“You oughta wash your hair with pigeon poo, my Jefke, that’ll make it grow back and you’ll have pretty curls like when you were little,” she told him each time.
But Jefke couldn’t have cared less. When night fell, he put on his blond wig . . .
He’d led a calm life, working at the factory. At forty years old, he had still lived with his mother. Oh, there’d been a woman, but Mrs. Vanwafels hadn’t liked her, because she wore nail polish and that “made a bad impression.” Finally, he realized he preferred football to the ladies. And he became a staunch fan of Standard Liège.
When the time came for his mother to leave their house on rue Blaes, he found himself all alone and, being an insomniac, grew a little restless. He bought a small car, which allowed him to hang out in a variety of seedy bars at night. It was around then that he first saw la Grande Bertha, an ex–truck driver, covered in feathers and sequins, impersonating Mireille Mathieu onstage at Chez Maman, a popular drag club in the city center. Jefke had fallen head over heels. He’d discovered his calling.
And so he’d taken his savings to the shops around place de Brouckère and bought the perfect pinup outfit, from false eyelashes to stiletto heels. With his platinum curls, his rhinestone necklace, his slinky black dress and lime-green shoes, he found himself simply divine. Sure, he had hair on his legs and chin, and his love handles, pinched by the waistline of his dress, formed a buoy around his stomach. But at night, all dreams are possible. You just have to find your corner of the dimly lit side of the room.
Mimi had learned all of Dalida’s songs by heart. She sang horribly off-key, but that didn’t matter, as the audience was distracted by her huge tits. To whoever would listen, she’d explain that they weren’t silicone, and that she’d taken hormones—until the day she was shimmying onstage and her falsies slipped, ending up caught on one of her stiletto heels.
But the real problem was, all these frills and baubles were expensive! That was what made Mimi Castafiore decide to put her singing career on hold and start getting her knees dirty in the Bois de la Cambre. It paid better, and since she kept her dentures in her purse, Mimi could apply two different rates: fifty euros without teeth and a hundred with, because of AIDS.
In addition to the dentures she’d worn since a catfight with la Grande Bertha, Mimi had acquired a crowbar, an indispensable tool when walking alone in the woods. One night, while she was dozing off in a pile of dead leaves, she heard a harrowing cry. It was her friend Brigitte calling for help—she’d shoved a bottle of whiskey too far up a client’s ass.
“Mimi, quick! Go get your crowbar from the trunk of my car. I can’t pull the neck out any farther!”
Like Jane coming to Tarzan’s rescue, Mimi went leaping into the thicket. But just as she was approaching her friend’s car, she got nabbed by some cops and, lickety-split, off she went to the station. As for the client, he found himself at Hôpital Saint-Pierre on rue Haute.
Despite Mimi’s adventurous life, Jefke was not completely happy. He always had the feeling he was missing out on something. As soon as he met someone the least bit cultivated at a bar, he felt out of his depth. Just plain stupid.
One day, seated among his garden gnomes, for the first time in his life he began to reflect. Aside from the magazine Modes et Travaux, which his mother subscribed to, he’d never read much of anything. He thought he’d better get down to it, even if his old lady had always said, Don’t go sticking your nose in books, they’ll only bring you misery. One of her friends had a son who’d decided to study literature and moved to America, abandoning his poor mom, and she’d been scared to death of all printed matter ever since.
Jefke went to visit Phillipe, the owner of l’Imaginaire, the used bookstore on place du Jeu de Balle, and asked him to recommend a book “that makes you cultured,” without too many pages, and in large print. Gathering that Duras probably wasn’t the best place to start, Philippe gave him Ma Tante chez les Nudistes by a certain K. de Mongeot (no relation to Mylène).
Jefke left with this precious volume in his backpack, but on rue du Chevreuil he was cornered by a thug who grabbed his bag and took off running. Jefke tried to catch him but collapsed, breathless, after only a few meters.
Given his aversion to the pigs, he obviously wasn’t going to file a complaint. After all, aside from his depleted wallet, a photo of himself in slippers, and his new purchase, there had been nothing of any real value inside.
And so Jefke returned home, a bit shaken up certainly, but not devastated. And he spent the evening in front of the TV, as he always did on his nights off from performing.
The next morning, walking by a newspaper kiosk, he caught a glimpse of La Dernière Heure with his photo on the front page. In bold letters, the headline proclaimed: “Killer in Slippers Rapes, Dismembers Banker.” Jefke couldn’t believe his eyes. He raised the collar of his jacket to hide his face, and quickly read that his bag had been found, containing his ID and a “pornographic” book, at the scene of the crime. It was the only piece of evidence—there were no fingerprints. And since he hadn’t gone to file a report of the theft, he was up to his stilettos in shit creek.
Jefke couldn’t go back home, not now that the cops had his address. So he went to Brigitte’s on rue de l’Economie, hoping he might be able to hide out there, but she sent him packing, convinced that he’d bailed out during her misadventure with the whiskey-loving client. Try as he might to explain that it wasn’t his fault, she wouldn’t hear a word of it and slammed the door in his face. As for la Grande Bertha, it wasn’t even worth thinking about—they hadn’t spoken since she’d smashed his teeth in for “borrowing” her mascara.
