Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  She let out a ridiculous moan, but I didn’t see what happened next because Betty came and grabbed me by the arm.

  “What the hell are you up to?” she asked. “Come on, I want to try on some things.”

  She was carrying an armload of brightly colored clothes. On our way to the fitting room I got a glimpse of a price tag dangling from the bunch. I just about fell on my face-a belly-flop, like a tree struck by lightning. Then I just laughed.

  “Hey,” I said. “You get a load of that? Must be some mistake. That’s two weeks’ salary…”

  “Whose?” she said.

  I cooled my heels outside the fitting room like someone left on a desert island-bare head and broken legs. I didn’t feel well. I didn’t have enough money to pay for half of what she’d taken. The poor dear-she wasn’t aware of what she was doing. I wondered how I was going to console her, except with a pale smile. Obviously the world was not yet our oyster. I heard Betty breathing and moving around behind the curtain.

  “How’s it going?” I said. “You know you really don’t have to worry-girls like you, they look great in anything.”

  She pulled the curtain back sharply, and what I saw made me choke. I put my hand over my mouth. She’d put on all the clothes at once, in layers. She looked like a two-hundred-pound fat-lady, with hollow cheeks and a very determined look.

  “Jesus fucking Christ… no…” I said.

  I closed the curtain quickly and looked around to see if anybody had seen us. Now I was breathing through my mouth. The curtain opened again immediately.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “In thirty seconds we’re outside.”

  “Betty, please. I’m really not into this. We’re going to get caught, I can feel it…”

  “Hahaha,” she said. “Us? Caught?”

  She gave me a fevered look and grabbed my arm.

  “All right, let’s go,” she said. “Try and look a little less nervous.”

  Off we went. I felt like we were walking through rice paddies with Viet Cong hidden in the trees all around us. I was sure we were being watched. I wanted to scream: SHOW YOUR SELVES, YOU BASTARDS! LET’S HAVE IT OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL! It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other, with some invisible claw tearing at my guts. The closer we got to the exit, the higher the tension mounted. Betty’s ears were red, and mine were whistling. Sweet suffering Christ, I said to myself, two or three more yards and we’re home free.

  Outside, the light seemed supercharged. I was seized by nervous laughter. Betty reached for the door. In the end it was all rather exhilarating. I was close on her heels, ready to take off like a shot, when I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder. That’s it, I’m dead, I thought-it’s over. I saw myself lying in the gutter in a pool of blood.

  “STOP! DON’T MOVE!” the hand said.

  Betty was out the door like a jet plane.

  “Don’t stop! Lose him!” she advised me.

  Like an idiot I turned around. I don’t know why. A taste for defeat sleeps somewhere in us all. The guy had two arms, two legs, and a badge. He thought I was going to follow Betty’s advice. He was wrong. I was actually in a state of shock. For me the war was over-I had half a mind to start citing the Geneva Convention. Still, the bastard took matters into his own hands: he gave me a good one, right in the eye.

  My head exploded. I flapped my arms and fell backward against the door. It opened, and I landed on the street on my back, my legs tangled together. I lay there looking at the sky for a second, before the guy’s head appeared over me like a mushroom cloud. I could see out of only one eye-the film started turning at high speed. He leaned over and grabbed me by the lapel.

  “Get up,” he said.

  A few people had stopped on the sidewalk. Free show. I hung on to the guy’s arm as he lifted me up. I was planning to make a gallant last stand-a surprise kick in the balls, perhaps-but it turned out I didn’t have to. This fat girl came at him, with her foot to the floor in a head-on collision while he was still half bent-over. I fell backward again and the guy plastered himself like a pancake against the door of a parked car. A ray of sunlight shone on me. The fat chick put her hand out.

  “You’re not my type,” I said.

  “We’ll see about that,” she said. “Let’s get out of here, quick.”

  I got up and took off behind her, her long black hair waving in the wind like a Jolly Roger.

