"Betty Blue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Djian Philippe)

8

Before we knew it the evenings started getting cooler, and the first leaves fell from the trees and filled the gutters. Betty went to work on my last notebook and I continued to putter around here and there to earn enough money to keep us going. Everything was fine except that now I found myself waking up at night, eyes wide in the dark, brain burning, squirming around in bed as if I’d swallowed a snake. All I had to do was reach out my arm-I’d put a new notebook and pencil right next to the bed-but this song and-dance had been going on for two days, and no matter how I racked my brain I couldn’t come up with the slightest new idea. Nothing came out at all-but nothing-so every night the big writer went down for the count. He had lost his muse’s phone number, the poor jerk; he’d even lost his desire to call, and he didn’t even know why.

I tried to convince myself that it was a case of temporary constipation. To shake things up a little, I started doing some electrical work in the afternoons. I replaced wires, installed junction boxes, put in switches with dimmers for atmosphere-all the way up at night, then down to just a glimmer to fuck in. But even with all the puttering I felt my soul dragging. I had to stop regularly to down a beer. Only when evening came on did I start to feel better-almost normal. Sometimes I was downright joyful, the alcohol helped me through. I’d go up to Betty and bend over the typewriter:

“Hey, Betty, no use wearing yourself out-I got nothing left inside, my balls are gone…”

I thought this was funny as hell. I gave the top of the machine a good punch.

“Let’s go,” Betty said. “Out. Go sit down, and stop screwing around. You’re talking like a jerk.”

I sank down in an armchair and watched the flies fly. When it was warm I’d leave the terrace door open and toss my empty beer cans outside. The message I heard inside was always the same: where? when? how?-but I was having trouble finding a buyer for my troubled soul. I wasn’t even asking for much, just two or three pages would do the trick, just something to get me started. I was sure that all I had to do was start. I had to laugh, it was all so stupid. Betty shook her head and smiled.

After that, I would start making dinner and my worries would go out the window. I’d do a little shopping with Bongo. The fresh air woke me up. And if I started going a bit off the deep end again while cracking an egg or grilling a leek, it didn’t really matter-I would just look forward to sitting down to eat with the two girls, and try to be as lively as they were. I’d look at them talking, sending sparks back and forth in the living room. Usually I would get into sauces-the girls said I was a genius with sauces-they always cleaned their plates. People also said I was a genius as a plumber. And as a fly fucker-how did I stack up there? After all those years of peace, I was perfectly within my rights to wonder what was happening to me. It was like trying to restart an old locomotive, overgrown with weeds. It was terrifying.

The day Betty finished typing my book, my stomach was in knots. My legs hurt. I was standing on a chair, tinkering with a lamp, when she told me. It was like taking zoo volts in your hand. I climbed down slowly, holding onto the back of the chair for dear life. I acted moderately impressed.

“Well, it took you long enough… Listen, I got to split. Got to buy some fuses.”

I wasn’t listening to what she said-I didn’t hear anything anymore. I just walked calmly to my jacket. I was like the actor onstage who gets shot in the guts but won’t go down. I slipped my jacket on and went down the stairs, not breathing until I hit the door.

Out on the street, I started walking. A little breeze came up with nightfall, but soon I found myself covered with sweat. I slowed down. I noticed that Bongo was following me. He ran ahead of me, then waited for me to catch up. I don’t know why he did that. There seemed to be a smell of blind confidence in the air, and it was getting on my nerves-the smell of emptiness, too.

I went into a bar and ordered a tequila, because it works fast and I needed a jolt. It’s hard to accept that the good times are gone-I’ve always thought so. I asked for another tequila and then I started feeling better. There was this guy next to me, totally blasted, staring at me with his glass in both hands. I saw him attempt to open his mouth and I egged him on.

“Come on, that’s it… What kind of bullshit are you going to hand me?” I asked him.

Once I had extricated myself from the bar I felt much better. Everybody was crazy and life was woven from absurdity. Luckily there were always a few good moments-everybody knows what I’m talking about-and if only for that it’s worth living. The rest is meaningless. In the end nothing changes anything. I was convinced of the ephemeral nature of all things. I had half a bottle of tequila in my belly and was seeing palm trees in the street, swept away in the wind.

There was a surprise waiting for me back at the house. A half-bald blond guy, about forty-five, with a pot belly. He was sitting in my favorite chair, with Lisa on his lap.

