Voice Over (6 page)

 

 

For a long while she continues holding the phone, half out of the sheets, her head back on the pillow. One by one, she connects the images that have lingered behind her eyes, the specters of distant things. A dreamlike association that she can nevertheless control. The bit of excess skin on her grandmother's neck which she would push at with her finger, intrigued, whenever the old lady took her in her arms; the two straps and the metal buckles of her enormous satchel which, once she shrugged it off, would leave her feeling as light as a feather; the unease she felt in the damp corridors she had to walk down in order to get to the cellar; her frenzied, heart-clenched dance behind the closed door of her room on the afternoon she saw that her panties were stained with an unfamiliar blood; the igloo she started but never finished because the temperature climbed too fast; the mad dash in an ambulance after she cut her hand open while slicing the Gruyère; the steep climb up the stairs to get to her lesson with Mademoiselle Rousseau, who would become annoyed whenever she crossed her legs while playing the piano; the hours of detention spent gazing out hypnotically at the magnificently empty school playground; the filaments of the climbing rope that would work themselves into her palms while her irate gym teacher yelled at her to get her ass moving; the
ridiculous slippers she'd kept on by mistake to go to high school; the comment at the bottom of her report card, year after year the same: inattentive, could do better; the mighty slap she'd received from big Caro in a corner of the playground; the exquisite fur of the neighbour's cat as it rubbed itself against her legs every afternoon when she came home from school. The pink room in her grandparents' house. She immediately shuts off the projector in her mind and rubs her hands over her face. The sun has sunk down behind the façade of a building; she shivers.

The more use we make of our memories, the more they turn into fables, which we keep turning over in our minds so as to not forget who we are, their moral serving as our solace or our torture. But let us continue.

11:30 am: she still has some time. She walks up the street towards the market. Between the two rows of parallel stalls, the crowd moves slowly. Shoulders twist right and left, boring a path through the throng. The market-gardeners, with their ruddy, florid complexions, plunge sturdy fingers darkened with vegetable dust into the mounds of produce. In a booming voice, they call out the prices. With rapid, precise gestures, they juggle the colorful, organic forms with the tarnished weights of their scales, the tiny coins and notes, which they lob into a small box set prominently in the midst of their wares. In an open-sided van, a refrigerated Punch and Judy show, a woman in a white apron, her fingers sheathed in plastic, is delicately removing from her display, as if they were precious stones, small round goat's cheeses, wedges of creamy Brie or rich Comté, fresh eggs, slabs of butter sliced off with cheese wire. She wraps each customer's order in wax paper. Standing amidst buckets of floating flowers, a man and a woman, their index fingers
streaked with cuts from garden shears, are picking out delicately-flowered stems to make a harmonious bouquet, which will then be wrapped in cellophane and showy ribbons and conveyed upside-down to a mother or wife. For her, they are the last remaining survivors. People who still know the earth's moods, who know that carrots don't grow on trees, that cheese doesn't come ready-made from the udders of cows. She loves the resistance and the solidity, the tenacity of these visitors from another world, a world where they don't need to pile into underground train cars, to breathe in exhaust fumes, or to pretend they don't hear the amorous panting of their neighbors coming through the wall.

She has spotted a box of raspberries. She slips her way between the bodies warily surveying the goods laid out before them. The stallholder calls her my pretty one and hands her the box wrapped up in brown paper. She plunges her hand inside the bag, eager for the soft, sweet fruit. She gobbles the raspberries down one after the other in rapid succession, leaving drops of pink juice on her fingers. She walks down several streets, scanning the façades for signs of human presence, before being sucked into the warm sickly breath of a métro entrance. Just as she is going through the turnstile, she feels a body insert itself against her back so as to pass through the two metal bars at the same time. She is instantly thrust to the other side and doesn't get a chance to see the face of the man striding off down one of the long side tunnels. For a few seconds she is left stunned by this contact, as brief as it was powerful. She turns instinctively down a corridor lined with advertising posters, which she scans with a sideways glance without slowing her pace. Just then, a name on one of them catches her eye. She knows that name, knows it
because it's hers. She stops, rereads the first and last name buried in among a list of other names which mean nothing to her. Those are her names, all right. A group of travellers jostles past her, annoyed at finding a stationary body planted there. The poster is for a play that is opening the following week. The names of the lead actors are printed in thick white letters at the top of the bill. Also listed are the producers and the technicians who have worked on the show. Red lettering has been reserved for the box office phone number. She rummages in her bag. She takes out a lidless black ballpoint and uses it to scribble down the number on the raspberry-juice-stained brown paper.

