Betty Blue

by Philippe Djian

  At that moment I felt a kind of inner peace. I grabbed on to it. It was quite something after all those dark hours. It put a mindless smile on my face. Things were heating up. Bob had been dodging things pretty well. He saw Annie with a projectile in each hand. She feigned with the mustard jar, then let loose with the sugar bowl. I’d guessed it. Bob took it in the skull and collapsed. I helped him back up.

  “You’ll excuse me,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Never mind me,” I said. “I feel better already.”

  I guided him into the bedroom, then came back and sat down in the kitchen. I looked at Annie, who had started sweeping up. “I know what you’re thinking,” she told me. “But if I don’t do it, who will?”

  I helped her pick up some of the bigger pieces. We made a few silent round-trips to the garbage can, then lit cigarettes. I held the match for her.

  “Listen, Annie, I know this isn’t exactly the best time, but I was wondering if I could sleep here tonight. I feel a little strange, all alone in the apartment…”

  She exhaled a little mushroom-cloud of smoke.

  “Shit, you don’t even have to ask,” she said. “As for Bob and me, we don’t love each other enough to really fight. What you saw wasn’t even serious.”

  “Only for tonight,” I added.

  We finished straightening up, talking about the rain and the weather-the abominable heat that had melted over the town like a gallon of maple syrup. Just sweeping up had us sweating. I sat on a chair. She set her behind down on a corner of the table.

  “Just take Archie’s bed,” she said. “You need anything? Something to read…?”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  She had slid the sides of her robe off her thighs. It was easy to see that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. She was probably waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t. Thinking that she wasn’t making herself clear, she opened the thing up wide. She spread her legs and put her foot up on a chair. Her pussy was a nice size, and her breasts larger than average. I passed an appreciative moment looking, but didn’t awkwardly spill my drink. I just drank it, then went into the next room. I grabbed a few magazines, then sank into an armchair.

  I was reading a thing on the North-South conflict when she came in. The robe was now closed.

  “I think your attitude is truly stupid,” she started in. “What do you think is going to happen? You’re making a mountain out of-”

  “No, not a mountain exactly. A small hill, yes…”

  “Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  I got up and went to look out the window. There was nothing but the night and the branch of a tree, its leaves limp in the heat. I slapped my leg with the magazine.

  “Look, what would we gain by sleeping together? You have something special to offer me? Something out of the ordinary?”

  I turned my back to her. I felt a slight burning on the back of my neck.

  “Listen to me,” I went on. “I never was much for fucking around, I never got much out of it. I know that everybody else does it; but it’s no fun if you just do like everybody else. To tell you the truth, it bores me, It does you good to live according to your ideas, to not betray yourself, not cop out at the last minute just because some girl has a nice ass, or someone offers you a huge check, or because the path of least resistance runs by your front door. It does you good to hang tough. It’s good for the soul.”

  I turned around to tell her the Big Secret; “Over Dispersal, I choose Concentration. I have one life-the only thing I’m interested in is making it shine.”

  She pinched the end of her nose wistfully.

  “All right,” she sighed. “If you need any aspirin before you go to bed, there’s a bottle in the medicine chest. If you want, I can go get you some pajamas. I don’t know-maybe you don’t sleep in the nude.”

  “Don’t bother. I sleep in my underwear, and I always keep my hands above the sheets.”

  “Jesus, where’s Henry Miller when you really need him…?” she muttered.

  She turned on her heel, and I was left alone. You don’t need much room when you’re alone and not expecting anyone-Archie’s bed did the job nicely. His rubber sheet squealed as I lay down. I turned on his little ladybug lamp. I listened to the silence fill the night like invisible, paralyzing cream.

  26

  They started off by telling me that everything was going fine-that her wound didn’t worry them in the least. Whenever I tried to find out why she spent so much time sleeping, they always found somebody to come put his hand on my shoulder, to explain how they knew what they were doing.

  From the moment I passed through the door of that fucking hospital, I felt like a completely different man. I was seized by a dead anguish that all but knocked me down. I had to struggle against it with all my might. Once in a while, a female nurse would take my arm and guide me through the hallways. The male nurses never lifted a finger. They must have known that any relationship with me would end up stormy. My brain ran in slow motion, as if I were watching a slide show-swallowing up the pictures without comment, the meaning escaping me.

  In such a state, it was easy for me to pull a chair up next to her bed and just stay there, immobile and silent, without noticing the time pass-not drinking, not smoking, not eating-like someone marooned at sea, with nothing in view, no other choice but to hang onto the plank. The nurse with the flat behind occasion ally poured some honey on my wounds.

  “At least when she sleeps, she gets her strength back,” she told me.

  I kept telling myself that. Over and over-I was becoming a blithering idiot. When she did open her eyes, it was nothing to jump up and down about. It was like there was a steel bar running through my stomach-I had to be careful not to fall off my chair. I looked deep into her one good eye, but I could never see the spark. I carried on one-sided conversations. Her hand would dissolve in mine like a marshmallow. She’d look right through me, my stomach growling so loud it was embarrassing. Every day at visiting hours I would come, hoping that she’d be waiting for me. But every day no one was there. Nothing but the Great White Desert. I was a silent zombie, walking circles in the wasteland.

