Underground Time

by Delphine de Vigan

  The director of the research centre knew of her; he’d really enjoyed her articles in the group journal.

  ‘I confess that I used to look out for your name! It’s a pity you don’t write any more, but I suppose you don’t have the time. We’re all in the same position: nose to the grindstone. Well, I’d be delighted to see you tomorrow if you’d like to meet. I’ll be in a meeting all afternoon, so would half past six suit you?’

  There was something straightforward in the way he spoke to her, a sort of kindness.

  She put her Paris transport map on the desk in front of her to work out how to get there. She studied the distance between the research centre and home, considered the different options, calculated the journey time. It wasn’t far. Half an hour at the most.

  She’d wear her grey suit, or maybe her black one, set it off with a red scarf. She wouldn’t have coffee after lunchtime. She’d leave at around half five to make sure she wasn’t late. She’d make herself smile, wouldn’t talk about Jacques, would avoid any reference to working with him, explicit or implicit. She’d talk about her own successes, the repositioning of the L. brand, the launch of the B. food supplements, the recent loyalty scheme. She’d iron her white blouse. She’d get up earlier than usual. She’d avoid subjects that risked making her get emotional. She’d mention the creation of a consumer panel, the test products she put in place a few years ago. She won’t cross her legs, will put on clear nail varnish, won’t talk about her children unless he asks. She’ll use verbs of action and avoid the conditional and any phrases that smack of passivity or a wait-and-see attitude. She’ll sit up straight, she’ll . . .

  Mathilde had been deep in her strategic planning for a while when a chime announced the arrival of an email in her inbox. The director of the research centre’s assistant had sent her confirmation of their meeting along with a map of the site. The email had been sent with high priority, which she noticed at once and felt touched.

  She remained motionless for several minutes in front of the screen. A possibility was opening up before her and it seemed real.

  She thought that her life might get back on track. That she would become herself again, make expansive gestures again, regain the pleasure of going to work and coming back home. She would no longer spend hours lying in the dark with her eyes wide open. Jacques would depart from her nights as quickly as he had come into them. She would once again have stories to tell the children. She’d take them to the swimming pool and the ice rink; she’d invent meals from leftovers again and give them funny names; she’d spend whole afternoons with them at the library.

  She thought that life would recover that sweetness. That nothing was lost.

  She thought she’d buy a flat-screen for their DVD evenings and would renew her membership of the film club. She thought she’d invite her friends over for dinner. They could celebrate her transfer with champagne. Maybe they’d push back the furniture and dance in her little living room. Like they used to.

  She couldn’t wait for it to be tomorrow.

  She had the courage to go. She could do it.

  She called Théo and Maxime to make sure that they’d got home OK, and then she rang Simon on his mobile to remind him not to take too long because his brothers were home alone.

  She called her mother, as she’d left her several messages over the last few days which she hadn’t responded to. She talked about the boys; they were fine, yes, the twins were getting ready for a school trip to the seaside and Simon had got his brown belt in judo. Her mother said: ‘You sound in good form.’ She promised to call her back at the end of the week.

  On the way home this evening she’ll buy some fish, or maybe a chicken, and some little fruit tarts for dessert.

  She’ll give this evening a foretaste of celebration, without telling the children about it, just to see their eyes light up. Just to give herself strength.

  She visited the research centre’s website, took notes and prepared questions.

  In her cardboard boxes she found several market studies and various thoughts on strategic analysis which she’d written under her own name in the past two years. She made a list, with on one side all the points in favour of her application, the obvious transferable skills, and on the other the skills that she would have to acquire. The balance was in her favour.

  She gave a start when the phone rang.

  Patricia Lethu wanted to clarify that, in the event of Mathilde being appointed, she would do all she could to see that her transfer went through at once. Given the circumstances.

  She imagined a new life, new faces, a new setting. New possibilities.

  She imagined a sort of sweetness; poetic justice.

  When Thibault got back into his car for the tenth time, his next appointment had come up on his mobile. He didn’t pull off. Sitting there, he had an uncontrollable desire to go to sleep, all of a sudden. He would have been content to slump against the headrest. He waited for a few minutes with his hand on the key and then he got out again. A queue had formed at the baker’s all along the window. He had no idea what time it was. People were beginning to emerge from their offices, walking quickly.

  He went into the nearest bar and ordered a coffee. He sent a text to say that he was taking a break.

  He looked around. For weeks he’d been observing men. The way they spoke, how they stood, the brand of clothes they wore, the shape of their shoes. And in every case, having examined him under the magnifying glass, he wondered if Lila could fall in love with a man like that. And whether she would be capable of loving him if he were more handsome, taller, more classically good-looking, more voluble, more arrogant.

  For weeks, he wasted his time with speculation and conjecture. He looked for what was wrong with him, what it was about him that jarred.

