Apocalypse Baby

by Virginie Despentes

  The Frenchwoman from the flat, Staff, greets me, as she comes to take a line. She asks me if I slept well, whether I’d like some. I say no. She stays near me for a few minutes, but can’t find anything to say to me. I see her again, yesterday giving that resounding slap to her girlfriend. In the end, I’m regretting running away so fast, I’d like to know what they did later. I look at the beach a few metres below us.

  ‘So, it seems you’re a private eye!’

  Zoska has crouched down beside me.

  ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘I just got here.’

  She yawns, offers me a spliff, which I refuse. She’s wearing the same camouflage trousers as before and a black and white T-shirt, very tight-fitting, with Big Sexy Noise written on it. I notice on her forearm a few parallel scars. Her hands are large and white, with elegant fingers.

  ‘You didn’t say you were here on an investigation.’

  ‘I prefer to be discreet.’

  ‘So I noticed. But other people aren’t. You’re going after someone then?’

  ‘A little girl of fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen? Not so little then. It’s the average age of the population in this town. And it needs two of you, does it?’

  I check that the Hyena is fairly far away from us, and pretend to be someone who’s completely on top of her work.

  ‘It’s more practical. A case can take a long time. Sometimes you have to be up all night, other times be in two places.’

  ‘And you’ve been doing this a long time?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘It’s a bit like being a cop in the end, isn’t it, your job?’

  ‘Not state employed, not so well paid. But yeah, a bit like it.’

  ‘And you’re happy in your work?’

  ‘It’s not a vocation. Let’s say I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t for the money. What about you, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Waitressing. Six euros an hour, on my feet all the time, and these days the customers think they can cut back on tips because of the crisis… so, did you make any progress today?’

  ‘No, not much.’

  She sits up, looks around. I’d like to find a subject to keep our conversation going, because at least when she’s there, I don’t have to put on a front. But I can’t think of anything. She starts to walk off, then throws over her shoulder: ‘I’m going to have a smoke on the beach if you want to join me.’

  At that precise moment, something happens, a slight tear inside my chest, or at the back of my neck or maybe a catch in the throat. The way she turns her head, the way she looks straight at me. An invitation, on the edge of being hidden, to which I respond violently. I stand up to follow her. Nothing’s happened. Nothing’s changed, but a cord has been stretched somewhere, and it’s feverishly trying to attach itself to something and make contact.

  Around us, the beach is a scene of devastation. Empty beer cans, crisp wrappers, McDonald’s cartons, crushed plastic water bottles, fag-ends and greasy papers. The waves are even pushing a Tampax tube on to the sands.

  ‘Is the beach always in this state?’

  ‘Since the fine weather arrived, yes. In high summer it’s worse.’

  ‘Have you lived in Barcelona long?’

  ‘Too long, I want to get away. But for now, there isn’t a city that appeals to me. Everyone’s off to Berlin, because you can get cheap flats there. But it’s so grey. And with artists everywhere. In the end you get really fed up of people talking about their installations.’

  ‘Do you speak Spanish as well as you do French?’

  ‘No. I was a long time in France. That’s where I ended up first from Poland. For us, France meant… affluence. Even your post offices are heated. You can’t switch on the TV without seeing someone holding a book, it’s like that’s all you have to do, read, read, read. It takes time to find that it’s just a con, you French people don’t really have any more education than the birds in the trees. And you don’t speak a word of Spanish, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That might be a problem with your case. If you need someone to translate, call me. I’ve got a motorbike as well, it’s practical for getting around. How are you going about your search?’

  At this point I hear myself answering very seriously, ‘Me? Well, I let the city do its work. Transmit its energy. I try not to think too much, I just walk round. You need patience. We know she’s here. We have to let her come to us.’

  She doesn’t comment. I carry on, as if it’s just a detail, ‘Still, give me your mobile number. It might be a good thing to have a translator.’

  ‘Well, you know the Hyena does speak Spanish fluently.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re not always together on the job.’

  ‘I tell you, the age she is, if she starts again this evening, I bet she’ll find it hard to get up in the morning. Seems she really got going last night.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I stayed in my room, I’m not too…’

  ‘Keen on group sex? Me neither. Shall we go back to the others?’