  “You sec, what has us worried is her mental health,” the good old doctor finally said. But I think he’d have done better to worry about mine; he could have saved wear and tear on his dentures-that’s how obvious things were soon to become. He was a bald guy, with a few tufts of hair on the sides-the kind of guy who slaps you on the back and shows you the door. You and your ignorance, your trembling knees. You and the stupid look on your face.

  Yes, it would be only a few days before the bubbles finally popped the cork.

  As soon as I got out in the fresh air, I felt better. It didn’t seem like it was Betty I was leaving in the hospital-rather, something I couldn’t get my mind around. As if she’d just left one morning without giving me a forwarding address. I tried to keep the house in order. Luckily, writers aren’t dirty. I just vacuumed a little around the table, emptied the ashtrays, and threw away the beer cans. The heat had already killed two or three people in town, precipitating the end of the already weak.

  I stopped opening the store. I quickly realized that the only restful moments I had were those I spent with my notebooks, and that’s how I passed most of my time. It was ninety-three degrees in the house, even with the shades drawn. Still, it was the only place I still felt alive. Otherwise I was numb, as if I’d contracted sleeping sickness. Being inside the coals, I couldn’t feel the fire. All it took was a small breeze to stir the flames, though. A question of time, no more, no less.

  One morning in particular things got off to a bad start. I was turning the kitchen upside down, trying to get my hands on some coffee, sighing deeply from the bottom of my soul, when Bob showed up.

  “Hey,” he said. “You know that your car is parked right in front of my house?”

  “Yeah, I guess it is…” I said.

  “Well, there are people who might th
ink there’s a body in the trunk, if you get my drift…”

  That’s when I remembered the groceries I’d been bringing home the night I passed Betty on her way to the hospital. I had completely forgotten about them. Given the sun, the temperature inside the trunk must have been a hundred fifty degrees. I thought that I’d already had my share of this sort of thing, but no, there were still a few left-it was enough to make you sick to your stomach. I considered just sitting down and never getting up. Instead, I drank a big glass of water and followed Bob out into the street. As I was closing the door behind me I heard the telephone ring. I let it ring.

  I hadn’t been taking the car to go see Betty. I walked every day. The exercise did me good. I came to see that life had not come to a complete halt. The young girls’ dresses were like a rain of flower petals. I forced myself to look at them, avoiding the old and ugly ones. It is ugliness of the soul, however, that really disgusts me. During these walks, I practiced my deep-breathing exercises. The car was the furthest thing from my mind-but things you forget come back to haunt you.

  The stink was unbelievable. Bob was curious to see what it looked like, but I told him to forget it. I’d rather not know.

  “Just tell me the shortest route to the dump,” I said.

  I opened all the windows and crossed town with my hellish cargo. In places, the tar was almost melted-long, shiny, black grooves striping the pavement. Perhaps it was Darkness itself, coming up into the world-nothing surprised me anymore. To keep from getting too spooked by such thoughts, I turned the radio on: OOH BABY, HOLD ME BABY, TIGHTER, TICHTER, IUST ONE MOOORE KISSSS…!

  I parked in front of the garbage dump. All you could hear was flies, and all you could smell was something that resembled the atomic bomb. I had just gotten out of the car, when here comes the neighborhood troglodyte, a pickax slung over his shoulder. It took me a while to figure out where his mouth was.

  “Lookin’ for somethin’?” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  The whites of his eyes were almost supernatural-like in detergent commercials.

  “Takin’ a walk?”

  “No, I’m dropping off two or three things in my trunk.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, then, forget it.”

  I leaned in to get the keys out of the ignition.

  “If you don’t have anything for me, forget it,” he said. “Copper, for example. Like yesterday I turned around, and what do you know, this guy unloads a washing-machine motor.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t go in for that,” I said.

  I opened the trunk. The food seemed to have doubled in volume. The meat was multicolored, the yogurt was swollen, the cheese was running, and all that was left of the butter was the foil. Generally speaking, everything had fermented, exploded, and oozed-it all formed one rather large compact block, more or less soldered to the carpet on the trunk floor.

  I grimaced. The bum’s eyes lit up. It’s always the same story.

  “You gonna throw all that away?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t have time to explain. I’m not feeling too hot-I’m unhappy.”

  He spit on the ground and scratched his head.

  “Hey, we all do what we can,” he said. “Look, fella, you mind if we sort of unload it easy-like? I’d like to take a closer look…”

  We each took an end of the carpet and lifted the plaster-like wad out of the trunk. We put it down to one side, at the foot of a garbage-bag wall. Like iron shavings to a magnet, the flies-blue and gold ones-dove into it.

  The bum looked at me, smiling. He was obviously waiting for me to split. In his shoes, I’d have done the same thing. I got back in the car without a word. Before taking off I glanced in the rearview mirror. He was still there, standing in the sun next to my small hill of food-he hadn’t moved an inch. He was smiling like he was posing for a souvenir snapshot of one helluva picnic. On the way home I stopped at a bar. I ordered a mint cordial. The oil, the coffee, the sugar, and a big box of chocolate powder those he’d be able to salvage. And the razors with the pivoting heads. And the antimosquito strips. And my box of Fab.

