Anthony’s cousin climbed on behind him, and they headed for highway D953. He revved the engine, putting his leg out in the turns and speeding up in the straight sections. The speed drew tears from their eyes and filled their chests with pride. They were racing across a land in darkness, bareheaded, incapable of accidents, too fast, too young, insufficiently mortal. Just the same, Anthony’s cousin asked him to slow down at one point.
Drimblois was a little model village, with a church, a few farms along the departmental highway, some newer houses, and an old dental-office building with a wrought-iron grill. It only took them twenty minutes to get there. When they arrived, they rode around for a while before identifying the house where the famous party was taking place. It was a handsome modern building with a lot of glass. Lights were on in all the rooms, the lawn was as rolling as a golf course, and the swimming pool in the back glowed a bright turquoise. After a brief hesitation, the YZ came to a stop next to the other two-wheelers. Anthony put his foot down.
“Here we are.”
“Yep,” said his cousin.
The air was fragrant with the smell of woodsmoke, grilling meat, and new-mown grass. Music was playing: reggae, maybe “Natural Mystic.”
“Looks cool.”
“I forgot the antitheft lock,” said Anthony.
His cousin had gotten off the bike and was looking the place over.
“There’s no risk, anyway,” he said. “Just stash it over there.”
He was pointing to a long farm building with closed shutters. Cords of wood were stacked nearby, awaiting winter. Anthony hid the motorcycle behind them, but he felt uneasy about it.
His cousin pulled a small bottle of rum from his jacket and took a long swig before handing it to Anthony. Then he took a can of beer out of his backpack and did the same. They drank like that, taking turns, then threw the empty can onto the freshly cut lawn. That made them laugh, and they headed in.
On the patio on the other side, a crowd of young people was milling around a big table set with salad, chips, bread, and bottles of wine. There was also quite a bit of liquor, with bottles stuck into a tub of ice. Tall, sharply dressed guys were manning the barbecue while drinking Sol beer. They belonged to the swim club, as you could tell from their shoulders, their self-satisfied air, and, especially, the names on their tank tops. These were the coolest guys in the valley: athletes, indoor surfers. They got all the girls, and nobody could stand them. A whiny rock ’n’ roll piece that sounded like R.E.M. had replaced the reggae.
“Do you know anyone here?”
“Not a soul,” answered the cousin.
At that, he rolled a joint.
The guests all seemed happy to be there, in any case. Anthony spotted a couple of girls he could fall in love with on the spot. Tall chicks with ponytails and little, light-colored tops. They had white teeth, clear foreheads, and tiny little asses. Boys were chatting with them as if it were no big deal. It was going so smoothly, Anthony could hardly stand it. Off in a corner, two guys in old deck chairs were sharing a box of rosé. Their T-shirts and long hair suggested they were serious Iron Maiden fans.
“C’mon, let’s leave,” said Anthony.
“Now that we’re here? You’ve got to be kidding!”
They found beers in the kitchen and started to drink while strolling around the place. Nobody knew them, so people stared a bit, but without any particular animosity. The house really was beautiful. There was even a foosball table on the mezzanine. The two cousins made regular trips to the fridge to resupply. Gradually, faces began to look familiar, and as the liquor took hold they became friendlier with lots of people.
“Hey, there you are!”
Alex the jock had grabbed them in a friendly way.
“It’s cool that you came.”
“Yeah,” said the cousin.
“It’s not bad here, is it?”
“Whose place is it?”
“Thomas’s. His father is a radiologist.”
The boys received this news coolly. Alex turned to the cousin and asked:
“Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure thing.”
Anthony found himself alone. Stéphanie and her friend Clémence hadn’t arrived yet, so he got another beer to pass the time. It was his fifth, and his head was starting to spin quite a bit. He needed to piss, too. Rather than go looking for the bathroom, he walked down to the swimming pool and found a quiet spot nearby. Very high above him, the unthinking moon was shining. Anthony was feeling good, and free. There wasn’t any school tomorrow, or for weeks to come. He filled his lungs, breathing in the night. Life wasn’t so bad, when you got right down to it.
“Hi, there!”
Anthony barely had time to button his fly. Steph and Clémence were walking straight toward him.
“Have you seen Alex, by any chance?” asked Clem.
“Yeah. He’s with my cousin.”
