Chapter Text
Michèle feels cold, goosebumps covering her skin underneath the coat Miss Couret had thrown over her drenched form from her surprise bath at the entrance of their classroom. She is shivering from the cold tap water, and then she is clutching her face, flushed and feverish. The area is hot and probably red from the stinging sensation the hit she just took caused. Michèle is not sure if the pink on her cheeks is from the embarrassment of getting hit by her brother in front of her classmates or if it is from getting hit by her brother, period. Michèle muses that it can be from both. Does it matter, though? She thinks, and then, it doesn’t, she decides. There are more important things to think about, like men’s ego and pride.
No sound, but collective gasps are heard around the room from their classmates and even her assailant? Defender? Brother is taken aback by what happened because she knows, as well as everyone in the room, that the blow was not meant for her. She knows that her brother usually avoids hitting her, not just in front of others but as a principle. Michèle does not know why; she guesses that it does take account of her father’s authority more than Jean Pierre’s impulse to lay his hands on her. But it still hurts, she thinks, her head is still ringing from the impact, and she can still feel the imprint of her brother’s fist lingering.
A pair of hands reach out to her; an offer to help her get on her feet. Oh, Michèle realizes as she looks up through her lashes that she fell to the ground from the punch that her brother threw out. Horrified and some amused and entertained faces surrounded her, Uncle Paul would have a fit, and even better, Mom and Dad would flip their lids.
The owner of the hands gets impatient and grabs her by her shoulders, hauling her to her feet. She stumbles from the unexpected action; she winces as she moves, her neck throbbing from its forceful turn and her elbows and bottom aching from taking the hard fall. The hands—warm, warm, warm—big and strong, steady her, and this action rouses her brother from the stupor that he is in.
“Do not touch her!” She hears Jean Pierre growl, and then there is blood, blood, blood everywhere, like the red wine her brother lets her take a sip of when it was New Year’s Eve and Uncle Paul would visit their house for dinner and bring a bottle of it as a gift to their parents. Red, red, red, like the fresh blood of the meat they sell at the Boucherie, like the pig’s, the beef’s, the men’s, because are not all blood the same color? Color red, like the lipstick she wore when she was eleven, the one she found in her mother’s drawer. Red like the blood that dripped from her lips from the slap that she had earned. Blood from the cut inside her gums and from the laceration that marked her as she was called a whore.
“Only a harlot uses that. Are you a whore, Michéle?”
“Why, were you a whore, mother?”
There is a groan of pain, shouts for help, and yelps of surprise that set off around her. It reverberates from within the four walls of the room like it is empty. It is not empty; it feels too full, too messy, and too much. Michèle feels the same, except she feels hollow like she is not really there, but she is, and she wanted to be there; however, now she wants to be elsewhere. Michèle also wants to not have a criminal for a brother, even if that brother is Jean Pierre, so, like the perfect little sister she is, she jumps into action and tackles her brother with a hug to stop him from attacking the instigator of this mess further. Some of her classmates are also pulling the senior student back.
“No, no, no! Jean Pierre,” she cries, and then she stills. “Stop, stop! You’re bleeding.” She grabs his bloodied hand gingerly and shoves it in front of his eyes as if to say, See? See?
Jean Pierre appears confused at first and then looks at the receiver of his anger, and Michèle does the same. She lets out a deep exhale and stares at Descamps in horror, who is glaring at them with his one undamaged dark eye, two hands clutching the other in pain. Blood covers half of his face; it flows from his eyes to his hands, running down his elbows and neck, ruining the expensive shirt and coat he is wearing. His friends surround him, defensive and protective.
He looks like a wounded young soldier in the middle of a teenager’s classroom, so unlike the mischievous adolescent boy who played pranks and bantered on her. He looks hurt, and he is, and Michèle aches with him.
