Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  The guy nearly cried tears of joy when I came back.

  “Oh Lord… I was afraid you’d gone. I was just beside myself…”

  I blew him a kiss. He closed his eyes with a sigh. I glanced at the clock on the wall. The others would be back any minute now. I grabbed Romeo’s chair and tilted it back on two legs. I dragged him into the corner of the room, where the open door would hide him. He tried to kiss my hand on the way, but I was too quick for him. I poured myself another cup of coffee. I looked out onto the street, keeping my distance from the windows.

  It seemed like forty years since they’d left in the van. Since then, things in the street had changed. Not much excitement. The way the world looked to me, I preferred to slide through it rather than ram up against it. At thirty-five you don’t want to be bothered anymore. This requires a certain amount of cash. Seeing all those faraway lands can run up a bill. Sliding through costs you your weight in gold. Still, I was willing to go away with her if it would give her a break. In a way, I was already packing the bags.

  The guy’s voice made me jump.

  “I have an idea-why don’t you take me hostage? I could be your insurance…”

  This reminded me that I’d forgotten something. I taped his mouth shut-three layers of adhesive tape around his head. Without warning, he leaned forward and rubbed his forehead on my chest. I jumped back.

  “Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he said with his eyes.

  Five minutes later the other three arrived. I watched the delivery van come down the street. When it stopped in front of the garage door, I pushed the button OPENGAR, then counted to ten before pushing CLOGAR. I knew that I was starting the second crap-shoot. I wasn’t worried.

  I flattened myself behind the door. This time it wasn’t the Barracuda in my hand-it was the real thing. I heard the door close downstairs, and the sound of conversation. Their voices carried well.

  “Listen, man,” one of them said. “When your old lady tells you she has a headache on the night you feel like fucking, just tell her, Don’t worry, I won’t touch your head.”

  “Shit, that’s a laugh. You think that’s all there is to it? You know Maria…”

  “Hey, man, she’s no different from the rest. They all get headaches sooner or later. Have you ever noticed how when you come home with the paycheck at the end of the month, they never ask for an aspirin?”

  I heard them yukking it up in the staircase.

  “Yeah, Henry-that’s fine for you…”

  “Shit, man, do what you want. You want to bust your balls for nothing your whole life? That’s exactly what they want…”

  They came in, single file, carrying small canvas sacks. I spotted the fat one right off, the one named Henry. He was wearing sandals. As for the other two-how they had escaped retirement was beyond me. Before they could say boo, I had kicked the door closed. They turned toward me. For a millionth of a second, Henry’s eyes met mine. I didn’t give his brain the time to react, I looked at his feet and fired a bullet into his big toe. He collapsed, screaming. The other two dropped their sacks and put their hands up. I had the situation well under control.

  While Henry was writhing on the floor, I tossed them the roll of adhesive tape. I motioned to them to tie up their friend. They snapped to. He put up a struggle, but they had him wound up tight in three seconds flat, telling him over and over not to be a jerk. Then I made a sign for them to tie their own feet. They would have made some kind of storekeepers, those two-just aim something between their eyes and they do whatever you say. I looked at the shabbier of the two and signaled him with my white glove-translation: Tie your pal’s hands together, you old fart. When he’d finished, I pointed my finger at him. He smiled sadly.

  “Listen, miss, I don’t think I can do myself myself.”

  I shoved my barrel up his nose.

  “No, no… wait… I’ll give it a try!!”

  He did the best he could-he used his forehead, his teeth, his knees-but he made it. Now that all three of them were tied up, I relieved them of their guns, then I straightened up and looked over at lover-boy, bound tight to his chair. He had circles of joy under his eyes.

  Henry was whining, growling, and swearing. A stream of drool ran down his face to the linoleum. Since I didn’t want any fuss, I grabbed the roll of tape and crouched down next to him. His foot was still pouring blood. His sandal was ruined. I congratulated myself on having bought the large size-there were still at least ten yards left, ideal for guys like me who are bad at tying knots. He looked up at me and turned red.

