Hunting and Gathering

by Anna Gavalda

  “Your doctor?”

  “A great woman. Yes, but not only that. A shrink too. An old geezer who cleaned my head out. D’you know V33?”

  “What is that? Medicine?”

  “No, it’s a wood stripper.”

  “Yeah! A green and red bottle, isn’t it?”

  “Sure. Well, this guy is my V33. He coats me with the stuff, it burns and makes blisters, and then the next time round he takes his spatula and scrapes off all the shit. Look at me. Under my skull I’m naked as a worm.”

  He could no longer smile; his hands were trembling. “Fuck, it’s hard. It’s too hard. I didn’t think—”

  He looked up.

  “But that’s not all. There’s someone else too. A little woman with thighs no thicker than flies’ legs who went and pulled up her pants before I could get a good look.”

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Camille.”

  He repeated it and turned to the wall.

  “Camille . . . Camille . . . The day you showed up, Camille, I’d had a run-in with a dealer. It was so damn cold, and I didn’t feel like fighting it anymore. But anyway. You were there. So I followed you. I’m a gallant sort of guy.”

  Silence.

  “Can I keep talking some more or are you fed up with me?”

  “Pour me another cup of coffee . . .”

  “Oh, sorry. It’s because of the old guy, my shrink. I’ve turned into a real blabbermouth.”

  “It’s no problem, really.”

  “But it is important. I mean, even for you, I think it’s important.”

  She frowned.

  “Your help, your room, your food, that’s one thing. But seriously, I was really having a bad trip when you found me. I was dizzy, you know what I mean? I wanted to go back and see them, I—And then there was this guy who saved me. This guy, and your sheets.”

  He reached over for something and put it down between them. Camille recognized her book. The letters from Van Gogh to his brother.

  She’d forgotten she had left it there.

  And yet it was not as if she hadn’t carried it everywhere with her.

  “I opened it to hold myself back, to stop myself from going out that door, because there was nothing else here and you know what this book did for me?”

  She shook her head.

  “It did this, and this, and this.”

  He took the book and struck himself on his skull and on each cheek.

  “I’m reading it for the third time. It . . . it’s everything for me. There’s everything in here. I know this guy inside out. He is me. He’s my brother. I understand everything he says. How he loses it. How he suffers. How he’s always repeating himself and apologizing and trying to figure other people out, or searching his own soul. How his family rejected him—his parents were completely clueless—and then how he’d stay in the hospital and all of that. I—I’m not going to tell you my life story, don’t worry, but it really gets to me on some level. The way he is with girls, how he falls in love with this snooty woman, how everyone treats him with scorn, and the day he decides to set up house with that whore, the one who got pregnant. No, I won’t tell you my life story but there are similarities that blow my mind, no shit. No one believed in him, except his brother. No one. But even though he was fragile and crazy, he believed in what he was doing. At least he says so, that he has faith, that he’s strong and, uh . . . The first time I read it, almost straight through, I didn’t get the bit in italics at the end.”

  He opened the book: “ ‘Letter that Vincent van Gogh had on his person July 29, 1890.’ It was only when I read the preface the next day or the day after that I understood he’d committed suicide, the asshole. That he’d never sent that letter and I—Fuck, that really threw me, you’ve no idea. Everything he said about his body, I feel it. All his suffering, it’s not just words, you know what I mean? It’s—Well, I . . . I don’t care about his work. No, wait, it’s not that I don’t care but that’s not what I was reading about. What I was reading about is that if you’re not in your place, if you don’t do what other people expect you to do, you suffer. You suffer like an animal and in the end you die. Well, not me. I’m not going to die. He feels like a friend, a brother—and I can’t do that to him. I don’t want to.”

  Camille was rapt. Shit. Her cigarette ash had just fallen into her coffee.

  “Does all that sound like a load of bullshit?”

  “No, no, quite the opposite.”

  “Have you read this?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you—it didn’t upset you?”

  “I was mainly interested in his work. He started late. He taught himself. A—you, you know his paintings?”

  “Sunflowers, right? No. I considered going and looking through a book or something, but I just don’t feel like it. I like the version in my head better.”

  “Keep it. It’s a present.”

  “Someday, you know, if I make it through this, I’ll thank you. But I can’t just yet. Like I told you, I’ve been gnawed to the bone . . . I’ve got nothing left, except this old fleabag here.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Next week—supposed to anyway.”

  “You want to thank me?”

  “If there’s a way I can.”

  “Let me draw you.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Naked?”

  “Preferably.”

  “Holy shit. But—you haven’t seen my body.”

  “I can imagine it.”

  He tied his sneakers and his dog began to jump excitedly.

  “Are you going out?”

  “All night long. Every night. I walk until I’m exhausted. I go for my daily dose as soon as the service opens, and then I come back and lie down so I can make it through to the next day. It’s the only way I’ve found to get by.”

  Noise out in the hallway. The pile of fur froze.