Steph was wearing tight jeans, leather Grecian sandals, and a white tank top. Clémence was dressed the same way, in a different assortment of colors, with gold bangles on her right wrist. The two of them were really gorgeous together, even better than separately. Still, there was something special about Steph. Anthony tried to think of something to say. All he could come up with was:
“Want to smoke a blunt?”
“Cool,” said Steph.
Anthony took out his rolling papers. He was about to crouch down to roll the joints, but Clémence stopped him.
“Wait! We’re not gonna sit there. It’s where you just peed.”
Anthony blushed, but it was too dark for the girls to notice. They walked a little closer to the pool and sat in a circle, quickly smoking a joint of Moroccan without saying anything. The music was pounding now. Anthony was concerned about the neighbors. If this went on, they might well call the cops. He pointed this out to the girls, who didn’t seem especially worried. They were preoccupied by more serious problems. Someone who was supposed to be there apparently hadn’t shown up yet. This was a problem, especially for Steph.
“Do you go to Fourrier?” asked Anthony.
They turned to him, seeming almost surprised to find him still there.
“Yeah.”
“What about you?”
Stéphanie had asked the question.
“I’ll be at Clément-Hader when school starts,” he said.
That was a lie. Anthony had barely squeaked into ninth grade. He didn’t quite know what to say, so he spit between his teeth. The girls exchanged a knowing look, and Anthony wished he could dig a hole to hide in. They soon ditched him and headed for the patio. He watched them walking away, with their narrow shoulders, butts molded by their jeans, slender ankles, and those bouncing ponytails, graceful and haughty. He was very drunk now and starting to feel bad. Dizziness and melancholy had replaced his earlier exaltation. As he stood up in turn, thinking maybe he would go sit on a chair for a while, his cousin ran over, grinning broadly.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Nowhere. I was smoking with the girls.”
“They’re here?”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“So nothing.”
Anthony’s cousin studied him for a moment.
“When we go home, I’m gonna drive.”
“What did the guy want?”
“It’s crazy. Everybody inside wants something to smoke. I sold them bars of hash for six hundred francs.”
“Seriously?”
The cousin showed him the money, and Anthony immediately cheered up. To the point of feeling thirsty again.
“Just the same, take it easy,” said his cousin.
Two more beers later, Anthony decided to brave the living room. It was full of couples draped on sofas and clumped on the floor, kissing and making out. The girls put up no resistance, and hands were roaming under their T-shirts. Tangles of arms and legs could be seen, along with bare skin and light-colored jeans. Nail polish added splashes of color.
Steph and Clémence were there too, in the back, leaning against the French doors, with three boys that Anthony didn’t recognize. They were on the floor close together, knees touching, looking mellow. The tallest of the three was even lying down. But the boy next to him was the one who caught your eye: leather jacket, dirty hair, really cute, an over-the-top Bob Dylan type, both laid-back and pretentious. Plus, “Let It Be” was playing—depression city. Anthony took a few steps in their direction. He would have loved to join the little group, but of course that was impossible.
Then Leather Jacket pulled a little vial from his pocket and unplugged it. He raised it to his nose and took a big sniff, then handed it to Steph. They took turns snorting, which was followed by long peals of sick laughter. The effect seemed almost instantaneous, but it dissipated within a minute, and they quickly lapsed back into the same languorous torpor. Steph and the cute guy were exchanging glances, discreetly hooking up. It must have been eighty-five degrees in the room. How could that little jerk wear a leather jacket in this heat? When the vial was about to go around a second time, Anthony made his move.
“Hi there,” he said.
Five pairs of eyes turned to him.
“Who’s that?” asked the tallest boy, the one lying down.
Steph and Clémence clearly no longer had the slightest idea. The tall guy sat up and snapped his fingers. Even when seated, you could tell he was really husky. With his pastel T-shirt and bare feet in Vans, he looked like a dumb California surfer.
“Hey, you there. What do you want?”
Clémence had just taken a hit and was giggling nervously as she fiddled with her ponytail. Steph took a turn and inhaled deeply.
“Wow! It feels like having Mister Freeze in my head.”
The others found that an excellent comparison, exactly right on. When the vial got back to the guy in leather, he asked Anthony:
“Want to try it?”
Looking blearily at Anthony, they all waited to see what would happen next.
“What is it?”
“Try it, you’ll see.”
Without knowing quite why, Anthony thought they all looked like a family. It wasn’t anything special, just details in their clothing, their attitude, their general ease. He couldn’t say exactly why, but it gave him an odd feeling of lacking, inadequacy, and smallness. He wanted to put on a good show. He took the vial.