  “You dirty fucking whore,” he said. “If I ever get ahold of you, you’ll start by sucking my dick!”

  I knocked his front teeth out when I shoved the barrel in his mouth. Even a dirty fucking whore has feelings. I did it for all women who have headaches, for Maria and the others, all my sisters-in-misery: the ones that get razzed in the streets, hit on in the subways, all the women who have ever met a Henry. If I hadn’t left mine at home, I swear I would have made him eat a box of Tampax. Sometimes when I see how men are, it makes me want to send a blessing to all the world’s women-I don’t know why I don’t. He spit up a little blood. In his anger, a few small blood vessels in his eyes had burst. I had to pull my gun out of his mouth to gag him. This gave him a chance to say one last word:

  “You just signed your death warrant.”

  I refrained from crying on the office equipment. I wanted silence. I wound the tape a few extra times over his eyes. He was starting to look like the Invisible Man, only shinier and a little more crumpled. The other two were quieter-I merely stuck a symbolic piece of tape over their crummy mouths. I stood up, thinking that the hard part was over. The idea made me smile. I didn’t want to contradict myself-I pretended that I didn’t know that the hard part always lies ahead.

  Though I still felt completely calm, I didn’t want to drag my ass. I picked up the money bags. I broke open the clasps and emptied them onto the desk-six sacks full of bills, with rolls of coins at the bottom. I put the bills in my bag. I left the change, afraid that it would be too heavy. I was on my way out the door when the young guy yelled, to get my attention. He motioned with his chin to the wall safe. What a nice boy-he had foresight. But I had a nice wad of bills already. I wasn’t looking to become independently wealthy. I mimed that, really, this would do nicely, thanks. He looked like he was going to cry. Since the others couldn’t see me, I took a ballpoint pen from the desk and came up behind him. I opened one of his hands and wrote JOSEPHINE in it. He closed his fingers with the tenderness of someone holding a butterfly with a broken leg. Just before going out the window I turned and noticed a big tear roll down his cheek. The yard was overgrown and deserted. I ran through the weeds and jumped over the wall on the other side. My throat was dry, probably from not having said a word all afternoon. I turned right, holding onto my tits for dear life, and ran past the backyards at a sprint without seeing anyone, then crossed a big vacant lot which went right up to the railroad tracks. I climbed the embankment without slowing down, crossed over the tracks, and went down the other side. My lungs were on fire. Luckily, the supermarket parking lot was close by. It was the best I could do to keep my car from standing out-my LEMON YELLOW sedan.

  Nobody noticed me as I slipped into the front seat. Nobody ever notices anything in a supermarket parking lot-it’s the kind of place that drives you half crazy. I was dripping sweat all over. I put the bag down next to me and looked around while I caught my breath. Nearby, a fat lady was trying to stuff an ironing board into a Fiat 500. We stared at each other for a few seconds. I waited. She finally drove off with her door open, leaving me alone. I opened the glove compartment. I took out some Kleenex and makeup remover-hypoallergenic. Twenty percent of its ingredients were inert, and the other eighty percent weren`t too exciting either.

  I unfolded the Kleenex between my legs, keeping an eye on the parking lot. I soaked it with the makeup remover. No one was around. I held my breath, then shoved my face into it. For t
he first time that afternoon, I felt a little sick. I flung the used tissue out the window. The plastic bottle let out obscene noises and spurts of white gunk. I scrubbed as if I wanted to take my skin off. I ripped off my glasses, I ripped off my wig, I ripped off my falsies, and stuffed everything in my bag. Out of breath, I turned the rearview mirror toward me. All that was left was a little tan spot. I wiped it off in one swipe. Josephine was all gone now, wiped away onto small pieces of tissue. I wadded them up into a ball and threw them under my tires as I pulled away.

  I drove home slowly. I got there just in time to turn off the front burner on the stove. I watched the black contents twist and sizzle in the bottom of the saucepan. I opened the windows, then went up into the attic. She was smoking a cigarette, playing pick-up sticks on the mattress. A gold light poured in through the roof, making the dust particles dance. I threw the bag on the bed. She jumped.