  “There’s someone out there.” He panicked.

  “Camille? Everything all right? It’s—it’s your valiant knight, my darling.”

  There stood Philibert, in the doorway, with a saber in his hand.

  “Barbès! Down!”

  “I am . . . I am r-ridiculous, aren’t I.”

  She introduced them, laughing, “Vincent, this is Philibert Marquet de La Durbellière, commander in chief of an army in retreat and”—turning the other way—“Philbert, this is Vincent, as in, uh, as in Van Gogh . . .”

  “Enchanté,” said Philibert, shoving his saber back into its sheath. “Ridiculous and delighted to meet you. I will, uh, I will withdraw now, you see.”

  “I’m coming down with you,” answered Camille.

  “Me too.”

  “Will you—will you come and see me?” asked Camille.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “When?”

  “In the afternoon. Is that okay? With my dog?”

  “With Barbès, of course.”

  “Ah! Barbès,” said Philibert regretfully. “Another madman of the Republic, that fellow. I would have preferred the Abbess of Rochechouart!”

  Vincent looked at him quizzically.

  Camille shrugged her shoulders, puzzled.

  Philibert, who had turned back, was offended: “Indeed! The Barbès-Rochechouart métro station—for the name of poor Marguerite de Rochechouart de Montpipeau to be associated with that good-for-nothing is an absolute abomination!”

  “De Montpipeau?” echoed Camille. “Good Lord, where do you dig up these names? By the way, why don’t you sign up to be on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

  “Oh, no, don’t you start. You know perfectly well why not.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “By the time I got the answer out it would be time for the news.”

  74

  CAMILLE didn’t sleep a wink all night. She wandered aimlessly around the apartment, wiped at the dust, bumped into ghosts, took a bath, got up late, bathed Paulette and
brushed her hair any which way, strolled with her a while along the rue de Grenelle, and couldn’t eat a thing.

  “You’re awfully nervous today.”

  “I have an important appointment.”

  “Who with?”

  “With myself.”

  “Are you going to the doctor’s?” asked the old lady worriedly.

  As was her habit, Paulette dozed off after lunch. Camille set her ball of yarn to one side, pulled up the covers and left on tiptoe.

  She locked herself in her room, moved the stool a dozen times and inspected her supplies cautiously. She felt sick.

  Franck had just come in. He was getting out a load of laundry. Since the episode of his Jivaro sweater, he would hang out his laundry himself, and went on like a distraught housewife about the perfidy of dryers which wore out the fibers of a piece of clothing, and chewed-up collars.

  Thrilling.

  It was Franck who opened the door:

  “I’m here for Camille.”

  “Down at the end of the hall.”

  Then he went off to his room and for once she was grateful for his discretion.

  They were both very ill at ease but for different reasons.

  No, that’s not it.

  They were both very ill at ease for the same reason: the feeling in the pits of their stomachs.

  He was the one who broke the ice: “Okay, then. Shall we get started? You got a changing room? A screen? Something?”

  God bless him.

  “See, I turned the heat up to the max. You won’t be cold.”

  “Oh! That’s great, that fireplace.”

  “Shit, I feel like I’m back with the medics. It makes me nervous. Do I, do I take off my underwear too?”

  “If you want to keep it on, then do.”

  “But it’s better if I take it off.”

  “Yes. In any case, I always start from the back.”

  “Shit. I’m sure I’ve got a ton of zits.”

  “Don’t worry, once you’re shirtless in the ocean spray, they’ll all vanish before you’ve finished loading your first pile of manure.”

  “You know you’d make a great beauty consultant?”

  “Yeah, really. Go on, come out of there now and go sit down.”

  “You could at least have put me by the window, so I’d have something to look at.”

  “I’m not the one who decides.”

  “No? Then who does?”

  “The light. And don’t complain, you’ll be standing up next.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until you drop.”

  “You’ll drop before me.”

  “Mmm.”

  Mmm, meaning: I’d be surprised.

  She began with a series of sketches, moving around him. Her belly and her hand began to relax. But Vincent grew even more tense.

  When she came too near he closed his eyes.

  Did he have pimples? She couldn’t see any. She saw his tensed muscles, his tired shoulders, the cervical bones sticking out at the nape of his neck when he lowered his head, his spinal cord like a long eroded ridge, his nervousness, his feverish air, his jaw and his prominent cheek-bones. The sunken shadows around his eyes, the shape of his skull, his sternum, his hollow chest, his scrawny arms dotted with dark spots. The unsettling labyrinth of veins beneath his pale skin and the passage of life over his body. Yes. That, above all: the imprint of the abyss, like the tread of a huge invisible tank, and his extreme modesty, too.

  After roughly an hour he asked her if he could read.

  “Yes. The time it will take me to capture you . . .”

  “You haven’t started yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well! Should I read out loud?”

  “If you want.”

  He bent the book back and forth for a moment before breaking its spine.

