Frazera told him he should get out right away, make a strategic withdrawal. And with a faraway look at the bottom of his glass he concluded: ‘In every passionate relationship there is a kind of savagery that’s in-built and inexhaustible.’
Thibault’s in his car outside a nondescript apartment building. He looks at his phone one last time in case he missed the beep.
He’s done it. He’s done it at last: pulled out the drip.
He’s done it and he can be proud of himself.
She smiled. As though she was expecting it. As if she’d had ages to get used to the idea.
She said thanks. Thanks for everything.
Is it possible to be so blind to someone else’s despair?
As the door closes behind her, Mathilde reaches into her bag until her hand touches metal. She’s always afraid that she’s forgotten something – her keys, her phone, her purse, her travelcard.
She wasn’t like that before. Then she was never afraid. Then she felt light, she didn’t need to check. Objects didn’t escape her attention. They possessed coordinated motion, natural and fluid. Back then, objects didn’t slide off the furniture, didn’t get knocked over, didn’t get in her way.
She didn’t make the call. Since her GP retired, she hasn’t had a family doctor. Just as she was on the point of calling the number she found on the Internet it seemed to her that it was pointless. She isn’t ill. She’s tired. Like hundreds of people she passes every day. So by what right, on what pretext, could she call out someone she doesn’t know? She wouldn’t have known how to tell him. To say simply: I can’t go on. And shut her eyes.
She takes the stairs. On the staircase she passes Mr Delebarre, her downstairs neighbour who comes up twice a week to complain the boys are making too much noise. Even when they’re not there. Mr Delebarre puts on his exhausted look and gives her a feeble greeting. Mathilde doesn’t stop. Her hand slides down the banister, her feet are silent on the plush carpet. Today she doesn’t want to spend a few minutes being pleasant, keeping up a conversation. She doesn’t want to remember that Mr Delebarre is widowed and alone and ill, that all he’s got to do is listen to the noise coming from upstairs, exaggerating or even inventing it. She doesn’t want to imagine Mr Delebarre adrift in the silence of his big apartment.
She knows herself. She knows where that will lead. She always has to look for excuses, explanations, reasons to be indulgent towards other people. She always ends up finding that people have good reasons for being the way they are. But not today. Oh no. Today she would like to be able to tell herself that Mr Delebarre is an idiot. Because today is 20 May. Because something is going to happen. Because things can’t go on as they are. The price is too high. The price to be paid for having a swipe card for clocking in, a card for the canteen, an insurance card, a three-zone metro card, the price to be paid for taking part in the onward rush of life.
In the cool morning air, Mathilde walks along the side of the garden in the middle of the square. At this hour of the day the streets seem washed clean, renewed. In the distance she can hear a dustcart. Mathilde looks at her watch and hurries up; her heels click on the pavement.
As soon as she gets to the metro platform she notices it’s unusually crowded. People are standing bunched together, but without crossing the rubber strip that marks the limit beyond which it is dangerous to go. The few seats provided are taken, there’s something both gloomy and febrile in the air. Mathilde looks up at the digital display. The waiting times for the next trains have been replaced by two bright lines. The sound of a female voice suddenly invades the platform: ‘Due to a technical fault, the Mairie de Montreuil service is seriously delayed.’
Anyone who uses public transport regularly masters its peculiar language – its subtleties, its idioms and its grammar. Mathilde knows the different scenarios and their probable impact on her journey time. A ‘technical failure’, a ‘signalling problem’, a ‘timetable adjustment’ mean moderate delays. More worryingly, a ‘passenger taken ill’ means that someone somewhere in another station has fainted, pulled the emergency alarm or has had to be evacuated. A passenger taken ill can seriously affect the flow of trains. And much more worryingly, a ‘serious passenger incident’, a term commonly reckoned to indicate a suicide, can paralyse traffic for several hours. People need to be evacuated.
Every four days in Paris a man or woman jumps in front of a train. Mathilde read it in the paper. The authorities are discreet about the exact figures, but there have long been psychological support services for drivers who are affected. Some of them never get over it. They are declared unfit for work, reassigned to ticket counters or the back office. On average, a driver encounters a suicide attempt at least once in his career. Do people in cities commit suicide more than elsewhere? She’s often wondered about that, without going to the trouble of finding out the answer.
For the past few months, when Mathilde is on her way home from work, she has found herself watching the tracks, fixing her gaze on them, staring at the stones that cover the ground, the depth of the hole. Sometimes she feels her body inclining forward, almost imperceptibly, her exhausted body seeking rest.
Then she thinks of Théo, Maxime and Simon, their images superimposed on top of all the others, bright and moving, and Mathilde steps back, moves away from the edge.
She tries to carve out a space for herself amid the crowd. You have to earn your place, your territory. You have to respect the order of arrival and observe the minimum distance between people, which shrinks as the platform fills up.
There’s no train announced.
