“That was brilliant!”
The girl says it with the grave face of eternal faith. Jo clings to this fervour she’s just shared for forty minutes in the tiny Bourg-Neuf Theatre. There aren’t many of them here for the performance of Edward Bond’s Summer: five audience members, but the guy at the door said We’ll play anyway, it’s Avignon, it’s like that, there are too many theatres and too many shows, so five people in the audience isn’t too bad. He was wearing make-up, he was also acting in the play – and no doubt doing the driving, acting, taking the set down and doing the cleaning. The city is saturated with posters and people, too many, of course, a strange madness that’s a bit tackier every year. The Avignon Festival has taken on new identities. In the past, there was that magical excitement, the square in front of the Palais des Papes covered in magnificent savages, with or without costumes, acting or braiding long hair, reciting poetry even to the stones beneath their feet, sublime beggars. At night, parties and acrobatic, drunken climbing of the slopes of the Rocher des Doms despite municipal prohibition. They still have parties in the secluded enclosures of the palace courtyard and theatre back rooms, but between prohibitions and decrees, and increasingly right-wing social cleansing, every year Avignon looks more and more like a set, a Truman Show to which Parisians and tourists flock during the festival. Everybody agrees that the festival is even better than before.
It’s all very new to Johanna, so she obviously finds these thousands of posters devouring the walls in the city and these people who’ve come from other places very exciting. Moreover, she’s particularly fascinated by the processions. She’s bowled over by the actors parading in the middle of the street, in full costume and yelling out lines, haranguing crowds sitting outside cafés. In her world everybody tries to hold on to their haughtiness, however pathetic. At school, naturally, but not only there. Her father would never agree to go to a fancy dress party, he’d feel totally humiliated. Seeing some people adopt grimaces, make-up and the game opens new horizons before her. She feels uncomfortable but her boundaries shift, and the sense of ridicule switches sides.
The girl smiles at her. “The direction was excellent. Did you enjoy it?”
Jo wonders if she’s from Paris. Her politeness is studied, over the top and a bit condescending. Enraptured like a nun in ecstasy but her every gesture abiding by a code of elegance that makes Jo feel ugly, poor and stupid.
“Yes.”
“And there’s such a perception, such an understanding of the script – I love this play. Bond is truly unique.”
Jo nods. She’d never heard of Bond until today. Her drama teacher at school vaguely tried to make them act out a few extracts from Molière. “Yes, it was great.”
She really thinks it. She also found it moving, even though she lacks the words to express it. She wishes she had them, right here and now, so she can respond to this incredible girl, not much older than her, who seems so sure of herself. Jo wants to hit her, become her best friend, or be her, it’s impossible to tell which. She picked this play because she liked the poster, because the tickets weren’t expensive – an advantage of the festival, the undercutting among companies competing for survival. Her phone rings. Saïd. The girl keeps staring at her, and doesn’t look like she wants to leave. She seems to find Jo’s company interesting. Jo moves away a little to answer Saïd. No, not yet, but yes, come and pick me up. What? Not now, but in a little while. I know you’re coming especially! In half an hour, by the ramparts at Porte Sainte-Catherine.
She turns to the girl, puts the phone in her pocket with a guilty expression as if the girl could see what Saïd looks like, his crummy car, and even hear his accent. The girl doesn’t have one. They walk to Rue des Teinturiers together. She talks about some wonderful play or other she’s read, does Johanna know it? Her name’s Garance. Jo has a bit of a tummy ache; she doesn’t know what to say and hates the fact that this bothers her. She wants not to give a shit about it, like she usually doesn’t give a shit about posh people. But the bitches at her school who go horse-riding on Wednesday afternoons haven’t read Edward Bond. She suddenly feels this vague sense of unease, the divide that shows that money opens the doors to a world besides the one with expensive cars and holidays abroad. It’s not the first time but it suddenly takes shape, in the words of this girl, the passion that mirrors hers but is much better nurtured. Johanna feels betrayed.
“Do you live here?”
Garance nods. “My mother lives within the city walls. I go to the Lycée Saint-Joseph.”
“Of course you do,” Jo blurts out, sniggering.
“Yeah, I know,” Garance says, squinting at her, taking the sarcasm on the chin. But perhaps she’s also slightly embarrassed.
“Sorry…”
“Don’t worry about it, I get it. But it’s really not that bad, you know.”
Jo doesn’t answer.
The street, cluttered with tables, makes Jo want to stop here and spend hours drinking ice-cold Coke. Garance suddenly sees some friends of hers and starts emitting joyful little screams as she calls out to them. Sitting around a table planted in sand – a trendy café that provides the illusion of a beach in the very heart of Avignon – Garance’s friends respond with equally over-the-top, euphoric shrieks. This really annoys Jo. She doesn’t say hello, keeps her hands deep in her pockets and looks the table up and down without warmth. She thinks they’re attractive and brilliant. Her stomach cramps really hurt and she doesn’t like the situation, these people who scream hysterically when they say hello. A bit like Céline and her friends, but not exactly the same, either.
“Will you have a drink with us?” Garance suggests.
“No, I can’t.”
“It’s on me.”
“It’s OK, I’ve got the cash, I don’t need you to pay for me.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Jo fixes her two odd eyes on the other girl’s, and the latter lights up with a smile.
“You’ve got amazing eyes, gosh, I hadn’t noticed before.”
All of a sudden it’s Jo who feels sick; shit, it’s not every day she gets a compliment. She can tell perfectly well it’s not flirting, and it’s not poking fun, either. Jo bites her lip and looks around her as if she expects to find a parade in honour of embarrassment. But it’s Garance who settles the argument, totally unaware of anything. “Give me your number. I’ll call you, then you’ll have mine.”
Garance’s mates have resumed their conversation, talking about music. Jo’s never understood how you can talk about music. Music isn’t about talking, it’s about listening. At most you can dance to it or get someone else to listen to it – just about.
“What for?”
“We’re having a party in Gordes in a couple of weeks, at my father’s house, a huge affair to celebrate the end of the festival. With some friends. Do you want to come?”
Jo shrugs, looking as if she couldn’t care less. She’s dying to go to this party.
She gives Garance her number.