by Laura D
Now that the time has come for the first test I'm really worried. I run through the corridors to get to the building where they're holding the exam. When I arrive there's already a little gathering outside the amphitheatre. When you've been running from the moment you get up and then finally stop moving, you suddenly realise just how tired you are. The only thing keeping me on my feet is nervous energy.
I saw a customer two days ago. This time I decided to keep part of my earnings for a little treat; I'm going to do a bit of shopping. That's the problem with easy money. You always want more.
I went to see this man then. All he was looking for was someone to 'carry out household duties in her underwear'. With exams looming, I was just as desperate for money, but was so jittery I was even less inclined to let anyone touch me. So I spent two hours at this man's house, ironing his shirts in my bra and knickers, that's all. He slipped me 100 euros.
In the Métro on the way to uni this recent escapade came back to me and I suddenly felt dirtier than ever. I know mid-term exams aren't the best time for developing self-confidence, but I couldn't help loathing myself, telling myself I'd never get through them. Prostitution became a drug the minute my salary from the telesales job wasn't enough. When I thought about all the money I could make, I even contemplated giving up those phone calls and 'devoting' myself entirely to prostitution. No more crippling shift schedules, I could just work a few hours a month and earn three times as much.
But, however boring and badly paid it may be, that telesales job is the only thing – along with uni – which keeps me grounded in reality, in real life. If I only worked as a prostitute I think I'd very soon fall head first into a prostitution ring with a pimp in control. He'd make me give up uni and I'd become his goose laying golden eggs for him full time.
Outside the amphitheatre the pressure's mounting by the minute. I've got to calm down if I want to keep my head for this exam. I try to reassure myself: it's completely normal to feel like this, it's my first university exam and I love my course so much that it feels like there's a lot at stake. There are exams all through the week, I've got to cope with the pressure. The only test I'm not worried about is the oral because I've always found expressing myself easy. I've just got to get through the literature; once I've done that, I'll be more relaxed.
I rummage in my coat pocket for my tobacco. I've only got a few crumbs left. So, as usual, I ask my friend if she can let me have a cigarette. What a luxury, a real cigarette before an exam – it must be a good sign!
The doors to the amphitheatre open and I go in, determined to show what I'm capable of.
Chapter 15
A Meeting
24 January 2007
PAUL'S BAR SEEMS to have become my home territory of its own accord. I first found it a long time back, way before I became a student. I immediately felt comfortable in the place. The décor has a colonial feel to it with dark wood. There are lots of pictures of actresses from the 1940s on the walls and, even though I don't know who most of them are, they soon felt familiar. Still, I didn't go that often because I wanted it to create that same magical impression every time. Paul would nod hello when I dropped in from time to time and we'd exchange a few words. In the early days, I took refuge here after each 'professional' rendezvous. Then I started coming more and more regularly: before or after work, for a coffee or an impromptu chat if I bumped into some friends.
The radical change to how important it is in my life only happened when I scuttled back to safety here after my meeting with Joe. Ever since then I associate the bar with a feeling of relief, of comfort after physical and emotional upheaval. I can drown my sadness and darkest thoughts here, forgetting everything about my life. It's a halfway house between the seedy hotels and my apartment; I've really made a cocoon of the place.
Over time I've become friendly with Paul, the waiter. I like having him around. I talk to him quite openly, though I never go into details. Partly because I don't want to (I'm not the sort of girl who tells her life story to everyone she meets), but also because Paul's quite superficial. He wouldn't be in the least bit interested in what I had to tell him, except for the sex bits. I really can't stand it when you're talking to someone and they keep looking around for something more interesting to latch onto. Given how little I trust him as a 'lifelong keeper of innermost secrets', I've completely ruled out admitting anything to him about my forbidden activities. I still can't imagine revealing a secret like that to anyone. I don't want to have to justify myself, to see the look in his eye which might not go so far as to judge me but would definitely pity me. Come to think of it, I don't think he'd believe me anyway.
Paul is a skirt-chaser. He's got a huge ego and he flirts with every girl who comes into his bar. Super-quick conquests. He shags them and then dumps them a few days – even a few hours – later. In fact he tried his luck with me at first. I think he's set himself the task of seducing every pretty girl who steps through the door. He sweet-talked me quite a bit but there's no way I could be interested in him: he's too closely associated with my life as a prostitute. He could tell there was no point and soon struck me off the list of potential prey. I don't think he was really interested in me, he just saw me as another conquest, and he certainly wasn't prepared to put in any extra effort to achieve his ends with me rather than someone else. It's not really his style to go to any trouble over a girl. I also have to remind myself that, because he's geographically so close to the places where I have my mysterious meetings, he'll eventually work out where I'm going and what I'm doing – if he can be bothered.
At the height of my time as a prostitute, the bar will become a second home to me. I admit that the other customers have a lot to do with that. Most of them are in their thirties: crisp young businessmen or struggling artists, the odd model, the place never feels old or boring. All these people mingling happily at the bar, their voices blending into a harmonious hubbub.
