Voice Over (20 page)

 

 

It's night, and she is lying in bed. The city is playing softly in the background. The curtains are open, and light from her neighbors pours through the window into the room. She has always enjoyed that moment of calm when the body loosens its grip. Nothing more is asked of it. As a teenager it was at such moments, waiting for sleep to overcome her, that she would invent the perfect lover. She always met him on a beach, it was always a late afternoon in summer. She found him attractive. She never gave him any specific physical traits, but she would choose his gestures, always the same. The imaginary scene would reach its height at the moment he kissed her. She had never kissed a boy back then and she was curious to discover what kissing with her tongue would feel like. She could imagine nothing better than kissing the boy she called, for lack of originality, her Prince Charming. She moves her arm over the portion of empty sheet next to her. His body would be there; a mass of tender warmth would envelop her completely, the smell of another person distinct from her own but so familiar she would barely notice the difference. She would have the right to caress that body, to rub her skin against his, and to repeat the
same ritual every evening. She would never tire of it. She has dreamed of this repetition with him, the assurance that he would be there the following night.

 

 

Years later, when she thinks about him again, she will recall one meeting in particular. They had met at the usual place. She had arrived, her heart thumping, impatient to be with him. Once inside the café, she had lost all notion of time. There was only a great bath of liquid, and she was floating in it, borne away by amnesia and euphoria. That day, after they had religiously drunk their espressos and swapped details about the minor events that had disturbed their routines since they last met, he had announced that he wanted to go somewhere with her. Right now? Right now. He had a little time that day. He had led her to the nearest métro station. On the train, they had sat next to each other on the pull-down seats; he had slipped his hand onto her back, under the layers of fabric that covered her body, touching her bare skin. They didn't talk. They smiled whenever they turned their heads at the same time to look at each other. It was then that she had imagined a life together for the first time. They were on that métro because they were going home, as they did every evening. Home was a small apartment somewhere in Paris, on the top floor. From the living-room windows, there was a view of the grey rooftops and the chimneys with their pointed hats. They were going home, and that familiar journey was becoming the symbol of a shared life, a life that struck her as more ideal than she had imagined for herself up till then. She was on her way back to the apartment they had chosen together; she could not ask for more.

They had got out at the Luxembourg station. Behind the railings
of the park, people on metal chairs were eating, reading, breathing in the sunshine, their eyes closed. They were relaxed and unthreatening; they could be addressed without fear of being stared at with alarm. The white statues struck her as a mistake, a superfluous sophistication. He had taken her hand. They had walked along the paths in silence, with the serene slowness of those who have nowhere to go. They no longer felt anything in particular, they felt everything. She remembered thinking that the moment should never end. That only the company of this man could make things bearable. The world seemed to be in place, in line with what she would have chosen if she had been given the choice. At the same time, nothing mattered any more. When they too sat down on the metal chairs, not far from the chess players, he had rested his head on her shoulder. In her memory, they had stayed in that position for ever.

 

 

During the night, it seems that someone has blocked up her ears with cotton wool. On waking up, she finds it hard to breathe; she takes a stab at blowing her nose, but it's as dry as cement in there. Similarly, the back of her throat appears to have hardened, to be covered with a kind of varnish. Her forehead is hot, she has trouble moving her eyes in their sockets. The world around her, by contrast, has turned soft. The floor is made from a material that looks like wood and has the consistency of rubber. The corners of the walls are no longer perfectly straight but keep changing according to the shifts in temperature. When she reaches out to take hold of an object, the object is no longer perfectly still. Its contours vibrate, ready to change shape and elude her grasp. She tells herself that it will pass. She drinks a little tea, but the idea of a simple slice of bread and butter makes her
sick to her stomach. Struggling to keep her balance, she gets dressed and gathers up her things. But once she starts walking down the stairs, she has to hold on to the banister: she finds it difficult to judge the irregular, shifting distance between the steps, as if she were inching along the pleats of a giant accordion. Outside, the light crashes down on her and sears her eyes. The ride to work on the metro feels utterly impossible. She is capable of doing just one thing now, lying down. She goes back up the stairs and flops onto the couch. Just then, the telephone rings. The handset is heavier than usual. She doesn't have enough saliva to moisten her mouth. He asks her if she's ill. I don't know. At that moment she is someone else whom she suddenly sees standing next to her with the telephone in her hand; an older, more assured, more sensual woman, who leads an exciting life, that glimmers in the very timbre of the voice. You don't know? Her head is spinning, she might have a fever, it's probably not too serious. He wants to know if she's eaten anything. Some tea. He exhales into the phone. I feel quite sick, I'm not sure I can go to the station. But she immediately regrets what she has said, realizing that he must have phoned to set up a meeting. She doesn't have time to correct herself before he is already saying, in that case it would be better if she stayed at home, they can see each other another time. Something contracts inside her. She wishes she could go back, to be smart enough to lie and say that she feels perfectly well. It's no good telling herself there will be next times; she has the impression that she's being punished for no reason. She would like to ask him why; because you're ill, he would answer. Little black flies are floating on the surface of the wall opposite her. She doesn't have the strength to defend herself. It's better for you; promise
me you'll go see a doctor some time this afternoon. She agrees, fearing that a refusal would encourage him to push back their next meeting still further. Look after yourself, he says, a big kiss, I'll call you later. At that instant, she is overcome by an enormous desire to confess how terribly she misses him, but he has already hung up. She would like the sofa, the chair, the table, something in the room to start talking to her and put her mind at rest.