  But no longer. He’s not looking at anyone. He’s breathing again.

  He’s left Lila. He’s done it. It feels as though it’s less painful. Over the past few hours, something has become calmer. Perhaps, like a candle starved of oxygen, it will end up going out entirely. Perhaps a moment comes when you realise you’ve avoided the worst. A moment when you regain confidence in your own ability to pull yourself together, to rebuild yourself.

  He feels better. He orders another coffee.

  He’s going to make it. Two or three more appointments and the day will be over.

  Next weekend he’ll buy himself a flat-screen for his DVD evenings. And then he’ll invite his university friends, the ones who’ve settled in Paris whom he never sees because he works too much. He’ll organise a little get-together at home. He’ll buy things to eat and drink. And maybe they’ll push the furniture aside and dance in the living room. Like they used to.

  He puts his money down on the counter and leaves.

  When he first moved here, he wasn’t yet thirty. He wanted to practise his profession, tackle the mystery of diseases, lose himself in the city. He wanted to discover the extent of injuries, the chance of disorders, how deep wounds go.

  He wanted to see everything and he has seen it. Probably all he has to do now is start living.

  Patricia Lethu was speaking quickly in a low voice. Her words ran into each other, such was the extent of her agitation. Patricia Lethu had been overtaken by events. Mathilde visualised her at the back of her office, with the door closed, hunched over the receiver, one hand in front of her mouth to stop her voice from carrying. Mathilde asked her to repeat it several times. She was having trouble hearing.

  Patricia Lethu had to ring off quickly. She had a call on the other line. She said, ‘I’ll come and see you right way. Don’t do anything until I see you.’

  Jacques Pelletier had asked the HR director to send Mathilde, by recorded delivery, a warning letter which he had written himself. In it, he mentioned the repeated instances of verbal aggression which he had been subjected to, the insults she had hurled at him and the fact that Mathilde had slammed the phone down on him several times. He complained about her systematic opposition to
the direction and strategy of the business and described, with the aid of several examples, her self-inflicted isolation and refusal to communicate with others.

  Patricia Lethu read extracts in a hushed voice, with the letter in front of her.

  The warning didn’t entail disciplinary measures, she thought it helpful to make clear. But it would be kept on her file. And it could be a determining factor in a dismissal procedure over a mistake or suspension.

  Moreover, Jacques had formally opposed a transfer of any sort. The loss of a manager would put the whole team at risk. He refused to contemplate Mathilde’s departure until a new person had been recruited and trained. In his view, no transfer could be considered for four or five months.

  Patricia Lethu repeated: ‘Don’t do anything until I see you.’

  Unlike the fish, which have resumed their dance on either side of the screen, the Argent Defender is stationary. He’s waiting for the right moment, refining his strategy.

  The Argent Defender isn’t the type to rush into action without taking time to reflect.

  Mathilde glances at the clock on the computer. It’s 5.45. She tries to reconstruct the factors mentioned by Patricia Lethu, she jots down the words she remembers on a pad of squared paper, then strikes them through and tears up the paper. She cannot believe it.

  From the start, all of this can only have belonged to a dream. All of it comes from a B-movie nightmare, a shock of fear in the middle of the night, which is fruitless and doesn’t free you from anything. A nightmare like the ones she used to have as a child, when she dreamed that she had forgotten to get dressed and found herself standing in the middle of the playground in the nude, a source of general hilarity.

  So a moment must come when she’ll wake up, when she’ll grasp the division between reality and sleep, and realise that that is all this was: a long nightmare. When she’ll experience the intense relief that follows the return to consciousness, even if her heart is still beating fit to explode, even if she is bathed in sweat in her darkened bedroom. A moment when she will be free.

  But all this has happened since the start. It can all be analysed, dissected, step by step. This pitiless mechanism, her great naïveté and the countless tactical blunders she has made.

  She is Jacques Pelletier’s deputy. The title appears on her last payslip and in the company’s organisation chart.

  His adjunct: joined to him.

  Linked.

  Bound hand and foot.

  He’s not going to let her escape, allow her to free herself so easily from the hold he has over her.

  He’s well aware that she can be replaced. At the point they have reached. For months he has behaved in a way that has enabled him to do without her, to bypass her. For months he has been putting in place a structure that works without her, even if he himself has had to work twice as hard. You only have to look at his face, the dark circles round his eyes. He knows full well that he could find a hundred others if he needed to, younger, more dynamic, more malleable. Corinne Santoses by the bucketful falling from the sky.

  She has come to the end of a long spiral after which there is nothing. When she thinks about it, given the logical way things have unfolded, their progressive, unstoppable escalation, there is nothing more. What more can he do to harm her? What further warnings or humiliations?

  Whatever she does, whatever she says, she loses.

