‘Hello, I’ve got an Air France membership card here and I’d like to know who it belongs to.’
‘Oh yes, why’s that?’
‘I found it, at work, and I just wanted to know who lost it.’
‘But all the cards have names on them.’
‘Yes, but it’s gone … rubbed off. I have the numbers, though.’
‘I’m sorry, madame, but I can’t give out any information about our customers. Please send the card to us and we’ll contact the person in question.’
‘Thank you.’
Back to square one. The dice would have to go unrolled, for the time being at least. There was a pling.
Feelingly slightly dejected, I took the lift downstairs for lunch. It wasn’t just that I was alone in my work, I was alone in everything. My son felt like a stranger, even after just a few days in the job. He was starting to look indistinct, and that upset me.
The thing that made me go on, and not lose my grip, was that my days here were numbered. I would hear the plings for three weeks, and then it would all be over. I’d be back where I normally was. What would I have gained from the experience? A fair amount of money, perhaps; memories, a bit of excitement. That was what I thought, at any rate, as I sat on the bench outside my building. It really was too hot to eat outside, but for some strange reason I felt like sweating, suffering.
An aeroplane roared past the skyscrapers and I instinctively looked up. In the wrong hands, it could be a weapon of mass destruction. Ironically enough, it was an Air France plane. Events on the far side of the globe more than a decade before had changed everything. I got to my feet. Duty called.
I decided not to do any more digging into Air France, nor into strings of numbers and letters, nor gynaecologists who happened to have the same name as my employer. I would focus on my work instead. I had a few articles to finish. They were my salvation. Not even the plings could impinge on my new-found focus. I kept a perfect check on the time and knew that I was now working overtime, only a few minutes, but I wanted to get an article sent off. As long as I didn’t leave the office or the building while everybody else was leaving, I doubted it would be a problem.
I heard a sound, one unlike all the other sounds that reached me at the top of the building. Someone was taking the lift up to the forgotten floor. What would I do if it was a security guard? The pass hanging around my neck said sales manager, I reminded myself, feeling a little safer. I put the phone to my ear. If anyone came in, I would just pretend to be talking about some sensitive subject, which was why I had come up here. I could pack away my computer in an instant. There would be no trace of me left behind. Eventually, I caught sight of someone through the blinds, and before I had time to guess who it could be, she was standing there in front of me. I put down the phone.
‘Good afternoon.’
‘Good afternoon.’
‘I was just leaving.’
The woman didn’t reply, she just pulled the big vacuum cleaner into the room and then went out into the corridor to fetch the cleaning trolley. I remembered the man had said something about a cleaner. Maybe she knew all about this game, or maybe she was completely unaware of what was going on. Maybe she, too, was a living, breathing, oblivious terrorist cell. The vacuum cleaner was horribly loud and I felt like switching it off and telling her someone down there might hear us.
I had caught myself creeping about on tiptoe for fear of being discovered. But maybe she had always cleaned up here, and the people down in Areva were used to hearing noise from the empty floor during the late afternoon. Or perhaps the sound was simply inaudible down there. It was a frightening thought. I logged out and switched off my computer.
‘Goodbye, madame.’
‘Goodbye, madame.’
She didn’t even look at me as I left the room. But then, why should she?
The man seemed to be deep in thought, leaning heavily against the doors of the metro. He was trying to make a call, but there was no signal down there. I was only a few metres away from him. His amber eyes were filled with a spark that was struggling not to go out.
I immediately started to fantasise about him. This was someone with a joie de vivre, who loved cooking and the good things in life. I based this on the fact that he was slightly overweight. But now his work had taken over and he was worried that he wouldn’t cope with the project he’d been dragged into. No, that wasn’t right. The spark wasn’t being stifled by anything work-related. He looked up at me. I lowered my eyes.