I've always felt more mature than other girls my age, and as I chat to complete strangers – but these are strangers of about thirty – I realise I feel most comfortable with that age group. Ever since I was little I've had to grow up more quickly than others, and my parents brought me up with a strong sense of responsibility. So I had real problems with all the childishness and pranks at school. Sometimes my friends were fun but most of the time I couldn't believe the sort of things they said. I couldn't stand them gushing, 'Oh, you'll never guess, my boyfriend's got a car!' My boyfriend at the time was thirty years old and had had a car for a while. So nothing exceptional about that, as far as I was concerned. I couldn't motivate myself to join in their plans for weekend sleepovers or their first experiments with socalled soft drugs.
As a general rule, I went to school for my lessons and left as soon as I could. I rarely mixed with other people there. It's not that I was haughty, I just didn't naturally mix in with them. I liked having them around during the course of the day but never really 'made friends' or arranged to meet them outside school. It was the same with boys. For as long as I can remember I've always found boys my own age incredibly boring, except for Manu who's more or less the same generation as me. When I was old enough to start going out with boys I never considered my peers as potential boyfriends. I prefer more accomplished men who aren't going through some post-adolescent crisis or trying to find their own identity. Sometimes I regret growing up so quickly because at school I felt lonely, misunderstood and out of step with what was going on and what I was experiencing. I think like a thirty-year-old; my mind is ten years ahead of my age. At the end of the day, I would like to have fun like a girl my own age, doing silly superficial things and not always thinking like a responsible adult. I sometimes feel tired of being who I am but I can't help myself: I've got to face the fact that I'll never be someone who likes childish fooling around, even just for a bit. I haven't been that naive for a long time.
That's one of the reasons I immediately felt at home in Paul's bar. I almost always come here alone, knowing I'll end
the evening chatting to someone new.
When I get to Paul's bar this evening the place is packed. There's a rock band playing and a gaggle of half-drunk customers have turned the bar area into a dance floor. Their good mood is infectious and I catch myself smiling the minute I step through the door. Paul sees me and quickly brings me a glass of wine, to 'relax me' he says. I know that he's actually showing off to the men leaning up at the bar who are having a good look at me while I kiss him hello. It's his way of saying, 'Yup, lads, I know her.'
Well, it works. Two of them try to strike up a conversation with me straight away.
'Hello, do you often come to this bar?' one of them begins, not very originally.
'I've never seen you here and I know I wouldn't have forgotten a pretty girl like you!' the other says, full of inspiration.
How imaginative! Their opening gambits are bargain basement material. I can sense a man's sexual intentions at a hundred paces. I answer their questions like a good girl and even allow myself to ask a few bland questions of my own, out of courtesy. The two blokes know each other well and, as we talk, the conversation gets competitive. Which of them will be taking the girl home this evening? Whoever formulates the sentence that coaxes the biggest smile out of me? I force myself to stay polite but I'm dying to walk off so that they grasp the fact that they haven't got a hope in hell with me.
All of a sudden I spot him behind the two men. He's been watching me for several minutes. Brown hair with a few stray locks hiding his eyes, which I think are probably green. He's wearing a striped cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Very average clothes but, in spite of that, the moment I notice him I can't stop looking at him. He's captivating. There's something kind and friendly about the way he looks at me. It's not the first time I've seen him here. I've seen him chatting with Paul over a cup of coffee a few times. I smile as I contemplate serving him up the standard issue 'Do you come here often?'
He's trying to communicate something to me with his eyes but I don't have time to interpret it. Two seconds later he's next to me, putting his hand round my waist in front of the two flirting competitors. I hardly need say they straighten themselves up pretty sharply, ashamed to have got things so wrong. Silence descends on us, punctuated by their embarrassed coughs and throat clearing.
'Oh . . . Hi,' one of them manages to stammer.
A couple of polite niceties later and they've withdrawn. The saviour turns my body round to face him without letting go of my waist. The situation is terrifyingly erotic and I feel a shudder run through me, making the hairs on my arm stand on end. I can't take my eyes off him and he watches my face without a word. He's really not what you would call good-looking, but I'm fascinated by him. I could stay like this for an hour but after a minute or so, I decide to break the silence.
'Thanks, they were becoming quite a pain.'
'Yes, that's what I thought.'
He points to a table that's just been left empty, then orders us a couple of beers and, just like that, quite naturally, we spend the evening together, laughing a lot and talking about our day-to-day lives. His name is Olivier. He doesn't do much in life and even seems a bit bored. He looks and lives a bit like a Bohemian. Unless someone comes up with a time-machine, he seems resigned to the fact that he won't be able to go back to the 1970s. He got the wrong decade when he was born.
It's a happy, comfortable evening, I feel great. I don't know why everything suddenly seems so easy. And I don't try to work out why it is you sometimes feel so at home with a complete stranger, even down to telling him very personal things. I talk about my family, my course at uni and Manu. He listens attentively and tells me about the events and experiences that marked his childhood and the more recent past. It's a healthy balanced exchange, each of us giving a little of ourselves. And it's all done with smiles; even pain and suffering come across as constructive trials.
