The Burglar Dance

Backdoor entrance is neat but has his limits. At one point, you need to show your face, to stand like a man, to play the game and do as everybody does: pretend. So here I am, surrounded by VIPs with no names, fancy suits and killer shoes. A guy is playing the saxophone standing on a blue bar, while a techno beat bumps the place. I sip a glass of white wine; I move slowly; I smile, mixed with strangers on the chewing dancefloor. Here people dance like I wash my dishes. Is it the restraint of decorum? I dunno, but the thrill is dead again.

Two hundred meters from there, I’m on my way to another party. This time the sentry is a thin Russian with two blank eyes hooked on his face. He asks: “ Do you have an invitation? ”, Me: “No” (with, I guess, enough pain in my look), Him: “Okay, go.” It looks like luck, but it is a clue. Some of the side troopers get lazy. They are already tired of the Cannes’ circus, and, to be true, so am I. New parties, new sounds… same profusion. Same waste. Wine, beer and champagne are free, but they run out of liquid after my arrival. I cross the crowd towards the second bar when suddenly I stumble over a black guy in a wheelchair. He’s not alone and around him seven or eight other crippled are waiting in the dim light. This is the first blast: Benda Bilili, the band from Kinshasa, is here. These guys used to live in one of the poorest areas on earth and now they’re in the most frivolous part of the world. Words would be superfluous.

The second blast is the ending of the night, where I finally crashed on a luxurious yacht (but does a yacht say anything else than luxury?). An outsider is hardly in his place here. Still, two floors, two bars, gorgeous waitress, a DJ and a chocolate fountain convert any human being. They asked me to take my shoes off before taking the footbridge. While I’m dancing in socks, Benda Bilili seems far behind. Funny how quickly we recover from sadness of the world. It is well known: until it’s not happening to you, it doesn’t really matter. A tawdry woman, trying to look younger than her fifties, says I do lion mimics when I dance. I am no lion, lady. Otherwise I’ll be chewing you all, you costly meat.