The platform seems rather empty. Maybe the group that overtook her in the corridor just now, which seemed to consist of many people at the time, have found unlikely hiding places along the narrow concrete strip which is only long enough for four minimalist benches. Or else they have gone on their way, as a dense frantic mob through secret passageways of the Parisian transport network. Her footsteps ring out under the tiled vault. Up ahead of her, a small crowd has gathered and is silently staring down at something on the ground. She moves closer. At first she thinks she's looking at a large, bulging canvas sack. But the sack has shoes and hands pressed together under a creased, grimy face. For a moment, she does what the others are doing: she observes the man lying hunched on the ground. There is a barely dried bloodstain on his temple. She shoots an alarmed glance at the people around her, but for all their signs of agitation, they remain engrossed in their detailed scrutiny of the man. They seem fascinated, mesmerised by the spectacle of the totally lifeless body, which, deep down, they find repellent. The man's immobility strikes her as more and more suspect. She
reaches out a cautious hand in the direction of his shoulder. The travellers take several steps back, their eyes swivel by several degrees. The voice of one onlooker comes straight at her. Do you know him? Asked as if it were a warning, the question almost causes her to have doubts. Quick, mustn't get distracted by the reproachful tone. (The film would be a Franco-American co-production. It would be the scene in which everything takes a sudden turn for the worse: the young heroine is discovered next to the body, which she has touched—it can't be said enough, when you find a dead body, keep your mitts off. A passer-by raises the alarm, the police find out that she and the dead man had been lovers; to cut a long story short, the guilty party—there is always a guilty party—is her.) What difference does that make? She can't see what difference that makes. And says so to the young nosey-parker, who proceeds to chew his lip, either because for him it does make a difference, obviously it does, someone you know and a complete stranger can hardly be the same thing, how can you say otherwise, or else because it doesn't make any difference and it is he, who arrived on the scene before her, who should have reached out to touch the man's shoulder, just as she is doing now. She brings her fingers down on the almost adhesive surface of the coat. Tentatively, as if the mocking head of a clown might suddenly rear up at her, frightening in its gargantuan laughter. She presses through the layers of clothing to touch him, a piece of skin, muscle, bone, so that he, in turn, can feel someone there by his side. After maintaining the pressure for a few seconds, she draws back her hand. The body is not moving. As if she has just performed an act of exemplary courage, the crowd around her begin talking again. (New script: the American side of the co-production is
now in charge; no way can they leave the ending as it is. The heroine finds the body just in time for the emergency services to get to the scene and for the man—who through a series of clever flashbacks, we discover was her lover—to escape death.) Someone asks if he's moving, someone asks what's the matter with him, someone asks . . . A shiver passes in a wave up through her scalp. Pursing her lips and ignoring the questioning stares, she manages to get to her feet and pushes through the circle of onlookers. She strides back off the way she came. She meets no resistance; the corridors are empty. Passing by the poster, she is tempted to check if her name is still printed on its glossy surface. She goes all the way back up to the ticket windows, where there is no line. Inside two men in khaki-green outfits bearing the RATP logo are in plenary session. The window is transparent, as transparent as a clean window should be, but the men appear not to see her behind it. Bringing her mouth closer, she says in a loud voice that there is a man down there who is not well; they ought to send someone along. Her words smash into the glass partition, dribbling down it in long, invisible streaks. Inside the ticket office, the two human puppets continue to hold forth, voluble specimens of a species soon to be extinct. She is not in the métro but in a museum, where, as everyone knows, it would be ridiculous to talk to any of the stuffed creatures in the display cases. She gives three short raps; the two heads swivel. One head, wearing the expression of a cashier on a bad day, leans down to the opening at the base of the window. There's a man on the platform in terrible shape; can someone go and help him? Between the time it takes for her to see that he has understood and for him to start talking, she's gone. The RATP employee knows, he'll do what's necessary, she's told him, he
doesn't need her now. And so she flees, because she finds it all very upsetting—not the man slowly expiring in his dirt and misery, but the living ones insensitive to the urgency of death.

