Voice Over (15 page)

The poet is no longer under the tree, and Atoki has fallen silent. He observes her for several seconds, then lowers his eyes. Whether he is lost in thought or embarrassed, she can't tell from his expression. She doesn't tell stories usually, but the words came, lured out of her by Atoki's interest. That's an odd story. Atoki's face looks serious. Perhaps she has shocked him. Or he must have remembered something painful. In his case, the word refugee says a lot. She imagines a war—young black men armed with Kalashnikovs astride military trucks, a famine—a skeletal child in the stick-thin arms of its young mother. What I don't understand is why there are people sleeping in train stations in a country as rich as yours. Atoki addresses her as if, as a French woman, she were personally responsible for this state of affairs. Yes well, it's not very logical, but she doesn't see how it will change. She has always seen people sleeping outdoors in Paris. There are many explanations for homelessness, but no one has ever managed to eliminate it. Atoki has gone back to contemplating the surface of the water, its crests now taking on a reddish tint. She doesn't reply. She doesn't like talking about that kind of thing, it never leads anywhere. She has no opinion on the matter, any more than she has a solution to the problem. On her SNCF salary, she isn't the person who is going to improve the lot of the poor. And yet she can't help feeling guilty. In the métro, after finding the homeless man dead, she had run off. She could tell Atoki about that incident as well, only she fears it will make him even less talkative. He would take her for a coward, he who must have witnessed horrors in his own country. She has pins and needles in her legs. Time for her to be off. Atoki turns his head as if he had forgotten that she was there. What is the name of the station where you work? The gare du Nord. He is only asking because,
who knows, if he ever finds himself without a place to sleep, he'll go in and listen to her. A smile, a handshake. Following one of the walkways, she heads straight back to the exit of the park.

 

 

At the third stop, two teenage girls have entered the carriage and sit down opposite her. They don't say a word and look so different that she wonders if they are together or not. The one on the right seems unable to cope with what has happened to her body, whose proportions have changed without her having any say in the matter. The girl on the left looks like one of those young models who appear in women's magazines. Her hair is long, straight and layered. Shiny lips and eye-shadow. A real Barbie, with headphones on her ears and a CD-walkman in her hand, ignoring everyone and yet attracting the stares of the male passengers around her. The news report about young American girls comes to mind. Has this adolescent ever had a man's penis in her mouth? She wonders if the girl is aware of the sexual attraction she incites. It isn't because of her make-up or haughty expression—it's her fragility, which is so badly concealed. And she realizes that at the same age, when she felt apart from the world of adults, she too must have been this walking temptation. There's a bed with a spring mattress and a piano. Before her is the pink room. She screws her eyes shut to erase the image, then opens them again. It doesn't help. The enormous, polished-wood wardrobe by the front door, the shelves stacked with perfect piles of dishcloths, towels, packets of lavender in the folds, the bed with the spring mattress, the metal bedposts she would grip as she invented storms that billowed up the ocean of carpet, the bed, the golden spheres at the end of the bedposts which became crystal balls whenever she played at being a fortune-teller, the
night table with its marble top, the lampshade with the tassels she used to braid when she was bored. She sees herself in that room at thirteen, sitting on the wicker chair practising Mozart's First Piano Sonata. She still knows the notes by heart, the rhythm and the melody, the look of the score on which stave, minims, crotchets, quavers, dots and bar lines made up a code she was proud to be able to decipher. And suddenly, it is no longer herself that she sees playing, but the teenage girl opposite her, sitting in her chair at the keyboard. She finds her so charming, so vulnerable, and all the more desirable for being unaware of her seductive power. It dawns on her that this was how she was seen even as she thought she was someone else. At the time, she didn't know. A cruel injustice, a trap of ignorance. She has clenched her hands, and she notices that her nails have left small white-rimmed indentations on her skin.

The second teenager has let out a sigh. She is wearing jeans and a huge anorak. Her thick thighs stretch the material of her trousers and the anorak hangs loosely about her torso. Her hair is tied back with an elastic band. Her prescription glasses have slipped down her nose. Her entire body, right down to her pupils, is motionless. Except for her thumbs, which are frenetically working the buttons of a miniature electronic game. She hasn't the slightest idea what is flitting across the girl's screen, but she thinks she knows what the teenager is using it to escape from.

