This is the first time in years that she has thought of Belo Horizonte and felt the desire to go back in time. Take the young boy-girl she was and whisper in his ear don’t worry you’ll never believe all the things that will happen to you one day you’ll see you’ll be so jaded of opulence and easy living, so sated by life you’ll complain that you’re bored. Like a real princess.
Subutex. Kiko has been screaming his name all night. She scarcely noticed him, but now that she looks at him, she too sees something in him. He has beautiful hands. Vernon is calm. He is middle-aged. The wrinkles around his mouth are those of someone who has laughed a lot. He has obviously made the most of life. She goes over to him. “What’s that you’re playing?” She whispers the question, her fingertips brushing the inside of his elbow. He looks up at her, stares into her eyes without smiling. The look is hard. It catches Marcia in the pit of her stomach. “Freddie King,” he says. He has a rich, deep voice, he whispers the title of the song into her ear: “Please Send Me Someone to Love”, for a Frenchman, his English pronunciation is excellent, he doesn’t overdo it. He is self-assured. She finds him attractive. A little. He is engrossed in the music. He changes the groove. Noir Désir’s “Tostaky”. A grey dawn spills a little light into the room. She raises her hands above her head, follows the guitar, her eyes half-closed. She has always been able to get anything she wanted from men by dancing. “Tostaky”, she recognises that pulsing French rhythm. Hips pitched to the guitar, back to the drum kit. Vernon is probably a total bastard. It is something she feels in her belly: if she is attracted to a guy, he must be dodgy. She has drama in her blood, she can only come with brutal men. Guys who want to kill you always make the most attentive lovers, otherwise you wouldn’t let them do what they do. No-one accepts that first slap unless it is followed by a torrent of apologies, of promises, by a desperate desire not to lose you, not to imagine losing you. The ones who might well kill you are invariably the ones who care most. When she really wants them, it means she knows that they could kill her. She does not need to look at his eyes to know that he is watching her. When she dances, she has to hold back, she is too old to make an exhibition of herself, she curbs her energy. Her wrists flex, she plucks at the air, fingers tensing at every note then, hands behind her head, she gestures dropping something on the floor. “Tostaky”. The extraordinary beauty of that French singer – the most Latino of them. Crescendo, her heels gently hammer the floor – restraint is important in Paris, even when dancing, you don’t seek to lose yourself in a trance, you remember to smile. No frenzy, no carnal passion. In Paris, the body is a mask. Vernon segues into Rihanna – other forms, moving around her. She ignores them. She dances for him, he ignores her, taunts her. This excites her. She likes guys of every kind. Every age, every build, every race, every creed, every means, and every temperament. She likes them all, but it is even better when they are immune to the way she sways her hips. She will have him.
She goes out onto the terrace to smoke. The icy air whips her skin, a pleasant sting. She takes a deep breath – at last she has come up on the drug. Only now does she feel it, a dawn burst of energy. Jérémy and Biancha are talking about the problems faced by the U.M.P. since Sarkozy’s departure. Snatches of arguments, they repeat the same things a dozen times, blowing hot air. Early-morning conversations. She hates that. She is coming down off the speed. She should have popped M.D.M.A. It’s back in fashion these days. She hasn’t had enough to drink, she feels in no fit state to deal with this. She goes back inside, Vernon has not moved, he is locked into the music, he is self-sufficient. She likes him. She brushes against him as she leaves and says, “See you tomorrow, Mister D.J. You do realise no-one here is going to sleep, you can go up to your room whenever you like. They’re not listening anymore.” He smiles without responding. She likes him more and more. He is her story for the night, he is the one reason the party did not totally suck.
She does not run into him the following morning before heading off to the photo shoot. Gaëlle hasn’t slept, she’s still doing lines, sitting on her own in front of the television, drinking bowls of Genmaicha tea. She doesn’t ask what time he went to bed. Coming out with the question point-blank would arouse suspicion and Gaëlle has never been able to hold her tongue. Kiko would not like the idea of her prowling around a guy who is staying with him. They haven’t flirted for years now, but she would never bring a lover back to his apartment. It is a tacit agreement – she has a pied-à-terre in Paris, she does her fucking elsewhere.
It’s weird seeing Gaëlle trying to gauge the right distance to read a text message. Like an old woman. For parasites like them, presbyopia is a scourge. Preserving one’s charm while losing one’s looks is an equation that rarely balances. Although people like to feel useful and magnanimous, they have a terror of ageing bodies, weathered faces, the poignancy of faded glory. One day the two of them will be ruins – something that was once sublime and is now no more than a pile of rubble. As though reading her mind, Gaëlle adjusts her aim, languidly stretches then flashes Marcia a malicious smile that particularly suits her. Taking all the time in the world, she lights a cigarette with graceful insouciance, then looks into Marcia’s eyes.
“You looked good on the dance floor last night.”
“Yeah, for a bit . . . I was shattered, I really should have gone to bed early.”
