Philippe Djian - Betty Blue

You could see the motel lights in the distance. We weren’t out of the woods yet, and the downward slope was getting slippery.

“You don’t agree?” she insisted.

I told myself, just keep walking, don’t pay attention to what she says-in a second she’ll forget all about it.

“Explain to me why I’m always in the same rut. Tell me what I do wrong that keeps me from climbing up the ladder a little…”

I stopped to light a cigarette and she waited for me. Her eyes went through me. I sort of shrugged, as if to say, “Search me.”

“We’ll never get a break if we stick around here,” she said.

I looked over her shoulder. She was breathing quickly.

“I don’t know…” I said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? What kind of answer is that?”

“Shit, it means I don’t know!”

To put an end to the scene, I took a few steps off the shoulder of the road and pissed. I turned my back to her. I thought I’d gotten her to button her lip. I made a little blue cloud of steam in the night, thinking that, sure, living with a woman always has its inconveniences, but in the end the scale always tips in favor of doing it. Let her bitch all she wants, I thought, it doesn’t really bother me. It’s a small price to pay for all the good things I get from her. I felt her boiling over behind me. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I really had someone by my side. It had been a long time.

I zipped my pants up, feeling good. That`s how it is when you take up with a high-spirited girl-yon can’t avoid a few hot moments, no way around it. The alcohol made my blood warm. I pivoted around on one leg to face her.

“I don’t feel like discussing this anymore,” I said. “I’m not up to it. Be a pal…”

She looked at the black sky, sighing:

“But God, don’t you ever think that life is passing us by, right under our noses? Doesn’t that just get to you sometimes?”

“Listen: Ever since I’ve been with you I don’t feel like life is passing me by. I even feel like I have more than my share, if you really want to know…”

“Oh shit, I’m not talking about that! I mean let’s get out of this together! Somewhere opportunity is knocking at the door. We just have to find where…”

“Too simple. A mistake.”

“God, you’d think you’d found paradise here in this crummy desert. You must be half nuts.”

I had decided not to answer. I stepped toward her, but unfortunately got my foot stuck in a hole and fell flat on my face. I hurt my knee. It was obviously a detail that didn’t bother her. She kept at me about her rage to live in the fast lane while I was busy crawling behind her in the dust.

“Take Sonia. Look how she made out. Now she can really live! Imagine what we could do if we just got off our butts and…”

“Betty, for Christ sakes…!”

“I can’t understand why you don’t feel suffocated here. There’s nothing happening-nothing that’s going to happen!”

“Come here and help me, goddammit. Come…”

But I could see she wasn’t listening. She hadn’t budged an inch. She was totally locked into her fantasy by then-breath short and eyes shining.

“Don’t you ever see yourself taking off for the islands one of these mornings?” She added. “One of these days, just setting sail for paradise?”

“Let’s get home and go to bed,” I said.

She fixed her eyes on me:

“All we have to do is stir things up a little! All we have to do is want to.”

“And what do you hope to accomplish, exactly? What do you think is going to-”

“God, can you imagine what it’s like on the islands?”

The vision of it had set her brain on fire. She let out a little nervous giggle, then took off without me, juggling her sugar-plum daydreams while I barely managed to get up on my knees.

“SHIT…” I yelled after her. “YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR ISLANDS!?”

For the next few days, we didn’t talk about it. We were over our heads in work. I’d never seen so much all at one time. A fucking cyclone hit us. So many things were torn up that after a while you gave up counting. Windows broken into a thousand pieces, all kinds of crap scattered in the alleys. Looking at a disaster this size, all we could do was shake our heads and stare at each other. George scratched his head and grimaced. Betty just sort of laughed.

I spent all my days running from one bungalow to another with my toolbox, a pencil behind my ear. Betty made the trip back and forth into town, getting me boxes of nails, cans of putty, lumber, and tanning lotion. I spent most of my time outside-up on a ladder or on someone’s roof. From morning till night the sky stayed limpid blue, rained out once and for all. I passed hours and hours in the sunlight, a handful of nails in my mouth, fixing all those little houses that were falling apart.

George was useless-it was even dangerous to work with him. He was always letting the hammer get away from him or sawing your hand off while you were holding the board. After working with him one morning, I asked him to just take care of the alleys-to stay away from my ladder or I’d clump my toolbox on his head.

Little by little the place started looking habitable again. I was lost in the ozone every night. It was especially tough to fix the TV antennas-bending the wire back while holding onto the cables at the same time. I didn’t want Betty climbing on the roofs, I didn’t want anything to happen to her. From time to time I’d see her head pop up on top of the ladder with a cool beer. The heat had me totally wasted-I saw lightning in her hair. I would lean over, roll my tongue in her mouth, and grab the bottle. It helped me make it to the end of the day. Then I would put my tools away and go eat, strolling under the caress of the sun till I reached the house and found her there, lying under the porch with my fan. She would always ask me the same questions:

“You doing okay? Not too tired?”

“So-so…”

She would get up and follow me inside. I would jump into the shower while she surveyed the stove. I was, in fact, really wiped out, but I also played it up a little-I wanted all her attention. The fatigue gave me all kinds of preposterous ideas. I wanted to be laid out and powdered on my bottom like a baby-things like that; to lay down on her belly and suck on her breasts-that got me excited. I would close my eyes while she sat behind me and rubbed my shoulders and neck. My cute little cyclone, I thought, oh, my cute little cyclone…

We would eat, and clear the table fast. Everything was orchestrated like sheet music. I would light a cigarette and go out onto the porch while she did a few dishes. I would take a long look at the chaise longue and lie down in it. I would hear her whistling, and more than once I felt happy, felt so calm that I would always fall asleep with a little idiotic smile turning up the corners of my mouth. Then my cigarette would fall onto my chest and I would wake up screaming.

“Shit, did you fall asleep again?” she said.

“Huh?”

She would come over and lead me to bed, her arm around my waist. She would push me over onto the mattress and start undressing me. Unfortunately I would realize after about ten seconds that I was too beat to fuck. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I passed right out.

So we figured out a new system: we fucked in the morning. The only bad thing was that I had to get up to piss first-her too-and that spoiled the magic a little. We got over it, though, with a few dumb jokes, then got to the heart of the matter. Betty was always in great form in the morning-I wondered if she wasn’t reliving some of what she’d dreamed during the night. She was always hot to try some strange new position-things that really knocked me for a loop, left me with my mouth hanging open. I would go back to work with renewed faith in Heaven and Hell, climbing back up on the roofs to fix those little antennas, my legs like butter.