If only he hadn’t gone to the bookstore that day, Jefke would never have been robbed and then accused of murder. All because of a book, he’d found himself on the street, threatened with life in prison.
And so he went into a shop and stole a wig, a dress, and some high heels, and killed off Jefke forever. Mimi Castafiore swore never again to disobey her mother. She was right: books, they’ll bring you nothing but misery!
The Village Idiot
BY EDGAR KOSMA
Rue de Flandre
The American
In the neighborhood around rue de Flandre, no one knew his name and everyone called him “the American.”
The fellow who answered to this nickname was endowed with quite singular physical characteristics, and so was easily identifiable. He was a sturdy little person who stood no more than five feet tall but weighed about 135 pounds, who was missing as many teeth as he had fingers (nine, since he’d lost one in the bread slicer as a child), and whose remaining stumps were preparing to jump ship, one by one. He could, at least, be grateful that this unkempt mouth was partially hidden by his disheveled beard.
As for his attire, the American had the particularity of being completely impervious to fashion, and always wore the same clothes: a green nylon track jacket covered in a red argyle pattern, too large for his small torso, with brown velour pants too long for his short, chubby legs, and a beige and gray flannel shirt, more or less fitted to his atypical build. On his head sat a navy-blue baseball cap with the logo of a second-tier American team. The most plausible hypothesis was that his nickname came from the perpetual sporting of this headgear. It was, however, a fair bet that he wouldn’t be able to locate the United States on a world map.
What could such an odd little person’s everyday life be like? The American didn’t work, but wasn’t unemployed, either, and belonged to a third, rather unenviable social category: those who are disabled by at least 33 percent, and receive a monthly allowance from the federal government. His handicap bore the disreputable name of debility or mental deficiency, terms that varied according to different medical studies and eras.
Despite his exceptionally low IQ, the American got by on his own, in a small apartment at the end of rue de Flandre, where, by force of repeating the same routines day after day, he managed to maintain a stable lifestyle. The American co
uld, in this way, be considered an autonomous person, according to specialists on the subject.
In the morning, he took care of the basic household chores, then went to the supermarket to buy himself a loaf of white bread, a package of sliced, garlic-flavored salami, a can of Coke, a jar of cornichons in vinegar, and, if necessary, some other essential, or a little treat. Then, at home again, around noon, he consumed his purchases while watching, on a French cable TV channel, game shows in which he would never even dream of participating.
In the afternoon, the American would hang out at the neighborhood bars, most often the Laboureur, a café at the corner of rue de Flandre and rue Léon Lepage, whose dark wainscoted walls and old Belgian beer posters hadn’t changed since it had opened in the 1950s. It was a place where aging card-players, barstool philosophers, and young, hip architects rubbed shoulders, where Francophones and Flemish speakers came to drown their petty linguistic quarrels.
But it wasn’t to drink that the American went there. As it happens, he had become an employee of the café without anyone having asked him. In concrete terms, he brought the empty glasses from the booths to the counter, and in exchange for this service, the waiter offered him a Coke. This no longer seemed to shock any of the patrons, and in view of the high cost of labor in Belgium, the owner didn’t object to a little help from a good old chap who could make do with such a humble salary.
To pass the time, the American practiced an additional activity that would have made the most cynical person smile, and the most fearful tremble: he photographed girls during his daily walks in the neighborhood. From the front? No, the American was too shy for that, and would never have dared ask their permission. Considering his appearance, it was unlikely that the girl would consent, for that matter, or that she wouldn’t run for her life, crying bloody murder. No, the American was a deceitful little person who always photographed them from behind. Which, incidentally, was preferable for the mental health of his ignorant victims.
His modus operandi was as simple as his mind-set: when he saw a girl walking toward him on the street, he would rather obviously pretend not to have noticed her, then, a bit farther on, he’d stop, take out the disposable camera from its caddy, make a sharp turn, step up his pace in the girl’s direction, stop again no more than five meters away from her, and, if all the conditions were right, click on the shutter. Then, with the satisfied air of a fisherman who has just caught a trout in a polluted river, he would put away his camera and retrace his route without turning around to look at the girl. Like a good old American going off to win the West with his well-oiled gun and his belt loaded down with ammunition.
Justine
In the neighborhood around rue de Flandre, hardly anyone was aware of her existence, certainly not her name. In her defense, Justine had lived in Brussels for only a few months, and hadn’t yet had the occasion to meet many locals.
She had come from her native Île-de-France in order to study physical therapy in Brussels. Not for love of the flat country, where she’d never set foot until now, but to avoid the impossible entrance exams and exorbitant tuition costs of French schools.
This ambitious nineteen-year-old already imagined herself, years later, practicing her chosen profession on the fragile bodies of the aging bourgeoisie in a private office in the 16th arrondissement, which—according to her preliminary estimations, confirmed by her accountant father—could earn her as much as eight thousand euros per month, as early as the first year, excluding expenses.
