Voice Over (25 page)

 

 

She has sat down on the ground. Her heart is threatening to pop through her chest. Everything is turmoil inside her. From emotion, exhaustion, anger, disgust. It feels as if her hair is standing on end, her body is a solid mass, racked by shudderings that keep changing its shape. She wishes she had the power to turn back the clock, to start again. Barely half an hour, a mere half-hour and she would have been all right. Where is he now? If he had stayed here, he would have waited in front of customs to tell her they weren't leaving any more. The fact that he's not here means he took the train. And on that train he is brooding over his resentment, while she has no way of explaining to him what really happened. He must think she changed her mind and missed the train on purpose, out of cowardice. That thought is more than she can bear; because he's gone, she has to leave and find him. She struggles to her feet. She heads over to the Eurostar counters. She'll take the next train. With a bit of luck, he'll still have enough confidence in her to guess what happened and wait at the other end. She manages to get a seat on the 10:00 am Eurostar. At a fast food stand, she has a coffee and in quick succession wolfs down two warm pains au chocolat shining with grease. She is so exhausted she can hardly think ahead. Now and then a recurrent, fleeting image, always the same one, flashes through her mind, her mad dash, her feet pounding on the concrete, step after step. Most of the time, though, all the while keeping an eye on the clock, she distractedly observes two
pigeons circling around each other, small automatons oscillating under the weight of their heads and tails.

After the French customs officer there is a British customs officer, a stiff and expressionless woman who compares her identity card photo against the living duplicate it represents. He came through this gate earlier, and the official probably looked at him in the same way, with that air of professional detachment. She could describe him to her and be assured that he was here before. Excuse me, I'm looking for someone, I was wondering if you saw him pass through, he took the nine o'clock train. The customs woman slowly lifts her eyes to meet hers and frowns, visibly surprised that the subject under examination possesses the power of speech. He's tall, or at least taller than she is, a bit taller, well that's not to say that she's very tall, she's average, he's got brown hair too, not very dark but not very light either, the kind of brown that people with brownish brown hair have, his eyes match his hair, a little greener, not that he has any green in his hair but there's something luminous about his eyes, which she associates with a hazelnut brownish sort of green, a good-looking guy basically, though perhaps not in the strictest sense of the word, it's more that he's to her liking, it's hard to explain what she likes, anyway he can't be too bad-looking, on account of Ange, who wouldn't like a man whose looks didn't go well with hers, he often wears a suit, but probably not today, since he's not on a business trip, although yes, he's meant to be on a business trip so he's bound to be wearing one to look the part or perhaps he slipped it into his bag to feel more comfortable, but on that point she can't say for certain. Several syllables come out of the customs officer's mouth, coagulate into a mass of sounds that approximates a real but
incomprehensible sentence. Eventually the official raises her eyes in exasperation. English. English, oh yes she'd forgotten, the English speak English, that's only logical. She knows a few basic words of English. Let's see, some polite phrases, the numbers up to ten, how to say her name, how to say I don't understand. He must speak the language, that's what matters, he'll translate. The customs official motions for her to step aside and make way for the people behind. She joins a group of passengers moving forwards with determination then waits with them in front of a glass wall through which railway tracks and empty platforms can be seen.

Where is he? Right now, still on the train, if he has taken the train, he has taken the train. Where else would he be if not? He would never have gone home without letting her know first, he wouldn't be nasty enough to punish her like that for being late. Of course, he could have waited for her so they could have taken the next train together. But he must have thought they might have trouble getting two new seats or that changing the tickets would cost too much. He must have hesitated then decided not to change the plan, thinking she would have the presence of mind to do the same.