“Go ahead,” urged Leather Jacket, miming a sniff in the air.
“Leave him alone, Simon,” said Clémence.
The Californian joined in:
“Hey, you okay? Think you can handle it?”
He said this with his right eye closed, imitating Anthony’s asymmetrical face. Anthony clenched his fists, which was even sillier than the rest.
“Cut it out, you’re being stupid!” said Clémence, prodding the imitator with her foot.
Irritated now, she turned to Anthony:
“So what do you want? Hurry up!”
But Anthony could no longer make a move. Gripped by a kind of vertigo, he was staring at the big hunk. Steph, who was watching all this with bovine indifference, decided it was time for a change of scene.
“Okay, then…”
She had gotten to her feet and was stretching like a big cat. The California hunk stood as well; he was easily a head taller than Anthony.
“C’mon, we’re just kidding around,” said the third boy.
“Besides, he can hardly stand up.”
“You gonna puke?”
“He’s definitely gonna puke.”
“He’s all white.”
“Hey!”
Anthony didn’t know where he was anymore. He put the vial to his nostril and took a big sniff, more to have something to do than anything else. His brain immediately felt like it was caught in a draft, and he started to laugh. Leather Jacket retrieved his vial. The others took off, leaving Anthony alone, seated cross-legged, head down, completely out of it.
When he got his wits back, he was lying on a staircase, outside. His hair was wet and his cousin was trying to get him to drink some water. Clémence was there, too.
“What happened?”
“You passed out.”
Anthony lay there for a moment, not understanding. He heard music and the two others’ voices, and struggled to keep his eyes open. Clémence left, and he again asked what had happened.
“You were drinking like a fish. You fell down, that’s all.”
“I snorted something, too.”
“Yeah, Clem told me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“She’s the one who came to get me when you collapsed.”
“She’s cool, too.”
“Yeah, heavy.”
His cousin explained about the two guys, Hunk and Leather Jacket. Anthony recognized their names. They were the Rotier brothers, a pair of spoiled troublemakers who thought they were the lords of the valley. As it happens, their uncle had been the mayor for thirty years before pancreatic cancer made him step aside. Even when he was very sick, he was often seen walking around Heillange, his town, scowling, a swollen belly under his very high belt. His yellowish face was especially striking. It looked sucked in on itself, with the hooded eye of a bird of prey rolling around. He died without ever resigning, a town councillor to the grave. The other Rotiers pretty much all made their mark as politicians, pharmacists, engineers, successful businessmen, and doctors. You could find them as far away as Paris and Toulouse. They held responsible positions in training and management both here and there, and exercised necessary, licensed professions. Which didn’t prevent some of their offspring from having difficult adolescences. This was clearly the case with Simon and his brother.
“I don’t know what I snorted,” said Anthony.
“TCE or poppers. Those guys are nuts, they’ll take anything.”
“Your girlfriend did some too.”
“I know.”
“Did you have a lot to talk about?”
“A bit.”
When Anthony got his bearings, they walked around the house twice. He was feeling really wasted and wanted to go home.
“Let’s go now, okay? I’m beat.”
“It isn’t even midnight yet.”
“I’m feeling too crappy. I want to hit the sack.”
“There’s lots of bedrooms upstairs. Just go rest for an hour or two.”
Anthony didn’t have a chance to argue. As they were walking toward the patio, the guests’ cheerful racket abruptly stopped, leaving only the voice of Cyndi Lauper singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” In the sudden silence, it seemed completely incongruous.
The cousins went to see what was going on. Everybody was standing in a circle around two intruders. They had track suit jackets, hair shaved on the sides, and no sign of asses in their pants. They were looking both vindictive and lost, so it was hard to tell if they were about to attack or had just been jumped. The smaller of the pair had a signet ring and a gold chain over the collar of his Tacchini jacket. The other one’s name was Hacine Bouali.
Anthony knew that kid, at least; they went to the same school. Hacine spent most of his education zoned out under the scooter shelter, spitting on the ground. When you passed him in the hallway, you usually looked down. He had a reputation of being dangerous, crashing parties so he could drink for free, steal stuff, and cause chaos. Then he would split at the last minute, just before the cops arrived. He obviously wasn’t welcome here: fifty people’s silence was making that clear. Finally, a very small guy stepped out of the crowd to resolve the crisis. He was so well proportioned, so cute with his bowl haircut, you could mistake him for a Playmobil figure.