 

 

No message. She counts two and a half days. A reasonable amount of time. She doesn't allow herself to doubt. Perhaps Ange has gagged him and locked him in a closet. Or he hasn't had a chance to free himself for the meeting he will be arranging with her. She's dying to call him. In fact, imagining it has
become a daily mental exercise: picking up the handset, hearing the dial tone, dialing the number; the rings, the click, Ange's hello, hanging up at once. The chances that he will pick up the phone are too slim. And besides, he said, I'll call you, not, call me. She'll have to be patient, that's all there is to it. Having made up her mind, she prepares herself a quick dish of pasta shells with grated Gruyère cheese and settles down with her meal in front of the television. A man in a suit and tie is being interviewed as part of a televised debate. His name is given at the bottom of the screen: Yves Métayer, Terrorism Expert and Professor at the Institute of Political Science. The man earnestly explains that we have to stop deluding ourselves, that in five or ten years we will witness an actual Third World War. Not a conflict between nation states but a full-blown religious war, Christians against Muslims! The journalist smiles into the camera. Aren't you being a bit too pessimistic? That's precisely the kind of blinkered judgement that will make this war impossible to contain, replies the professor, growing increasingly agitated. This conflict will be extremely bloody, you'll see. The journalist thanks Yves Métayer and announces a commercial break. The pasta shells have slipped from her fork; she is left open-mouthed. She doesn't watch the news very often, she hadn't known there was already talk of a Third World War. She doesn't really believe it, but if it were actually to come about, where would she be in five years' time? Here. The first target in a war is always the capital. Would she leave? She swallows a few more mouthfuls of pasta, and when she's finished, her mind is made up: she'll stay.

 

 

Walking through the station to her office, she thinks about going somewhere. With him, for the first time. She had stayed because
of him and will only go away because of him. It's no longer just a vague idea as it was in the past of wanting to leave without having the will to do so. To her surprise, she finds herself imagining the various steps necessary to organize such a trip. They would choose a place. They could talk for hours about it without growing bored, reeling off the names of unknown cities and countries until they found the right one. She'd take care of the tickets. She wouldn't buy them at a ticket window, but from one of those automatic dispensers that remind her of the casino slot machines she has always dreamt of using. She would choose the time of departure, very early in the morning, at an hour when Paris was still rousing itself from sleep. Out of bed, and straight to the station, nothing to interfere with the anticipation of departure. Time of return, late evening, so as to arrive in the dark, coming back to a city already half asleep, to seek refuge at home, with memories of the trip as bed companions. She would take the seat by the window; first she would ask him what he wanted. She would check the information printed on the thick paper and carefully put the tickets away unfolded. They would arrange to meet at the far end of the platform. She would be carrying an overnight bag with two or three changes of clothes. Toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, the minimum. Hand in hand, they would walk the length of the purring train until they reached their carriage. Their carriage. They would sit down. She would inspect everything: the materials of the seats, the luggage racks, the windows. She would take a good deep breath of compartment air. And inside that train, with him by her side, she would feel safe, ready to circumnavigate the globe without ever stopping.
He called her on Wednesday at 6:27 pm. She had just glanced at the kitchen clock. He arranged to meet her the next day at 6.30, in front of city hall. Ange had a dance class. For the next twenty-four hours, she accomplished everything she did with incredible ease. The thought of getting together is a kind of balancing pole. Her body feels the effects: she holds herself straighter, is no longer tired. It's as if she has been chosen. She is no longer adapting herself to life. Life suddenly seems to be adapting itself to her.

 

 

She doesn't sit down on the stone benches for fear that he might not see her. She adjusts her hair and tries to act as naturally as she can. Her head jerks round intermittently, as though she keeps feeling that he is watching her, as though he were continually stepping out from some unsuspected corner. She would like to see him so she could pretend not to have seen him. For a moment, she is distracted by the tumultuous stream of pedestrians on the square, wind-up figurines marching in a precise direction, but whose straight-line trajectories seem random. A collision has just been narrowly avoided; barely glancing up, the man and woman continue on their way. The sound of their footsteps is lost amid the din of engines and car horns. A voice rises above the commotion. He is there, behind her, scarcely a metre away. She walks over the moment she recognizes him; she doesn't dare look him in the eyes. She sees the sides of his jacket flutter. He has just left work. She doesn't move, leaving him to take the initiative. She feels the coolness of his lips on both her cheeks. He suggests they go for a walk.