She’ll miss the 8.45, and the 9.00, and even the 9.15. She’s going to be late. And by complete chance, Jacques will be standing in front of the lift when she gets out or waiting at her office door. He will have been looking for her everywhere and won’t have kept quiet about it – even though he hasn’t said a word to her for three weeks – he’ll be looking at his watch, with a frown and a doubtful expression. Because Jacques watches her timekeeping closely, her absences, he’s on the lookout for slip-ups. Because he lives a five-minute drive from the office and couldn’t give a damn about the journey she makes every day like most of the employees on site, nor the number of external factors that could prevent her from being on time.
For the moment, her aim is to stay in the right place on the platform: not to let herself be dragged to the back, to hold her position. When the train comes, it’ll be packed full of irascible people. She’s going to have to fight. According to an unwritten law, a form of underground legal precedent that has applied for decades, those who are first remain first. Anyone who tries to flout this law finds himself being heckled. In the distance there’s a grumbling, a vibration that sounds like the long-awaited train. But the tunnel remains dark and empty. The electronic display still gives nothing away. The female announcer is silent. It’s hot. Mathilde looks at the others, men and women, their clothes, their shoes, their hair, the shape of their buttocks. She looks at them from the back, from the front and in profile. You’ve got to do something. When she catches someone’s eye, she looks away. Even when it’s busy, there remains on public transport both a certain intimacy and a sense of reserve; limits imposed on the eye since they can’t be imposed on the body. So Mathilde looks at the platform opposite. It’s almost empty.
On the other side the trains are running normally, one after another in their regular rhythm. There’s no point trying to find an explanation. In the opposite direction people are getting on the metro and arriving at work on time.
Finally Mathilde is aware of a rumbling sound to her left that grows ever louder. Heads turn expectantly, impatiently. At last! It’s time to take a deep breath, flatten your bag against your hip and check that it’s closed properly. The train slows and stops. It’s here. It disgorges, regurgitates, releases its flood. Someone shouts: ‘Let people off.’ There’s shoving, trampling. It’s war. Every man for himself. Suddenly it’s a matter of life or death, getting on this one and not havin
g to wait for the next one, which may never come, not risking getting to work even later. ‘For fuck’s sake! Let people off!’ The crowd parts grudgingly. You mustn’t lose sight of the door, you have to stay near it, not let yourself get dragged back by the sheer number of people. You have to position yourself to one side, close to the door. Suddenly the horde surges forward, getting ahead of her, she’s not going to make it. The carriage is already full, there’s not a square inch left. However, she knows that she can get in. She’ll have to force her way. She’ll have to stretch her arm out, grab the pole in the middle, ignoring the cries and protests, and hold tight and pull. Pull with all her might to propel her body inside. They’ll just have to budge up. In the face of her determination, they yield.
The signal indicating that the doors are about to close sounds. Apart from her right arm, which is sticking out, she’s almost there. The door judders shut, indifferent to the groans and protestations.
Mathilde gains an inch or so with her left foot, pushes one last time and she’s in.
On the platform the female voice is announcing that trains are running normally again on line 9.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
At the following stations, Mathilde gets deeper into the carriage, gains a few extra inches, hangs on so as not to have to get off.
You mustn’t give an inch.
The air is heavy. Bodies have fused together in a single compacted, harassed mass. Remarks have given way to silence, everyone is silently resigned to their fate, chins raised to the open windows, hands seeking support.
Then Mathilde thinks that this too is how 20 May begins, with this miserable, absurd struggle. Nine stations to get through, nine suffocating stations, torn from the fever of a morning of crowds, nine stations of struggling for air surrounded by people who only use a bar and a half of soap a year.
Suddenly a woman starts making strange sounds, high-pitched and progressively more drawn out. It’s not a cry nor a groan, more like a wail. She is holding on to the central pole, pressed between a generous bust and a rucksack. The sound that is coming from the woman’s mouth is unbearable. People turn round, observing her. They exchange perplexed glances. The woman is looking for someone who can help her. Mathilde manages to extricate her hand and put it on her arm. They look at each other. She smiles at her.
The woman stops wailing. She’s breathing loudly, her face twisted in fear.
‘Aren’t you feeling well?’
As soon as she asks the question Mathilde realises how stupid it is. The woman doesn’t answer. She’s making a superhuman effort not to scream. She’s breathing more and more loudly. She begins to wail again and then this time she screams. Comments start up on all sides, at first in low voices and then more audibly. What’s she thinking of, taking the metro on a day when there are technical problems, if she’s claustrophobic? Make her get off. Oh no, for God’s sake, don’t pull the emergency cord. We’re not out of the woods.
The woman is a disruptive element, a human failure capable of holding up the trains.
Mathilde’s hand is still on the woman’s arm. She’s trying to smile.
‘I’ll get off with you at the next station. It’ll only be a few seconds. See, the train’s slowing down.’
The train stops, the doors open and Mathilde goes ahead of the woman to clear a passage. Please. Push. Let her through. She’s holding on to the woman’s sleeve.