“We don’t want any trouble,” he said. “You can’t stay here.”
“You can go fuck yourself,” said Hacine.
“We came peaceful like,” added his pal. “Why are you giving us shit?”
“You weren’t invited,” explained Playmobil. “So you can’t stay.”
“Come on, we don’t want any trouble,” said one of the swimmers.
He had pulled up his sweatshirt hood and was advancing, palms upward.
“Now get out of here,” he added.
“Don’t be so cheap,” began Hacine’s pal. “We’ll just have a quick brew, and then we’ll split.”
The swimmer took another step toward them, spreading his arms as a sign of peace. He was wearing flip-flops, which kind of argued in favor of his goodwill.
“Come on, you guys. Grab a beer and make tracks. We don’t want any hassles.”
After a momentary silence, Hacine spread his arms in turn.
“I fuck all your mothers,” he announced.
In the silence, fat hissed as it dripped onto the barbecue coals. The impassive stars shone steadily. No one dared contradict him.
“C’mon, guys, this isn’t worth getting into a fight over. Let’s drop it.”
“You’re starting to get on my nerves, man,” said Hacine.
His acolyte chimed in again:
“Hey there, it’s all good. We’re not doing anything wrong. We just want to have a drink, quiet like.”
But Playmobil was having none of it. When you have people crashing your party who have no business being there, at some point you have to put a stop to it. Besides, his parents were coming back the next day, so it just wouldn’t do. Then Hacine muttered something about “racists.” The swimmer snapped his fingers under his nose, twice.
“Hey, you, wake up! You aren’t invited here, so beat it. This has gone on long enough.”
“Look, asshole—”
Hacine didn’t have time to say more. A redheaded girl in a flowered dress had appeared at a first-floor window and shouted:
“I just called the cops. I’m warning you, I just phoned them. They’re on their way.”
She held up a wireless phone to show that she wasn’t bullshitting them.
“So get out of here,” said an emboldened Playmobil. “Now.”
The two scroungers weren’t much to look at, actually, with their shifty posture, sparse mustaches, and oversized Nikes at the ends of their skinny legs. But it still required fifty people, one swimmer, and the police to deal with them.
Hacine began to retreat while trying not to lose face, which mainly consisted in swaggering like somebody from the Bronx. When he got as far as the barbecue, he gave it a big kick, tipping it over onto the grass. The thing hit the ground hard, shooting hot coals as far as the patio. A girl standing nearby suddenly began to utter high-pitched shrieks.
“You guys are complete assholes!” cried her girlfriend.
“C’mon, get the fuck out of here!”
“She’s been burned!”
Now the intruders really had to leave quickly. To be on the safe side, people followed them out into the street. They took their time crossing the village, turning around from time to time to shout insults and give people the finger. They gradually disappeared from view, and the whine of a scooter was eventually heard fading away in the distance.
Ten minutes later, the party was resuming, in stages. People clumped in little scandalized groups, laughing as they described what had happened, hardly believing it. The girl who’d been burned was still whimpering a bit but was all right. Sweatshirt Hoodie had only to act modest while gathering his laurels. Only Playmobil was still agitated. While waiting for the cops, he ran around picking up joint butts and yelling that this was it for him.
A police cruiser actually did show up later, and people told the cops what had happened. They didn’t seem too surprised, or very interested, for that matter. They left the way they’d come.
The first splashes could be heard at the back of the yard, and Anthony made his way down to the pool, which looked like a blue screen between the branches. A dozen swimmers were drinking beer and ducking underwater. A couple was kissing by the edge, their mouths locked. At one point a girl climbed out of the water completely naked and danced for the onlookers’ amusement. Anthony could hardly believe his eyes; these people would try anything. She was even applauded. Her pussy was waxed and she had hardly any chest. It was really beautiful. At the same time it remained very far away.
“Aren’t you going swimming?”
Steph was standing under a willow tree a few steps behind him. She seemed a little confused, her expression vague. Her jeans had a grease stain on the left thigh. Anthony didn’t answer, so she repeated:
“You going swimming, or what?”
“Uh, I don’t know.”
She had started unstrapping her sandals and was soon barefoot in the grass.
“Isn’t your pal here?”
“He’s my cousin.”
“Right, your cousin. This party’s too weird. It feels like it’s been going on for two days.”
“Yeah,” said Anthony, not understanding what she meant.
“It’ll be morning soon.”