  “Shit, you made me move,” she said.

  I slid in next to her.

  “Boy, baby, am I ever wasted…”

  I ran my fingers through her hair. She smiled.

  “So, how’d it go with your customer?” she asked. “You hungry? I heated up the ravioli downstairs.”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me…”

  I finished off a stale beer that was sitting there. Then I opened the bag.

  “Look what I found during my travels…” I said.

  She raised herself up on one elbow.

  “My God, what’s all this money?! Jesus, there’s piles of it!!”

  “Yeah, there’s quite a bit…”

  “What’s it for?”

  “For whatever you want.”

  She reached in to see. When her hand touched the falsies she let out a scream. She pulled the rest of my disguise out of the bag. It seemed to interest her more than the money. Her eyes were like Christmas Eve.

  “Ooooo, what is all this?”

  I had decided not to go into it. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  She lifted the bra up by a strap. The boobs spun gently, in the infinitely tender light that enveloped us. Like a merry-go-round. It seemed to hypnotize her.

  “Holy shit, you absolutely have to put this on-it’s incredible!!”

  But I didn’t feel much like clowning around. Suddenly the day`s caper had wiped me out.

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Shit no, hurry up…”

  I pulled up my shirt and put it on. Betty got up on her knees to applaud. I struck a few poses, batting my eyes. As one might have expected, I wound up putting on the wig and gloves too. I hadn’t wanted to, but seeing her have so much fun was like witnessing a miracle.

  “Hey, you know what’s missing?” she said.

  “Yeah, a plastic vagina…”

  “A makeup session!”

  “Oh no…” I whined.

  She sprang to her feet, all excited.

  “Don’t move-I’ll get my makeup kit…”

  “All right…” I sighed. “But don’t fall down the stairs, honeybunch…”

  Around one o’clock in the morning, I whispered one last word in her ear, as she dozed in my arms:

  “By the way, while I’m thinking of it… if anyone ever asks where I was today-we spent the whole day together.”

  “Right. Even though I spent the afternoon fucking a gorgeous blonde…”

  “You don’t have to bother telling them that…”

  I waited until she was sound asleep, then I got up. I went to shower and take off my makeup. I had a snack in the kitchen. Whatever may happen, I said to myself, what I did today was not in vain. I came home with what I went out to get-something to make her happy, to make her smile. In the end it wasn’t the money that did it-she’d more or less ignored the money-but I’d gotten what I wanted. Yes, my efforts had been rewarded a hundredfold. I could have cried tears of joy right there in the kitchen at the drop of a hat-just a few discreet ones that I could hide under my foot.

  I reminded myself that just two days earlier I’d found her naked, stiff as a board, in the corner of the bedroom. It wasn’t the first time, either. She still heard the voices. Things were still overflowing and burning all over the place. I didn’t need glasses to see the writing on the wall.

  I managed to End a slice of ham in the fridge. I rolled it up like a crêpe and bit into it. It was totally flavorless. I was still alive. Things were exactly as they should be.

  24

  There was one Sunday that was no fun at all. The weather, however, was beautiful. We got up fairly early. At the stroke of nine, there was loud knocking on the door downstairs. I slipped on some shorts and went down to see. It was a guy in a suit-perfect hair, little black hanky, perfectly folded, and a BIG SMILE.

  “Good day, sir. Do you believe in God?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then I’d like to talk to you…”

  “Wait,” I said. “I was just joking. Of course I believe.”

  Big smile. VERY BIG SMILE.

  “Even better. We put out a small booklet…”

  “How much?”

  “All monies go directly for…”

  “Naturally. How much?”

  “Sir, for the price of five packs of cigarettes…”

  I took a bill out of my pocket. I gave it to him and closed the door. Knock, knock. I opened the door.

  “You forgot your booklet…” he said.

  “No I didn’t,” I said. “I don’t need it. I’ve just bought a little piece of Heaven, haven’t I…?”