The doors open, the travellers surge forward, the platform fills with a chaotic flow of humanity, the train is taken by storm. She is shoved along right up to the steps of her carriage. Pushed by a bulging stomach, she narrowly misses getting smacked in the forehead by the bony elbow of the grandmother in front of her. She has looked at them often, on café terraces, surrounded by their suitcases and their laughter, under the departure boards, heads tilted back, standing in line, their mouths half-open, by the platform entrances, being met, embraced, surprised, kissed,
tears streaming down their cheeks, by the ticket machines, puzzled, conscientious, examining the front and back of their tickets again and again, and she had thought them so happy, so serene, so charming. And now to her great disappointment they are behaving like vulgar métro passengers instead of appreciating how lucky they are to be setting off in a straight line and not travelling round in circles. And even if he's not by her side, even if she's starting to get worried, a wave of joyous excitement washes over her as she steps into the carriage. She wants to talk to them, to shower them with smiles, but they're all busy attending to their suitcases and their tickets. Everyone is blithely bumping into everyone else.

Modern is the word that comes to her as she surveys the interior of the carriage. The floor and windows are clean, the seats comfortable, the lighting low, the colors match. It feels as if she has shrunk and stepped into a model. Her seat is next to the window. Perfect for watching the landscape rush by. She stows the sports bag on the overhead luggage rack, imitating a young woman she has seen doing the same at the far end of the carriage. She decides to keep her handbag on her lap. A man has put a briefcase under the seat next to hers, has sat down, and without giving her a glance or exchanging a word has opened a thick book. The Best Marketing and Communication Techniques. Several people hurry by on the other side of the window. She wonders why there are no seatbelts on trains. A sensuous voice she doesn't recognize announces that they are leaving. The platform glides slowly backwards.

Grey houses, shut windows covered by whitish curtains, long electric wires, the bare, black trunks of trees that seem to have been planted haphazardly to make it look as if they were spared
when the city was built. A female voice announces the existence of a bar at the center of the train and lists a whole range of sandwiches and refreshments. She is hungry but doesn't want to disturb her neighbour, who is engrossed in his reading. If he leaves his seat to go to the toilet, she'll take the opportunity then. Outside, the woods and the walls in the foreground are flowing by too fast for her to see them. Stretched between barely perceived poles, supple and sinewy telephone wires attract and repel one another. She has to look into the depths of the landscape to see the things she wants to see, for them not to disappear at each moment. She likes the gentle, barely perceptible motion of the carriage. He too is on a train, miles ahead of her, but on the same track, bound in the same direction. Her eyes close, she presses her handbag against her body. She is on a train, she is going away somewhere, he is at the end of the line, waiting for her.

 

 

A feeling that something has touched her. While opening his briefcase, the man next to her has jogged her with his elbow. She is awake now. He has stood up and, swaying back and forth, has walked down the aisle to the far end of the carriage. To her relief, she discovers that her handbag is still on her lap. On the other side of the windows, huddled rows of brick houses are slipping along, accompanied by murmurs and sighs, the zipping of zips, the rustling of pages and plastic bags. The people outside are as invisible here as they were on the outskirts of Paris. London would therefore be nothing but a single long row of identical houses, all of them deserted. Her mouth is dry, her body is as stiff as the seat she has slept in. The voice from the loudspeaker announces their arrival at Waterloo station. She
remembers now that the same voice spoke while she was asleep. She hadn't managed to open her eyes then, to regain consciousness and understand what it was saying. Without her noticing, the train went under the sea, travelling through a dark tube to avoid the water by plunging below it. An under-channel crossing. She thought it was going to be a unique experience but, to her great disappointment, she hasn't felt a thing. Back when the tunnel was being built, she had wondered if it would be possible to see anything through the walls, algae, fish, one of those marine creatures that live deep below the surface. Later, she'd been sorry to find out that the tunnel didn't pass through the sea but under it, through dense, blinding, solid, reassuring earth, the same earth in which it is customary to put the dead.

He is waiting for her now, somewhere inside the station. He probably walked around for a while to stretch his legs, then sat down somewhere in a café where he can watch the fresh arrivals. Very soon, they'll be together again. She can't imagine anything else.