  ‘Yes, I think I’d like to try a line. Would that be OK?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see, it’s hard not to take drugs here.’

  Actually I loathe coke, and speed, because of the comedown afterwards. But I need some reason to stay with her. Zoska prepares me a line of speed, and leaves me to take it and goes to talk to the others. After my second line, and my third beer, communicating without being understood doesn’t bother me any more. The Hyena is sitting off to the side against a tree, with her arms round a brunette I hadn’t seen in the group before. At regular intervals, their lips seek each other and they stay there not moving, their two bodies pressed together. Nobody pays them the slightest attention. I turn my head and my eyes meet Zoska’s a few metres away. She looks at me for a moment with intensity, without smiling, then turns towards a little blonde sitting opposite her. I remember her yesterday leaning over an arm on which she was tracing lines with a scalpel. A bite of fear in my guts is mixed with a sudden burst of desire.

  THE HYENA

  AT THE OTHER END OF THE BEACH, THE TALL silhouette of a new building juts into the sky, grey, shaped like a shark’s fin, probably a hotel. The temperature has plunged in the night and it’s on the cool side for bathing, but an old man is coming out of the water: skinny legs and a bulging belly. He seems lost inside his bermuda shorts, all alone as he steps over the waves. Further down, some little girls who ought to be at school are playing with a dog that’s gripping a deflated balloon in its jaws. Techno music is blaring out full volume from the beachside bars, the kind of music that goes with the drugs on sale round here, synthetic and stimulating. The Hyena goes back up the Paseo Maritimo, a street bristling with concrete, subsidized sculptures, and in-your-face palm trees. The seafront is entirely lined with junk buildings, but despite all their efforts to fuck up the landscape, the sea is blue and it’s still beautiful.

  From the outside, the bar where she’s arranged to rendezvous with Lucie looks like a tiny neighbourhood café, like there used to be in France in the 1970s. It seems even smaller inside, because it’s bulging with customers and thick with smoke. The counter, facing the door, is laden with oily foods in stainless steel containers, like in canteens. The clientele is fluid and voluble, there are few places to sit down, most people are standing, a mixture of local working class, Latin Americans, kids still up after a night out, and old rogues who’ve seen it all. She looks around for Lucie, and spots her under the plasma screen on the wall, the improbable and only high-tech feature of the place, installed for the football. Lucie isn’t alone. The Hyena was expecting to find her looking grumpy because she’s a bit late, and her little colleague is inclined to moan all the time, before rolling her eyes to indicate that as far as she’s concerned, the incident’s over. But she’s neither alone nor sulking. She’s already drinking a beer, sitting at a table with Zoska, a pretty little brunette who doesn’t smile much and of whom the Hyena has previously only taken casual no
tice.

  ‘What are you two up to then?’

  ‘Zoska’s offered to help me, with translating… and since she was free today…’

  ‘And she’s translating what? The menu?’

  ‘No. We’ve been searching the whole district this morning. We’ve been on our feet the whole time.’

  Lucie has never, since they’ve been working together, taken the slightest initiative on her own. And suddenly she seems to have woken up. The Hyena looks her over suspiciously: right, she’s come to Barcelona, so what’s happened, she’s taken to doing lines of coke the minute she gets up?

  ‘What do you mean, searching?’

  ‘With her photo. We did all the bars and restaurants on the beach, the Chinese massage parlours, the Pakistani drinks sellers, the blacks who hire the deckchairs. One by one, from Poblenou to here. We’re done in.’

  What a weird idea. As if you looked for people by walking round the town with a little photograph in your hand. From what damaged section of her brain did this concept emerge? The Hyena stretches her legs out under the table, and says to herself OK, it suits her fine not to have Lucie trailing round with her today, and if it’ll keep her busy all afternoon as well, why not encourage her?

  ‘I don’t know what to say… It’s true anything can happen. You might just come across someone who saw her.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s just what I thought. Seeing as we’ve got absolutely no clues, thought we might as well try our luck. At her age, you’d expect her to be round the beach, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Except the beach is pretty big, and the idea even…’

  ‘You never know. Since it was here her mother came to fetch her, I thought it would be the logical place to start.’