 

 

She wakes up and understands that she has slept. Early afternoon, the sun is no longer shining directly into the windows of her apartment. She feels rested, but her respiratory passages are still blocked, her muscles ache. To her horror she realizes that she has forgotten to call the office. She dials the number; at the other end of the line, the phone on her boss' desk starts to ring. She remembers the title sequence of a film in which the viewer is taken inside a telephone wire, transformed into an electronic signal and launched at great speed towards a target he can no longer avoid: the ear of the person whose number has been dialled. An authoritative male voice asks who is speaking. Mr. Merlinter. Her boss has recognized her voice and starts saying quickly that she has to understand that just because an employee is given permission to leave early is no reason for said employee to assume the right to take every kind of liberty, he is well aware that she is not the sort to cause problems, but he trusts that she'll be able to provide him with an adequate explanation for her absence this morning. Thrown into a panic by this demand, she answers, my apartment was burgled, they took everything, I had to wait for the police. Too bad for him; if he had been nicer, she would have told him the truth. For a few
seconds she hears nothing, then Mr. Merlinter continues in a much calmer voice. Well, considering the circumstances, he understands. She hangs up, then dials a second number. A woman's voice answers mechanically, Doctor Hotaronian's office, and gives her an appointment for five o'clock that afternoon.

 

 

Three hours later, she is sitting in a wicker armchair, in a room with beige wallpaper, in front of a low table flooded with women's magazines. Hanging on one of the walls is a small notice sheathed in plastic with a list of the charges for weekday or weekend appointments for office visits and house calls. Classical music is playing softly through a tiny speaker. For the past twenty minutes she has been waiting her turn, like the four other people who were already there when she arrived and whom she greeted with a muffled hello, which was not met with much enthusiasm. First she had taken a look at the photographs in several magazines, not being able to read the articles because the lines kept blurring; she quickly grew tired of that. At present, she is fighting against her only real urge: to stretch out on the grey carpet at the other patients' feet and take a nap. To pass the time, she listens to an elegant woman with red puffy eyes on the sofa to her left blow her nose. In between two drainages, the woman massages her temples and sighs. Sitting on the floor between the woman's feet, a little girl is shaking and combing a doll with frizzy, over-blond hair. From time to time, a stout woman squeezed into a woollen coat and wedged into a wicker seat asks another stout woman squeezed into a woollen coat and wedged into a wicker seat, is everything all right, Miss? The glassy-eyed mother doesn't stir. And then, out of the blue, a
voice shouts, I've been waiting for an hour, for God's sake. It's the woman from the sofa, not addressing anyone in particular but hoping to arouse everyone's compassion. She arches her eyebrows by way of approval; the two other women pretend not to have heard. I'm sick of being here, the little girl declares loudly in her turn while her mother murmurs that it won't be long now. For a moment, nothing can be heard but the sound of traffic pierced by the shrill notes of a violin. Suddenly, the door to the room is opened by a finely decked-out brunette dressed in black, who announces a name. The younger of the two stout women climbs to her feet and helps the other to extract herself from her chair. They go out; the door shuts. No organization, the lady on the sofa pronounces after an ample sniff. Now that they're a little more alone, she considers asking the lady whether she'd mind if she stretched out on the floor. But the door has just opened. A haggard adolescent boy walks in and takes possession of one of the two wicker chairs. She thinks that he looks like a leek. Out of politeness, she tries to resist the fascination exerted by his severe acne. The woman has started blowing her nose again, and the young man has taken a comic book out of his backpack. The little girl begins to study her. And because she doesn't look away, the child gets up and comes over, brandishing the woman-shaped piece of plastic under her nose. My Barbie has a pain. She senses the mother's watchful eyes on her but doesn't know what the appropriate response would be. She's not well? Yes, she has a pain right there. And the child's finger presses the tiny chest. She could tell her that it's lucky they're at the doctor's, but the little girl seems to be expecting a slightly more intelligent response from her. Heartburn, that happens sometimes, but it will pass. The little
girl smiles. So it will pass for Mommy too? The mother has suddenly stopped blowing her nose. Come here and leave the lady alone. The door opens, mother and daughter go out after hearing their names. She is alone with the placid young leek, who is hunched over his album of brightly colored pictures. If she lay down on the soft carpet, he probably wouldn't notice, but she doesn't dare. He must be getting ready to leave his office. They could be together right now if she weren't here, waiting for an appointment that isn't going to reveal anything other than the fact that she's come down with a good old dose of flu. She tries to convince herself that he was right to cancel their date. It's true that she wouldn't have been on top form. Even so, she can't help imagining the possibility that he might unexpectedly come to her place later to see how she is. She picks up a Paris-Match with a torn front cover which now shows only the chins and chests of a man and woman side by side. The words Paradis- Depp appear in large letters. She leafs through several pages before putting down the magazine, unable to concentrate. The door opens, an elderly couple walks in, taking small, hesitant steps. The woman in black motions to her, shakes her hand before asking her to come this way.

