Is it possible for someone to change so completely? He has become a stranger—she thinks of Kafka’s Metamorphosis—one day, her Prince Charming had begun to mutate into a louse. She had thought this was something that only happened in fiction. When they had moved to Paris together, they had both assumed that Kevin would become a great painter. Anaïs wanted to work in documentaries. They loved the films of Wang Bing, Chris Marker, or Watkins and Oppenheimer … They did not care if they struggled financially. Their parents helped them out a little. They had had to go without most things. They abhorred consumerism. When Kevin had started writing freelance pieces about contemporary art for Libération, it had just been a little pin money now and then. Libé was the sort of left-wing newspaper Serge Daney accused of being bogged down in “private conversations.” Journalists treated their readers as embarrassing appendages rather than readers, writing articles that were exclusively directed at advertisers, lobbyists, friends, colleagues, editors in chief … But Kevin played the game. He was offered a job as a columnist on the film pages. She had watched as his wardrobe and his behavior changed. She was sometimes embarrassed when she heard him introduce himself, “I work at Libé.” He had become someone else. He would have dinner with the bigwigs from the newspaper and would come home jubilant. The articles he was writing sounded less and less like him. And he had left her for a girl he had met at the fiftieth birthday party of a photographer he knew from the paper. Anaïs had been at the party with him. It had never even occurred to her to be wary of Karine. But ten days later, she should have suspected something when she heard Kevin say: “It’s old hat, the whole left-wing/right-wing thing. The only thing that matters these days is where you stand on globalization.” How could anyone say something so damn stupid? It is the kind of remark guys make when they are leaning toward the right. Two months later, he left. He had changed so quickly …
The solitude in itself is not unpleasant. It has been a long time since she has spent time on her own. She reads more. But she smiles less. There are lots of things you can do alone. Laughing is not one of them. With Kevin, she laughed all the time. Is she funny, his new girlfriend? She doesn’t look like it. Anaïs is the only girl she knows to have been dumped for an older woman. Karine is nearly forty. She’s bound to have a baby straightaway.
Anaïs is also sleeping with an older woman. That’s it, she’s done it. She has jumped the fence. She waited out the twelve months’ mourning, celebrated the anniversaries of all the things they had done together the previous year. And then it had happened. Someone else had undressed her, and she had been dying for it to happen. Her lover is stunningly beautiful. The Hyena snaps her in two with a rapturous brutality. It is magical. So magical she finds it shocking. At least she is not sleeping with another guy, so the comparison is less direct.
The Hyena is brazen. She flaunts her desire with disturbing audacity, and the effect on Anaïs is the same as if it were a man. Anaïs feels herself being looked at with a passion that is almost predatory, and it gets her all worked up. She has come to a realization: it is not a cock that makes a man but the impetuousness of his desire. What she finds most surprising is not that she is attracted to a woman, but that she allowed herself to emerge from her grief so soon. Later, they fucked. And since then, problem solved, all she wants is to do it again.
What is fabulous about this thing that is happening is that each wonderful moment is another step away from Kevin. A gradual amputation. Sometimes, she will make a gesture she used to make with him, or use some word she thinks of as “theirs.” She feels something ripped from her. It is as though she is putting a bullet in the head of what was their love. “You were the love of my life.” That past tense, like a dagger driven into her chest. She did not think it was possible to get through the days that followed. But there had been no way out. She is not the person she was before that wound. Now, she knows: every “I love you” is a dagger in the making.
This thing with the Hyena allowed her to pick herself up. She has gradually come back to life. How are they going to see each other now that she has been fired? She can’t believe he just booted her out like that. It’s all tied up with the graffiti incident at his place. Ever since, Dopalet has been off-kilter. With good reason. At the time, she had still been part of his inner circle. He had taken her into his confidence. One morning, he had locked himself in his office the moment he arrived. Everyone had noticed he was in a foul mood. Then he had summoned her. It was 10:00 a.m. and he was lying on the sofa holding a glass of whiskey so full it might as well have been orange juice. His breathing was ragged, he was having a panic attack. Sounding like a man on his deathbed, he had said:
“Anaïs, what I’m about to say has to stay between the two of us. I can trust you, can’t I? I’m being persecuted by a bunch of degenerates, I don’t know what the hell started it. They came to my apartment last night and spray-painted the whole front of the building. It’s grotesque … Grotesque! You can’t begin to imagine…”
He wanted to avoid any scandal—Anaïs had been immediately dispatched to the scene of the crime. Dopalet had called a taxi. He needed to be sure that the painter he had hired would respect the instructions he had given about discretion. Neither he nor his wife could stay there, they were too devastated. Everything needed to be painted over by evening, but there could be no question of letting two painters in on the secret. Anaïs had gone, a little irritated at being treated as a general lackey. She had expected to find a couple of tags sprayed on the wall, nothing that warranted such an outburst.