  ‘Logical? Not sure I’d go that far, but, yes. You certainly have to start somewhere.’

  Lucie is relieved that the Hyena can’t be bothered to criticize her pathetic methods more openly. She stretches out her hand towards Zoska’s tobacco, asks, ‘May I?’ with a brief glance, and at that precise moment everything becomes clear. The Hyena frowns and looks at one of them, then the other. Suddenly, she tries to remember why she’s never made a pass at the Polish girl. Who is in fact just the kind to attract her. Lucie gets up to go to the toilet. The Hyena waits for her to be out of earshot.

  ‘It’s OK, is it, not too much of a drag, this mission?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. But I don’t know whether it’s getting anywhere, actually.’

  ‘Yes, you do know. You’d have more chance of spotting her if you sat in this bar all day, waiting for her to go past. So that’s what you’re up to now, you’re picking up straight girls, right?’

  No reaction, no smile, no glowering either. Superb. Her eyes are clear, you could probably spend a lifetime wondering what’s going on in that little head.

  She counter-attacks, disdainfully. ‘Why, are you interested? You were after her yourself, perhaps?’

  ‘Ah, no, not at all.’

  She’s against the concept, that’s all. In the end, it’s true, she’s developed a strange affection for Lucie. Her determined apathy forces respect. But she’s an outstanding example of a dimwit, and the Hyena sees no great urgency in allowing her to bring down the level of the elite. In the bar, flamenco music is playing, a few clients are swaying, holding their beers. Zoska checks a text message on her iPhone. Pretty, not flaky, elegant, feline. The Hyena adds, ‘I didn’t know Lucie was interested in girls.’

  ‘She’s not interested in girls, she’s interested in me. That surprise you?’

  ‘It depresses me. It ought to be off limits for you to let her.’

  Another cool look, very cutting this time. Really, she has no idea how she didn’t spot her earlier. They’ve met a dozen times at parties, here and there. And she’s never paid Zoska any attention. A pity she doesn’t have time now to turn the situation to her advantage. Lucie comes to sit down: overnight she’s discovered a passion for the enquiry.

  ‘Once we’ve done this district, we should look for places where there are lots of men. Young ones. Valentine likes kind of laddish hang-outs: beer and tattoos, that’s where we have the best chance to pick up her trail.’

  ‘Well, since you’re such a good team, perhaps I’ll leave you to it this afternoon. I’ve got a few things to do myself. I’ll let you do your search in peace, OK? But if you do pick up her trail, don’t forget to call me, will you?’

  Lucie’s in such a good mood that she bursts out laughing in an open and musical way that the Hyena has never heard before. You can tell that they’re into each other. Sitting side by side. The electricity of the body. They show it in silence, touching hands is enough, sensing their mutual warmth occupies them entirely.

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat with us?’

  ‘No, actually I’m in a hurry. I’ll take the chance to get on.’

  They’re delighted, she’s leaving them alone to waste time any way they want. The other day, in among the dykes, Lucie was so ill at ease she was practically going to the bathroom every five minutes to splash her face. Sometimes people adapt quickly. Straight women are all alike: they’ll tell you, ‘no, that’s not my scene at all’, when you haven’t asked them for anything, then before you know it they’re down between your legs and into your pussy before you have time to react. Makes a change for them from the hairy monsters, poor things.

  A huge advertising hoarding, with a bank’s logo in yellow lettering on a red background, covers the main façade of the cathedral. The Hyena goes past the trestle tables covered with candles shaped like various saints, and the rosaries, medallions and religious images being sold at the bottom of the steps. Five euros to go in, you have to pay in the morning, but it’s free for the tourists in the afternoon. She came an hour early, to have some time to look around. It feels like going inside the gigantic skeleton of a dinosaur. The stone pillars are the monster’s ribs. The place makes her stand up straighter. Flat screens are fixed to every pillar. A progression of moving images, their prosaic nature clashing with the solemnity of the place. The flickering candles at the feet of the altars have been replaced by trays of electric nightlights. Few people come to pray there at times when you have to pay to get in, the nave is left to the tourists who take photos before they even have time to look at anything. Who do they think they’re going to show all that to when they get home? It’s a frenzy of desire to broadcast, but without any receivers.