The blinds in the overheated office are drawn; the walls are hidden by shelves crammed with files. Each one contains a record of the worries, pathologies, and sufferings of a human being. Some are slim, others far thicker, a collection of ills arranged in alphabetical order. The doctor has sat down behind her desk. She is suntanned; her black eyes express nothing in particular beyond a certain weariness. She takes a new file from a drawer and asks her to spell out her first and last name, to give her date of birth and to describe the reason for her visit.
She is not unhappy to be asked questions in this way; she experiences a sense of relief, as though she were submitting to a procedure that would allow her to square herself with the authorities. So she gives precise answers to the person in front of her, whom she imagines as a fantastical being, a kind of magician immunized against pain. Undress, I'm going to examine you. The doctor points at the examining table, which she covers with a sheet of white paper. She takes off her clothes and drapes them carefully over the back of a chair. Once naked, she tries hard to act as if she were still dressed. The doctor asks her to step onto the scales, then to sit on the table so she can listen to her heartbeat. She takes deeper breaths. The cool pressure of the stethoscope against her back makes her feel as if she is being rocked by something invisible and soothing. The doctor wraps a black band around her upper arm, which she inflates with a small pump. Next, she makes her open her mouth, shines a light on the back of her throat, has a good look inside, feels her neck, asks her to lie down, then slowly palpates her joints, armpits, breasts and belly. The pressure of these hands is so calming that she already feels half-cured. She appreciates that the doctor intently going about her job does not look her in the eyes and behaves as if she were dealing with an organism just like any other, merely checking to see if it's in good working order. Finally the verdict is pronounced, you have the flu, I'm going to prescribe a light course of treatment. The doctor returns to her desk and starts writing something that she isn't entitled to see. Have you already thought about having children? For several seconds, she isn't sure if the doctor was talking to her. No one has ever asked her that question and, just then, she doesn't have the slightest idea how to respond. It feels as if the other woman
has turned into a judge, and she is standing naked before her. Even worse, she will be given the maximum sentence if her answer is no. I don't know. Perhaps the doctor is full of good intentions: in the next room, she might be keeping a fine male specimen whom she orders to inseminate, free of charge, any female patient who so desires it. The doctor is still writing, as though she were now taking notes on her reactions. Time passes quickly, you know. The sentence rings out like a warning. She thinks back to the little girl in the waiting room and how clumsy she had felt while talking to her. To imagine the physical sensation of a body inside her own, the plump bulge on which she would proudly lay her hands . . . yes, she remembers having already tried to, at the market, because of Marion's child. But even with him, the thought of a child leaves her cold. Still, they say that once you find the man, having children comes naturally. She's the exception that proves the rule. It all seems unnatural to her. Intrusion rather than fusion. She isn't cut out for giving life, it's as simple as that. Too noble and too abnormal for her. I know about the time factor, but I don't think I'm cut out for it. The doctor has finally stopped writing and gives her an indulgent smile. I can assure you that you have everything you need. The situation is starting to get on her nerves. She came because of the flu, and now they want to sell her a baby. She might have everything that's needed, like other women, but she knows that she doesn't have the strength, the inner strength. She'd like to explain to her that it's not her fault but she feels too shaky to talk. She realizes that she is still naked. To regain her composure, she decides to get dressed. Give it some careful thought. She has had enough. Still clutching her panties, she looks the doctor straight in the eye. And what about you, do
you have children? Once again, she gives her that small, indulgent smile. No, and that's precisely why I'm mentioning it to you. And she hands over the prescription.