Justine had ended up in the neighborhood near rue de Flandre thanks to an ad she’d found on a rental website. A certain Marie, twenty years old, was subletting a room in her apartment there: Well lit and spacious, in a small urban village, young, vibrant, and multicultural, in the heart of the city. Justine had contacted her from Paris, and the deal was quickly done.
The first few months in Belgium only confirmed what Justine had read on the travel blogs: Brussels was a friendly city, full of kind, open-minded, approachable, warm people, always ready to meet up for a beer and chat with their goofy accents and their expressions that made you piss yourself laughing.
In the neighborhood, the temptations to go out were many. And even if the prices at the bars were far cheaper than those in the City of Light, once she’d paid rent, credit cards, the phone and Internet bills, and covered the cost of restaurants, sandwiches, movie tickets, clothes, and all her other basic needs, there wasn’t much left of the measly thousand euros her parents sent on the first of every month. And if there was one thing Justine hated above all, it was being stripped of her buying power.
One cold night in November, during a party with her classmates where everyone had gotten a bit too sloshed, Charlotte, another French girl whom Justine had befriended, told her about a lucrative activity she’d been practicing for nearly a year. Considering her physical assets, Charlotte thought Justine would also be suited to it.
“So what does this involve, exactly?”
“It’s easy: you meet men, you give them a little pleasure in as short a time as possible, and you get as much cash from them as you can!”
“But . . . that’s prostitution, isn’t it?”
“In a certain sense, yes . . . Well, you can call it whatever you want. But it brings in enough cash to let you pay for school without working yourself to death twenty hours a week at some fast-food joint and smelling like grease all day . . . This way, you can give yourself every chance to succeed!”
The argument had percolated all night in the half-conscious brain of the postadolescent.
The next day, Justine sought more information from Charlotte, who was thrilled to bring a new participant along on this rewarding adventure.
As soon as she’d returned home from class, Justine sent her phone number, along with a picture of herself in her underwear, to [email protected]. It took no more than five minutes for a certain Boris Umanov to respond with a link and a password that allowed her to create a profile on www.studandmeet.be. Justine followed the instructions and chose the worldly yet unassuming pseudonym of Natacha. Not for love of Russia, but because it was the first name that came to mind, and one that she could easily imagine belonging to a whore. Her registration was quickly confirmed, and Boris sent her another, more personalized e-mail, in which he advised her to fill out her profile with a few charming photos and risqué quotes. In conclusion, he predicted that she would find success in this new endeavor and, in an attachment, provided a list of practical recommendations: the most important ones, in bold, at the top of the list, were to buy a cell phone with a prepaid card and create a dedicated e-mail address to be used exclusively for this professional activity.
In just a few days, the machine was set in motion, and the first requests flooded her new Hotmail inbox. The formula was simple: interested clients contacted her via the site, Justine accepted them or not, they agreed on a meeting based on her availability, and the men came to her place at the appointed hour. Justine made sure this was always at a time when her roommate wasn’t home, which was easy enough since Marie was usually holed up at her boyfriend’s house. These mostly affluent middle-aged men were excited to find themselves in that atmosphere, tinged with nostalgia and eroticism. It reminded them of the golden days when they could get hard over the smallest thing, without the least anxiety. Before the session began, they paid her in cash, an amount agreed upon in advance, of which Boris took a 10 percent commission, to be transferred into a PayPal account within forty-eight hours. Justine set her prices according to a fixed rate, asking, on average, for two hundred euros for a complete service, which could not exceed an hour. She added a small fee of fifty euros at the start of each additional quarter hour, which was paid at the end and not subject to the commission. And in this way Justine, working sometimes less than an hour a day, earned nearly as much as her two parents combined, who did not, for that matter, have reason to complain, given their three-bedroom Parisian apartment, their brand-new Citroën, and their second home in Upper
Normandy.
* * *
Justine and the American did not meet through www.studandmeet.be, for the simple reason that the American had no Internet service, no cell phone or landline, did not really know what all that fuss was about, and lived relatively well without them.
On that night, Justine was at the Laboureur with a few French friends who were in town for the weekend. As she approached the bar to order another round of the beers that her friends found very good and, more importantly, very cheap compared to the bland five-euro drinks they were used to imbibing, the American greeted her with a timid bonjour. But with the deejay blasting oldies and playing the harmonica at the same time, everyone was shouting to be understood and no one could hear a thing.
“What’s your name?” he went on, surprised by his own sudden boldness.
This time, Justine registered his presence and looked disdainfully at him, as one observes a fly who has lost a wing and whose life will be snuffed out in a matter of seconds. Undeterred, he repeated his question. She reflexively gave him her pseudonym and immediately wondered why she’d responded to this pathetic creep who was shorter than her fifteen-year-old brother.
Of course, the American latched onto these first words like a mussel to a pier. “You want a Coke?”
“No thank you.”
“C’mon, it’s on me!”
“If you’ve got enough to buy me a glass of champagne . . .” she said, so that he’d leave her alone.
“Oh, yes, I’ve got a little here.” The American pulled a wad of fifty-euro bills from his pocket. “And if that’s not enough, I’ve got more at home . . .”
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