A painter was already at work. He had covered the slogans with sheets of paper thick enough to hide them—which had meant the whole front of this magnificent building of which Dopalet occupied only one floor. Each sheet of paper she lifted revealed new accusations: “pervert” “murderer” “everyone will know” “rapist” “FUCK YOU DOPALET.” She had been shaken. She had not been expecting something so outrageous. It was like a war zone. Even Anaïs, who was not personally concerned, had felt distraught. The painter, a taciturn redhead, was there to repaint the whole façade in white before a team sent by the insurers took over and finished the job. She had tried to engage him in conversation.
“Someone would really have to be twisted to do a thing like this … luckily, with the CCTV cameras, it shouldn’t be too difficult…”
“Yeah, if someone was prepared to press charges.”
He was not forthcoming. Anaïs asked:
“How long do you think it’s going to take you?”
“I can get it done today, if I don’t stop to chat.”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
* * *
She could not simply stand there, watching him paint. She had crossed the road and gone into a bar on the corner. It was impossible to get through to Dopalet, who was in a meeting with Canal+. She did not know what she should do. Help the painter? She was hardly dressed for the task. She tried to imagine what the producer had felt when he had seen the building in this state. It had probably been someone who knew him. A madman, or some vindictive junkie bitch. He did have a habit of having affairs with girls who were into drugs … She had seen her fair share pass through the office. Maybe one of them had wanted revenge because he wouldn’t leave his wife. It was so humiliating—whatever Dopalet had done, he did not deserve this.
* * *
The Hyena pulled up in front of the bar on her motorbike. The wave of joy Anaïs had felt when she recognized the helmet left no room for doubt: when you’re this exhilarated, it’s not just about the sex. For the first time, Anaïs had thought, I’m in love with her. Beaming, she had rushed to the door and thrown it open, making no attempt to hide her excitement, and got shot down in flames. The Hyena had stopped her in her tracks, her reaction had been strange: “Dopalet called me, he wants me to make sure that they’ve left no trace … Just act like we’re in the office, we hardly know each other.” She seemed worried that someone was watching and might find out their secret. She had come into t
he bar, but did not order anything, she didn’t have time. She had said to Anaïs: “You’re right, there’s nothing for you to do here. Go back to the office, tell Dopalet I said I’d stay here with the painter.” She had sent her packing. Anaïs had felt hurt. Here it comes, the little disappointments, those moments when you take someone’s hand and they shrug it off. All the things she had never experienced with Kevin, but which she well remembered from her teenage years. She didn’t want a relationship flecked with little pieces of shit. But the next day, she was back at the hotel, she could not keep her distance.
Their first kiss had been in the elevator at work, they were both going down, they had been circling each other for some time. The Hyena had not moved except to place her hands on her hips. The chain glittering around her wrist had held Anaïs spellbound, hypnotized by the bony protrusion at the base of her hand, her square palm, those long fingers that radiated an authority that made her feel faint. Anaïs ached to fuck so intensely it hurt. It had been so intense, and so unexpected that she had felt the ground give way beneath her. They had stood, motionless, until the elevator doors opened, then the Hyena had pressed the button for the top floor, the doors closed, and they moved toward each other.
Ever since, they have been on the down low. In the office, the Hyena will surreptitiously slip a folded piece of paper into her handbag noting the time and place of their next tryst, and Anaïs is allowed to call only if there is a hitch, using the precise code: “I couldn’t find the documents you asked me for.” Secrecy probably adds to the excitement. They meet up in hotel rooms.
* * *
Her hand, when they are standing and her fingers are fucking her, her smile every time she finds Anaïs already wet, her hips shuddering convulsively, a delicious terror and that feeling when the other person comes, the profile of a delicate face resting on a pillow, in utter surrender, that enigmatic expression.
Today, the Hyena has a meeting in the Marais. She mentioned it on the phone in front of Anaïs the last time they met. Anaïs steps into a métro car. There is a stink of piss and sweat. A boy in a beige pullover with long curly hair is sitting on his own—everyone has moved as far away as possible. The stench is at odds with how he looks, he is quite handsome, with just a slightly hippie look about him. The other passengers look at each other but say nothing, some disgusted, others smiling, two girls are giggling hysterically, a guy wearing Converse sneakers is thinking about opening a window, another holds a handkerchief to his nose and changes cars as soon as possible. Anaïs resolves to stay. The smell is so strong she feels she might throw up.
Her iPhone is set to Shuffle, she is listening to Mary J. Blige, “No More Drama,” and she pictures Dopalet’s secretary, Audrey, with tears in her eyes—she wasn’t faking it, she was genuinely devastated. She was the only one in the whole team to show even a glimmer of empathy. All the others disappeared as soon as they heard she had been asked to clear out her desk. As Audrey unlocked the storage closet and stowed Anaïs’s boxes, promising to send them by courier tomorrow, she whispered not to worry about compensation. “He’s like that. But he makes up for it with the severance package. He’s generous. He doesn’t want to be dragged in front of an industrial tribunal. And he knows he’s a monster.”