  It was about noon when I pulled up in front of the house. The sun was like a hissing cat with its claws out. The telephone was ringing.

  “Yes, hello?” I said.

  There was static on the other end of the line. I could hardly make out one word.

  “Listen, hang up and call back,” I said. “I can’t hear a thing!”

  I threw my shoes into a corner. I ran my head under the shower. I lit a cigarette, then the phone rang again.

  The guy on the other end said some name and asked me if it was mine.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Then he said some other name, and that it was his.

  “So…?” I said.

  “I have your manuscript in my hands. I’ll send you contracts in the next mail.”

  I sat my butt down on the table.

  “All right…I want twelve percent,” I said.

  “Ten percent.”

  “Fine.”

  “I loved your book. I’ll have it at the typesetter’s soon.”

  “Yeah, do it fast,” I said.

  “It’s nice to speak with you, hope to see you soon.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m afraid I’ll be pretty tied up for the next little while…”

  “Don’t worry about it. No hurry. We’ll take care of the travel arrangements. Things are in the works.”

  “Fine.”

  “Well, I have to let you go now. Are you working on something else at the moment?”

  “Yes, it’s coming along…”

  “Terrific. Good luck.”

  He was about to hang up-I caught him at the last second.

  “Hey… wait… excuse me,” I said. “What did you say your name was, again?”

  He repeated it. It was a good thing, too. With all that was happening, it had completely gone out of my head.

  I took a pack of sausages out of the refrigerator to thaw. I put some water on. I sat down with a beer. While I was waiting, I laughed louder than I ever had in my life-a nervous laugh.

  I got to the hospital early, before visiting hours. I couldn’t figure out if I’d left too early or walked too fast. But one thing was sure-I couldn’t wait to see her. I had brought with me what she’d always wished for. Shouldn’t it be enough to make her jump to her feet? To give me a big wink with the one eye she had left? I made a beeline for the men’s room, as if it were an emergency. From there I surveyed the guy at the reception desk. He seemed to be dozing off. The stairway was empty. I slid by.

  I entered the room. I stumbled forward and grabbed onto the bed railing-I didn’t want to believe what I saw. I shook my head no, hoping that the nightmare would disappear, but it did no good. Betty was lying immobile in bed, staring at the ceiling. She did not move a millimeter, understandably: they had strapped her to the bed-straps at least three inches wide, with aluminum buckles.

  “Betty… what’s this all about…?” I whispered.

  I still had my Western S.522 on me, the one that fits in any pocket. The curtains were open. A soft light spilled into the room. There was no sound-I sharpened it regularly. Me and my knife, we were pals.

  I grabbed Betty by the shoulders. I shook her a little. I started perspiring again, but by now I was used to it-it practically never had a chance to dry. But this was bad sweat, different from the rest-like glazed, transparent blood. I stacked her pillows and sat her up. I found her as beautiful as ever. I had barely let go of her, when she fell over on her side. I picked her back up. When I saw this, a part of me tumbled over the foot of the bed screaming. With the other part, I took her hand.

  “Listen,” I said. “I know that it’s taken a long time, but it’s over now-we’ve made it!”

  Jerk, I thought, this is no time for riddles. Sure, you’re scared to death, but you have only one little sentence to say-you don’t even have to take a breath.

  “Betty… my book is g
oing to be published,” I said.

  I might have added: DON’T YOU SEE THE LITTLE WHITE SAIL ON THE HORIZON? I don’t know how to describe this-she might as well have been sealed in a bell jar… and all I could do was leave my fingerprints on the glass. I did not detect the slightest change on her face. A little wind, I was-trying my best to ripple a pond long since covered with ice. A little wind…

  “I’m not kidding! And, I’m pleased to announce that I’m working on a new one…!”

  I was playing all my cards. The trouble is, I’d never played alone. Lose all night long, then deal yourself a hand in the morning after everyone’s gone home, only to find yourself with a royal flush-who could stand such a thing? Who wouldn’t want to throw everything out the window-stab the upholstery with a kitchen knife?

  God, she didn’t see me. She didn’t understand me-didn’t even hear me. She no longer knew what it was to speak, or cry, or smile, or throw a temper tantrum, or revel in the sheets, running her tongue over her lips. The sheets didn’t move. Nothing moved. She gave me no sign, not even a microscopic one. My book being published affected her about as much as my showing up with a plate of french fries. The wonderful bouquet I’d brought was nothing but a shadow of wilted flowers, an odor of dried grass. For a fraction of a second I sensed the infinite space that separated us, and ever since then I tell whoever cares to listen that I died once… at thirty-five years of age, of a summer’s day in a hospital room-and it’s no bluff: I am among those who have heard the Grim Reaper whistling through the air. It chilled me to my fingertips. I experienced a moment of panic, but just then a nurse walked in. I didn’t budge.