  “ ‘I sense what Father and Mother instinctively (I do not say intelligently) think about me. They shrink from taking me into the house as they might from taking a big shaggy dog who is sure to come into the room with wet paws—and is so very shaggy.

  “ ‘He will get in everyone’s way. And his bark is so loud.

  “ ‘In short, he is a filthy beast.

  “ ‘Very well, but the beast has a human history, and although he is a dog he has a human soul, and what is more, one so sensitive that he can feel what people think about him, which an ordinary dog cannot do.

  “ ‘In fact this dog used to be Father’s son once upon a time, and it was Father who left him out in the street a little too long, so he was bound to become rougher, but seeing that Father forgot this many years ago and has never thought deeply about what the bond between father and son means, we had best say nothing about it.’ ”

  He cleared his throat.

  “ ‘The only’—oh, sorry—‘the only thing the dog regrets is that he came back, because it wasn’t as lonely on the heath as it is in this house—despite all that kindness. The poor beast’s visit was a weakness, which I hope will be forgotten, and which he will avoid—’ ”

  “Stop,” she interrupted. “Stop, please. Just stop.”

  “Is it bothering you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Right. I’m there. I’ve got you now.”

  She closed her sketchpad and once again felt her stomach heave. She raised her chin and threw her head back.

  “You okay?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Okay. Now you’re going to turn toward me and sit with your legs spread and your hands like this.”

  “I have to spread them?”

  “Yes. And your hand, look . . . Bend your wrist and spread your fingers. Wait. Don’t move.”

  She rummaged in her things and handed him the reproduction of a painting by Ingres.

  “Exactly like this.”

  “Who’s this fat guy?”

  “Louis-François Bertin.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The buddha of the bourgeoisie: well fed, well-off and triumphant. I didn’t say that, Manet did. Sublime, no?”

  “And you want me to pose like him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh. With my legs, with my legs spread.”

  “Hey. Stop it with your dick. That’s enough. I don’t give a damn about it,” she reassured him, leafing through her sketches. “Here, look. I already drew it.”

  “Oh!” A disappointed and tender little syllable.

  Camille sat down and placed her board on her lap, then stood up and tried to use the easel, but that didn’t work either. She grew annoyed, cursed, and knew perfectly well that all this fidgeting was merely some pretext to keep the void at bay.

  Finally she pinned her paper vertically and decided to sit at exactly the same height as her model.

  She took in a long gulp of courage and blew out a little faltering breath of air. She’d been wrong; she shouldn’t use red chalk. Graphite, pen and ink, and a sepia wash.

  The model had spoken.

  She raised her elbow. Her hand stayed in the air. She was trembling.

  “Whatever you do, don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  She ran into the kitchen, knocked things over, grabbed the bottle of gin and drowned her fear. She closed her eyes and held on to the edge of the sink. Go on. One more, for the road.

  When she came back and sat down, he looked at her with a smile.

  He knew.

  However submissive they might seem, people like these always recognize each other.

  It was like a probe. Like radar.

  An uneasy complicity and a shared sense of weakness.

  “Feeling better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, get on with it. We’ve got other things to do, for Christ’s sake!”

  He held himself very straight. At a slight angle, like the painting. He breathed evenly and met the gaze of the girl who was unknowingly humiliating him.

  Dark and luminous.

  Ravaged.

&
nbsp; Trusting.

  “How much do you weigh, Vincent?”

  “Around a hundred and thirty-two pounds.”

  A hundred and thirty-two pounds of provocation.

  (Even if it wasn’t an amiable question, it was an interesting one all the same: had Camille Fauque reached out to this boy to help him, as he truly believed, or to dissect him, naked and defenseless on a red Formica kitchen chair?

  Compassion? Love for mankind? Perhaps . . .

  Had it not all been premeditated? Moving him in up there, the dog food, the trust, Pierre Kessler’s anger—like a sudden blow when she wasn’t looking?

  Artists are monsters.

  No, please. That would just be too perverse. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and keep quiet. There might be something not quite right about our girl Camille, but when she could dig her claws into the heart of her subject, the results were dazzling. And perhaps it was simply that her generosity was only now apparent? When her pupils contracted and she became merciless . . . )

  It was almost dark. She had put on the light without realizing, and was sweating as much as he was.

  “Let’s stop. I’m cramped and aching all over.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. Her harsh tone of voice surprised them both. “Forgive me . . . Don’t, don’t move, please don’t.”

  “In my pants . . . front pocket . . . Valium.”

  She went to fetch him a glass of water.

  “Please, I beg you, just a little bit longer, you can lean against the chair if you want . . . I—I can’t work from memory. If you leave now my drawing will die. Forgive me, I—I’ve almost finished.”

  “That’s it. You can get dressed.”

  “Is it serious, doctor?”

  “I hope so,” she murmured.

  He came back, stretching, patted his dog on the head and whispered a few tender words into its ear. He lit a cigarette.