by Cédric Fabre
Maurice is one of those people who believes in la Plaine. It must be said that he fits right in—he’s from La Belle de Mai, another neighborhood of people without a euro in their pockets. An equally working-class neighborhood, just more industrious. From there, this far-off paradise of artists seemed another world to him. When he plunked his bags down in la Plaine, he thought he’d arrived . . . and he still thinks so, for he has time, young blood runs in his veins and he has a head brimming with dreams well anchored to the ceiling. Maurice is convinced he’ll become a rock star overnight, just like the legion of musicians who’re invading the neighborhood by the hundreds. Rock bands form every day, rehearsing for a while in a cellar or a garage before playing in the local dives. They’re acclaimed by the same people who played there the night before and the ones who’ll play there the following night, giving them the illusion of an audience. They’re not necessarily real bars, often makeshift places where liquor is sold without a license, pretending to be covered by the 1901 law regulating “nonprofit associations,” which hardly even exist here. You can also find drugs there, a business transacted without a license anyway.
That’s about all Maurice has done in the year he’s lived in la Plaine—drank and smoked weed. He easily found a little apartment to rent in an old building. Two dark rooms on the second floor where sunlight never enters because the street is too narrow. It’s not fancy, but for a coat of white paint slapped on quickly, the landlord gave him the first month free. The landlord is quite happy, because the portion of the rent covered by the government subsidy to low-income tenants goes directly to him. At least that part of the rent is guaranteed . . . You don’t want to be too picky, it’s hard to find a good tenant in Marseille, especially in this neighborhood that kind of scares people. The landlord would gladly sell the apartment—it’s an inheritance from his grandmother—but it’s not worth anything, or not much. Not even worth selling, really. That day will come—a promise from our elected officials. From one election to the next, there’s always something to hope for; meanwhile, there’s a high turnover of fairly unreliable tenants, evicted when necessary. Once spring has come, they pack up and go.
For the moment, all is well between Maurice and his landlord, a fifty-something who works “for the city.” He’s a road worker—that is, he pushes a broom over the streets while making his rounds to the cafés. Maurice has often seen him in his blue overalls sitting at a sidewalk café as soon as weather permits. From time to time, with his steel key, the municipal employee turns on the fire hydrants, releasing thousands of noisy liters through a plastic elbow in a powerful but almost useless spurt that flows into the gutter and turns into a measly stream slipping tortuously between the tires of the parked cars. When he decides it’s clean, he thanks the owner for his coffee, turns off the faucet, and resumes his walk, making a few scattered sweeps with a new birch broom just to be on the safe side, hastily dispersing the biggest waste blockages.
Between his moonlighting in the piano bars and the sticks of hash he sells in aluminum foil, Maurice gets along okay. The first week of every month, he goes to a shop that sells jewelry and ethnic clothing, on a street perpendicular to cours Julien, the other emblematic square of the plateau. The “plateau” no more exists in the official registries than does its subsection la Plaine, but it’s noteworthy: a mecca of Marseille life, la Plaine was in fact very officially baptized place Jean Jaurès long ago, after the socialist leader who was assassinated on the eve of the First World War, but the people of Marseille have always preferred to keep the traditional name of the huge agora, flouting the posthumous homage to the great man . . . Only the mailman and the locals know that it is really place Jean Jaurès. To someone looking for noise, black whores, or drugs, people will always suggest la Plaine; everybody knows how to get there even if the name can’t be found on maps of the city.
Every Saturday, there’s a young woman working in the jewelry store. She must be about the same age as Maurice. A superb redhead, natural or fake . . . Redheads are in fashion this year.
“Hi,” she says, greeting him with a pretty smile, “how are you?”
They’re formal, they address each other as vous to act like older people and keep their distance; mind you, she’s the landlady’s daughter and that deserves respect. She’s the one to whom he gives the envelope with the rent check. In exchange, he gets his receipt.
“I saw you’re a musician?” says the young saleslady. Finally, she’s getting interested in him! “I’m Sarah.”
“Matt . . .”
“Your name’s not Maurice?”
How dumb can he get! She knows his first and last names as well as his address, of course. She laughs. He laughs.