  “Hey, Betty… is that you?” I asked. “Is that you? Hey, Betty…”

  I opened a beer and sat down in a chair while she got the ice pack ready and took all the clothes off. My eye looked like a sea anemone with the flu. I’d had it up to here with her bullshit.

  “I’ve had it up to here with this bullshit,” I said.

  She came over with the ice pack. She sat down on my lap and put it on my eye.

  “I know why you’re upset,” she said. “It’s because you got beat up.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. I didn’t get beat up. I let him have a free shot, that’s all.”

  “Well, it’s not the end of the world. It hardly shows. It`s just a little swollen around the edges.”

  “Right, just a little swollen around the edges, she says. Barely even red…”

  I looked at her with the one eye I had left. She smiled. Yes, exactly, she smiled-and against that I was defenseless. The world became insignificant. She disarmed the slightest attack. I could carry on all I wanted for show, but the poison had already reached my brain. What was this little dried-out, shriveled-up world next to her? What was anything worth next to her hair, her lungs, her knees, and all that went with it-could I ever need anything else? Wasn’t what I had something enormous, alive? It was only thanks to her that I didn’t feel like a total piece of shit. I was willing to pay any price for that. It wasn’t that I’d reduced the whole world down to Betty-it was that I just didn’t care about the rest. She smiled, and my anger disappeared like a wet footprint in the burning sun. It would always amaze me.

  She put on one of the things she’d stolen and circled around me, posing.

  “So… what do you think? How do I look?”

  I finished my beer first. Then I sent her a valentine.

  “I just wish I could see you out of both eyes,” I whispered.

  11

  When I received my sixth rejection letter I knew that my book would never be published. Betty didn’t. One more time, she spent two days without unclenching her teeth-mood black. Everything I tried to say was worthless. She wouldn’t listen to me. Every time it happened she would wrap the manuscript back up and send it oft to someone else. Great, I said to myself-it’s like subscribing to the torture-of-the-month club, like sipping the poison down to the last drop-but of course I didn’t tell her. My nice little novel just kept taking potshots in the wing every time it passed overhead. But it wasn’t the novel I was worried about. It was her. Ever since she’d sworn off painting the town red it bothered me to see her with no way to blow off steam.

  In moments like these, Eddie did his best to lighten things up. He joked around constantly and filled the place with flowers. He sent me wondering glances, but there was nothing to be done. If I ever really needed a friend it would be him that I’d choose. But you can’t have everything in life, and I had little to give.

  Lisa was also great-gentle and understanding. We all did our best to help Betty get her spirits up, but it was all in vain. Every time she’d End one of my manuscripts stuffed into the mailbox she’d look up and sigh-and off she’d go again.

  As if things weren’t bad enough, it got very cold outside-icy winds blew through the streets, Christmas was on its way. In the morning, we’d wake up to a blizzard. In the evening we’d find ourselves hip-deep in slush. The city started to get me down. I started dreaming of faraway places-silent painted deserts, where I could let my eyes wander across the horizon, musing peacefully about my new novel or what to make for supper, lending an ear to the first call of a nightbird, falling through the sunset.
r />   I knew perfectly well what was wrong with Betty. The damn novel had nailed her to the floor-tied her legs together, her hands behind her back. She was like a wild horse who’s cut his hocks jumping over a flint wall and is trying to get back on his feet. What she thought to be a sunlit prairie had turned into a sad, dark corral, and she’d never known what it was to be cornered; she wasn’t built for it. Still, she went at it with all her might-rage in her heart-and with each passing day she worked her fingers further to the bone. It hurt me to see it, but there was nothing I could do. She had gone someplace where nothing and no one could follow. During these times I knew I could grab a beer and do a week’s worth of crossword puzzles without her bothering me. But I stayed close by, just in case she needed me. Waiting was the worst thing that could have happened to her. Writing that book was surely the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

