Philippe Djian - Betty Blue

We slammed the doors. I turned the key, and off we went. Pulling out onto the street, I almost burst out laughing. I felt it rising in my belly. Then I saw one of the women running alongside us. The windshield exploded. Glass fell like raindrops onto our legs. By sheer reflex, I managed to spit out a piece that had flown into my mouth. I put my foot to the floor, and tore out of there. Cursing, I zigzagged down the avenue, people honking behind me.

“Jesus fucking Christ, get down!” I yelled.

“Did we blow a tire?”

“No. They must have hired a hit man!”

She bent over to pick up something, by her feet.

“You can slow down now,” she said. “It was just a beer can.”

“A full one?”

We drove twenty-five miles, with our hair in the wind. Our eyes teared a little, but it was nice out and the sunset was lovely. We chewed the fat. Whoever invented the automobile must have been an illuminated, solitary genius. Betty had her feet stuck in the glove compartment. We stopped at a garage that had a sign: “WINDSHIELDS-IMMEDIATE INSTALLATION” We didn’t even get out of the car while the guys did the job. We probably got in their way, but who gives a shit?

It wasn’t long after this episode that I started writing again. I didn’t push it-it came by itself. I went about it very discreetly. I didn’t want Betty to know. Usually I’d work at night. I’d shove my pad back under the mattress the moment Betty started moving next to me. I didn’t want to get her hopes up. I didn’t write like they did fifty years ago. Contrary to what you’d think, this was rather a handicap. It wasn’t my fault that the world had changed. I didn’t write like I did to upset people. Quite the opposite; I was a sensitive guy. It was they who upset me.

As the summer progressed, the piano sales dropped off. I didn’t pull my hair out over it. I would close the store early, and when the mood was right, I would spend my time thinking about what l was going to write, or taking walks with Betty. We still had a wad of money left. Since she had no desire to go anywhere-she eared nothing for that, or for anything else-the money wasn’t much good to us, except to pay bills or relieve the pressure of having to sell pianos to live. Haha!… To live! Money is one of those things that never keeps a promise.

Since I didn’t kill myself working, it was no skin off my nose to get out my notebook at midnight or one in the morning and go at it till the wee hours of dawn. I slept a little in the morning and sometimes a few hours in the afternoon. I made progress, slowly. I felt like an overcharged battery. In the early morning, I’d erase all traces of the previous night’s activities, throwing my beer cans in the trash, a cigarette stinging my eyes. I always looked at Betty before going to sleep, wondering if the few pages I’d scribbled were worthy of her. It was a question I liked to ask myself. It made me aim high. It made me humble.

During this whole period my brain seemed to be going at full tilt twenty-four hours a day. I knew that I had to work fast-VERY FAST. But it takes a lot of time to write a book. The very thought of it suffocated me with anxiety. I cursed myself for not having started sooner, for having waited so long to dive into that little navy-blue spiral notebook. Spiral. Shit, I answered myself, I’d like to have seen you try. You think it’s easy? Think all you have to do is sit down at a table, and it pours out by itself? And those months of tossing and turning in bed, eyes wide open-crossing that desert, silent and gray, without seeing one little sparrow… wandering through the Great Desert of Dried-up Man. You think it was for laughs…?

It’s true, I couldn’t have done otherwise. Still, I was crazy enough to imagine I could. I cursed Heaven for not having come down to touch me earlier. I had the horrible feeling that it was too late. It was yet another burden to bear. But I held it together. Maybe my chances were one in a million. Still, each night my pages piled up, like bricks to build something to protect her. It was like nailing the shutters closed while watching the hurricane well up on the horizon. After such a bad start, could a writer overcome such shit? Did the Kid have what it took to turn things around?

For a week it had been unbearably hot-I couldn’t remember ever feeling anything like it. There wasn’t a green blade of grass for miles around. A torpor had seized the town. The more nervous types took to looking at the sky, worried. It was around seven o’clock at night. The sun had gone down, but the streets, the sidewalks, the roofs, and the walls of the houses were still burning. Everyone was sweating. I went out to do some shopping. I spared Betty this particular chore. I came home, the trunk full to bursting, wet circles under my arms. Just before I got to the house, I passed an ambulance going in the opposite direction-sirens blaring, shiny as a new penny.

I sat up a little in my seat. I passed two cars that were dawdling. I started breathing hard. By the time I had parked in front of the house I was trembling, as if someone had slipped a noose around my neck. I couldn’t say exactly when it was that I understood, it isn’t important anyway. I ran up the steps, a knife in my stomach. At the top of the stairs I collided with Bob, kneeling on the floor. I sailed over him, falling into the room, toppling over chairs. I felt a warm liquid flowing under my head.

“BOB!” I screamed.

He jumped on me.

“Don’t go in there!” he said.

I sent him rolling under the table. I could hardly talk. I lifted myself up on one elbow, then realized that it was water-it was sudsy water I felt in my hair. Someone must have tipped over a basin. I had trouble breathing. We stood up together. I looked around for her. There was only Bob and me in the room. I didn’t know what the hell he was doing there. He rolled his eyes in my direction. I felt my face twist.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Sit down,” he said.

I ran into the kitchen. Nothing. I turned around. Bob was standing in the doorway, one hand held out toward me. I flattened him against the wall with my shoulder, like a bull charging down an alleyway. There was a strange hissing in my ears. I literally flew toward the bathroom. The house seemed completely foreign to me. I grabbed the door and flung it wide open.

The room was empty. The light was on. The sink was full of blood. There were splatters all over the floor. I felt a spear go through my back, nearly knocking me to my knees. I couldn’t breathe. There was a sound of breaking glass in my head-crystal. It was all I could do to close the door, what with all the demons pulling at it from the other side.

Bob came in, rubbing his shoulder. It must have been Bob. I was so busy trying to breathe that I couldn’t talk.

“My God,” he said. “I wanted to clean it all up. You didn’t leave me enough time.”

I spread my legs a little, for balance. I broke out in a cold sweat. He put his hand on my arm, I only saw him do it-I didn’t feel a thing.

“It’s messy, but it’s not that bad,” he said. “Luckily I came by when I did, to return the blender.”

He looked at his shoes. “I was wiping up the blood by the door…”

My arm shot out and grabbed him furiously.

“WHAT HAPPENED?” I shouted.

“She tore an eye out,” he said. “With… with her hand.”

I slid down the length of the door onto my heels. I was breathing now, but the air was on fire. He crouched down in front of me.

“Okay, look, it isn’t all that serious,” he said. “An eye isn’t that serious. She’ll be okay-hey, you hear me…?”