“How do you know about my music?”
She shows him a photocopied poster pasted on the glass door. You can read it backward through the glass, Sex Toys in concert at K-Foutch, written with a felt-tip marker.
“Are you the guitarist?”
In the photo you can’t see any instruments, only four stupid faces; rather than standing there looking glum, they’d do better to get a haircut.
“I’m the guitarist . . . and the singer.” Maurice seems to take pride in it. “Matt’s my stage name, it’s . . . you have to in this job.”
If he had announced that it was a directive given to the secret service to protect its agents, he couldn’t have revealed it in a more modest tone . . .
“I’m okay with Matt.”
* * *
Matt had always feigned indifference, same with Sarah: that’s probably why they liked each other. Waiting with growing impatience every month for the moment they could see each other in the store. Maurice had seen her prancing around the street a few times, alone or with girlfriends, without even daring to approach her; ditto for Sarah. Time, fantasies, youth, and beauty did the rest: now they had a date! At Le Petit Nice, a respectable establishment run by a wise ex-boxer. You can read Libération there and you come across fewer cockroaches than in other cafés in the neighborhood.
Sarah trots in on red boots with open heels. Black miniskirt, tights—or stockings?—and matching diaphanous blouse, her bra brightly colored under the dark filmy fabric, and a purple-red leather jacket. As soon as he catches sight of her, Maurice mechanically folds up his newspaper. Seeing her dressed up like that, so desirable, he knows he has already won her over and she’s offering herself to him.
Each one pretends not to know what will follow. They seduce each other. Sarah has ordered a Get, which mints up her breath. Sometimes their mouths happen to draw close, conversation becomes more intimate, but they don’t kiss, not yet. Maurice is witty. Sarah cleverly lets him talk and laughs obligingly at his jokes; her smile is a weapon and she knows how to use it. Maurice puts his hand on the young woman’s hand, as if inadvertently; she doesn’t withdraw it . . .
“Wait for me,” he says, “I just need two minutes, got to make a phone call!”
He gets up and leaves her there, crossing between the cars to get to the square where kids are playing soccer on the asphalt. One of the phones is out of order, vandalized for a few coins; in the other glass cabin right next to it, the phone works: in a few coded sentences, Maurice makes an appointment with his dealer to buy half a pound of hash, enough to cover his own consumption with plenty left over to sell—earning him a decent week’s salary.
Back at the sidewalk café, he sits down and kisses Sarah directly on the mouth, by surprise. Their kiss lasts a few long seconds . . . A first kiss is important, you can’t fake it: if it works, it will work!
Time passes so pleasantly that the two lovers didn’t see night falling . . . Sarah remarks on this. Maurice asks her to dinner, to prolong the evening. Like a prince! His princess accepts without a fuss. The young man’s eyes seem to stare at the horizon.
“Wait for me,” he says again, “I just need two minutes.”
Again he gets up, to meet a big guy “of North African appearance” according to the police description, twice
as swarthy because of the darkness. The guy, in a white sweat suit, is balancing his scooter between his thighs. Once the brisk transaction is completed, the dealer starts the engine and disappears immediately with his helmet under his arm, leaving Maurice lit up for a second by the headlight of the roaring machine.
Meanwhile, Sarah has gotten up; she puts her leather jacket back on and lights up a Marlboro.
“Let’s go!” Maurice says. “That was my dealer,” he can’t help boasting.
In Marseille, it is imperative to be a hood, even a little hood, it’s basic . . . You boast of being a hood and kissing gang bosses as often as possible. In this town of paupers, where businessmen are the aristocracy and politicians are corrupt to the core, the hoodocracy is a way to climb the social ladder. All these fine people conduct business together.
