One Night in November

by Amélie Antoine

  “That’s true.”

  “I was ending things with Gaëtan at the time, and I didn’t have anyone to help me out either.”

  She doesn’t answer, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s thinking about what I’ve just said, or because she’s simmering and about to explode—she often says I always make everything about me.

  “You know, just because I’m six years older doesn’t mean it should always be my responsibility to smooth things over with Mom and Dad, and console you when you’re feeling down. I wouldn’t mind having a more supportive sister when things are tough . . .”

  I keep talking even though I’m convinced she’s going to hang up on me. Strangely, that doesn’t happen.

  “Okay, so what do you suggest?” she asks, as the anger disappears from her voice and she lowers her guard.

  “Well, I was thinking we could be a little more invested in each other’s lives in the future. And communicate before things deteriorate between us.”

  “We should call each other more often too,” adds Adèle.

  “Actually, we should see each other more often,” I correct her. I’m delighted she’s given me the opportunity to bring up what I’ve been wanting to talk about since the beginning of our conversation.

  “Are you planning to come down to Dijon soon?” she asks, surprised.

  She knows I love my life in Paris and that I rarely spend a weekend in the city I grew up in. Between my job at the Ministry of Culture, the conferences and other events I’m responsible for (which always take place on Saturdays), and the cooking classes I give in my little apartment on Sundays to share my passion for food, my calendar is pretty full. My mother often chides me about it when I call.

  “Well, I was actually thinking you might like to come to Paris for a weekend—”

  Adèle’s voice trills with joy. I have no trouble imagining the delighted expression on her face.

  “Obviously! I’d love to!”

  “In that case, I think you’d better go check your mail.”

  “What?”

  “Make your way down the eight flights of stairs to your mailbox and then call me back, okay?”

  Adèle hangs up, confused. I’m already smiling as I wait for her reaction.

  Less than five minutes later—she must have run all the way down the stairs and then back up again—my phone rings, and a hysterical voice only narrowly misses bursting my eardrums.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Just because we haven’t been on the best of terms doesn’t mean I forgot your taste in music . . .”

  “Eagles of Death Metal next month, Romane! This is so awesome!”

  I’m the one who introduced her to the band a few years back, before they became popular in France.

  “And you bought my train tickets too?”

  “Yep, it’s an all-inclusive package. That way, the only thing you have to worry about is your outfit . . .”

  I know that Adèle isn’t exactly rolling in it, even if she is able to make ends meet from her job with the troupe. And I didn’t want money to be an obstacle to our reconciliatory weekend.

  “I already know what I’m going to wear! I’m not the kind of girl who spends hours in front of her closet!”

  I’m not sure if that’s a barb meant for me, since I am the kind of person who spends hours in front of her wardrobe hesitating between two almost-identical dresses.

  “You can wear the boots I bought you for Christmas last year! I’ve never seen you wear them, and this is the perfect occasion!”

  I decide not to tell Adèle that the reason I’ve never worn the red cowboy boots is because she got them in a seven and I wear an eight.

  Oh well, I’ll scrunch up my toes for one night. I can survive a few hours of torture to make her happy.

  II

  DURING

  1

  ABIGAËLE

  When the loud bell I’ve been waiting for finally interrupts my history teacher’s soporific monologue, I’m the first student to grab my backpack and hurry to the restroom on the ground floor. It’s 6:35 p.m. I’m meeting Clara in exactly fifty-five minutes. In other words, no time to lose.

  I get out my makeup bag and use my eyeliner and some charcoal-gray eyeshadow to create a smoky-eye look. A touch of mascara, and I’m off.

  “I almost had to wait for you,” mumbles Clara.

  She’s leaning against the stairs to the Metro station, rolling one of her long blonde dreads between her hands as if trying to light a fire.

  “I’m not even five minutes late! Quit whining!”

  With an impish grin, I place my leg next to hers. We have on the same turquoise tights, awesome! As we walk toward the Bataclan in step, Clara tells me about her afternoon. She seems to be on a mission to prove to me that her teachers are even more boring than mine.