Now Lisa was a normal girl with a pussy and tits, and occasion ally she used them. Sometimes she would stay out all night and just show up the next morning to change and go to work. I would run into her in the kitchen. You can tell at a glance a girl who’s been fucking all night. I was happy for her-I hoped she’d gotten the most out of it. I shared these little moments with her without saying a word; it brightened up my day. I knew then that I was a privileged character, that life had sprinkled a handful of gold dust in my eyes, that I could handle anything. We made a great little trio. I knew I could fix every sewer in town as long as I could stop at five o’clock, take a shower, and meet the two of them there-one handing me a glass and the other one an olive.

As a general rule, Lisa didn’t discuss the men she met, or those she fucked. She would just say it wasn’t worth going into and laughingly change the subject. Naturally she never brought a guy back to the house. Believe me, she would say, the one I let walk through that door has got to have something the others don’t.

So I was floored when I walked in and saw this guy sitting there in his shirtsleeves with his tie loosened, raising his glass to me to say hello. I realized I was standing in front of the rare bird. Lisa introduced us with bright eyes, and the guy jumped up to grab my hand. His cheeks were red; he reminded me of a bald headed, blue-eyed baby.

“By the way,” Betty asked, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, but it took me a while.”

Lisa put a drink in my hand. The guy looked at me and smiled. I smiled back. In a flash, I had the situation well in hand. His name was Edward but people called him Eddie. He’d come to open a pizzeria in town, he bought a new car every two months and laughed a lot. He sweated lightly. He seemed happy to be there. An hour later, it was like he’d known us for twenty years. He put his hand on my arm while the girls were talking in the breakfast nook.

“So tell me, man… they say that you write…” he said.

“You might say that,” I said.

He gave me a wrought-iron wink.

“Make money at it…?”

“It depends. It’s not steady.”

“Anyway,” he said. “Sounds pretty good. You write your little story, you take it easy, you go to the bank…”

“You got it.”

“What area you write in?” he asked.

“Gothic novels,” I said.

How does a girl’s brain work? I asked myself all evening long surely I was missing something. This Eddie guy-I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, besides that he drank like a fish, talked like a fool, and laughed all the time. I’d given up counting the things in life that surprise you, though. I like to keep my eyes open-you never know when you’re going to learn a thing or two. Take Eddie-it turned out that my first impression was wrong. Eddie’s an angel.

By the time we got to the baba au rhum, he had talked me to death, but all things considered it wasn’t so bad. Being loud and dumb once in a while-provided you have a good cigar-is not the end of the world. Eddie had brought champagne. He popped the cork and looked at me, then poured me a big glass.

“Hey, I want you all to know how happy I am that we get along so good together- no really, I swear… girls, your glasses…”

The next morning, Sunday, he showed up with a big suitcase while we were eating breakfast. He gave me a wink.

“I brought a few things with me… I like to feel at home…”

He took out two or three rather short kimonos, a pair of slippers, and some underwear. Then he went into the bathroom. He came out thirty seconds later wearing one of the kimonos. The girls clapped. Bongo picked his head up to see what was going on. Eddie’s legs were short, white, and incredibly hairy. He spread his arms out to be admired.

“Better get used to it,” he said. “It’s the only thing I like to wear around the house.”

He came and sat down with us, poured himself some coffee, and started talking again. I felt a little like going back to bed.

I spent the early afternoon with Betty packaging copies of my manuscript and looking up publishers’ addresses in the phone book. By now I was resigned to it. I approached it with a certain detachment, though once I thought I noticed a little spark coming out of my fingertips as I wrote the name of a well-known publisher. I lay down on the bed with a cigarette in my mouth. Betty came over to me. I felt fine. I felt light as a feather-geared down, somehow.

I was starting to give Betty the eye and play with her hair when I heard a noise on the stairway. Two seconds later there was Eddie, dancing around under our noses with a bottle and three glasses.

“Hey, you two, what’s with all the whispering? Listen, I got to tell you what happened to me…”

Lisa, Lisa, I thought, whatever drove you to this?

Later he got us all to climb into the car to go to the racetrack. The sky was getting cloudy, but the girls got excited. The radio cranked out miles of commercials, and Eddie laughed his head off. We got there for the start of the third race. I took the girls to the bar while Eddie bought tickets. I was bored already. It’s always the same-the people run to the betting windows… the horses run… the people go to the fence… the horses finish… the people run back to the betting windows-about as exciting as a soccer game. At the homestretch, Eddie would punch at the air, and his ears would turn red; two seconds later, he was pulling his hair out. He’d crumple his tickets up and throw them on the ground, whining.