It was planned, of course, even if it looked like an impulsive gesture. The metro stopped at Saint-Paul. He stepped back from the doors as they opened. I got off, waited for other passengers to board the train and then held out the bouquet to him. He took it automatically, to stop it falling to the floor, and looked at me with a question in his eyes. The doors closed and I walked off towards the exit.
Before I took on the assignment, I’d thought I was quite a lonely person. I now realised I hadn’t been lonely at all. But I was now. I didn’t talk to anyone, and I lowered my gaze whenever anyone addressed me. I caught myself looking at the floor when the supervisor at my son’s holiday club asked if he would be going with them to the swimming pool next week. I didn’t know who I was. I had taken on a role, and one which I played well, but I was lonely all the same.
My anonymity had gone so far that I was giving away bunches of flowers to total strangers, including dead ones. By the end of the first week, Judith Goldenberg had already received several bouquets. Maybe I’d chosen her grave because it was so anonymous. Because it reminded me of myself. And also because it was one of the few graves without either fresh flowers or plastic ones. That reassured me that Judith’s relatives wouldn’t complain or be upset by my putting flowers on the grave. If she had any relatives, that was.
I had reconciled myself to my security pass, but not the flowers. I was only given roses once, but the flowers all felt spiky, hostile. They were an infringement, arriving after working hours. They became an inescapable link between the assignment and my private life.
To vary things a little, and so as not to just give them to dead people and strangers on the metro, I had once been on the verge of handing a bouquet to my ex-husband when he came to pick up my son. I managed to stop myself at the last moment. He would have taken it as a sign that I wasn’t entirely well. Otherwise, I was fairly dull company; I didn’t dare get into conversation, not even with my neighbours, for fear of revealing what I was working on. Those who knew how my past six months had been took my silence as a sign of depression. But I wasn’t depressed, just in unknown territory.
The young man smiled at me. He didn’t look like someone who worked in a florist. I wasn’t sure exactly where he would have looked right, but it wasn’t there. Actually, the florist itself looked quite out of place above the metro, next to a refuse collection area. Amidst all that concrete, the flowers of every colour and shape were dazzling. I’d thought of going to the shop sooner, but I hadn’t found the courage. I explained that I wanted to know who had arranged for the flowers to be delivered to the Areva reception desk every afternoon. The young man seemed slightly suspicious, and with every right.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked.
‘I’m just interested.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. Who are you?’
The man wasn’t really interested in my name, of course, it was a routine question, but my body reacted by making my heart race. To avoid saying anything, I held out that day’s bouquet.
‘Do you like them? I made up that one. Beautiful, eh?’ he said with a smile.
I nodded. ‘I like them all. And that’s why I want to find out who’s sending them.’
He hesitated, and it dawned on me that he thought there was a man trying to win my heart. I studied him. Part of him wanted to be the link between us, but at the same time he was afraid to reveal the customer’s name.
‘I’m sorry, madame, but I can’t help you with that. If there’s
no card with the sender’s name, then he – or she – wants to remain anonymous.’
‘Monsieur Bellivier?’
The flower seller’s face revealed nothing.
The metro carriage jolted and I could see my fellow passengers wondering why I was being so careless with my bouquet. It got crushed between other passengers and knocked about every time anyone elbowed their way out of the carriage. There were little green leaves all around me, as though I was marking my territory.
An old lady smiled at me; maybe she had once mistreated a bouquet of her own. She looked as if she knew what I was going through, at any rate. The state the flowers were in after the metro journey made them unfit even for Judith Goldenberg’s grave. One has to respect the dead.
I thrust the flowers into the cold bronze arms of Michel de Montaigne. The statue with the well-polished shoes looked pleased. I heard clapping. Some students from the Sorbonne approved of my action. I stepped away and studied the installation from a distance. Michel de Montaigne looked made for carrying a bouquet. I was free. My hands were free. I hurried home.