  My phone rings from inside my leather jacket, interrupting my friend. The screen reads “Mom,” obviously. I wait patiently for my Muse ringtone to quiet—I don’t want my mom to think that I’m deliberately refusing her call. Clara gives me a questioning glance.

  “What did you end up telling her?”

  “Nothing. I got out of school at six thirty and should have been home half an hour later. I guess since I’m now over half an hour late, she’s worried and annoyed, pacing the halls at home by herself. I bet she’s recruiting my dad as back-up and he’ll be calling in the next twenty seconds.”

  As if to confirm my suspicions, Matthew Bellamy’s voice starts singing “Mercy” again, loudly.

  “Is that him?” Clara asks doubtfully.

  “No. My mistake. It’s my mom again. Just in case I didn’t hear it the first time.”

  I wait for my voicemail to pick up, then silence my phone so I’ll be left in peace.

  “Maybe you should tell her we’re at the concert so she doesn’t worry too much?” suggests my best friend with a frown.

  “No, no point. I’m sure she’ll get to the bottom of my disappearance on her own after a while.”

  Clara shrugs without a word. I know exactly what she’s thinking: that it’s not cool to let my parents worry, that I could at least send them a text. But really, I feel like maybe it’s a good thing if my mom worries about me a bit. Maybe that way, when I get home tonight, she’ll have a little perspective. She’ll be so relieved that nothing’s happened to me, that I only defied her.

  We’re finally at the concert hall. I’m scanning the place so intently to find Ilan that I barely notice as the bouncer stamps my hand. The opening band is already playing as I look around the dark venue, ignoring Clara’s smirk.

  “Help me find him instead of laughing like a jerk.”

  “Do you see a crown?” she asks as if she’s really invested. She’s holding her right hand over her eyes and studying the crowd as people move toward the stage.

  “What crown?”

  “You know, Prince Charming always wears a crown, doesn’t he?”

  “Very funny. I’m gonna head up to the balcony to get a better view.”

  Clara follows me, chuckling heartily at her own joke. At the T-shirt stand, I notice a woman wearing red cowboy boots. I nudge my friend.

  “Do you see her boots? They’re awesome! Wait, I’m going to take a quick picture so I can put them on my Christmas list.”

  I don’t even try to be discreet as I snap the picture of the brunette, because she’s completely focused on the selection of Eagles of Death Metal T-shirts. With a simple click, the cowboy boots are in my phone’s memory. Before stashing it in my pocket, I notice I have two missed calls and a text message. Guess my mom’s not all that worried after all.

  We manage to make our way to the balcony, which is already pretty full, and I search for Ilan in the crowd below, in vain. Either he’s not here yet, or I’m a terrible spotter. I drag Clara back down to the pit with me.

  “Let’s go right up to the stage. Ilan’s a serious fan; I bet he’ll want to be as close to the band as possible.”

 
We shove past a few people on our way, constantly saying, “Sorry, our friends are in the front row. We just want to get to them!” and offering insincere smiles. When we finally make it to the stage, I freeze. There’s Ilan! To our left, with his group of friends whose names I don’t know. There are only a few people between us.

  I watch his face, gracefully lit by the spotlights from the stage, then do my best to wipe the stupid grin off mine before nodding to Clara, who follows my gaze.

  “I guess we’ll be staying here?”

  I giggle softly and feel myself blush. I try to focus on the singer as she jumps around energetically, finishing her last song, but my mind is elsewhere. Applause and enthusiastic whistling sound all around me, and I automatically start clapping in rhythm with the rest of the audience. When the duo leaves the stage and the crowd begins to quiet, Clara takes advantage of the relative calm to tell me yet again how cute her Spanish teacher is. I’m sure a simple roll of his tongue is enough for her to immediately melt at her desk and sigh in pleasure. Clara is always all in when she’s crushing, especially when it’s never going to happen: the more impossible the guy, the more she fantasizes about him. Last year, she was head over heels in love with the one and only gay guy in her class. She was almost convinced she could get him to change teams! I open my mouth to tell her she’d be better off forgetting her Juanes look-alike, but the band comes on stage and cuts me off with an explosion of drums and guitar. The crowd starts moving to the beat, and Clara and I do the same. I briefly close my eyes and let myself be carried away by Jesse Hughes’s nasally voice. We’ll have plenty of time to edge ourselves to the left during the concert. The important thing is not to lose sight of my target.