“Descamps? You’re hurt! I–we need to call Uncle Paul, he will fix this. Jean Pierre…” Michéle looks at his brother for guidance. After all, Jean Pierre always knows what to do; however, she is not sure if her brother can do much either in that state of his. All dazed, angry, and confused, which is also uncharacteristic of his usual demeanor, What’s with boys this day? Michèle walks towards the bleeding boy instead because she will not do much if she stays by her brother, but as she steps forward, she thinks of what she is doing, traipsing towards her enemy’s side to do what? She does not know, but before Michéle can take a step further, Jean Pierre wraps his arms around her shoulders to stop her, and Descamps hisses at her, hatred visible in his one eye.
Right. Right. I will only make it worse. Michéle stops as others take it as a cue to go on. She does not move from her spot as a flurry of activities happens around her. Miss Couret enters the room again with her aunt and uncle in tow, older people finally joining the spectacle. Their homeroom teacher, Ms. Giraud, also joins the throng, barking orders at her classmates left and right as her aunt takes Descamps out of the room.
Michèle stares at the spot where the boy with glass embedded in his eye once stood until she, too, is ushered out of the room.
Blood marks the space, and Michèle knows that if her mother were to see this, she would say that it is an ominous sign. Fraternizing with a broken person will break one too. Michèle knows this because her mother often says that, one bleeding eye or not.
But Descamps isn’t broken, right? He is merely a boy. A playful, mischievous, delinquent boy. However, it is not like Michèle can say much or that what she says matters much. She has only known the boy for less than a day, and it seems like she will not know him more with how things are looking.
She glances at Jean Pierre walking behind her and sees that his expression is hard, his jaw is set, and his eyes are looking straight ahead. Then he turns to look at her like he knows she is looking, and his expression hardens further. What did you just do? She wants to ask. Why did you do that? She purses her lips before whispering, “I’m sorry.”
It is not her fault, she knows, but she says it anyway.
Jean Pierre only looks away from her.
Look away. Why didn’t he just look away when Descamps humiliated her? Why does this have to be the first time he has not done so?
Michèle Magnan had only been hit by her brother twice in her entire life. The first one was when they were kids. Michèle was playing with her brother’s soccer ball, which Uncle Paul had gifted him for his birthday, inside their house while their parents worked at the Boucherie. Jean Pierre was with her that day to babysit her as he worked on his history project. Her brother and his class were tasked with making a prototype structure of their chosen tourist spot in France, and her brother thought it would be a great idea to make a miniature Louvre out of cardboard and sticks. She only remembers this detail because of how much time Jean Pierre spent cutting and gluing the materials together.
“Can you stop playing with that ball?” Jean Pierre scolded her from the table.
“Can you stop being ugly?” Michèle imitated her brother, sticking her tongue out when he glared at her.
“Stop being childish,” Jean Pierre hissed at her.
But I am a child, and you are too. She wanted to say but mockingly repeated what her brother said instead and continued kicking the ball with her feet.
With her amazing stroke of luck and innate clumsiness, her foot slipped, kicked the ball too hard, and sent it flying to her brother’s table. It crashed directly into the almost-done miniature Louvre. Michele gaped as she saw the pile of smashed cartons and sticks, and she instantly ran to the table and retrieved the ball.
“We can still fix this,” she stated, and she grabbed the cardboard that the destroyed museum was situated on. “Let me just—“
“Give it to me, Michèle,” Jean Pierre said, gritting his teeth. He pulled the ruined project towards him, but Michèle would not let go.
“No, it’s fine. We did something similar in art class, just let me fix it.“ Michèle made a hard tug while Jean Pierre suddenly let go. They stared at the ugly, tiny replica of the Louvre on the floor, and Michèle watched as her brother knelt and gathered his project, and she scrambled to do the same.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think it looks that different anyway.” She tried to joke and got a slap on the face as a response.
“You’re such a nuisance, Michèle,” said Jean Pierre, staring at her darkly before picking up his things and standing up. He stared down at her, turning his nose up in the air and his eyes blazing with anger, before he turned away.