  The Hyena sits down. She likes churches. You can’t hear the traffic, the sound is different from outside, rather like in luxury shops. Her thoughts are disjointed. Her mind’s become like some kind of rock festival: groups that have nothing in common with each other occupy the stage, one after another, in complete and utter anarchy. This is the chaos that comes before taking decisions: she’s familiar with this tension, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more bearable. And the girl she spent the night with has dislocated her wrist, keeping her hand tightly clenched, neither in or out, but locking it, and rolling over all the time. Her hand’s a wreck.

  She gets up and walks round the cathedral, finding herself in an inner cloister open to the sky, with some geese round a pond. A palm tree in the centre is so tall that it has to be held by wires to the portal of an archway. The Chapel of Las Almas del Purgatorio. A woman is standing with her head bowed, in front of the crucifix. It’s still a shock, when you haven’t been used to it since childhood, to see this guy in agony, his eyes half-shut, his head hanging down and eyeballs rolling up. Wounds on show, blood streaming. Out of the corner of her eye, the Hyena observes the woman praying alongside her. She’s wearing flat, round-toed shoes, a shapeless but complicated dress, not just a grey cotton sack, something more subtle, shaped like a trapeze. The language you speak shapes your lips: Spanish women’s lips are made larger by the vowels and stronger by the accents. They make you want to kiss them.

  The Hyena looks up at Christ on the cross. It would be so restful to believe. Confession. Forgiveness. To be able to atone fo
r your sins. Redemption. All that admirable folklore. She is not a believer. She’s alone with her shit. She forces herself not to forget. It’s a matter of pride rather than of remorse.

  She killed him twenty-five years ago. She waited for him to come out of his workplace. She meant to talk to him, to give him a scare. She followed him without his seeing her, he didn’t know her at all. She was furious with herself for feeling so foolish, furious for not preparing what she wanted to say to him. She couldn’t go home without doing anything. Behind the station, in those days, it was a kind of wasteland. He set off walking up a deserted street: on one side, a fence ran along the edge of a big building site. It was too late for anyone to be working there now. She caught up with him, grabbed him by the arm, and forced her face into a fierce expression. He just looked her up and down, without expecting it was anything to do with him personally. He was a grown man, he wasn’t going to be scared of a slip of a girl of sixteen. Seen close up, he was an image of France in the early 1980s, a France still deep in ideas of decency, authority and moral attitudes. He gestured to her to push off. He didn’t say a word, but his body language said ‘stop pestering me’. And that was when she hit him with her schoolbag, aiming at his head. She’d taken a good swing at it. It could have been a grotesque and clumsy gesture. She might have missed him. In the bag was a little glass bottle of Orangina, bought at lunchtime, which she hadn’t had time to drink yet. She put all her strength behind the blow. He staggered, felt for the wall with the flat of his hand, didn’t reach it, and pitched the other way. She ran away. She left no trace of herself behind, neither on his body nor on the frozen ground.

  She’d arrived home where her mother was ironing in the living room, in front of the television. She’d gone straight to her bedroom: ‘I’ve got homework to do’, like any other evening. Most normal days she’d lie down in the darkened room and listen to records. At dinnertime when her father called her to come to the table, he’d switch on the light in the corridor and a white ray of light would appear under the door, she’d just have time to jump up before he came in to say, ‘Supper’s ready, come and eat.’ That day, she hadn’t closed the shutters to put her music on. There was a little blood on her US Army surplus schoolbag, a dark stain about the size of a large plum. She didn’t know at that stage that the man was dead. She didn’t panic. She’d taken out her school things, her geography and maths textbooks, her Clairefontaine exercise books with dog-eared corners, her ink-stained red pencil case, her set square, and an old packet of dried-up tobacco. Her notebook was covered with stickers, her mother said she couldn’t be working seriously with such scruffy things, it was a perpetual subject of argument, among others.