Read Billie Page 12


  Franck asked him if the solitude wasn’t too unbearable (the little flirt . . . ) and I asked tons of questions about his dogs and then we saw our friends the Crewcuts and Co. off in the distance so we said good-bye to the shepherd and went to join them without really joining them, because we were afraid of getting lost.

  Just before that, we asked him where he was going and he indicated a little mountain nearby.

  Okay, good-bye then . . .

  O! Lord . . . how cruel You are with Your flocks! Mass is over, but it was really too short!

  It goes without saying that I kept on teasing Francky about it in the hours that followed.

  When it came time to picnic, Mr. Crewcut asked him if he wanted some sausage.

  “Only if you put it in a shepherd’s pie!” I answered and that made me giggle nonstop for at least two minutes.

  Sorry.

  I apologize a thousand times.

  Mrs. Crewcut started to worry and Franck told her, sighing, that I was allergic to pollen.

  And that started me giggling for two minutes more.

  Aaaah . . . I was beginning to really like this little outing!

  Franck pretended to lose his patience but he was happy too . . .

  We both knew where we had come from and each time we saw the other happy, we enjoyed it for the other person, we enjoyed it ourselves, and we also enjoyed it because we had triumphed over the crappy hand we were dealt.

  To celebrate, I waited until Mr. Anti-Gay Marriage went off to take a piss and I gave an entire apple to my little Dollster.

  He gulped it down right away and to thank me, he planted a kind of big warm and fuzzy kiss on my neck.

  Ooooh . . . I was already beginning to miss him . . . Plus, in front of my boutique with a straw hat with two holes and baskets filled with flowers on his back, he would have looked way too classy.

  So, there you have it, little star . . . Everything was going well and if it all went downhill, it really wasn’t our fault, seeing as we had been seriously touched by grace and were walking on water.

  We were transfigured.

  We were adoring our trip in the Cévennes.

  We were a-dor-ing it.

  We were as different as we could possibly be from the little sheep we had been.

  The picnic finished, we decided to take a break because it was really hot and the little girl had fallen asleep in her mommy’s arms.

  (I know, I shouldn’t say it . . . there’s no point . . . no point at all . . . but really . . . I felt a bit strange . . . )

  I know I’ll never have kids. And that’s not just a silly turn of phrase. It’s an absolute certainty. I don’t want any. That’s all. But when I saw the face of this woman who was looking at her little darling and how she arranged herself to keep the girl in the shade by wriggling her hips however she could and by scraping her butt under that tree all while being really careful not to wake her I couldn’t stop from telling myself that my mother must have been really sick in the head . . . really sick . . . since I had been even smaller than that . . .

  (Okay, forget it, it’s not important.)

  To stop thinking about it, I turned sideways and nodded off on my Francky’s stomach.

  To hell with you, Life!

  I don’t know if it was because I was tired from the hike, or because of the shepherd’s belly, or because of the scene of Mother and Child, but I slept badly that night . . .

  In fact, I didn’t sleep at all.

  And poor Franck suffered too. Since I’m selfish and didn’t want to be all alone with my insomnia, I tried to prolong the conversation. And of course, like a rat stuck in a maze, babbling in circles, I finally got to the point and muttered in the dark that I was not even four years old but only eleven months and that really, I didn’t understand . . .

  He was annoyed. I think he had gone off to fondle himself all night while praying to Jesus, so he pushed me away.

  So I slept even less and he slept less too.

  So there you have it, little star . . . You see, I’m already beginning to set the stage: when we took up the trail again that morning to go meet up with the rest of the group on the plateau whose name I no longer remember, the vacation snapshot was already a bit dog-eared . . .

  It was the first time in my life that I had been confronted with a mommy in action, and a nice one too, and that had a bad effect on me. I said nothing and continued to act as ditzy as before, but I felt something deep inside me that was beginning to send out distress signals.

  Instead of looking at the sky, the sun, the clouds, the beautiful scenery, the butterflies, the flowers, and the stone cottages, I was obsessed with that woman.

  I listened to the sound of her voice, I looked at where she put her hands on the body of her children (always the sweetest spots: the neck, the hair, the cheeks, the chubby part of the little calves), what she fed them, how she answered their questions, how she never made a mistake with their names, and that way she had of always discreetly checking on them out of the corner of one eye . . . it was killing me.

  All that tenderness was killing me . . . All that injustice . . . That enormous hollow lack that jumped into my mouth each time I turned my head toward her . . .

  So I clung to Franck like a leech but since I got the sense I was bothering him, I banished myself to a corner of the tent.

  After lunch, since I was still feeling down, I asked if I could lead the little Donkster.

  So that I might get over at least one of my anxieties . . .

  Sergeant Crewcut let me take over, firing off a thousand ridiculous warnings (like he was entrusting me with a pitbull on amphetamines who had not eaten anything for a week, and so on) and to take my mind off things, I threw myself into a diabolical seduction plan.