 

 

Until the Île Saint-Louis, not a word is spoken. She'd like to take advantage of this silence but can't. Everything is mixed up in
her. She thinks she has to talk. To justify their unusual presence in this place, at this hour of the day, the fact that they are together for the first time. To prove to him that he wasn't wrong to invite her. To keep him there, give him reasons to stay. Because she is worried that he could change his mind at any second and walk off having realized his mistake. She has never been very talkative, but right now her whole brain is refusing to cooperate. It feels as if she is playing Scrabble with herself. Bits of words, the beginnings of phrases form in her head, but she can't manage to string them together. Her only consolation is to think that perhaps a similar pandemonium is whirling inside him. She doesn't dare look at him to check. And then, as they turn a street corner, he places a hand on her back. A brief caress, as if to reassure her, as if he had sensed her panic. The contact calms her fears. She knows only one thing now: she is walking by his side.

They have sat down on the banks of the Seine, by the Pont Marie. Not the side where the students show up in the afternoons and where people come to smoke and have fun on summer nights. But the other side, which is quieter. They sit close to each other. She lets her legs dangle over the water, her eyes wandering randomly over the golden buildings in front of her. He sits cross-legged; stealing glances at her out of the corner of his eye. This goes on for an indeterminate length of time. Then he says, how are things? His voice sounds new, as if he had never used this voice before. But the ensuing silence worries her slightly. A giant sightseeing boat is advancing along the river; a mass of tiny tourists are waving their hands. The boat-load, drowning under the didactic onslaught of a nasal voice, holds their attention for a moment before getting sucked into
the shadow of the bridge. She leaves her eyes trained on the exact spot where the boat has vanished; he keeps his eyes on her. Then he asks. What are you thinking about? The passage of the boat has given her a little time. She shrugs her shoulders. Nothing. She doesn't know. About so many things that she doesn't say. I've never seen you look so pretty.

She then has the certainty, the troubling, flattering certainty, that he is about to kiss her. She is dying to let him. Hasn't she imagined it dozens of times, this kiss that is in no way accidental? And yet something tightens inside her. She is on the edge of a cliff and can't go any further. After this kiss, there will be no turning back, she will no longer be able to love him in her own little corner without triggering strange defence mechanisms over which she has no control. She has looked forward to this scene for so long, has wanted it more than anything else. But now she puts off doing what she has yearned for all these months. His wanting to kiss her turns into a threat, and his desire feels like a weapon that could only wound her. A frightening reflex that she is powerless to stop. She feels ridiculous, at a loss. The spell is broken. Taking hold of her hand, he gives it a squeeze; she squeezes his back. She wishes she could stay like that, but she can't stop herself from erecting a barrier of words between them. We should be going. Another tourist boat is passing along the river, in the wake of the one before it. At first glance, its passengers look the same as the ones before.

 

 

They walk back over the Pont Marie. He must be telling himself that he made a mistake, that her behaving like a jumpy teenager doesn't make any sense. He must not understand what she wants from him any more and must be thinking about
Ange. He'll be able to tell her the truth: nothing happened, I held her hand, she wasn't feeling well, you know, she tends to be fairly unpredictable. And yet the story about the prostitute had made an impression on him. For the first time, he had realized that she wasn't the bland woman he had taken her to be. In front of city hall, he must have watched her for a few minutes before calling her name. Her hidden, darting looks, her hesitations, her air of being present and yet absent, as if her body were translucent. People find it annoying, she knows that. And yet he had seemed to put up with it, at least until now. He can't ever have met anyone like her, surely that is what attracts him. In her awkwardness and abrupt way of asserting herself, he must recognize something of himself. And afterwards? How could he deal with her spontaneous reactions? How can he even consider getting involved with her? And risk upsetting a life which, when all is said and done, must suit him just fine. Keep Ange at a distance, risk hurting her or living with a guilty conscience. And all that for a woman who recoils before he has even offered her his lips. If kissing is already such a trial, no wonder he loses heart and doesn't want to imagine anything further between them! I'll walk you back. He spoke in a flat voice. An immense traffic jam has brought the Rue de Rivoli to a halt.