At the Haunted House, the grub is homemade and cheap, you eat listening to hard rock in a cavernous light. One of those curious places covered with morbid frescoes, where a shady crowd of night people, owls, badgers, hyenas, and vampires come to meet. Behind the bar the owner looks like a barbarian Gaul, with his long blond hair, his bushy mustache, and his fringed vest; he seems to have a complete understanding of the world as it is, impassibly drawing his pints of beer. On the wall behind him there’s a sign in capital letters: CREDIT IS DEAD AND SO ARE YOU IF YOU DON’T PAY UP. A pool table has replaced the stage ever since the old farts on the neighborhood committee complained about the cacophony of the live music, but you still have to talk loudly to be heard over the sound system. The place isn’t very intimate, but it’s pleasant, and the lovers manage to find a quiet table on the mezzanine. After the potato, bacon, and cheese tartlet and two dishes of stuffed beef rolls à la Provençal, Sarah is done telling her life story; Maurice pretended to be interested and listened attentively. She’s going for a degree in commercial art at Saint Joseph les Maristes; the road worker’s daughter is into infography, a new field he knows nothing about; apparently it’s about drawing with a computer . . .
“Soon everyone will have their own personal computer at home,” she prophesies.
I doubt it, Maurice thinks, without daring to contradict her; as if people have nothing else to do all day but deaden their minds in front of a screen—TV’s quite enough for that. All he cares about is roaming the streets with his colleagues and making noise on the neck of his guitar.
All you have to do to is lean over the railing to order a beer; you grab your bottle between the cables of the railing so the owner doesn’t have to climb the stairs. Time goes by fast when you drink beer, tongues loosen, intimacy becomes more pressing and lips soften in the dusky light. From time to time you do have to get up to go take a piss, which takes some courage because it’s all the way downstairs . . .
The clock had struck midnight, the hour of crime, several hours earlier when the guitarist of the Sex Toys and his lady leave the hellhole on rue Vian.
* * *
In the sweetness of the night, Maurice has taken Sarah’s hand. Do they know where they’re going? The municipal lighting gives a piss-colored shade to the dull façades of the old buildings which occupy most of the neighborhood, which is bathed in a uniformly pallid light, crossed by narrow streets, totally deserted at this ungodly hour. Their footsteps resound on the pavement. Suddenly the young buck pulls hard on his conquest’s arm, dragging her under the entrance of a building . . . Sarah doesn’t resist. Now she’s backed against a scaly wall while Maurice is assailing her neck with kisses. They greedily attack each other’s mouths amidst the smells of garbage cans. A soup of tongues in the stinking darkness disturbed only by the scurrying of the rats all around . . . Sarah can’t get enough of those slobbery kisses. But Maurice quickly grows tired of them. He tells himself she’s hot and it’s high time to stick a finger in her; he’s a methodical boy. He slips his right hand between the young woman’s thighs. He did try to peek all evening, but in vain: stockings or tights? . . . Yes! He grazes the garter: the naughty girl is wearing the kind of stockings that attach to a garter belt, how convenient! Under his caresses, the satin of the little panties feels like the skin of an invisible animal, all feverish with desire. The fabric has come alive under his fingers, soon fusing with the juicy place it is no longer protecting. Sarah lifts a pink flamingo leg, planting one of her heels on the wall to open up to more pleasure, already moaning. All he has to do now is . . . That’s when they hear the loud click of a timer switch turning on lights.
A bull’s-eye lights up, revealing a massive wooden door behind Maurice. Sarah doesn’t open her eyes right away, totally entranced by her own pleasure. But that ill-timed ray of light on her neck is enough to distract the young man, who suspends his activity. They don’t call it a switch for nothing, he thinks, piqued. They hear shoes dragging over the hall. The door creaks open and Maurice turns around. Sarah closes back up like a flower. The fat guy looks more surprised than they do. A gelatinous colossus, evoking for the young woman, a former reader of fairy tales, the giant of the magic beanstalk. Something hairy shoots between her legs. A Yorkshire terrier, who makes straight for the rats . . .
“Hey, don’t mind me, guys!” The master of the premises seems to be waxing indignant. He stands there, on his step, his garbage bag in his hand. In his underpants and slippers. The heavy door has closed slowly behind him.
“We’re not doing anything wrong . . . We’re leaving!” replies Maurice.
“Already?” The fat guy shoots forward with a speed that is astonishing for a pachyderm. In one bound, he’s now blocking the passage. Without putting down his garbage bag.
The little window of light goes out, returning the entrance to the night. A medallion of light surrounds the dark silhouette of the fat guy blocking the exit; the street, just a step away, seems inaccessible, unless they walk through his body. Maurice feels Sarah’s hand squeeze his own more tightly.