She looks to see which station they’re at. On the platform, below the sign that says Charonne, she makes her sit down. The woman seems to be calming down and Mathilde offers to go and get some water or something to eat from the vending machine. The woman starts to get agitated again. She’s going to be late, she mustn’t be, she can’t get back on the train, she’s only just found a job through a temp agency. Yes, she’s claustrophobic but she usually copes. She thought she was going to manage it.
And then the woman starts breathing more loudly, gasping quicker and quicker. She’s trying to get air, her limbs seem shaken by tremors, her hands are clutching each other in a manner she can’t control.
Mathilde asked for help and someone went up to the ticket office. A man from the transport authority in a blue-green suit has come down. He’s rung the fire brigade. The woman can’t stand up. Her whole body is tensed up and being shaken by jolts. She’s still breathing noisily.
They wait.
The platform is packed. The transport officials have created a security cordon. There are now three or four of them. All around, people form little groups, craning their necks.
Mathilde wants to scream. She sees herself in the woman’s place, their images superimposed; for a brief moment they are one and the same person, swallowed by the neon signs, huddled up by the snack machines.
And then Mathilde looks around her. And she thinks that all these people, every last one of them, one day or another will be sitting here, or somewhere like it, unable to move. The day they collapse.
He’d gone down to the metro to respond to a panic attack at Charonne station. The fire brigade had passed on the call to his base; they were swamped because of a big fire in the area. Rose put out a general call. Thibault was a few streets away, so he stopped off there.
A woman of around thirty was sitting on the platform hyperventilating. By the time he got there, she was starting to calm down. A crowd had gathered around her, giving curious glances, peering to see better. The crowd didn’t miss any of the performance. Two people managed to help her to the office behind the ticket counter where Thibault was able to administer a sedative. The woman’s breathing returned to normal, her hands unclasped. He was double-parked so he couldn’t stay. A metro official promised he would get her to a taxi when she felt better.
At a red light he looks around: people walking quickly, coming out of the metro in groups, running across the street; people queuing at ATMs, smoking outside buildings or cafés. So many people he cannot count, all subject to the city’s flow, its speed; unaware they’re being watched, seen from a distance, at street corners, an infinite number of fragile identities which he cannot grasp as a whole. From behind the windscreen, Thibault watches women; they’ve started wearing light clothes: floaty dresses, short skirts, sheer tights. Bare legs sometimes. The way they carry their bags by the handle or with the strap over their shoulder, the way they walk without noticing anyone or wait for the bus with a faraway look.
Suddenly the girl who joined his school in his last year comes into his mind. He had carved her name on a desk. She was from Caen. Or was it Alençon? He’s thinking about that girl now. Her fine hair. Her riding boots and her boyish appearance. It’s odd, thinking of that girl now. He was in love with her. Or with her reflection in other people’s eyes. They didn’t talk to each other. They had different circles of friends. Thinking of that girl, more than twenty years on . . . saying to yourself: that was twenty years ago. And then counting up to twenty-five. It was twenty-five years ago. Back when his left hand still had five fingers.
It was twenty-five years ago. That sounded like a typing error, a bad joke. Can you say that without falling off your chair: ‘It was twenty-five years ago’?
He’s left Lila. He’s done it. And that statement contains something that sounds like an achievement, a feat.
And yet the wound of love contains within it all silences, abandonments, regrets, all of which in the course of the years adds up to a generic sort of pain. And a confused one. Yet the wound of love promises nothing; not after, not elsewhere.
His life is diffracted. From a distance it seems to possess unity and direction. You can recount it, describe his days, the division of his hours and weeks, follow his movements. His address is known, so are the habits he’s trying to break, the days he goes to the supermarket, the evenings when all he can do is listen to music. But close up, his life looks confused, it splits into fragments, there are pieces missing.
From close up, he’s just a Playmobil figure slotted into his car, his hands clutching the steering whe
el, a little plastic character who has lost his dream.
The station manager had said that a doctor would be there any minute. Another train was rumbling in from the left. Mathilde didn’t wait. She was late enough as it was. She left the woman on her seat; other people were looking after her. She seemed a bit less tensed-up but she still couldn’t stand. The woman said thank you. Mathilde got on the metro. She forced her way and wedged her back against a flip-up seat. She was in a good position. At Nation she got off and made her way through the impatient crowd. She took the passage that led to line 1. Here trains seemed to be running normally. She waited less than a minute for the next train, then she got off at the gare de Lyon.
Now Mathilde is heading for the RER. She doesn’t look at the time. She knows by heart the corridors, the stairs, the shortcuts of this underground world, woven like a web in the bowels of the city. For eight years Mathilde has been using the same long tunnel that goes under the station to get to line D; here every day several thousand people’s paths criss-cross: two columns of insects, disgorged in waves on to the slippery tiled floor, a rapid two-way street whose rhythms and cadences have to be respected. Bodies brush against one another, or avoid contact or sometimes collide in a strange sort of choreography. Here a vast exchange between the inside and the outside takes place, and between the city and its suburbs. Here people are in a hurry, they walk quickly: ‘We’re going to work, madam.’
Underground Time Page 4