The jolt of the brake has sent the passengers tipping forwards. She retrieves the sports bag, inserts herself into the Indian file shuffling its way off the train and falls in step with the passengers trotting along at different speeds in the same direction. After the platform come level corridors, followed by an inclined walkway leading to the customs booths. Her country is a member of the European Union; she is in London, hundreds of miles from home, to meet someone who is her only reason for being here. She doesn't know what she'll be doing in the hours ahead, any more than what she'll be doing in the days ahead. She gives no thought to what she has done before this, to the chain of events that has led her to this place. Her two feet
are on the ground, at a precise point on the globe, but until she crosses the London border, she will still be in a parallel dimension, in the timeless space of the journey. She walks past the booths, attracting no attention, free. She is on the other side now. The other side of the sea, the other side of a symbolic border, the other side of herself perhaps. She walks down a wide corridor, passes through doors. Dozens of anonymous people are gathered there, necks craning, arms crossed. Their eyes see her, then turn, looking for someone else, until they raise their arms and rush forward, lips ready, to the elected being they've been waiting for. She feels a slight contraction in her chest, which increases the further she walks. She can't see him. Not to the right, not to the left, not on the chairs, not by the pillars. The palpitations are constant now. An escalator takes her up to the main concourse. So many people, never him. It feels as if her head has swollen, her bags have shrunk. She wanders around, retraces her steps, peers over railings, gets up on tiptoe, walks in and out of cafés, shops, hidden corners, scans, searches, turns places upside-down with her eyes. And then suddenly she stops, overwhelmed, for she knows only one thing for certain now: he is not there, he is no longer in a place where she can reach him, except inside herself, inside her body which is here, although she is alone.

She has sat down on the floor, against a wall. At the gare du Nord, she had seen them sprawled out like that in some out-of-the-way corner. They would settle down on the filthy floor amid streams of spilt liquids and pieces of crushed chewing gum, exposed to the freezing, dusty draughts, in the middle of the frenetic bustle of a crowd intoxicated by the thought of departure. They'd stretch out under the reproving stares of the busy people
to show they had no strength left, not even to go a few yards further along to find a bench or the cushioned seat of a drinks stand. She'd assumed they were homeless or broke, waiting to sneak onto a train without a ticket. Now she is in the same position, no higher than a man's knee, like a dog. An ethereal female voice starts talking above their heads. She can't follow the words but knows that the voice is announcing the next train, the time, the number, the departure or arrival platform. An English woman is sitting behind a microphone and performing the same task she does in Paris. Later on, she will leave her office and might walk past her, she with her ass glued to the floor, and glance at her briefly, wondering what that woman with a sports bag can possibly be doing there by herself. And then, all of sudden, a silhouette, a familiar gait, the fleeting certainty that. But no, her hope collapses like a botched cake and she sinks back into her hole at the sight of the atrociously unfamiliar face. And so it continues, as she lets herself fall into the trap, tortured by the thought of his presence trying to incarnate itself in one of the bodies around her, a body that is never the right one. In the end, she becomes hypnotized by the parade of passing shoes. She would like a hand to touch her on the shoulder, for it to be his, and for that to be the end of the matter. The episode would become a little story they could spend the rest of their stay looking back on with laughter. But nothing of the sort happens. No one recognizes her, and she recognizes no one. She is in an unfamiliar city, and there is no place in it for her except with him.

Trains are leaving in the other direction, their noses pointed straight at Paris. There is nothing to stop her from taking one. Her bank account would go into the red, but in three hours she'd be back at the starting gate, where her old habits would
be waiting for her. She would push open the door of her apartment and use up the last of her strength pretending nothing had happened. But going back is worse than staying put. She lacks the courage to make the trip, and when she returns, to confront the deluge of too many questions, the necessity of acting on what she discovers, whether he is in Paris or not. By staying, she will be able to pretend that their trip was not a total failure, she can give herself a small breather before being forced to swallow the truth in one gulp.