“I—“ She winced, feeling her split lip. It aches. But which ached more, she wonders now, her brother learning to raise his hands against her or the slap on her face and the cut on her lips? It aches. She stared at her brother, who looked back at her. “I’m sorry, Jean Pierre,” she mumbled.
He said nothing, and Michèle watched as he walked away from her.
The second hit was earlier that day when she took a punch meant for Descamps. She did not mean to take it, but her body just moved on its own, and she knew how heavy Jean Pierre’s hands were. Besides, Michéle thinks that Descamps does not receive that many hits in his life—he just looks like that kind of boy, sheltered, spoiled, and one that always gets what he wants—and he should not start receiving them now, especially from her brother, and Jean Pierre should not start giving them away now either, especially since he started to avoid getting violent around her whenever he is angry. He is trying not to be like their father, she realizes now, maybe, at least in that department. Because men will be men, and a patriarchal society will always produce patriarchal kids. She just hopes that his penchant for violence will not be as bad as their father’s.
Now she stands in front of her parents. The cheek her brother hit earlier at their school is swelling again, but this time it is from her father’s palm. The sound rings in the silence of their house. Her father’s slaps are always slower and heavier, and Michèle knows how to anticipate them, but she never learned how to avoid them. It is like her body is conditioned to take it, take it, take it. Meanwhile, Jean Pierre's hand is quicker, but it is stronger; it is compact. Its sound is the only sign it even happened, aside from the marks it will leave. And it hurts—it hurts so much more than when their father does it.
Does it empower you? She wants to ask, Does it make you feel powerful?
She looks at her brother for an answer to a question he does not even know she is demanding of him. He does not meet her eyes, as if he is still ashamed, regardless.
But that cannot be because men are proud, and so Jean Pierre must be.
“Do you realize what you just did? What you just caused?!”
I ruined my brother’s education, his future, and his prospects. Slap me more, and maybe I can add another few. Michèle thinks petulantly because she knows that if she even mouths the words and tries them on her tongue, she will be more than slapped, and she has had enough beating today. Thank you very much.
“I knew it was wrong,” her mother adds helpfully. It was wrong for any girl to go to school.
But I didn’t do anything, Michèle bites her tongue to keep the words in. “It’s not my fault!” But the new wave of words is out of her lips before she can stop them from crawling out of her mouth. It is true, it is neither her fault nor any girl’s fault, for that matter, why would she be blamed for it? Why should the girls be held accountable for something they did not do? She did not tell Descamps to pour a bucket of water over her; she did not tell her brother to punch the eye out of Descamps; she did not tell her mother to go marry the son of the butcher, be the butcher’s wife, and have a butcher’s daughter either!
She glares at her mother and father, and at Jean Pierre too, while she is at it, because his actions are his, and he should learn to take credit for the bad things he does, not only the amazing and applause-worthy ones that their parents like to brag about. But she is a mere child, a daughter, which is even less, and she immediately closes her eyes and waits for another blow when she realizes her mistake. Because she might fight and talk back a lot, but she still lives under their roof, under their rules, and under their thumb. She is under them. Michèle opens her eyes when she does not feel anything and sees Jean Pierre standing over her.
He is looking at their parents with a grim expression. “I will handle this,” her brother tells them.
Great, Michéle thinks—a third slap from Jean Pierre, the second one today. What a day!
“Make sure she learns her place.” Her father spits out as he looks at her in disdain, and her mother looks at her like she always does, like she is a disappointment instead of her daughter. Her mother looks at her like she is one of the meats at the butcher shop like she is weighing whether she is already going bad and needs to be disposed of or if someone is going to be desperate enough to take her. Michèle wonders if they will give her away for free, and even with freebies, maybe they will even pay someone to take her.
Michèle shuffles along with her brother, saying nothing to their parents as they go. She does not want another slap to go.