  After several songs spent glancing insistently at Ilan, our eyes finally meet. He pauses for a second, probably sifting through his memories to figure out who I am. It’s true that we’ve only spoken a few times at parties, and I know I’m not exactly unforgettable, despite all my efforts to seem eccentric. He finally nods and smiles briefly. I wave, a surprised look on my face—what a coincidence, running into each other at this concert! He turns back toward the stage and starts moshing with his friends again. I take advantage of his lapse in attention to crab walk to the left. Clara follows, clinging to me.

  As I start moving in cadence with the drums again, a blaring, popping sound suddenly makes me jump. It’s like fireworks have just gone off in the concert hall, and when I say fireworks, I mean the big finale. I’m thinking how awesome this concert is when I notice the look on the singer’s face. Stunned. Disbelieving. Almost frightened.

  That’s when we all turn around in unison. I see flashes of orange light and hear staccato bursts getting louder and louder. I’m petrified. The seconds stretch on forever. The lights come back on and I squint, blinded. I freeze, unable to understand what’s going on. People are shoving violently. I hear screaming and feel the overwhelming sense of panic in the room. I have to move, to run, but I can’t budge. Only a yard away, I see a girl my age crumple to the floor. She’s so close I can tell she’s wearing purple mascara and that it’s got clumps in it. Her strangely vacant green eyes meet mine, and in that fraction of a second, I understand.

  I turn and run toward the stage as fast as I can, head lowered. I’m a terrible athlete, but I climb over the security gate without a second thought, then over the people who’ve chosen to lie down or squat. There’s only instinct now, the instinct of a hunted animal. I hear continuous bursts of gunfire exploding everywhere, exploding in my head, hissing past as bodies drop all around me. As I use my arms to climb up onto the stage, I suddenly feel a shooting pain in my back, then another in my thigh. Like a whip lashing my skin, it sends me to the floor. I stumble and land flat on my stomach. Someone walks on my arm, trampling me without stopping. All I can see are sneakers with blue-and-white stripes hurrying away.

  Then, all of a sudden, it goes silent. The gunfire stops, leaving only the screaming, the crying, and the noise of rushing feet. I exhale quietly and start crawling, lifting my head as little as possible. I can’t feel my left leg anymore; it’s like it’s fallen asleep. The shots start up again and I keep moving, slowly, until I manage to get behind a bunch of amps that make up a kind of rampart. Just like my fort, when I used to stack books to make a castle and Clara would play the evil witch. Where is she anyway?

  To my right, I see dozens of people running to hide. Meanwhile, here I am, alone on the stage, unable to stand. I want to call out to them, ask them to help me, not to leave me, to scream so they come back—they can’t just abandon me here—but no sound leaves my mouth. I huddle into the fetal position to make myself as small as possible, to disappear, when I notice something wet between my legs. Shit, have I peed myself? I can’t help but think how embarrassing this is and hope that I won’t run into Ilan now, even though some part of me knows that’s the least of my problems. I run my fingers over my tights and feel a warm, sticky liquid dripping onto the ground. When I see the color of my hand, I clench my jaw to keep from screaming. Shh, don’t make any noise, don’t attract attention, play dead. A wave of terror rushes up my throat, but I keep my mouth shut, like when Clara mimes zip it to tell me to keep a secret. My lips are sealed; you can count on me. But that doesn’t keep the questions from popping into my head relentlessly, without any answers. Am I bleeding to death? Am I going to die here, from a bullet to the leg? If I put pressure on it, will it help? If I had paid more attention in biology, would I know what to do? If I stay still and breathe as little as possible, will I bleed less?

