Breakneck

by Nelly Arcan

  “No, no. I’m okay. I need to speak to Rose.”

  Charles was having trouble distinguishing his voice from the others, he tried to pull away from Julie but she held him by the arm, and the gesture angered him.

  “Stay,” she said, lowering her voice, feeling she should be kind to him. “Stay a little and talk with me.”

  “I had to do something and I didn’t do it. I have to do it now.”

  “Calm down. Calm down. Tell me about it, come here. Rose won’t go anywhere, she’ll wait for you.”

  It was true. Rose was here to stay, she wouldn’t leave, she would give him the sign, not the other way around, he heard it in his head, through the mouths of the voices that kept him informed. Julie and Charles moved away from the crowd and sat under a parasol, one facing the other. He’s gone insane, Julie understood. Then she remembered the guardrail.

  “Listen to me carefully. I’m going to tell you something very important. The guardrail over there was struck by lightning and not repaired very well,” Julie said, pointing. “Don’t go near it, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “The guardrail! The guardrail! Struck by lightning! The guardrail!” shouted the voices that started repeating everything they’d heard.

  “Stay here, I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  Julie went over to Rose, who was talking to André, the Great Skirt-Chaser. Rose was preoccupied by something she didn’t want to share.

  “Something’s wrong with Charles. We have to keep an eye on him. I think he’s going insane.”

  André heard it all and backed away out of politeness.

  “Don’t give a shit,” Rose spat out.

  Rose was having problems of her own. Julie understood that having problems was a real obsession for people in her life and it was a shame, she’d hadn’t had this much fun in years. Then, like an old blanket thrown over her, the day’s humidity began to crush her and dirty her, sudden fatigue took over, a weight to bear, the weight of the world was everywhere upon her, it added to the great weariness in her ideas that refused to take shape and fell into obsolescence even before they had time to form. Cocaine, that liar, was fading away, fleeing out the back door, like a thief into the night, her good mood in its bag, escaping with the energy it had given her, better to snatch it away.

  Julie watched Charles for a few minutes to try to gauge his condition. He held himself apart from the crowd, still sitting, but seemed calmer, at most he looked like a man struggling with himself—but who wasn’t these days? Whatever, no matter, she could try to help him tomorrow or the next day, after all, what would it change, it wouldn’t be too late, and now Bertrand was walking toward him. He would be in good hands.

  Julie ran downstairs to her place to touch herself up, did a line, looked at herself in the mirror, then went back to the roof, only to see Olivier Blanchette aiming his camera at Rose, lying on a picnic table like a woman on the beach, a towel underneath her, her legs crossed at the ankles, her shoes still on, enormous sunglasses on her nose which covered half her face. Next to Rose, she saw him, the man she wasn’t expecting, she couldn’t understand why he was here, but he was, talking with one of the tenants: Steve Grondin.

  “Listen one, listen all!” Rose announced loudly when she saw Julie back on the roof. “Come see the star of Julie O’Brien’s documentary in action! Witness the destiny of the Vulva-Woman! Admire and praise her!”

  For the first time in her life, Rose was causing a scandal, and she had an audience for it. She had never felt so sure of herself, she would finally do something, the first in a series, she hoped, that would seal her existence through images that would soon travel the world via the Internet.

  “Olivier, come a little closer! All of you, come closer!”

  Julie moved nearer to Rose but didn’t look at her. She didn’t understand a thing; she had left her body and was watching Steve glancing around but not seeing her, as Charles distanced himself from Rose, he knew by instinct that he had to protect himself from the sight. Things weren’t going according to divine plan, it was his fault, he was being punished.

  “You too, Charles! Come closer and see the spot where men like you push women like me! And you too, Julie, come and judge with your own eyes this new burqa, fresh from the operating table! Come witness the results, they’ll blow you away!”

  On the roof everyone stopped talking and turned to Rose, with questioning eyes they looked at one another as Julie was caught in a nightmare: everything she’d worked so hard to forget was returning, and suddenly, the man through whom she had encountered death stood before her, and after all this time, she was forced out of herself, and cast into the shadows.

  A few people began moving toward Rose, creating a movement that led to the entire crowd gathering around her, closing in, each convincing his neighbour that this was part of the shoot, a making-of for a documentary, a staged scene they were all invited to participate in, as if this was a game and they were the walk-ons. Olivier was still aiming his camera at Rose, who was stroking one of her legs with her fingertips, from her ankle to her groin, from her groin to her ankle, pushing up her dress by a centimetre each time, revealing her white satin G-string.

  “Come, Julie! Come, Charles! It’s our job to throw ourselves in other people’s faces, isn’t it?”