  Somehow I was able to imagine what she was going through each time one of those godforsaken rejection slips poured in-all that it implied-and the better I got to know her, the more I realized that she was actually taking it rather well. It isn’t easy to let them rip your arms and legs off one by one without saying a word, just gritting your teeth. Since I already had what I wanted, it didn’t matter much to me one way or the other-it was a little like getting news from Mars. I didn’t lose sleep over it. I didn’t really make the connection between what I had written and the book that found its way so regularly into people’s wastebaskets. I saw myself as the guy who tries to unload a shipment of bathing suits on a band of freezing Eskimos without speaking a word of their language.

  My only real hope, in fact, was that Betty would get tired of the whole thing, forget the writer, and go back to the way she was before: gobbling down chili in the sun and glancing at the intensity of things from the veranda, her soul serene. Perhaps it could actually come to pass. Maybe her hope would end up wilting and fall away like a dead branch some morning-it wasn’t impossible. Then some poor asshole had to go set things off again. When I think about it, I tell myself that that little nobody never even got a tenth of what he had coming.

  And so they turned down my book for the sixth time, and Betty slowly started smiling again after two days of depression. The house came back to life little by little-the parachute eventually opened, and we floated gently back down to earth. The first rays of sunlight dried up our grief. I was busy brewing a pot of killer coffee, when Betty showed up with the mail. There was a letter. For some time now my life had been trampled underfoot by these fucking letters. I looked with a sort of disgust at the one Betty held open in her hand.

  “Coffee’s ready,” I said. “What’s new, honey?”

  “Not much,” she said.

  She approached without looking at me and stuffed it down the neck of my sweater. She tapped it a few times, then turned to the window and, without a word, pressed her forehead against the pane. The coffee started boiling. I turned it off. I took out the letter. It was written on stationery with some guy’s name and address on top. Here’s what it said:

  Dear Sir,

  I have been an editor at this publishing house for a good twenty years, and believe me, things both good and not so good have passed through my hands. I have never seen anything, however, that compares with what you have had the incredibly bad taste to send us.

  I have often written to young authors to tell them of the admiration I hold for them and their work. I have never until now been tempted to do the opposite. But you, sir, have pushed me over the brink.

  Your writing for me evokes the preliminary signs of leprosy. It is with deep disgust that I am sending back this nauseating flower that you mistakenly thought was a novel.

  Nature sometimes gives birth to mutations. You will agree that it is the duty of an honest man to put an end to such anomalies. Understand that I intend to do some publicity for you. My only regret is that this thing can never be returned to the one place it never should have left-I am speaking of some murky swamplike zone in your brain.

  It was followed by a sort of nervous signature that went all the way across the page. I folded the paper back up and tossed it under the sink, as if it were a publicity flier for take-out Chinese. I went back to making the coffee, watching Betty out of the corner of my eye. She hadn’t moved. She seemed to be interested in what was happening outside on the street.

  “You know, it’s all just part of the game,” I said. “You’re always going to run into jerks, there’s just no way around that.”

  She chased something through the air with a bothered gesture.

  “All right, let’s not talk about it anymore. By the way, I forgot to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “I made an appointment with the gynecologist.”

  “Oh yeah? Something wrong…?”

  “I want to check my IUD. See if it hasn’t moved down.”

  “Okay, yeah…”

  “Want to come along? It would be a nice little trip…”

  “Sure. I’ll wait for you. I love looking through month-old magazines. I find it comforting.”

  I thought that this time we’d handled it all very well. It made me real happy. That idiot with his letter… It had scared me stiff for a minute.

  “What time is the appointment?” I asked.

  “I’ll just powder my nose and we’ll go.”