  While I was closing the door again, a ray of sunshine smacked me right in the eye. If it had been my mouth I might have said, “While I was closing the door a sourball slid onto my tongue.” A vision of sea and waves came over me. I ran up the stairs. I sent the sheets flying all over the room.

  “Hey, I feel like seeing the sea!” I shouted. “Don’t you?”

  “It’s sort of far, but if you want to…”

  “In two hours you’ll be roasting on the beach.”

  “I’m as good as ready,” she said.

  I watched her stand up in the middle of the bed, nude, as if hatching from some striped egg. I put my naughty thoughts off for later, though-the sun wouldn’t wait.

  It was a very chic spot-very trendy-but then there are assholes everywhere. They stay around all year, so the stores and restaurants stay open. Finding a beach that isn’t too dirty means paying for it. We paid for it. There was almost no one there. We swam and swam, then swam some more. Then we got hungry. You had to pay to take a shower, too… and to get your car out of the lot. And for this, and for that. In the end, I just kept my hands loaded with change, ready to toss it away on the slightest pretext. The place seemed like a huge money machine-nothing was free.

  We ate at a sidewalk café, under a fake straw umbrella. On the other side of the street were about twenty young women, every one with a four- or five-year-old child-fair-haired boys with fathers in business and mothers who either sat home getting bored or went out to get bored. The waiter explained that the little darlings were there to audition for a commercial-to bring us to tears in a spot for an insurance company: BUILD THEM A FUTURE. I thought it was pretty funny. One look at those kids, full of joy, good health, and money, and you really didn’t worry much about their future-depending on how you looked at it, of course.

  By the time we dug into our peach melba, they’d already been there for an hour, getting restless in the sun. The kids were running all over the place. The mothers were getting nervous. From time to time they’d call one over to fix his hair or brush away some invisible speck of dust. The sun was turning into an amphetamine rain-a crazy 110-volt shower.

  “Jesus, they really got to want that stupid check,” said Betty.

  I glanced over my sunglasses at the ladies, swallowing a scoopful of whipped cream and candy sprinkles.

  “It’s not just the check. They want to build a lasting monument to their beauty.”

/>   “They got to be crazy, leaving those kids out in the sun like that…”

  The ladies’ jewels glinted in the sun. We could hear them sighing and bitching from across the street. I looked down, trying to concentrate on my peach melba. Madness is everywhere. Not one day goes by without human misery pouring forth before your very eyes. It doesn’t take much. Small details: some guy who catches your eye at the local market, just getting into your car or buying a newspaper, closing your eyes in the afternoon and listening to the sounds of the street-or having to deal with a pack of chewing gum that has eleven sticks in it. It doesn’t take much to see that the world is always laughing behind your back. I rid my mind of all those women, because I knew them too well-I didn’t need any more examples. I didn’t plan on hanging around. They could stay there burning to a crisp on the sidewalk if they wanted-we were going back to the beach. Nothing but sea and sky, a giant umbrella, the reassuring clink of ice cubes on glass. I drew a line through the sidewalk and the women-crossed them out-then stood up confidently and went straight to the bath room. I realized later that it’s a mistake to underestimate the enemy. Still, we don’t have eyes in the back of our heads.

  I was gone for quite a while. There were pay toilets and I was out of change. I had to break a bill at the cash register. The thing kept flushing by itself, and the stall door was on a timer… All in all I wasted a lot of time. When I got back to the table, Betty was gone. I sat down. A thin veil of worry came over me. It suddenly seemed to be much warmer out. I noticed that she hadn’t finished her dessert-the vanilla ice cream glistened. I was hypnotized by it.

  I came to, thanks to the women yelling across the street. I hadn’t paid attention to what was going on-just some flock of seagulls squawking in the sun for no reason-then I saw that they were genuinely upset. They were looking in my direction. One of them in particular seemed especially shook up.

  “Tommy! Oh, my little Tommy!” she screamed.

  I figured that little Tommy had gotten sunstroke, or melted, like snow. It didn’t tell me where Betty was.