  I whispered in Donkster’s big ear that rattled with pleasure: “Are you sure you don’t want to come to Paris with me? I’ll slip you all my faded roses to munch on and I’ll take you to flirt with the little female donkeys in the Luxembourg Gardens . . . Plus I’ll pick up your droppings, I’ll put them in way too cute little jute canvas bags and I’ll sell them for a fortune to all the losers who make lousy vegetable gardens on their balconies.

  “Go on, say yes . . . you’re not sick of carrying our stuff? You don’t want to live a beautiful life? I’ll dye your mane blue lavender and we’ll go drink mojitos on the Champs Élysées.

  “Because I noticed that you really like mint leaves, right, my little friend?

  “Go on, my Dollster . . . Don’t be stubborn . . . ”

  His big sweet eyes looked at me gently. He didn’t look opposed to the idea and rubbed himself on my arm from time to time to drive off the flies and to force me to continue to make him bray again a little with all my foolishness.

  So I felt better.

  I felt better and didn’t pay any attention to Mommy Crewcut’s sweetness and to her husband’s phenomenal stupidity.

  You see, little star, it wasn’t premeditated at all. The day before, I had swallowed that dirty little piece of the Morels that had stopped me from living, and there was no hatred left in me.

  I hope you believe me.

  You have to believe me.

  I always tell the truth to you and Franck.

  * * *

  Okay, you’re ready?

  Okay. I’ll tell you everything then . . .

  At one point, the little boy who had dreamed about it for days and nights, again asked if he could lead the little donkey, too.

  His father said no and I said yes.

  Exactly at the same time.

  And then came a big lull in the conversation.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “he’s completely calm and totally gentle . . . Look, I was super afraid and then everything went fine . . . If you want, I’ll stay right behind your son in case there’s a probl
em, okay?”

  Mr. Crewcut was really pissed but he had to give in because everyone was saying I was right, that our donkey was not a donkey but a lamb and that he should trust the children and all that.

  HeilHitler finally relented, but we had the feeling he was placing his kid in the sights of his pump-action shotgun so it wasn’t in the little one’s interest to screw up.

  Lovely.

  The kid was so happy. Like, Ben-Hur at the steering wheel of his Lamborghini, you might say.

  As promised, I kept behind him, and like his mommy, sometimes, I discreetly touched his hair.

  Just like that.

  To see . . .

  And, since everything was going well, we finally all relaxed.

  About a half hour later, he announced that he’d had enough of leading Donkster and wanted to return him to me so he could go back to looking for fossils.

  “No way,” his father retorted, only too happy to be able to regain his authority in the eyes of the group. “You wanted to lead him, well, now you have to carry through. You need to learn that we make choices in life, my dear Antoine. You decided to be responsible for this animal, very well, so now you be quiet and lead him until we get to the camp, got it?”

  This bullshit again?

  Oh, oh . . . I was really going to have to get mixed up in this conversation.

  Oh, oh . . . where are you, my Francky?

  Don’t stay too far behind, sweetie, because I’m getting the feeling my shirt is about to burst . . .

  And I look a little green about the gills, don’t you think?

  So this little Antoine, who was super cute, a super good walker, super happy, super brave, super easygoing, super affectionate, and super sweet with his little sisters, began to whimper, calling for his mother.

  And then his father gave him a mean little slap behind the head to teach him a lesson.

  Oh, fuck . . .

  Oh, I recognized it . . .

  I recognized it because I know it by heart.

  It was the worst.

  The weakest of the weak.

  The most vicious.

  The most painful.

  The kind that doesn’t leave a mark but detaches you from your cerebellum in a second.

  The kind that gives you whiplash inside.

  The kind that no one ever suspects and that so shakes your cranium, making you unable to think for a moment, and that rattles you for the rest of your life.

  Oh, fuck . . .

  My little Proustian madeleine . . .

  Fine, I didn’t think about all that at the time, of course. Besides, I didn’t think about it at all since it was tattooed into my skin.

  Plus I didn’t have time to think because I was making a big arc behind my back with my Francky’s walking stick, which was as beautiful as a piece of Van Cleef jewelry, and which I smashed to pieces with a direct hit the face of this gentleman with a crewcut who had just raised a hand against a child.

  A direct hit.

  Face smashed.

  Nose gone.

  Mouth gone.

  Everything.

  Only blood, between his fingers and all over his face.

  And squeals.

  Pig squeals, of course.

  Oh what a mess . . .

  Plus, because of my brusque gesture and my raised stick, the donkey got scared and took off at a triple gallop for Kathmandu with all our provisions on his back.

  Oh what a mess . . .

  And since everyone looked at me as though I’d done him in, I started in again in order to resuscitate the bastard who had dared to hit a sweet little boy:

  “So?” I said in my unrecognizable voice that I used for fomenting rebellion. “Do you feel that? Do you see what happens when someone is hit by surprise? Do you see how unpleasant it is? Never do that again, got it? Because next time I’ll kill you.”