“Take me for an innocent virgin all you like, babe . . . but don’t talk to me about Subutex. It’s not like it wasn’t patently obvious that you were doing your slutty best to hook up with him.”
Marcia makes an effort to remain impassive. She is jubilant. She is in love. She longs to hear his name, to know things about him, she longs for Gaëlle to tell her that it was painfully obvious that he was into her . . . For her, there is nothing more exciting than these days – the days before it happens.
Gaëlle rolls her eyes to heaven, she feigns disappointment:
“How long have we known each other? Do you really think I can’t read you like a book?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Not a bad choice. He’s a decent guy. If I was into men, I’d want to sleep with him too. One snag: you’ll break his heart, babe.”
“He does have beautiful hands, but it stops there.”
“Where exactly do his hands stop?”
“I get off on love . . . is that a crime?”
“Love, love . . . I’d be more inclined to say you get off being fucked rigid like the latent sleazy bitch you are. Well, I say latent . . . But, at the risk of repeating myself: you’ll break his heart.”
Marcia wants him. A door has opened and she wants to see what’s on the other side. “It may be wrong but it feels right to be lost in paradise.” She didn’t find him particularly handsome, she wants him to want her, wants him to take her and destroy her. She wants him. It is a caprice, or a compulsion.
ON THE BUILDING SITE NEXT TO MERCAT DE LA BOQUERIA, A HUGE crane is hoisting a cement mixer above the heads of passers-by. The Hyena has spent too long sitting in front of her computer and her lower back is stiff and aching. She is walking off the tension.
Two girls in shorts and wedge heels, backpacks slung over their bellies, cross the Plaça de Sant Agusti, studying a map of the city. Their shoulders are tattooed and they are speaking in a language so strange that the Hyena cannot help but wonder if they are making it up. A bearded man is pushing a meat trolley. Tourists cycle past wearing brightly coloured helmets. A group of homeless are sitting around a fountain. They are all about fifty and sporting mohicans. Taxis honk at every intersection. Catalan flags blossom from every building with banners that read “We want a respectable neighbourhood”. On a patch of pavement out of the way of pedestrians, a seagull is eviscerating a dead pigeon.
She arrived in Barcelona last night. On the television, there were news reports of a woman in her sixties throwing herself from the window of her apartment when bailiffs came to evict her.
Gaëlle calls her from Paris
. She is livid.
“What do you mean you can’t come round right now?”
“I’m not in Paris, girlfriend.”
“Why didn’t you let me know before? What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
“Keep him distracted. I’ll be back in three days.”
“Come back tonight.”
“Can’t be done.”
“Are you taking the piss? I did what I said I’d do. If Vernon fucks off tomorrow, you still have to pay me what you promised, agreed?”
“What did I promise you?”
“Two hundred euros.”
“We never talked about money.”
“Alzheimer’s is eating your brain. You offered me twice that, but I’m giving you mates’ rates.”
It seems fair enough. The Hyena protests for the sake of form, thanks Gaëlle and promises to come back as soon as possible. After she hangs up, she holds on to her mobile phone. She thinks about telephoning Dopalet. She could tell him she has traced the guy he has been looking for. He’ll say “Already?”, he’ll congratulate her, he’ll be relieved. He’ll tell her to come back right now.
She slips the phone back into her jeans pocket. It has been a long time since she got away from Paris. She had not realised how much she missed it, having a change of scenery. She does not feel like being an asset to the team. Dopalet is taking this business very seriously, he checks every day for updates. The Hyena says as little as possible.
She has found no mention of a collaboration between the two men on the internet. Dopalet is a vicious little creep by nature, but ordinarily, a little searching will turn up a link between him and the object of his fury. Not in this case.
When she found out she was expected to track down someone who had known Alex Bleach when he was young, she immediately thought of Sélim.
*
They lived in the same building for four years in the quartier des Lilas when they were younger. What Sélim never knew was that the Hyena often visited his apartment because she fancied his girlfriend who had a fondness for cocaine, something the Hyena always had on her in those days, so she would offer the girl a little toot before her husband came home. It was not strictly honourable, the girl wasn’t even twenty at the time. No-one wanted to bother her with lectures about hygiene, people wanted to pleasure her. She was very young. It was not so much a matter of age – Sélim and the Hyena were barely seven years her senior – rather a question of inexperience. She had arrived from the sticks and knew nothing about life. She was a little rough around the edges, yet so slight that she seemed like a sparrow trapped in a kitchen. It was this energy that made her so charming. It’s impossible to imagine any boy who was cooler than Sélim at the time, but he was still a boy: he was not exactly subtle. He had married this kid he was hopelessly in love with and could not understand how she could be bored with the life he had made for her. He loved Roland Barthes, Russian cinema and the songs of Barbara. She was twenty, she wanted to go out, to dance. He thought that if he gave her a baby, everything would be fine. She completely freaked out. Then one day, she disappeared, she was infatuated with the caïd in the neighbouring tower blocks. Sélim was the only one who found this incomprehensible – everyone wanted to say, did you not notice how bored she was in the kitchen. Sélim took care of little Aïcha with a tenderness redoubled by maternal abandonment. It was now that he found himself alone with the child that he and the Hyena became closer – when he needed to go on an errand he would take the Moses basket upstairs to his neighbour’s apartment. He felt comfortable in this world composed exclusively of women and, at the time, he was funny enough and engaging enough to be accepted.