  Charles heard Rose but didn’t understand the meaning of her words, or the only meaning he could understand was his own rejection: Rose, who was the Way, the leader of the Amazons, was pushing him out of her project. He had failed, she was going to show her eye, that thing beyond everyone, when only he was meant to have access to it. His whole life he would have to live with one foot in the old world and the other in the new, the fabulous one, and he would be at home in neither. The voice of the Father, not aggressive now, but infinitely disappointed, pronounced his sentence:

  “She was there, and you missed it.”

  Then came Diane’s voice: “Now someone else will become the messenger.”

  Everyone was looking at Rose except Julie who had moved away from the circle, and Charles too, who knew he was lost and wandered toward the edge of the deck. He laid his hand against the split guardrail Julie had warned him about, the spot where it had been struck by lightning. “The guardrail! Destroyed by lightning! The guardrail! The place to go!” Many voices repeated in one voice. Rose was the centre of attention for fifty people, their backs to Charles who could see only their backs, who knew that on the other side were faces looking at Rose. They would see what he had, what had been prepared for him and that he could not take.

  Then a sound rose up from the small crowd around Rose, a murmur, a mix of stupor and consternation, like a wave, overseen by the changing sky as a wind blew up to sweep away everything and mix together the elements of the world that continued to collide, a perpetual circular movement.

  The cloud formations gained speed, white and grey forms nearing the deck like small snakes, their heads pointing to the ground, to Charles who believed they were coming for him, the sky lowering to surround him, and help him in his gentle fall. The voices weren’t yelling or insulting him, the danger was now past, everything was over, the voices murmured with the crowd, the voices were surprised to see what the crowd was seeing, and the voice of the Father spoke for Rose as well: “That’s good, that’s good, that’s very good.” Charles watched the clouds descend upon him; he could see the sky at high tide washing him out, the noise of the crowd and the voices in the clouds were taking Charles, the voices were beckoning him, offering their hand—the time had come to take the road open to him, he could certainly not miss the opportunity a second time.

  The guardrail gave way under the weight of his hand, he let himself fall without a sound, without resistance, he let himself fall the way you let yourself sink in the waters of a lake, with no effort, his body falling backwards, his face still turned to the clouds enshrouding him, facing the crowd with their backs to him, not looking at him, troubled, concerned, disturbed by Rose�
��s pussy like a miracle, or an object of shame, insanity, but something strong and captivating in every possible meaning, the crowd couldn’t keep from gazing at this pussy offered up to them, which sent out its song that Charles thought he could hear as he fell, followed by other voices that filled the space of the sky, praying for him, his father’s voice as he took him under his wing when his body hit the ground.

  On Colonial Avenue there was no one around, the street was empty, on the roof the crowd was breaking up, hesitating, some wanted to leave, others to stay. Everyone was stunned. Julie had found refuge on the far side of the deck, her eyes on the horizon, toward Jacques Cartier Bridge. Rose hadn’t thought of what to do afterwards, it was such a shame to look so confused after committing such an act, after the epic moment. Olivier had stopped filming, he didn’t know what to think, nor did André the Great Skirt-Chaser, or Bertrand who just wanted to cry. No one in the thinning crowd had noticed the guardrail that wasn’t much different than what it had been before Rose’s performance, no one wondered where Charles the photographer had gone, not even Julie who still hadn’t gotten over Steve being there, even if he’d gone. The party was over.

  A woman walking down Mount Royal Avenue saw the body land, and for a moment it made no sense to her; bodies falling from the heavens don’t exist. She went toward it to witness the destruction. Charles’ body was bent at impossible angles, both arms on the same side, one leg longer than the other and turned the wrong way. She moved away carefully and fearfully, on tiptoe, her eyes on the sky, digging through her handbag to find her cell phone.

  In the cloudy sky, the movement was intensifying, the wind rattled the parasols on the roof, it was a warm wind that foreshadowed a storm. Montreal was just waking up to summer, and the festivities that would bring people into the streets, its beating heart, all the way till October.

  THE END.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nelly Arcan was born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Her first novel Putain (2001); English: Whore (2004), drawing on her experience working in the sex trade in Montreal, caused a sensation and enjoyed immediate critical and media success. It was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Femina, two of France’s most prestigious literary awards. Three more novels followed establishing her as a literary star in Quebec and France: Folle (2004); English: Hysteric (2014), also nominated for the Prix Femina, À ciel ouvert (2007); English: Breakneck (2015), and L’enfant dans le miroir (2007). Paradis, clef en main; English: Exit (2009), her fourth novel, was completed just days before she committed suicide in 2009 at the age of thirty-six. A collection of short cultural criticism, Burqa de chair (2011); English: Burqa of Skin (2014), was issued posthumously.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Born, bred and raised in Montreal, Jacob Homel has translated or collaborated in the translation of a number of works, including Toqué: Creators of a Quebec Gastronomy, The Last Genêt and The Weariness of the Self. In 2012, he won the J.I. Segal Translation Prize for his translation of A Pinch of Time. He shares his time between Montreal and Asia.