  Mathilde’s gaze wanders in empty space. Her gestures no longer exist. Not the pen travelling across the paper, nor the cup she brings to her lips, nor the hand that opens the drawer.

  Since she’s lost everything, she no longer has anything left to lose.

  Since Jacques has shown himself to be economical with the truth, she will show him the meaning of the word ‘insult’.

  There, that’s settled.

  She’ll go into his office and hurl, heap, pour insults on him, give him a dazzling display of how rich her vocabulary is; in fact she begins to make an inventory of it.

  She’ll speak to him in that tone, and much worse besides. She’ll speak to him in a tone that he won’t even be able to imagine, whose very existence he will be unaware of, she’ll speak to him as no one has ever spoken to him. She’ll go into his office, shut the door behind her and the words will come out of her in a single compact mass without drawing breath, without a gap that would enable him to take her to task, an uninterrupted stream of insults. She will spit vipers and toads in his face, like a princess in a fairy tale, in the thrall of a terrible fate, waiting to be rescued . . .

  Mathilde gets up and goes to Jacques’s office. She imagines the relief, is anticipating it.

  In this impulse which propels her towards him, the images come back. The long gash in Jacques’s body, his hair plastered to his forehead, the fear in his eyes, his blood soaking into the carpet.

  Jacques is in front of her. In the corridor.

  He’s carrying his bag in his right hand, standing by the lift. The call button is flashing. Office doors around him are open. Through the glass of the open-plan area Mathilde can see the others, trying to look busy, but watching, she can tell. They’re hoping for thunder and lightning, fireworks.

  She hadn’t expected to find him there, ready to leave. She had imagined seeing him in his office, away from people’s eyes. She can’t let out a stream of abuse here in front of everybody. The stream would become a puddle.

  ‘Jacques, I need to talk to you.’

  ‘I don’t have time.’

  After a few seconds, she adds: ‘You can’t do this. We have to talk.’

  He doesn’t reply.

  She goes up to him. She feels the veins in her temples throbbing. For a moment she thinks she’s going to throw up, right here at his feet.

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  A bell announces the arrival of the lift. He goes in, presses 0 and turns towards her. He looks her straight in the eye. She has never before seen such a harsh look on his face.

  The doors close. He’s gone.

  ‘Oh no, Mr Pelletier won’t be back today, nor tomorrow. He’s away for four days and won’t be in the office till next week. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  Corinne Santos’s heady perfume seems to have impregnated the furniture, the carpet and every cubic inch of air, as though this office has been hers since the dawn of time. Mathilde dislikes everything about this woman: her affected manner, her pretentious way of speaking, the red plastic balls on her necklace. Mathilde hates her. She feels angry with herself for hating her so much. To want so badly to tear up her papers, to mess up her hair, to spit in her face. She wishes that Corinne Santos were even more pathetic, repulsively vulgar, that her errors, gaffes and mistakes would mount up, that she would demonstrate spectacular incompetence, that she would be caught with Jacques in a position strongly suggestive of fellatio, and that the news would go all round the company in under two hours, that the two of them would become the subject of the most malicious gossip. She would like Corinne Santos to disintegrate here before her eyes, or deflate or dissolve into dust.

  Mathilde can make out her own reflection in the window. Rigid.

  She is like him. Like all of them. Just as mediocre. Just as petty.

  The company has turned her into this mean-minded, unfair creature.

  The company has made her this creature of rancour and bitterness, desperate for revenge.

  She left Corinne Santos’s office without another word. She went past the copy room to pick up a packet of paper. She returned to her lair, tore at the packaging and grabbed a white sheet.

  In the top left she wrote her address. On the right, Patricia Lethu’s name and that of the company.

  Subject: Letter of resignation

  Receipt acknowledged by __________________

  Madam,

  By this letter I wish to inform you of my intention to resign from the position of deputy marketing director, which I have held since 7 January 2001.

  In view of the context, I would be grateful if yo
u would waive my notice period.

  I thank you in advance for informing me as soon as possible of the official date of my last day at work.

  Mathilde crumples it up, throws it away and starts again.

  Subject: Letter of resignation

  Madam,

  I am hereby ending our collaboration and by this letter confirm my resignation from your company. I would like my resignation to be effective from 22 May 2009.

  I remain at your disposal for any additional information.

  Yours sincerely,

  It’s her last recourse. She knows that.

  It’s what she should avoid at all costs. Come what may.

  The thing you must never ever do. Never.

  But there comes a moment when the price is too high. When it’s more than you can afford. A time when you must quit the game, accept that you’ve lost. There comes a time when you can’t stoop any lower.

  She’s sitting down. She stretches her legs out in front of her.

  It’s over.

  She must get up, tidy her things into a bag, put on her jacket and leave the office. She must manage to leave the building and walk to the station. She must hand-deliver her letter to Patricia Lethu or else stop at the post office and send it recorded delivery.