 

 

She walks aimlessly along, leaving the market behind her. She could cry if she wasn't worried that sobbing would slow her down. Something is happening back there; she ought to have stayed on as a witness. She walks along, no longer seeing the pavement, the buildings, the cars, the passers-by, the mopeds. No matter the city, no matter the age, there are transitional moments when a person exists by default, by pure reflex. It ought then to be possible to fall asleep on the spot, to let that moment of floating pass, and to launch oneself into orbit around everyday life. The street runs into a small, three-sided public garden. She pushes through the metal gate. There are three marble benches. A fishbowl filled with water has been placed on the end of each one, a goldfish swims inside. No one around. The gravel crunches underfoot. The fish revolve at varying speeds, at times bouncing off a translucent obstacle and, in a fit of pique, shooting back the other way. From above, they seem very slender; from the side, bloated, almost obese. She looks around for who could have set the three fishbowls down in this unusual spot, but she seems to be the only person there. Tugging up her sleeve, she plunges her fingers into the large bubble of water. The fish wriggles away, working its fins to avoid the hand that has just burst in on its world. She feels like catching the delicate slippery body, hauling it out of the water and contemplating the mouth opening and closing in the suffocating air. Once, at the seaside, she'd observed a fish that had been thrown down on the shingle after being caught. A terrible,
fascinating sight. Blood was trickling from its gills; now and then its body would wriggle. She'd crouched down and with her finger had given the animal's scales a timid caress. She had asked if it couldn't be put back in the water. The fisherman had laughed at her. It's just a fish, they're made to be eaten.

Someone is calling out to her. Just what does she think she's doing? She pulls her fingers out of the fishbowl at once. A woman, who must have been lying in wait behind a bush, is striding towards her. Addressing her as though she were a prize idiot. It's an in-sta-lla-tion, not a finger-bowl, looking is fine, but no touching, do you understand? Her hair in dreads, an orange band around her forehead, a ring in her nose, the woman is about to knock her down. Given a sword, she'd have pulled it out already in order to slice her into little pieces. Your installation is really great. The anger drops from the woman's face. Artists live at the mercy of compliments, which is why she doesn't understand them very well. Don't worry, I'm going now. Actually, the artist would be happy for her to stay and share a few more favorable impressions of her work, maybe even ask her questions about where she gets her inspiration. She'd be happy now to give her permission to dip her fingers in, let her art become interactive. Accessible to ordinary folk like her, isn't that the criterion all creators must live by? She has heard what the artist is saying but has no real opinion on the matter.

 

 

Rue de Buci. Large signs up on all the shop fronts: Everything Must Go, Clearance Sale, Up to 50% Off. Enticing phrases to coax you inside. She pauses outside Vanilla Girls. Chocolate, strawberry and raspberry are also available. All the flavors you could wish for, gentlemen. To be consumed without moderation,
but must be kept refrigerated. She goes inside. Five young women work their way along the hangers like automatic sorting machines, taking out an occasional garment to check for defects in the manufacture. Each displays remarkable powers of concentration: the fruit of years of practice begun in early adolescence. A female voice is singing in English. She catches the word love and the word . . . love. The sales assistant is wheeling packs of clothes from one side of the store to the other, taking them around for some fresh air. She spots a dress for 49 euros. Not really her style, but it could cheer her up to see herself looking different, not to recognize herself in the mirror. Can she try it on? she asks the assistant, who brushes by her at top speed and, without stopping, points to the rear of the shop. The garments in critical shape have to be moved urgently for fear they will suffer irreversible decay. In a corner of the shop, a curtain hangs from a semi-circular rail. The curtain is narrow. Through the space between the fabric and the wall, she can see large sections of the shop. People can see her. She ought not to give a damn, since everyone here is of the same sex. No need to be shy, you're all built the same, her gym mistress would shout in the changing rooms at school. Except that she had breasts, whereas the others still had only the insignificant volcanic burgeonings of nipple. She undresses, keeping her movements to a minimum in order to stay hidden. She gets her head and arms in, but once the dress is on, she can't do up the zip at the back. The makeshift fitting room doesn't have a mirror. She steps out, with her back exposed and the dress gaping at the front, to get at least some idea of how she looks. A split second later the salesgirl is upon her, ramming up the zip with an iron hand. She barely has time to draw a breath: her chest will never be the same shape again,
that's certain. She senses that the other women in the shop are peering at her. The salesgirl is recuperating by the till. It's very nice, don't tell me you don't like it. She doesn't like it, but she doesn't say so. She already knew that pink doesn't suit her. Besides, it's a color she detests. And the length is wrong. As for her breasts, squashed at the front, plumped up at the top, they resemble nothing so much as a fine pair of soufflés still in their baking tin. The ruse hasn't paid off. Even dressed like that, she still looks the same, only worse. Forty-nine euros, it's a bargain, the shop-girl calls out, before flying to the rescue of other endangered garments. Get back behind the curtain now that she's gone. She flaps her elbows, trying to catch hold of the zip. No way is she going out there again. After twisting herself into four or five different positions, release. She hurriedly gets back into her clothes and abandons the dress. She throws a quick glance outside. The shop-girl is standing guard a few yards from the shop entrance. She makes a run for it, ducking at the first display stand she comes to and finds her way, hidden by a mound of heaped-up clothing, to the exit.