He checked his watch.
“It’s only three o’clock.”
“Damn, I’m cold,” said Steph, fumbling with her belt buckle.
She unzipped her jeans and tried to slide them down her thighs, but the fabric caught, stuck to her skin. Then she pulled her top over her head. She was wearing a light-colored bathing suit, less sexy than the one from that afternoon.
“Okay, I’m going for a dip.”
Anthony watched as she headed for the water, her butt bouncing and her thighs pumping. Just before the edge, she gathered herself and dove, arms outstretched. Her body slid into the water with exquisite facility. When she surfaced, her mouth was wide open, she was laughing, and her ponytail made wet circles in the air. The swimmers sitting on the steps started to shout. Anthony couldn’t hear what they were saying. He took off his shoes in turn and unbuttoned his jeans, but realized he was wearing underpants with colorful umbrellas on them. This gave him pause. He was shivering a little. It was true, it was cold as hell. On the patio, the sound level was suddenly cranked up, and everybody listened.
It was a song being constantly played on the M6 channel. It usually made you want to smash a guitar or set fire to your school, but here it made everybody thoughtful. It was still almost new, a title from a similar depressed American city, a shithole town very far away, where little white punks in plaid shirts drank cheap beer. The song was spreading like a virus wherever you found loser working-class kids, pimply teens, fucked-over crisis victims, unwed mothers, morons on motorbikes, hash smokers, and trade-school dropouts. A wall had fallen in Berlin and peace was already starting to look like a terrifying steamroller. In every town across this deindustrialized, one-dimensional world and in every blighted village, kids without dreams were now listening to a Seattle group named Nirvana. They were letting their hair grow and turning their sadness into anger, their depression into decibels. Paradise was good and lost, the revolution would not take place; the only thing left was to make noise. Anthony bobbed his head in time, along with thirty other people like him. He shivered as the song ended, and then it was over. Everybody could go home.
Around five in the morning he was awakened by the cold settling on the garden. Without realizing it, he’d fallen asleep on a chaise longue. He was under a tree. He sneezed a few times and went looking for his cousin.
On the ground floor of the house, a little group was still chatting, hoarse and intimate, their hair wet. Girls wrapped in big towels huddled against their boyfriends. A faint smell of chlorine hung in the air. Dawn would come soon, and Anthony thought of the sadness that would follow, that little twinge of pale sunrises. His mother was going to kill him.
Upstairs, he looked in the bathroom, opened bedroom doors. The beds were full of sleeping shapes, three or four to a bed. The two heavy-metal guys had found a trapdoor and climbed up onto the roof. They were drinking wine under the stars. Anthony asked if they’d seen his cousin.
“Who’s that?”
“My cousin. The tall guy.”
The metalheads offered him a drink. Anthony refused.
“So you haven’t seen him?”
“No.”
“Did you look in the bedrooms?”
“I just did, all of them.”
“Sit down, then. See how beautiful it is.”
The nearest metalhead pointed to a spot on the horizon where a thin ocher sliver was rising from the earth, filling the sky with light. The night gradually turned blue.
“Did you try the shed in the garden?” asked the other one, who had his hands behind his neck and was gazing at the sky. Tufts of light-colored, almost red hair stuck out of the sleeves of his T-shirt.
Anthony went through the house again. Seeing the now-empty living room felt a little like visiting a crime scene. Beer cans, cigarette butts, a record spinning in the empty air, speakers making that little crackly hiccup at the end of a record. The sky had already lightened. He went through the garden. Oddly enough, the swimming pool was perfectly clean, a toilet-bowl blue, glowing and artificial. He stood on the edge for a moment, rocked by the tiny wavelets and fighting an urge to dive in. He could see a bathing suit bottom in the depths, or maybe they were panties. He thought of Steph, whom he hadn’t seen since the swim. Anyway, he didn’t care. He spat in the water. He was just exhausted.
“Hey there!”
He turned to find his cousin waving at him from the patio. He was wearing a T-shirt that didn’t belong to him. Anthony joined him, dragging his feet. They took the path out to the front gate.
“It’s almost dawn. Where were you?”
“Nowhere,” said his cousin.
“Did you see Steph again?”
“No.”
“What’s that T-shirt?”
“It’s nothing.”
Anthony had a headache. A rooster crowed. They reached the stacks of wood where they had left the bike a few hours earlier. In another life, practically.
The YZ wasn’t there. This sent Anthony to his knees.