse, or to my mother’s belly. Do raccoons hibernate?”