Billie (6 page)

F
RANCK (
worried
): You've stopped talking. Are you angry?

B
ILLIE
(
who is not entirely focused but too bad, who goes for it anyway and will do it the way she always does it, off the cuff
): No, but it's just, I . . . I don't understand you . . . And I don't speak for you, actually . . . I say “you” but it's not you, it's . . . it's beyond you . . . It holds for everyone . . . There are many occasions in life where you can say what you think and say it properly . . . say it with words that already exist . . . to use a character invented by someone else to smuggle in things that you too find precious . . . to say who you are . . . or who you would like to be . . . and to say it better than you would ever be able to say it if you didn't already have close at hand sentences that were already so beautiful . . .

F
RANCK
(
?!?!?
): . . .

B
ILLIE:
But . . . uh . . . don't make that face! You see that I don't have the words! So don't purposely act as dumb as me! It's what I'm trying to tell you, it's that when you have a thing in you that can help you live . . . to truly live . . . something, like, to aspire to and to inspire you until you die . . . because it was there before you and will still be there after you . . . Yes, a thing that will speak about you when you no longer exist and without ever betraying you, and that . . . uh . . . uh, well . . . why do you give a fuck about one's genital apparatus?

F
RANCK:
Excuse me?

B
ILLIE:
Yes, you understood me correctly . . . What do you want me to say instead? Prick? Cunt? Tit?

F
RANCK
(???): ???

B
ILLIE:
Oh . . . Are you following me or not? You don't understand what I'm trying to say or is it just that you don't want to? Girl or boy, it matters, like, when picking the color of a baby's room, for clothes, for toys, for the price of a haircut, for the kinds of films you want to see or the sports you want to play or the . . . beats me . . . things where being a girl or a boy makes a difference . . . But in this case . . . feelings . . . the things you feel and come directly from your gut before you think of them . . . the things your life is going to depend on after, like, how you see your relations with others, who you love, to the point that you are ready to be wounded, to pardon, to fight, to suffer, and everything, frankly, but what does . . . uh . . . your anatomical form have to do with it, I ask myself . . . and I ask you too, for that matter . . . If Camille's your teammate, what the fuck does it matter if you're a boy in order to play her? And plus it's not even at the Académie Française but in a stinkin' junior high class in a stinkin' town . . . Okay? Why does it matter to you? To say Camille's words out loud, it's the opposite of risky. She's tough, that girl! She can take it! She's even ready to fuck up her life in order to follow her principles. Have you met many others like her? Me, zero . . . So you don't fool with love, okay, but in exchange, assure me, you at least have the right to fool with the rest, don't you? Or, if not, we all should just go to a convent right away, it'll be simpler! Nah, but it's true. It drives me nuts, all that! The whole mess drives me nuts, all the time! Drives me nuts! And your excuse about a girl and a boy, that . . . I'll tell you right now, it's crap. That doesn't hold water for a second. You'll have to do better.

Silence

More silence.

Still silence.

F
RANCK:
It's not the Académie Française, it's the
Comédie
Française
. . .

B
ILLIE
(
still upset that she had to wrack her brain to say so poorly what was so important to say
): Who gives a fuck?

Silence

F
RANCK:
Billie, do you know why you absolutely have to play Camille?

B
ILLIE:
No.

F
RANCK (
turning toward her in amazement
): Because at one point, Perdican can't help himself and turns toward her to say, amazed: “You're so beautiful, Camille, when your eyes light up!”

 

The conversation stopped there. First, because we had arrived in front of his doorway and second, because whereas Camille had rejected Perdican straightaway, reminding him that she had no freaking use for compliments, I, on the other hand, since this was the first compliment I had received in my entire life, I . . . I didn't know how to take it. Really. I didn't know. So I acted, like, totally deaf so as not to spoil anything.

Then he indicated his house with his chin and said:

“Of course, I could invite you in for a min—”

I was already in the middle of answering “oh, . . . no, no,” when he cut me off:

“—but I won't because they don't deserve you.”

 

And that, of course, was something completely different from Perdican's claptrap . . .

That was the blood the Indians exchanged with each other when they cut a vein.

It meant: You know, little crude and illiterate Billie, I understood you, your explanation earlier, and my team it's you.

And that's that.

La, la, li li . . . la la . . .
1
 

 

 

 

 

1
Franck had barely crossed the threshold of his doorway when his father cornered him and inquired, with a hungry look and a knowing glance, about this
young lady
with whom he was strolling in the street.

And neither the son's evasive answer nor his obvious irritation accounted for the father's good mood. And for that night only and for the duration of the eight o'clock news, he shouted a bit less than usual.

In this way, the frail silhouette of a timid and trampy girl—more or less living on what remained of the family social service benefit and who was at that moment walking two miles as night was falling and as Franck served himself another helping of
gratin dauphinois
— had, for one evening at least, stood up to the Grand Conspiracy that was being hatched since the end of the Cold War (Jean-Bernard Muller knew all about it because he was keeping his files very up-to-date) between the freemasons, the Jews, and the homosexuals of the whole world.

So Billie showed up and Western Christianity was saved. (Author's note)

A
nd Franck was right, little star, it had to be that way, and do you know why?

First, because he was a good actor and I wasn't. It was no use listening to his advice: I was utterly incapable of performing like he did, of moving my arms and hands, of speaking ostentatiously and pronouncing the words with feeling. And because, at the end of the day, that joystick I had up my derrière allowed me to play the perfect Camille since she was like that too.

She was just as stressed, suspicious, and stuffed into that potato sack dress that Claudine had made me as I was.

