Hunting and Gathering (3 page)

Bredart—Josy was her first name—was a regular bitch, their resident shit-stirrer and punching bag and vicious to boot. She also happened to be their boss. “Chief Worksite Manager” was what it said, clearly, on her badge. Bredart made life miserable within the limited means at her disposal—but that was exhausting enough.

“Josy? Nothing. As soon as the doctor gets a whiff of her, he'll ask her to put her clothes back on, lickety-split.”

Carine wasn't far off. Josy Bredart, in addition to the qualities listed above, perspired profusely.

 
When it was Carine's turn, Mamadou pulled a wad of papers from her bag and placed them in Camille's lap. Camille had promised her she'd take a look, and now she was trying to make sense of the whole mess:

“What's this?”

“It's the form from the AFDC.”

“No, but all these names here?”

“My family, what'd you think?”

“Which family?”

“Which family? Which family? My family! Use your head, Camille!”

“All these names—this is your family?”

“Every single one,” she said proudly.

“How many kids do you have, anyway?”

“I got five, and my brother got four.”

“But why are all of them on here?”

“Where, here?”

“Yeah, on this paper.”

“It's easier this way because my brother and sister-in-law live at our place and we have the same mailbox so—”

“But that's no good. They say that's no good. You can't have nine children—”

“And why not?” she retorted. “My mother, she had twelve!”

“Hang on, don't get carried away, Mamadou. I'm just telling you what it says here. They're asking you to explain the situation, and to come in with all the birth certificates.”

“What for?”

“Well, I guess it's not legal, your thing. I don't think your brother and you are allowed to put all your kids on one form—”

“Yeah, but my brother, he got nothin'!”

“Is he working?”

“Course he's working. He does the freeways.”

“And your sister-in-law?”

Mamadou wrinkled her nose:

“She don't do nothing. Not a thing, I tell you. She won't budge, that mean old bitch. She never moves her big fat ass at all!”

 
Camille smiled to herself: what on earth would a big fat ass be in Mamadou's eyes?

 
“Do they both have papers?”

“Hell yes.”

“Well, then let them file a separate declaration.”

“But my sister-in-law, she don't want to go to the AFDC, and my brother, he works nights so in the daytime he's sleeping. You see?”

“I see. But right now, how much aid are you getting, for how many kids?”

“For four.”

“For four?”

“Yeah, that's what I been trying to tell you from the beginning, but you're like all white folks, you're always right and you never listen.”

Camille exhaled, a little sigh of irritation.

 
“The problem I wanted to tell you about is that they forgot my Sissi.”

“Which number kid is that, Mysissi?”

“She's no number, stupid!” seethed Mamadou. “She's my youngest. Little Sissi.”

“Oh, Sissi.”

“Yes.”

“So why isn't she on here?”

“Hey, Camille, you doing this on purpose or what? That's what I been asking you since a while back.”

Camille didn't know what to say.

“The best thing to do is to go see the AFDC people with your brother or sister-in-law and all your papers and explain it to the lady there.”

“Why you say ‘the lady'? Which lady, anyway?”

“Any old lady!” said Camille, getting annoyed.

“Okay, all right, don't get so riled up. I was just asking you a simple question 'cause I thought you knew her.”

“Mamadou, I don't know anyone at the AFDC. I've never been there in my life, don't you see?”

 
Camille handed the papers back to her, along with a jumble of small ads, pictures of cars, and phone bills.

She heard Mamadou grumbling, “She says ‘the lady' so I ask which lady, which makes sense 'cause there's men there too. How can she know, if she's never been there, if it's a lady? There's guys there too! Is she Mrs. Know-it-all or what?”

“Hey, are you sulking?”

“No, I'm not sulking. Just you says you gonna help me but you don' help me, that's all.”

“I'll go with you all then.”

“To the AFDC?”

“Yes.”

“You'll speak to the lady?”

“Yes.”

“And what if it's not her?”

Camille thought it might be time to sacrifice some of her usual cool, but just then Samia came back: “Your turn, Mamadou . . .” To Camille she said, “Here, the doctor's phone number.”

“What for?”

“What for? What for? How the hell should I know? To play doctor, dummy! He asked me to give it to you.”

 
The doctor had written the number of his cell on a prescription slip and added:
I'm prescribing a good dinner, call me.

 
Camille crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it in the gutter.

 
“You know,” added Mamadou, rising heavily to her feet and pointing at Camille with her index finger, “if you fix things for me and my Sissi, I'll ask my brother to fix it so you find yourself a sweetheart . . .”

“I thought your brother was building freeways.”

“Freeways, and spells and undoing spells, you name it.”

Camille rolled her eyes.

“What about me?” Samia burst in. “Can he find me a guy?”

Mamadou walked past her, clawing at the air in front of her face:

“You give me back my bucket first and then we'll talk!”

“Shit, stop bugging me! I don't have your bucket, it's mine. Your bucket was red.”

“Get lost,” she hissed, walking away, “damn.”

 
Mamadou hadn't even finished climbing the steps and already the van was rocking. Have fun in there, thought Camille, smiling, as she picked up her bag. Good luck . . .

 
“We going?”

“I'm coming.”

“What're you doing? You taking the métro with us?”

“No. I'll walk home.”

“That's right, you live over there in the fancy neighborhood . . .”

“Yeah, right.”

“So long, see you tomorrow.”

“ 'Bye, girls.”

 
Camille was invited for dinner at Pierre and Mathilde's place. She left a message to cancel, relieved that she had gotten their answering machine.