“You didn’t win?” I’d ask.

The sky was getting pink when we left the stands. By the time we got out to the car, Eddie was back in high spirits. He even managed to disappear for a minute and come back with his hands full of french fries.

He had gotten on my nerves at the beginning, but if you didn’t listen too much to what he said, it was all right-he’d just wander into the house talking out loud to no one in particular. Once in a while I’d give him a smile. He’d sleep late, and come home around midnight, when the pizzeria closed. He always brought food and something to drink, and we’d have dinner together. Money being what it was, these meals were heaven-sent. Eddie was not completely oblivious to the fact-he would sometimes allude to it:

“Hey, you know, I’ve forgotten… What are your books about again?”

“Science fiction.”

“Oh yeah. That stuff sells pretty well, doesn’t it? There’s money in it…”

“Yeah, but it takes a long time before you see the royalties. Sometimes they even forget to send the check. I can’t complain, though…”

“No… I’m just saying… if you need a little…”

“Thanks, but I’m fine. I’m planning a new one now. Writing doesn’t cost much…”

Another time we were sitting in the car with the air-conditioning on, watching the girls walk on the beach in the wind.

“Maybe you should change your subject matter,” he said. “Some things sell better than others…”

“No, I think it’s just a matter of time.”

“Hold on a second… I forgot again…”

“Detective novels.”

“Oh yeah. Gee, there must be books that make thousands.”

“Oh yeah. Hundreds of thousands.”

“Millions even.”

“Yeah. There are. But I’m really into my new one now, no time to think about things like that…”

In truth, I thought of nothing else. All the money I had was what was in my pocket-a few bills and two or three jobs already booked. God forbid something should happen, or if we ever wanted to take off for a weekend… It was a pain in the ass. Betty had finished typing my manuscript over a week ago and now she was just hanging around the house, doing her nails once or twice a day. There was nothing new to see in the neighborhood. We would go out for a walk in the afternoon anyway, just to break up the day-taking old Bongo along through the maze of streets. We didn’t talk much. Betty always seemed to be thinking about something. She walked with her hands in her pockets. We would just wander around under a gentle, shy sun, collars turned up. The weather had been lousy for a few days now, but we didn’t notice. We were getting ready to give birth to something. Bongo and I would come back panting, but one look at Betty told you she could do the whole course over again sprinting, no problem. Life was putting me to sleep, but for her it was the opposite. A marriage of water and fire-the perfect combination to make everything go up in smoke.

One evening I ran up the stairs ahead of her and blocked the way, suddenly seized with passion. I slid a couple of fingers into her skirt, getting ready to make my way down to the fire and brimstone, when she just asked me point-blank:

“What do you think of Eddie’s offer?”

“Hmmm?”

“NO REALLY, what do you think?”

We’d done in a couple of bottles of Chianti downstairs, and on our way up the stairs her legs had been sending messages directly into my brain. We went into the bedroom. I closed the door and pinned her to the wall. I was going to set her free-rip her panties off in the icy moonlight. I stuck my tongue in her ear. “I want your honest opinion,” she said. “We have to agree on this completely.”

I pushed my knee up between her legs, stroking her hips and sucking her breasts.

“No, wait a minute… I have to know what you…”

“Yes. Yes… what is it again?”

“I mean in the end, maybe Eddie’s thing is not such a bad idea. What do you think?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I pulled her skirt up over her hips. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any panties-just panty hose. I had trouble thinking of anything else.

“Stop thinking,” I said.

I buttoned her lip with a wild kiss. Then she said, “We could do it while we’re waiting to hear on your book. It isn’t forever…”

“Yeah, fine,” I said. “Wait, look, let’s sit down on the bed…” We fell down onto the bed and I went crazy, sliding my hands over her nylons. Her thighs were as hot and smooth as a V-1.

“And also that way we can put a little money aside, don’t you think?… It’ll give us time to get ourselves together, buy some things-we don’t have anything to wear.”

I was writhing all over the bed, trying to get my pants off. I felt her soul drifting away from me.

“Don’t you think, don’t you think?” I said.

“I’m sure of it,” she said. “It’s an easy job, especially with pizzas…”

I jumped on top of her with 110 volts AC going through my veins. She grabbed me by the hair.

“I hope you trust me,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

She shoved my face between her legs and I fell overboard.