The drinks keep coming as the night wears on. We're getting more and more drunk, launching us into the peculiar logic of alcohol which makes us reveal everything about our lives quite readily and without any hang-ups. I've got this strange feeling I can tell him everything, even and particularly the one thing I'm hiding from everyone else. More than once I catch myself wondering how he would react if I told him about my debauched activities. He's the one who makes the first move towards major confessions.
'You see, after thirty years, I feel as if nothing can shock me now. Don't you think that's a shame?'
The opportunity's too irresistible and my secret's too heavy for me to go on bearing it alone.
'Nothing can shock you? Really?'
'Really.'
'I'm pretty sure I can shock you.'
Egged on by drink, I'm getting more and more adventurous. I know I'm playing with fire, but some strange instinct is urging me to trust him. He doesn't say anything for a while, as if trying to think how to reply. He can tell that, whatever I'm thinking of confessing, I'm still hesitating.
'If you're sure you want to, I'll listen,' he says.
He can tell I can't quite make up my mind. Revealing my hidden life would mean trusting him completely and counting on his loyalty to keep the secret. But I don't know him. How and why can I trust him? I look at him searchingly and know he won't say anything. Still, there's a glimmer of lucidity left in me which stops me going further.
'Don't worry. It'll stay between you and me. I can swear it.'
So I throw myself in. I turn the words round and round inside my head to find an appropriate verbal construction for them, because I've never said them out loud.
'Do you know where I was last week?'
He shakes his head. He can't possibly know.
'I was with a fifty-year-old man who paid me to touch my body. I'm a prostitute.'
I've spat it all out without thinking. Once I've actually done it I back away slightly as if it was someone else talking.
For a second his eyes probe mine even more keenly and the upper part of his face screws up but, remembering his promise, he's quick to adopt what he hopes is a neutral expression.
'I see,' he says simply.
He doesn't lay a hand on my shoulder, doesn't make a single compassionate gesture which would exasperate me. No, he just wants to understand and asks me loads of questions. The rest of the night carries on like the beginning; my revelation hasn't done anything to ruin the evening, quite the opposite – it's brought us closer.
Paul eventually breaks the spell which has lasted about six hours. Six consecutive hours when there was nothing in the world but the two of us. I really didn't notice the time passing and I think Paul must be joking when he comes over with the floor mop, having a clean-up before closing time.
'You're going to have to move on, we're closing!'
The two of us burst out laughing, both realising we've lost all track of time. Olivier gets up and holds out his hand to me, to take me outside. Drunk and giggling, I give Paul a quick wave goodbye. When we get outside, Olivier walks me home, holding me up by the waist because I'm zigzagging all over the place. Both of us laugh hysterically all the way, under the effects of excess alcohol. Outside my door he makes sure I've got my keys and can open the door all right. Then, slowly and gently, he kisses my cheek.
I smile at him and go up to the apartment to fall asleep alone. But happy.
Chapter 16
Clambering
4 February 2007
MY BIRTHDAY'S GETTING CLOSER by the minute. I'm going to be nineteen. 'A wonderful age,' everyone always says. I'm not really fussed what number it says on the dial.
Nineteen years old. Two relationships (one of which is on-going), a literature Baccalaureate under my belt, a year at uni which is turning out better than expected and a hidden life as a prostitute. Not bad at just nineteen. Only nineteen years have passed, but I feel ten years older than that.
I'm nearly nineteen and still just as desperately short of money. The balance sheets don't look good, far from it. My tiny mobile phone package has been with
drawn by my service provider. I've got financial priorities, like my rent, that I'm struggling to meet, and most of the time I don't buy a ticket when I take the Métro to uni because I can't afford the luxury of a travel card.
I try to look on the bright side of things. I love my course. It's four months now since I joined the huge student body, and I couldn't be happier about it. Even when I'm tired, I go to lectures gladly, very conscious of the opportunity I'm getting to study (almost) for free. I'm still just as eager to learn and I'm sure I've found my niche with modern languages. My tutors are very encouraging and one of them even admitted recently that he could see me as a future high-flyer in language teaching.
On top of that, I've had the results from my exams in January. I passed them all with an average of 75 per cent! I couldn't believe it when I got my marks through the post. So there is some justice in the world; I didn't do all that work for nothing.
My limited budget obviously means I can't buy all the books I need, so the library has become one of my favourite places. I like browsing there and killing time over the more precious volumes. But it's not particularly big and it's often been raided before I get there, at least the books I need for my course have gone. Still, these recurring inconveniences don't knock any of the innate enthusiasm out of me, they just slow down the learning process a bit. I'm envious of students who go straight to the local bookshop to order books in the original language and hand over their credit cards with a serene smile.
I'm also desperate to have my own laptop because they're becoming well and truly indispensable. The idea first came to me one day with the telesales company. Someone who worked there told us all there was going to be a prize draw and the top prize was a laptop. You can imagine my reaction to this news. I took up residence on internet sites for computers as soon as I had a spare moment and drooled over the latest technological marvels. I chose my theoretical favourite, knowing full well my parents would never be able to afford to give me one, even for my birthday.