A few months after his girlfriend left, in his local video rental shop, Sélim stumbled over the cover of a hardcore porn flick. The Hyena never dared ask what he was doing in the Adult section. His little Faïza was now Vodka Satana. The Hyena would not set eyes on Vodka Satana again until her affair with Alex Bleach, when her picture was everywhere.
After the meeting with Dopalet, she immediately called Sélim. He was not exactly thrilled at the idea of having coffee with her. Nonetheless, he invited her round to his place; his tone was chilly.
He has changed. The ebullience that characterised his personality has drained away, his exuberance has been transformed into bitterness. He makes no attempt to hide this fact, quite the reverse. He is determined to make it clear that his life is miserable, with the same eagerness that, as a young man, he used to seduce all those who crossed his path. Because Sélim was a brilliant boy, and it was impossible to take him anywhere he did not end up hogging the limelight, monopolising the conversation, stamping his particular brand of madness on the evening. Once slender, handsome, stylish, he had become a bald, pot-bellied little man who wears hideous, mismatched clothes. The sort of guy you avoid engaging in conversation, his anger has become rank.
The Hyena took a seat in an identikit Ikea living room that looked as though it had been deliberately denuded of all appeal. She was waiting for the sign that said we share so many happy memories, I’m really glad to see you, then she shrank back – deciding that thirty minutes was the minimum period before she could politely slip away. She did not really know what she expected to find at Sélim’s that might help her decide whether to accept Dopalet’s assignment or let it drop but, sitting here facing him, she knew that coming here had been a mistake.
Sélim was now a professor at Paris 8, something she would have expected him to take a certain satisfaction in – university professor is something one can admit to at dinner parties without blushing. At least this was what she believed. These days, according to Sélim, everyone despises academics. Intellectuals. People like him.
Sélim, whom she remembered as someone interested in other people, asked no questions about what she had been doing, nor why she had come to see him. She tried:
“I thought about you when Alex Bleach died . . . We never talked about it at the time, it must have been awful for you, seeing her with him . . .”
“Of all the decisions she made, that’s not the worst I had to stomach.”
“It doesn’t bother you, me talking about this stuff?”
“No. I thought about it a lot after he died. She was in love with him. At the time I felt humiliated, obviously, but I was relieved . . . I thought maybe he could help her rebuild her life. I think he loved her too.”
“But not the best person to help anyone try and rebuild their life . . . Such a waste, that guy.”
“I didn’t know you were so interested in French pop music.”
“I liked him.”
“If you came to see me to talk about Alex and Faïza, you’ve had a wasted journey. You’d be better off talking to some of her girlfriends from back then, Pamela Kant or Debbie d’Acier – I’m no good to you . . .”
“Pamela Kant . . . I’d forgotten her name . . . Were they good friends?”
Sélim had leaned forward, stared hard into her eyes and paused. He was giving her his best film noir pose.
“I asked if that’s what you came here to talk about.”
“Absolutely not. I didn’t think you’d be so bothered by me calling to see how you’ve been . . . I didn’t realise we were on bad terms. But there is one question I wanted to ask – since you know a lot about the film industry . . . I’m trying to track down a French screenwriter whose first name is Xavier . . .”
He raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by the incongruity of this question, but he did not have the time to answer. Aïcha came into the living room looking sulky, she did not bother to say hello, but simply asked “Do you think we could order pizzas tonight?” Genetics had done her no favours. She had the sturdiness of her father, and a wonderful nose that she did not inherit from either parent but clearly ran in the family which, while it gave her face a certain character deprived it of any possibility of harmony. Aïcha wore the veil, something that did not really add to her charms – all one could see was her nose.
Sélim said no t
o the idea of pizza, no white flour tonight – it seemed to be an established principle in the family since the young girl did not even protest, she puffed her cheeks to signal she was unhappy, but did not insist. Sélim introduced her to the Hyena:
“You won’t recognise this lady, but she used to live upstairs from us when you were little. She used to babysit you.”
And the Hyena nodded and looked at the girl with the eyes of an adult who has powdered your bottom when you were a baby and refrained from saying “I knew you when you were this high”, or “It’s been a long time, you’ve grown so tall!” though her expression said all of these things, because it is an enduring mystery to adults that things that crawl around on the floor sucking on dummies can so quickly mutate into semi-monsters with size 42 shoes. Aïcha dragged her sullen mood around the living room for a few more minutes before heading back to hole up in her bedroom, “I’ve got work to do.”
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