The door was open and there was no one at the reception desk, if you could call the little white table and chair a reception desk. I went straight through to the waiting room. There was a young woman sitting next to her boyfriend. Presumably the man who got her pregnant. I guessed she must be six or seven months gone. We said hello, as people do in a waiting room. Quietly, discreetly, but politely. They were holding hands. They were here for love. I was here because I was paranoid. They were here to assure themselves that the thing they held dearest was doing fine. I was here to see the gynaecologist because of his name.
I knew that this gynaecologist idea was a long shot, really. Like when I stood up and brandished the bouquet above my head. Both actions were an attempt to suppress my feeling of powerlessness, the idea that someone was controlling me. Making an appointment with a gynaecologist who happened to have the same name as the man I worked for was desperate. And even if the gynaecologist turned out, against all odds, to be the Monsieur Bellivier who had come into my life, would that actually mean a thing? It wouldn’t change anything other than that he’d know what my vagina looked like.
I heard voices and realised that a patient must be leaving. Sure enough, a woman around my age walked through the waiting room. She was accompanied by a slim, grey-haired man. They stopped to shake hands, just as the receptionist returned with a flustered smile. The gynaecologist, the man with the grey hair, turned around. He didn’t give me a single glance, which was disappointing, but I felt a little thrill nonetheless, because now, for the first time, I actually was waiting for Monsieur Bellivier. For the first and last time, I promised myself. Monsieur Bellivier nodded to the young couple. They stood up, and the man steered the woman ahead of him as though she was incapable of walking on her own. She seemed to appreciate the gesture. Maybe it made her feel like she was being taken care of.
A sudden cold sweat came over me and I started to feel queasy. For a while, I thought I was going to be sick, but I managed to calm myself down with the thought that I probably wouldn’t be the first person to throw up in a waiting room for pregnant women.
‘Madame.’
The receptionist was trying to attract my attention. Just as I was about to get up and go over to her austere little desk, she appeared beside me with a form.
‘Since it’s your first visit,’ she explained, and she was soon back behind her desk, filing her nails.
I started to fill in my personal details and my medical history. I gave a made-up name, address and date of birth, something I’d never done before. I could say I had left my hospital card at home, it would only cost me a few euros extra. I read through all the information to check I hadn’t made any mistakes, though it hardly mattered considering not a single letter or number was really right.
The strangest thing of all was that I chose an address only a stone’s throw from where I actually lived. There were over a thousand streets in Paris, so why choose the one that intersected my own? Maybe it was so I felt I’d almost told the truth, or maybe it was just a lack of imagination. It didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter any more. One child, I wrote, a son. I couldn’t lie about that. I didn’t know what a gynaecologist could tell by looking at a vagina. Maybe there were year rings, like you see in trees, which showed the number rather than the age of any children. What did I know? Eventually, I changed my mind, rubbed out ‘son’ and wrote ‘daughter’ instead.
I didn’t know if I should hand the form to the receptionist or Dr Bellivier, but before I had time to decide, she came over and took the form and pen from me. Time was running out. I had to be back at the office in twenty minutes. It surely wouldn’t be the end of the world if I was a bit late, so long as any emails were forwarded within a few minutes. I heard voices again. The young couple and the doctor were approaching his door. I don’t really know why I felt so nervous. Whether it was the fact that I would soon be face to face with a Monsieur Bellivier, or because I was at the doctor’s for no reason and had provided false information.
For the first time, I saw Dr Bellivier’s face. I don’t really know how I had imagined him, but he felt familiar somehow. He gestured for me to go into his room. He brought the form I had filled in with him. He hadn’t done that with the young couple, but on the other hand, it almost certainly wasn’t their first time there. My body was poised for flight. From the person I had claimed to be, from myself and this whole crazy situation I had got myself into. The doctor might be a psychopath who lured in young women by putting them at the top of a skyscraper and then calling them down to the ground to slice them open.
My queasiness intensified and I looked around for a wastepaper bin in case I really did throw up. I didn’t know if I was allowed to sit down, so I remained on my feet, staring at a picture, an anatomical chart of a pregnant woman. Not that it made me feel any less sick. My head was spinning and I heard the door close behind me.