 
The ever so light Camille Fauque went on her way, her feet on the ground thanks only to the weight of her backpack or, harder to gauge, the weight of the stones and pebbles which rattled around inside her body. That's what she should have told the doctor about. If she had really wanted to . . . Or if she'd had the courage? Or the time, maybe? Time, surely, she reassured herself, not entirely convinced. Time was a notion she could no longer grasp. Too many weeks and months had gone by that she hadn't even been a part of, and her tirade, earlier, that absurd monologue where she was trying to convince herself that she was just as resilient as the next girl, was nothing but a pack of lies.

What was the word she had used? “Alive,” was that it? That's ridiculous; Camille Fauque wasn't alive.

 
Camille Fauque was a ghost who worked at night and piled up stones by day. A ghost who moved slowly, spoke little, and with a graceful shimmy made herself scarce.

Camille Fauque was the sort of young woman you always saw from behind, fragile and elusive.

 
But we shouldn't trust that little scene we just watched unfold, however casual it might have seemed. However easy and natural. Camille had been lying. Merely trying to feed the right answers to the doctor; she made an effort, controlled herself, and answered, “Present” to avoid drawing attention.

 
But she couldn't stop thinking about the doctor. She didn't care about his cell phone number, but she wondered if she hadn't missed an opportunity, all the same. He seemed the patient type, more attentive than the others. Maybe she should have . . . at one point she had almost . . . She was tired, she should have put her elbows on the desk too, and told him the truth. Told him that if she wasn't eating at all, or almost nothing, it was because the stones were taking up all the room in her belly. That she woke up every day with the feeling that she was chewing gravel, that even before she opened her eyes she was suffocating. And that the world around her had become meaningless, and every new day was like a weight that was impossible to lift. So she cried. Not that she was sad, but to make it pass. The flood of tears, in the end, helped her to digest the pile of stones and get her breath back.

Would he have listened? Would he have understood? Of course he would have. And that was precisely why she'd kept quiet.

 
She didn't want to end up like her mother. She refused to become confessional. She didn't know where it would lead once she started. Too far, much too far, too deep and too dark. All things being equal, she just didn't have the guts to look back.

Give them the answers they want, yes, but don't look back.

 
She went into the Franprix downstairs from her place and forced herself to buy a few things to eat, as a gesture toward the young doctor's kindness, and Mamadou's laugh. Mamadou's expansive laughter, the dumb job at All-Kleen, that bitch Bredart, Carine's unbelievable stories, the squabbles, the cigarettes they shared, the physical fatigue, their crazy uncontrollable giggles and the foul moods they got into sometimes—all of that helped her to live. It really did, it helped her to live.

She wandered up and down the aisles a few times before she made up her mind, bought some bananas, four yogurts, and two bottles of water.

 
There was that weirdo from her building. A tall strange guy with pants that were way too short, glasses held together by Band-Aids, and the behavior of a Martian. The minute he picked something up he put it back down, took a few steps, then changed his mind, picked it up again, shook his head and finally left the checkout line, when it was his turn at the register, to go and put the thing back where it belonged. Once she even saw him leave the store, then go back in to buy the jar of mayonnaise that he'd rejected only seconds before. Ridiculous, sad clown amusing the crowd, stuttering in front of the salesgirls, and wringing Camillle's heart.

 
Sometimes she saw him in the street or outside their front door, and he was always in crisis mode—some major problem or emotional meltdown. Sure enough, there he was, fumbling and muttering as he stood before the digital lock.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Ah! Oh! Um, excuse me.” He was wringing his hands. “Good evening, mademoiselle, forgive me, so sorry to bother—I am bothering you, aren't I?”

What a bummer, she never knew whether to laugh or to feel sorry for him. His pathological shyness, his incredibly convoluted way of speaking, the words he used and his perpetually spacey gestures: it all made her feel uneasy.

“No, no, don't worry about it. Did you forget the code?”

“Goodness, no. At least not as far as I know . . . well . . . I didn't look at it that way. My God, I—”

“Maybe they changed it?”

“Do you really think they might have?” he asked, as if she had just informed him that the end of the world was nigh.

“Well, let's find out. 342B7—”

The door clicked.

“Oh, I get so confused, what a muddle. I—But that's what I did too, I don't understand it . . .”

“Don't worry about it,” she said, leaning against the door.

 
He made as if to hold the door for her, and as he was trying to put his arm above her, he missed and knocked her hard on the back of her head.

 
“Oh gosh! I didn't hurt you, did I? I am so clumsy, honestly, please excuse me, I—”

“Don't worry about it,” she said for the third time.

He didn't move.

“Uh,” she begged at last, “could you move your foot because you're blocking my ankle there and it really hurts.”

She was laughing. Nervously.

 
When they were in the hall, he rushed toward the glass door to let her through.

“Oh, sorry, but I'm not going that way,” she said, pointing to the other side of the courtyard.

“You live in the courtyard?”

“Well, not really . . . under the roof is more like it.”

“Oh, that's great.” He was tugging on the strap of his bag, which was caught on the brass door handle. “That, that must be really nice.”

“Well, yeah,” she said, making a face and moving away quickly, “that's one way of looking at it.”

“Have a nice evening, mademoiselle!” he called. “My regards to your parents!”

 
Her parents . . . what a loon, that guy. She remembered one night—since it was always the middle of the night when she got home, as a rule—she'd found him in the hall, in his pajamas and hunting boots, with a box of kibble in his hand. He seemed really upset and asked her if she hadn't seen a cat. She said no and followed him for a few steps into the courtyard, looking for the cat in question. “What does he look like?” she'd asked. “I am afraid I don't know.” “You don't know what your cat looks like?” He'd stiffened: “How should I know? I have never had a cat in my life!” She had been dead tired, so, shaking her head, she'd just left him there. There was definitely something creepy about the guy.