And because he was a magnificent Perdican—and when I say “magnificent” you can believe me because it's only the second time I've used that word since the start of my story, the first time being when I spoke about you and your sisters—yes, magnificent . . . a Perdican simultaneously sweet, gentle, cruel, sad, funny, mean, a show-off, sure of himself, fragile, and unstable, despite being sheathed as he was in his great-grandfather's village-policeman jacket, the body of which Claudine had retailored for him before shining the fox-head buttons as if they were pieces of gold. And also because of my two-flavored Malabar.

 

Let me explain. In the final tirade, the one everyone is waiting for and which Franck had spoken to me about the first day, the famous scene of the scoundrels and the sluts, at one point Perdican says to Camille, clenching his jaw to prevent all his anger from exploding and crushing her: “All men are liars; fickle, deceitful, garrulous, hypocritical; arrogant or cowardly; contemptible and lascivious buggers; all women are treacherous, vain, mendacious, indiscreet, and depraved; and the whole world is nothing but a bottomless pit where the most shapeless seals slither and twist on mountains of muck, and so on.”

 

When we were rehearsing then, we had already been meeting with each other every day for two weeks and through our chats, whether in our roles as Camille and Perdican, or as Franck and Billie, of course, we knew everything about each other and had become friends for life.

 

So he didn't need to hide from me that something was bothering him as I had already guessed.

Uh, yeah . . . I'm not delusional . . . obviously my performance was totally dragging him down . . .

I wormed it out of him so we could have it out once and for all and then stop talking about it.

“Go on. Spit it out. I'm listening.”

He rolled up his book as though it were a little billy club. Then he took a breath, looked at me, frowning, and finally muttered:

“It's one of the most beautiful sections of the play . . . maybe the most beautiful . . . and since I'm the one who has to perform it, it's going to be ruined.”

 

“Uh . . . why do you say that?”

“Because . . . ” he said looking elsewhere, “because when I say the word ‘bugger' Franck Mumu will take the place of Perdican and everyone will snicker . . .”

 

I was so not expecting this reply (Franck never shows any weakness and even now, you see, if he passed out, it was to hide that he was suffering), that I didn't respond immediately.

 

(That too was something I'd learned with him . . . This sly manner that doubts always have of wending their way into the most twisted and unexpected places and especially with people who are made of stronger stuff than you.)

 

I said nothing.

I waited a second . . . Then another . . . Then another and finally swung myself around to a place where he could see me.

 

“I'll bet you anything that you're wrong.”

And as he didn't react, I put all I had into it:

“Hello? Franck . . . Do you hear me? Look at me, please. I'll bet you a two-flavored Malabar bubble gum that
no one
will snicker.”

 

And damn, I won that bet hands down! Hands down! And I'm crying over it . . . I'm still crying . . .

Sorry . . . sorry . . . It's the cold, my hunger, my exhaustion . . . sorry . . .

I'm crying about it because it wasn't one Malabar he would have owed me but two pounds! A container! A boatload!

 

Yes, he would have had to bury me under an avalanche of Malabars if he had been brave enough to trust me . . .

 

* * *

 

Due to the chronological order of the play, we were to perform last. Kind Madame Guillet granted us permission to slip out to the hall for five minutes to change, and when we returned to our classroom—I dressed only in gunnysack finery with my crucifix around my neck and he, his hips looking swell in his fine frock coat with golden buttons, wearing high equestrian boots—the tide already seemed to be turning in our favor.

 

Yes, already the incessant chatter about us was clearly starting to diminish.

It seemed that we had won over our audience, and then we simply repeated what we knew completely by heart having gone over it again and again in Claudine's . . . funeralish? . . . funereal?—shit, wait, I'm going to put this in plain language, if not, I'm going to have too many problems—again and again in Claudine's gloomy little dining room.

 

Except that we repeated it a lot better.

Me because I was as nervous as Camille and he because he was uninhibited . . .

Not caring about the lottery, and who was supposed to act what, we performed all of scene 5 of the second act, which is much, much, much more than had been required of us.

 

How often can an honest man love?

If your parish priest blew on you and told me that you would love me all your life, should I believe him?

Raise your head, Perdican! What man believes in nothing?

You play your part as a young man and you smile when you hear about abandoned women . . .

Is your love merely a coin that you pass from one hand to another until you die?

No, it's not even a coin; for the smallest gold coin is worth more than you and keeps its effigy no matter what hand it passes to.

 

Okay. That's it for me. That's all I remember.

And those snippets of worry, or that bit of Camille I have left in me, I repeat them at night and I repeat them for you, little star . . .

 

How often can an honest man love?

Raise your head, Perdican!

Is your love merely a coin?

 

It's beautiful, isn't it?

And now that I've grown up and have always sworn eternal love and always forsaken it once and for all and have cried and have suffered and have made others suffer and have begun again and will begin again, I understand her better, that little sweetie . . .

 

At the time, I had such a chip on my shoulder that I thought she was a bitch, but today, I know exactly what she was: an orphan.

 

An orphan like me who, like me, was bursting with love . . .

Yes, today, I would perform her character more tenderly.

 

As for Franck, it was simple. He set fire to classroom 204, building C, of Jacques-Prévert Junior High in the second hour of the school day, that Thursday of April of I don't remember what year.

 

Affirmative, Fire Chief Clang-Clang: Fire!

 

He danced around, he jumped, he teased me, he spun me around, he transformed the teacher's desk into the edge of a well, he picked up his chair and then put it back down with a sharp blow, he leaned against the blackboard, he played with the chalk, he spoke to my shadow which took refuge between a cabinet of dictionaries and the emergency exit, he leaped toward the ass-kissers in the front row and spoke to them as if calling them as witnesses, he . . .