Pretty Things. Виржини Депант
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He says, plainly exasperated, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Can you come over?”
“What for?”
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I know you shouldn’t be doing it.”
“Ring quickly four times so I know it’s you?”
He agrees. As she suspected he would. As he will agree to all the rest. He’s that kind of guy, always incapable of doing the right thing, attracted to bad choices and fascinated by chaos. She understands perfectly what he’s like, what he can be used for.
She hangs up, looks at the things lying near the telephone: flyer for a special offer on delivery pizza, tube of aspirin, makeup artist’s business card, journalist’s business card, electric bill, an old Pariscope thoroughly underlined with blue and red—the things Claudine wanted to see—her phone book, a number scrawled on an empty pack of cigarettes, and a planner plastered with Post-its.
All these things, a mess from another life. Pauline feels an incredible contempt rising up in her; jumping out the window really is a fitting end for a life lived in discord. Weak bitch.
A videotape without a label, a validated train ticket for Bordeaux, an art-house cinema’s program, Pauline smiles. I really can’t imagine you going to see Swedish films, you must have had someone important to impress. A little book that cost ten bucks, keys to who knows where, a nearly empty checkbook.
She pushes the video into the VCR, hits Play. Then she takes the pack of cigarettes, dials the number, and asks for Jacques. “Hi, hello, it’s Claudine, I hope I’m not bothering you?”
On the screen a music video is playing, really young guys in suits, the famous Jacques is quite moved. “I didn’t think you would call me back. No, of course you’re not bothering me.”
Claudine appears on the screen, quick close-ups of her ass, she’s not really dancing so much as grinding like a half-wit, something that’s supposed to be sensual but there’s nothing convincing about it. She looks more like a crazy person. Terribly high heels, gold, with a strap around each ankle.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yeah, I’m great, just a little drained.”
“Did you celebrate after your concert? You blew everyone away, I keep hearing people talk about it.”
He has the voice of a young guy playing at being a man. Like a protector, a cuddler. Pauline asks, “And you, your work, everything going well?” hoping that he’ll talk about himself. She has to start somewhere. On the screen, Claudine has reappeared, same outfit, but she’s on all fours, she moves her arms, probably trying to communicate I’m a cat. Pauline wonders if at some point she’ll eat pâté out of a bowl.
The famous Jacques lists the many things he has to do, as well as TV reports for cable channels she’s never heard of and a cinema dossier for a magazine that just came out.
She listens to him a bit distantly, makes little agreeable sounds, trying to get it through her skull that he’s talking to a girl that he watches on all fours, and filmed from behind doing things like pretending to be a cat, whenever he wants.
He stops listing all the things he’s working on. Pauline has a hard time understanding how anyone does so many things at the same time, and why a journalist as in demand as he must be—very, very important—is talking to Claudine like this. He asks, “And what about you, Jérôme told me there were a lot of important people at the concert. It seems they were all looking for you but you had disappeared.”
“I was tired.”
“Come on, you can’t fool me. What kind of naughty business did you get up to?”
She doesn’t respond. He doesn’t take offense, he’s all excited. “Just hearing your voice I’m hard. If you were here I’d shove it all the way up your pretty little ass.”
“I’m not alone right now. I’ll call you back.”
Claudine is on the screen again. End of the song, she throws a wink at the camera that’s supposed to be mischievous. In reality, she looks like a fat cow that would rather be grazing.
Pauline sighs. Out loud, “Cunt through and through . . . and this you don’t show me before asking me to pretend to be you. All those pigs that night thought they had seen my ass, and you didn’t think to tell me.”
She takes a blank piece of paper. Writes Jacques at the top, his phone number next to it, then writes, Journalist for all kinds of media, knows a Jérôme, up to speed about the concert, slept with.
The telephone rings again.
HE DOESN’T TAKE his eyes off Pauline. He must think that he’ll impress her with his death stare. She doesn’t react. He came to tell her that she has to abandon her plan, he had prepared an argument, but now he says nothing. That’s his problem, she senses his weakness: he second-guesses too much, leaves an opportunity for his worst emotions to surface. And she knows what’s holding him back in the first place. Because she suspects what will persuade him, she offers, “Coffee?”
And gets up to make it. He watches her, she has her back to him. She unscrews the top of the coffee maker, bangs the filter directly into the trash can to empty the old grounds, then rinses it under the water, cleaning it with her finger.
The same gestures. Which recall other mornings after all-nighters when he went there to have coffee, and the afternoons when he stopped by for a quick cup, and the starts of nights and the ends of meals. The countless times he saw her do just that. Familiar silhouette, he likes to watch it move. Intact shreds of a lost being, obsolete traces that he finds bewitching.
After that painful night, he only feels resigned. What was done doesn’t provoke any conflict in him. It immerses him in an intense calm that he never knew before, distances him and pacifies him. A dignified sadness, without severity, he no longer feels anything but the sweetness of things, he reaps only memory’s charms.
Her sister is crazy. As if she’s carrying out a ritual whose secret only she knows. She communicates her request like it’s a business transaction that would be unseemly to refuse.
“You have to listen to the messages on the answering machine. I’m not sure I completely understand, but I think they want us to make an album.”
In this type of situation, he is always bewildered not to have someone on hand who he can ask to take care of the situation for him; he feels entirely incapable. Ditch her there. Call a doctor. Slap her silly, pummel her with his fists. He settles for keeping quiet. She insists.
“Listen to them. I need you to tell me what you think.”
“Were you already sick in the head, or is it just the shock from yesterday?”
“I don’t like your sense of humor. I’d even go so far as to call it shitty. If these people are prepared to pay for it, I want to make an album with them.”
He holds his head in his hands, a funny gesture that he never does, mutters, “There’s nothing wrong with that. You have the voice for it. But you don’t have to be Claudine to do it.”
“It’ll make things easier.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I want to get it done quickly. I don’t want to meet twelve thousand people and introduce myself and be nice. Claudine knew tons of people, even if no one was interested in her they at least remember her legs. The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing since yesterday, if we do it in her name, it’ll go much faster. What I want is cash, and we have a way to get it.”
“You’re dreaming. You can’t make an album just like that, you have to—”
“I’m