Dopalet would sometimes call her at 11:00 p.m. and demand that she join him for a drink because he needed to talk. He knew that she lived alone. She would get dressed again, put on her makeup, jump in the cab he had sent, and go to meet him. She would listen to him for hours. He never asked how she was. She was grateful that he never insisted when she declined his offer to “come for one last drink in a club.” They both knew what sort of club he had in mind, she would shake her head and smile and he would let her go. He had other girls for that in his little black book. She did not have to worry about him on that score. She would get to bed at two in the morning, exhausted, and always remembered to set her alarm for 6:00 a.m. so she had time to prepare before heading into the office.
She gets off the métro at Saint-Paul. She will walk past HellBabe. She could send a text message to say she is on her way. But the Hyena does not like people using her cell number for anything outside work.
AS SHE ARRIVES at the rue Vieille-du-Temple, Gaëlle feels like a lightbulb on its last legs, when it starts to sputter to warn that it is about to fail. She has spent the whole morning online trying to order a new cell phone. Just to access her invoices, she would have needed to remember her code, or at least the email address she used when she first signed up. She feels as though she spends her whole life creating online profiles—she can never remember her passwords. Then, when she wanted to pay, they sent a code to her cell—when the whole reason she needed a new phone was because the battery in the old one was dead. And there seemed to be no number she could call to extricate herself from this catch-22 situation. From that point, everything became preposterously complicated. By the time she managed to access the code, the transaction had been canceled. She had had to start all over again. To make matters worse, the prices listed on the website came with so many different tariffs and criteria that it was impossible to know how much the new phone was going to cost. In despair, she started an online chat with an advisor. It turned out to be a chatbot, every answer she got was well wide of the mark, it seemed she was incapable of asking the right questions. In the end, she had canceled her contract, something that penalized no one but her. It was at this point that a demented dyslexic took over from the chatbot—the guy, or girl, refused to spell any word of more than two letters according to correct usage. Deciphering the abstruse messages demanded a level of concentration that was beyond her. The dyslexic demanded that she schedule a telephone conversation in a specific three-hour window the following day. On a landline. She doesn’t have a landline. She gave up. Besides, she knows the routine, they would have insisted on sending the new telephone to her home: no one wants to have to deal with the postal system, which effectively means lunatic courier services who claim you weren’t home when in fact they never rang the doorbell, who leave your package at the other end of Paris in some shop that, when you finally trek all the way there to collect it, turns out to be closed. Everything has become so complicated. She’ll do without a cell phone.
The Hyena has arranged to meet her in the Marais. The old cow wants to talk. Gaëlle is a little early, so she stops for a burger. She wants red meat. Not because she likes it, but because she is convinced that she needs to eat it, for the iron content, just after she’s had her period. They last for seven days and she loses so much blood it is like she is bleeding to death. She has a twenty-one-day cycle. It’s a nightmare. She avoids sitting down in other people’s houses, she has already ruined several sofas. The third millennium, and she is still using the same sanitary napkins her mother used at her age. They stick to her, it feels like walking around with a badly fitting diaper between her legs, but given the efficacy of tampons, she has no choice: she has to use both. Besides, by the time she works out how to insert tampons correctly, she will have hit menopause. And her aim always seems to be off when she applies sanitary napkins—they always leak blood on one side. If guys had periods, the industry would have long since come up with a high-tech solution to protection, some stylish, minimalist, and elegant gadget you insert on your first day and excrete on your last. And Big Pharma would have devised a decent drug for dealing with premenstrual cramps. Men wouldn’t be expected to slosh around like this, obviously. They are capable of littering outer space with recon satellites, but when it comes to PMS symptoms, they come up with shit.
She lifts the bun from her burger and slathers it with ketchup and mayonnaise to disguise the taste. Otherwise it tastes like dead bodies. She doesn’t want to know about the abattoirs where the meat is produced. Online, whenever she sees a photo of caged chickens or pigs being bred for food, she closes the window. The burger joint is cozy, like a retro American diner, but the food is revolting. The frozen fries have been dusted with some kind of herb that tastes so strang
e it must also have been frozen. She drinks her Coke and pushes away the plate. She leaves a generous tip, because she has often worked as a waitress and knows they are not to blame because some con artist makes disgusting food.
The Hyena is already sitting on the café terrace when Gaëlle arrives. They have known each other for more than twenty years. Gaëlle talks about protest marches. It’s either that or the shitty weather this year.
“Did you go on any of the protests for gay marriage?”
“Not my thing.”
“My bae didn’t give me the choice, I went on the first march with her. It was a beautiful day. We sent off from Bastille. I made it as far as Hôtel-de-Ville, then sat on a café terrace and watched people march past.”
“You need to watch your girlfriend. It starts out with one protest and you end up chained to a railing of some embassy on a hunger strike.”
“She’s young. She’s hotheaded. I couldn’t bring myself to say that I didn’t give a fuck about going on a protest. I mean, I get that she cares … You can’t imagine the number of people who’ve felt the need to tell us that they’re against gay marriage. And not just right-wing Catholics, either. Socialists these days are completely shameless…”
“I’ve never met anyone who’s opposed.”
Vernon Subutex 2 Page 21