  And as he wasn’t able to answer me since he was sucking on his cracked teeth, I continued:

  “Don’t worry, I’m going to get out of here pronto because I can’t stand your dirty fascist mouth anymore, but I’m going to tell you one last thing before I leave, asshole . . . Hey, look at me . . . You hear me? Well then listen good: you see, pal, there . . . (and at the same time I was saying that, I didn’t dare look in the direction of Francky, of course), (I can’t be brave about everything on the same day), well, he’s queer . . . and I’m a lesbo . . . oh yeah . . . and that fact, just think, every night, in our little tent, well, it doesn’t stop us from doing really filthy things with our bodies, the two of us . . . things you can’t even imagine . . . He rarely ejaculates on me, I assure you, but what if a drinking spree goes haywire one evening . . . what if . . . well, if there was a kid born from all that filth between a queer and a lesbian, you know what? Not only would we keep him just to piss you off, but also, we would never hit him. Never, you understand? We wouldn’t ever hurt him the least little bit. Never, never, never . . . And if he really bugged us too much and it prevented us from getting back to our orgy, you know what? We’d bump him off, but we’d do it nicely . . . I swear on the head of your children that he wouldn’t suffer. Cross my heart and hope to die. All right now . . . goodbye . . . and fuck off!”

  And then I spit at his feet and headed in the direction of my shepherd.

  Because I was on the path of Faith, Life, Light, and Truth.

  I walked straight ahead for hours and hours.

  Straight toward Jesus’s mountain.

  I didn’t even turn around once to see if Francky was following me.

  I knew he was following me.

  I knew he hated me but was following me anyway.

  I knew he hated me but was thanking me at the same time.

  And I knew it was really messing up his head.

  Because between that fascist ball breaker and his father, there must not have been that much difference . . . The fact is, they belonged to the same cell of the Defenders of Western Christianity . . .

  At one point, I froze before some sort of a rift in the mountains.

  First, because it was the end of the trail; second, because I hadn’t heard any noise behind me for a really long time.

  None.

  I froze in place and waited.

  Blind faith, okay, but I wasn’t blind.

  Plus, as that poet would say, there is no love.

  There are only proofs of love.

  I froze in place and looked at my watch.

  If he’s not here in twenty minutes, I said to myself, I’m giving up the lease on the apartment in the rue de la Fidelité.

  No matter how smug I was from time to time, I was still a fragile little thing.

  Shit. It was as much for him as for myself that I had blown a fuse.

  Liar.

  Okay, I admit it. It was only for myself.

  Not even for myself . . . But for a little girl I knew when I was little . . .

  A little girl whom I never had the chance to tell that even if she smelled during the winter months, she was still my friend and could always join my group of friends and sit next to me in class.

  Always.

  And forever.

  So, okay, there you have it. That’s the story.

  She got it, her proof of love . . .

  If in nineteen minutes, he’s not there, I repeated to myself, gritting my teeth, I’ll give up the lease on the apartment in the rue de la Fidelité.

  And exactly seventeen minutes later, a voice behind my back spit out its venom:

  “Hey? You know what? You’re a pain in the ass, Morel . . . You’re a real pain in the ass!”

  I must have cried with happiness.

  It was the most beautiful and most romantic declaration of love that anyone had ever made to me in my life.

  I turned
around, flew into his arms, and—I don’t know how I did it— somehow managed to pull both of us into the rift.

  We barreled down a rocky slope and ended up all the way at the bottom, smack in the middle of some incredibly thorny bushes and in more or less a thousand pieces.

  We crawled as best we could toward an area that was a bit flatter and then gave each other the silent treatment.

  Okay, little star, there you have it . . . It’s over . . . And if you want to see us again and with bonus features, go back to season 1, episode 1, because I no longer have anything to add.

  Hee hee hee.

  I was dreaming that Franck was tickling me.

  Hee hee hee. But . . . uh . . . stop that . . .

  And when I opened my eyes, I realized I had finally fallen asleep and those little coochy coos weren’t Franck in a dream, but Donkster robbing my pockets.

  “Your new friend wants an apple, it seems . . . ”

  I straightened up, grimacing, still because of my mangled arm, and I saw that Franck was there, all calm, sitting on a rock making coffee.

  “Coffee’s ready,” he said.

  “Francky? Is it you? You’re not dead?”

  “No, not yet . . . Your little stunt didn’t work, not so far at least.”

  “You haven’t broken anything?”

  “Yeah, my ankle, I think . . . ”

  “But uh . . . I’m having a tough time sorting this out . . . you weren’t in a coma?”

  “No.”

  “So what were you doing, then?”

  “Sleeping.”

  Holy fuck, what nerve . . . and all that worry he caused me?

  Holy fuck, what nerve . . .