  I notice that the waves of gunfire have tapered off, replaced by single shots. Is that a good thing or not? Who are these guys? What do they want with us? What have we done to them? What have I done to them? Why are they taking it out on us like this for no apparent reason?

  Little by little everyone around me quiets down. The screams become rare and scattered, and when one does break the heavy silence, I shake in terror. I hate that I can hear myself trembling, that I can hear my pulse buzzing in my ears. Every sign of life heightens the risk of death. I think of my dad’s freediving techniques: save oxygen, slow your heartbeat, hold your breath, slow your mind, come back into the light.

  I put as much pressure as possible on my upper thigh, and, before I black out, I wonder if Clara’s okay, if she was able to get out of here, if she escaped without me, if these amps can really protect me from anything, if it’s not too late for me to come back to the surface.

  2

  PHILIPPE

  When Pascal unzips his jacket and pulls out a box of earplugs, then carefully opens it, I realize how much he’s aged in the past few months. I can’t help but sneak a quick look around us to make sure no one’s noticed this heretical act, but people are too busy making their way toward the stage to pay attention to my friend’s earplugs. We already stand out thanks to his camel cowboy hat, but this takes the cake. I’m just glad to see Pascal smiling, forgetting his day-to-day problems, so I keep my mouth shut.

  He enthusiastically holds out the transparent little box, home to three pairs of neon plugs. As I shake my head to let him know I’ll go without, two girls rush by and shove us in their hurry to reach the front row. One of them, whose blonde dreads are disproportionately long and voluminous given her tiny face, turns around to mutter an insincere sorry, and Pascal starts grumbling. He’s dropped the little plastic box and is feeling around on the floor for the earplugs he can’t do without. After a few minutes, he finds two, a pink one and a yellow one, and stands up triumphantly. Thank goodness. I give him the thumbs-up to show that I’m happy for him. I don’t want things to get out of hand—the whole point of the evening is for him to have a good time. He needs to keep his spirits up. And nothing keeps spirits up like a good concert.

  When the band comes out on stage, yelling things in English I can’t decipher, Pascal shoves the little pieces of polyurethane mousse so far into his ears that I wonder if he can even hear the music. But since he’s bobbing his head in rhythm,
I figure at least the bassline must make it past the neon filters to his brain.

  After forty-five nearly solid minutes of rock and roll, I hear a speaker bust and think the guy is playing way too loud. Even the guitarist is looking around, trying to find the broken amp. But the popping sound keeps coming, and I think it’s strange that several speakers have all given up the ghost at once. Pascal hasn’t noticed anything—those earplugs must do a damn good job.

  And then it’s like a chain reaction, almost in slow motion. When the musicians scurry off like rabbits, I realize something’s gone wrong. Seriously fucking wrong.

  Suddenly, there’s a stampede. My mind flashes to a surreal comparison with the scene in The Lion King where the animals all flee the valley as fast as they can to save their hides. I can’t even count the number of times I watched that movie with my daughter when she was little . . . So many times she actually managed to wear out the tape.

  The crowd’s movements are totally disorganized, and we’re pushed forward toward the stage without understanding what’s going on. Some people are lying on top of each other, others trip as they try to make their way through the mass, and still others collapse onto the floor with a thud like rag dolls.

  I push Pascal, who’s staring at me expectantly, as if he thinks I somehow have all the answers. I shove him forcefully to the ground and throw myself over him, my hands around my head, as if that could protect me from anything. My head is resting on Pascal’s. Neither of us says a single word. He’s hiding his face in the crook of his arm to keep from seeing people drop to the floor one by one, to keep from seeing the blood, which is all too visible now that the lights are back on.

  I’ve finally figured out that these sickos are hunting us, that they’re taking us down like game. But I have no idea why. My mind keeps churning, trying to answer why, but I keep coming up empty. There must be some mistake. A prank? A game of some sort? What the hell is going on? It’s been going on too long to be a targeted vendetta . . .