“Let us through, sir,” he says without raising his voice, as calmly as possible, but with all the authority he can muster.
Facing him, silence. Their eyes get used to the darkness little by little, and in the whites of the fat guy’s eyes, Maurice thinks he can see a lecherous gleam. His breath stinks of garlic and liquor, two things that spell solitude, not to mention the Yorkshire terrier.
“I don’t want to harm you,” the man finally declares with a sugary voice. “Just, couldn’t we play together a little?” The bag thuds dully to the ground at his slippered feet. The fat guy extends his hand to them. “Just a little caress for the miss . . . It’s my home here—to enter, you have to pay customs.”
Sarah moves away, pulling Maurice backward. The fat guy steps forward.
“Don’t be scared . . .”
The entrance is a dead end leading to closed doors. If the young people thought of it, all they’d have to do is grope for the doorbell to wake up the whole block. But they remain frozen there, wide-eyed and fascinated, with their backs to the wall, staring at a danger they can hardly see. A danger whose breath they can feel upon them, a danger whose animal movements they glimpse in the darkness.
“Don’t play shy, baby, I know you’re a little slut . . .” the voice murmurs softly. “And your boyfriend is cute too. You’re young, you need some new experiences . . .”
Caressing, touching. The young man feels fingers running over his crotch. The obese heap of a man crushing them, those obscene tentacles squeezing them in, that smell—a mix of sweat and pastis. Terror paralyzing them . . . That hypnotic voice is advising them to just let themselves go, like a big snake wrapping itself around them . . .
“I’m sure you’re going to like it,” says the voice rubbing against him.
When Maurice finally reacts, he tries a blind knee-kick and only hits fat.
“Leave us alone!” Sarah begs without managing to scream.
“Come on, be good sports!” the voice orders.
The hand of a gorilla makes the skull of the Sex Toys’ leader bounce against the wall. More than pain, vertigo instantly empti
es all Maurice’s strength. As he faints, he can hear Sarah still begging . . .
* * *
When he comes to, a few seconds or a thousand years have gone by . . . He’s lying on the floor, his nose in the garbage bags at the foot of a dumpster. It all comes back to him. Over his head, Sarah is struggling and sobbing. Words are no longer coming out of the girl’s throat, which he guesses has been forced into silence. Maurice hears the giant whispering breathlessly, without understanding a word of the poison he’s distilling into his victim’s ear. The fat pig is completely absorbed. There’s no light shining on the façades, just nothingness. Despite Sarah’s coquetry in veiling herself in thin nylon, it’s not yet the season for sleeping with the windows open. And anyway, in this neighborhood the silence is broken every night by the songs of drunks, the shouts from fights, and gunshots, when there’s not an explosion a few streets over that makes your windows shake.
Something moist has just landed on his palm. Maurice jumps, but it’s only the nose of the terrier. In the shadows that are quivering like some formless creature, he can sense the repugnant embrace of that tub of lard and his lovely girlfriend. In his effort to stand up, he finds under his hand something he identifies as the base of a metal lamp, heavy and cold. His strength returns. Despite his headache, he manages to stand up and in the same movement smashes down blindly on what he takes to be the guy’s back.
“Ooof!” is the onomatopoeia the guy collapses with. His arms have released Sarah—she felt them withdraw like a moray eel going back into its hole. He has fallen like a boxer, and the thud didn’t cover up the sound of a strange, plaintive crack . . .
“Sarah?” whispers Maurice softly.
The young woman’s delicate hand finds him and lands on his cheek. Her imitation gold ring is rolling like a pearl on his lips and he’s kissing those fingers in the air, his eyes closing briefly in the dark.
“He . . . he was going . . .” she stammers. Maurice draws her to him. She does not resist. Lets herself be hugged in someone’s arms again, yes, but this time they’re the right ones. She says thank you, she begins to cry, her head against Maurice’s shoulder, pressing against him, hiccupping. She says again: “He was going to . . .” They’re talking in low voices, as if someone might hear them . . . as if they were doing something bad by letting themselves be raped in a building entrance . . . They’re in shock.