‘Take a seat, madame.’
Why did his face seem so familiar? He sat down opposite me, not looking in my direction. He started copying the information from my form to his computer. He took his time. No sense of urgency.
‘And what gives me the honour of having you here today?’
The room, which was white, suddenly felt very dark. Could a doctor say things like that? ‘What gives me the honour of having you here today?’ Was it meant to be a way of lightening the mood?
‘I … I’d like a smear test,’ I managed to stammer.
‘Aha. When was your last one?’
‘A few years ago, I suppose.’
‘Do you have a regular gynaecologist?’
‘Yes, but I’ve just moved here, temporarily.’
He didn’t ask for the gynaecologist’s name, merely indicated with his hand that it was time for the examination chair. A small trickle of sweat ran slowly down my leg.
The results of my smear test would be sent from pillar to post around the city. If I had any cell changes, the news would never reach me. Monsieur Bellivier would find out, or in this case Dr Bellivier. It’s important to distinguish between them, after all.
The doctor said he would get in touch if the test showed up ‘anything funny’, and that the results would also be posted to my home address. But I would never see them. And he wouldn’t be able to contact me. The test results would presumably be returned to the postal service and be kept there for a while, alongside all the other falsified, misspelled or mistaken addresses.
I couldn’t get to sleep that night, so I installed myself at the kitchen table and opened the window, only to quickly close it again. It was still hotter outside than in.
The light went on across the courtyard. My neighbour with cancer started to pace his kitchen. That made me feel sick. Again. What if I had cancer, and yet there I was feeling sorry for the man opposite. Why had I chosen a smear test as my pretext for seeing the gynaecologist? Maybe I would be punished for playing games and develop t
he problems I feared. I promised to go for a smear test soon, under my own name. And I promised to go and say sorry somewhere. All to compensate for what I had done to all those poor people who really did have the disease.
The hours I spent in the kitchen were insightful and necessary. I was coping brilliantly with my assignment forwarding cryptic emails up in the skyscraper. It was my own thoughts and eccentricities that I couldn’t control. This innocent assignment had allowed them free rein. They seemed to be stimulated by banal things and events, flowers, doctor’s appointments, numbers … It was only going to be for a short while, and I promised myself to try to focus on my work and my son. To attempt to see the assignment for what it was, just a job forwarding a few meaningless emails for three weeks. Nothing more.
Amir usually helps his father in the shop at weekends, but Mancebo explains that he only needs him for an hour or two that Saturday. No more. Mancebo has used his sleepless night to think everything through.
Amir accepts the new schedule without questioning why he isn’t needed at all on Sunday. Mancebo is sure he doesn’t suspect a thing, and he’ll probably never discuss his weekend shifts with Fatima. And since she spends every Sunday with Adèle at the hammam, she won’t be wondering why Amir isn’t in the shop.
The air feels fresh. There’s nothing happening in the apartment opposite. Mancebo has things under control. He swings back on his stool and, despite his sleepless night, feels exceptionally good. He can’t allow himself to be impatient.
Just two days have passed since he started his task, but things need to pick up. Mostly for Mancebo himself. Ever since the writer disappeared with his suitcase, Mancebo’s developed a real appetite for detective work. He watches Tariq move through the shop in his usual boorish way. His cousin has time to pat Mancebo on the shoulder before he rushes out onto the boulevard, where he almost manages to get himself run over. The baker shouts as the car brakes, and the driver holds up his hands to show he wasn’t in the wrong. Sure enough, he has the law on his side. Mancebo saw the whole thing. Tariq and the baker exchange a few words. Mancebo guesses he’s joking about the lie-in Tariq gave himself. His ability to perceive details has come on leaps and bounds in just a few short days. Or maybe he has just discovered his talent for observation.
Waiting for Monsieur Bellivier Page 7