  Outside it was cold, dry, and sunny. I took a long, deep breath. A little while later we found ourselves at the gynecologist’s. It surprised me that there was no sign on the door, but Betty was already ringing the bell and my brain was running in slow motion. A guy in a housecoat opened up for us. The housecoat looked like something straight out of A Thousand and One Nights-the cloth shimmering like a silver lake. Prince Charming had graying temples and a long ivory pipe between his teeth. He raised an eyebrow when he saw us. If this dude is a gynecologist, I thought, then I’m the darling of the literary set.

  “Yes? Can I help you…?” he asked.

  Betty stared at him without answering.

  “My wife has an appointment,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Just then Betty took the letter out of her pocket. She pushed it under the guy’s nose.

  “You the one who wrote this?” she asked.

  I didn’t recognize her voice. I thought of a volcano opening its eye. The man took the pipe out of his mouth and held it tight against his heart.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked.

  I told myself not to worry-any second now I’d wake up. What was surprising was how real everything seemed-the wide, silent hallway, the carpet under my feet, the guy biting his lip, and the letter trembling at the end of Betty’s arm like an invulnerable will-o’-the-wisp. I stood there stupefied.

  “I asked you a question.” Betty started again, in a shrill voice. “Are you the one who wrote this, yes or no?”

  The guy made like he was looking closer at the letter, then he scratched his neck and glanced at us quickly.

  “Well now… you see, I write letters all day long. It wouldn’t surprise me if…”

  I saw he was trying to come up with something while he was talking to us-a child of three on a merry-go-round could see that. He backed up tentatively into the apartment, getting ready to make a run for the door. I wondered if he would make it-he didn’t seem particularly agile.

  He made a sorry face before playing his last card, and honestly, it couldn’t have been worse, him trying desperately to get his engine to turn over. It gave Betty time to bump the door open calmly with her shoulder. Our hero stumbled backward into the entryway, holding one arm.

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re crazy!”

  There was a large blue vase sitting on a pedestal. Betty whipped her purse around and the thing came off in one fell swoop. I heard the sound of line china exploding. It woke me up. Under the impact, Betty’s purse had opened up, and everything you’d ever find in a girl’s purse had scattered on the floor among the pieces of broken vase.

  “Wa
it, I’ll help you pick it up,” I said.

  She was livid. She looked at me ferociously.

  “SHIT, DON’T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THAT!! TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK OF HIS LETTER!!”

  The guy was looking at us with wild eyes. I bent over to pick up the lipstick that was gleaming at my feet.

  “I have nothing to say to him,” I said.

  I continued picking things up with a thousand-pound weight on my shoulders.

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked.

  “No. What he thinks doesn’t interest me. I’ve got better things to worry about.”

  The guy couldn’t see what a break he was getting. He was obviously not with it. I don’t know what possessed him-he must have realized that I wasn’t going to jump on him and so he let himself get carried away by the sudden absence of danger. Instead of staying where he was, shutting up, and letting us just get our things together, he started coming toward us.

  I’m certain that at that precise moment Betty had forgotten all about him. All her anger had been turned on me. We were raking the rug, trying to put together the puzzle that had spilled out of her purse. I don’t know how she did it, because she never took her eyes off me. She was breathing quickly, and her look was a furious and sad variation on a theme of pain. The guy came up behind her and in a demented gesture touched her shoulder with his fingertip.

  “Listen here, I’m not accustomed to this sort of animal behavior. I know how to use only one weapon-my mind…”

  Betty closed her eyes without turning around.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.

  But the guy was drunk with his own audacity. These crazy bangs were hanging over his forehead, and his eyes were shining. “Your manners are unacceptable,” he said. “It is obvious that there can’t be any dialogue between us, since Speech, like Writing, requires a minimum of elegance, which seems to be a particular deficit in your case…”

  She let slide a brief period of silence after this remark-the kind of trembling, empty space that separates the thunder from the lightning. She picked her comb up off the floor. She had it in her hand. It was a cheap one, made of clear plastic-sort of red, with fat teeth. She jumped up and turned around. Her arm traced a circle in the air. She slashed his cheek with it.