Pretty Things. Виржини Депант

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      At eight o’clock the doors of the Élysée Montmartre are still closed. The sound check is running late. A few bouncers are going up and down the stairs with worried looks.

      At regular intervals the metro spits out people who clump together on the sidewalk, filing into groups. Some people recognize and call to one another as if they’d just seen each other yesterday. No one thinks of complaining about the wait, unexpected and prolonged. Sometimes someone turns their head, deceived by a murmur in the crowd, gets up on tiptoe to see if it’s moving, but it still isn’t moving.

      A woman carves out a path through the crowd, a kind of stubborn urban crawl. A bouncer listens to her sweet-talking—they’re waiting for her inside for an interview—lets her flash her press pass. He pulls out his walkie-talkie to ask what he should do with her. He takes advantage of the wait to get a good look at her cleavage. Not because it actually pleases him, to look at her tits, he mainly just likes to make a show of it in front of his friends. As soon as she turns around, they’ll have a good laugh about it.

      The guy who works with him avoids meeting her gaze. Embarrassed for the man who skewers a woman like that, embarrassed for the woman who exposes herself like that. And embarrassed for himself because his eyes can’t help themselves, they spring up and land on her. Every time he sees a woman like that—which is every time he works—he asks himself where it is she wants to go. He lets her pass, she climbs the stairs leading to the concert hall, pushes open the doors, and disappears. She scours the hall, looking for someone she knows.

      She heads toward the food. Approaching the stage, she recognizes Claudine. That bitch made herself look like a total dyke. Some people aren’t disgusted by anything.

      The journalist scampers toward the stage, ecstatic at the idea of approaching her, of Claudine coming to shake her hand. Not that she would be happy to see her, they barely know each other, and the snob is hardly friendly.

      Nicolas intercepts.

      “Save your breath, she doesn’t want to see anyone.”

      “She’s getting a big head already?”

      “No, but she’s freaking out. Anyway, how are you doing?”

      She could have smacked him. And that whore, up onstage, pretending not to see her and acting like someone who can sing. Whatever, it’s not like they just filled the Zénith, she’s only an opener. She acts like she isn’t bothered.

      “Listen, it’s dumb, but I really wanted an interview. I can still talk to her after the sound check, right?”

      “Not today, she’s on edge, she doesn’t want anyone to talk to her. You know, to really concentrate. But tomorrow, if you want, she’ll give you a call.”

      “Tomorrow? That’ll be too late. I’m afraid I’ll be too on edge.”

      She turns on her heel and goes directly to the bar and orders a whiskey. Contemptuous anger: What is this bullshit? Does she want us to talk about her or does she want to die in obscurity? She didn’t even sell a thousand copies of her album and it’s turned her into this. But she knows very well that when creatives and journalists have common goals, plenty of things are forgotten.

      Nicolas watches her walk away. For the moment, no one suspects a thing. Until now he’s only experienced this level of absurdity in dreams.

      Just then, the label manager worms his way to Claudine-Pauline. He congratulates her for a while. “Everyone’s crazy about the album, I’m so happy to have done it.” Standing nearby, Nicolas’s heart comes out of his chest and he imagines causing a diversion by throwing it on the ground. But Pauline gets herself out of it, retorting, calm and dry, “Shut your fat mouth, I don’t want to listen to you talk anymore.”

      Instead of being furious, Bermuda Shorts blushes, starts stammering, perfectly cheerful. “Well then, she’s got some balls, huh, when she wants something . . .” in a very administrative tone, which he never used while talking to the real Claudine, who had always made an effort to be friendly.

      Nicolas walks across the entire venue, explains to the sound guy for the third time that it doesn’t make sense to put the vocals so far up front.

      Three hours ago, he couldn’t have imagined that he would make all these back-and-forths because the sub-bass this or the equalizer that.

      Pauline is onstage; hands crossed behind her back and eyes glued to the floor, she begins to sing.

      Stiff, not smiling, and dressed like garbage, she becomes rather dignified. Quiet metamorphosis, impressive to see. As though it were coming to her from afar, these things pouring out of her mouth, so self-assured.

      Nicolas climbs onstage. “Is the feedback okay?” He cautiously wraps the microphone in fabric. Then moves away and asks her to sing again. “Can we try another song?” In passing he argues with a guy from the venue who wants to stop the sound check immediately because they’re running late.

      He quickly adjusts one last thing, jacks tangled up everywhere, the hall empty, stands exactly where he needs to be to hear all the sounds, since he likes the sputtering from the walls, the knobs, the red lights, adjusting the mic stand, the guys hanging off the scaffolding to adjust a projector.

      Like something you don’t even dream about anymore, to avoid the taste of bitter awakening.

      The guy from the venue turns plain nasty. They need to open the doors so the concert can begin.

      Nicolas meets Pauline at the edge of the stage, notices her hands trembling. “I’m going to buy some smokes, I’m all out. You want to come with me?”

      She shakes her head no, immediately reverts back to her usual demeanor; it makes him want to slap her. In any case, he’s relieved when she refuses because he actually just wants to call Claudine from a quiet corner. Reassure her, tell her that everything’s going well. And then a sort of guilt, this pleasure he gets from handling the sound check, as if colluding with the enemy.

      “You want anything?”

      “To be far away from these idiots.”

      Impossible to understand where her anger stems from. No one had spoken to her, no one had done anything to her. But it’s not faked, she seems completely put off.

      “Wait for me in the dressing room?”

      “No, I’m going to shut myself in the bathroom. That way no one will talk to me. Come get me when you’re back, I’ll be in the one that’s to the right when you come in.”

      “Everything okay, Pauline? A little stage fright?”

      She stares at him hard, glacial. “Don’t forget that we aren’t friends.”

      That little surge of guilt he had felt from enjoying working with her disappears all at once. Crazy bitch.

      THE THINGS IN her apartment are covered in a thin, viscous layer. Claudine washes her hands, the towel she uses to dry them seems greasy too. That happens, some days.

      Sun, Xanax, enveloped in an almost absurd calm that makes her gently sweat, clammy torso and back. Her eyes close, are heavy underneath.

      Nicolas just СКАЧАТЬ