Marion was the only one who knew what had happened to her. Before they reached adulthood, she had told Marion about the rite of passage. At the time she referred to it in that way for she was trying to extract from the event a kind of pride. No doubt in order to bear it, to believe that its only consequence had been to help her grow up faster than the others. They had never spoken about it again, not since she told Marion the first time in the drab surroundings of a school playground. But was “tell” the right word to use in this case? She had hurriedly, somewhat randomly, strung together a series of words describing what she thought had happened to her. With a mixture of conceit and disgust, she had described what she had seen, felt, and said, and it was perhaps then that the magnitude of the event had escaped her. In Montpellier, she had realized that Marion had forgotten nothing. The three days they spent together had been slow and heavy-going. There had been enough time to understand who her friend had become and, with such a person, she could not share her past and sustain relations in the present. For as long as the conversation had moved between matters of little importance, she had not noticed a thing. But as often happens when people live and sleep in the same room, vigilance slips; living at such close quarters soon becomes trying unless you agree to go beyond mere pleasantries. And the moment they ventured down that path, she had sensed her own secret steering her friend’s remarks. Though no mention of it was ever made, it crept into her thinking, formed the basis of the logic she was using to size up her guest. As if Marion could no longer conceive of her except in terms of that central piece of information, the event confessed to years earlier. The more they talked, the harder it became to bear, and the more Marion kept returning to it, both of them coming to realize, with each passing hour, how little they had in common. Marion thought she could use the rite of passage to find a path back to intimacy, whereas for her part, she dreaded the slightest, even tacit mention of the episode. Ever since that visit, neither she nor Marion had made any attempt to get back in touch.
In front of her is the microphone. To her right, the computer. A new message has just appeared on her screen, with the number of the train, its destination, time of arrival, the platform where it has pulled in. She presses the red button at the base of the microphone. The three notes of the mini arpeggio ring out. Over to her. To talk, she uses her other voice, the one she draws up from the depths of her throat, that gives her the authority of an SNCF announcer. Articulating each syllable, she feeds the impatient travellers the details that will enable them to find their platforms.
At 4:45 pm, she leaves the office, passes through the stage door in the reverse direction. If she had a mask, she would have chosen that moment to put it on. With a sweeping, pathetic gesture, like Renée with his dark glasses. It would be a plastic mask, held on by a piece of elasticated string, in the likeness of Everyman, who would do the same job she did, but who would then get to live another life every evening. Unfortunately, the only masks on sale in the shops are those of celebrities. At the end of the day, the station concourse—a vast structure with a part-glass roof, lit from below by the nimbus of orange-tinted globes—always seems to take longer to cross. The travellers haven’t really changed places: only their identities have changed. The ones rushing head-down for the exits are those long accustomed to lonely arrivals. They are generally travelling on business and never go anywhere without a clear aim. The rest of the crowd wanders about with their noses in the air, looking for signs or a familiar face. The only people who approach strangers are the tramps. One night, she remembers, seeing one of them land a couple of slaps on a guy who’d been waiting at a café terrace with his girlfriend. The couple were enjoying a quiet kiss when the tramp came over to ask for money. He could hardly get his words out, was emitting guttural sounds in a language that no one could grasp except him. The boyfriend had shaken his head without so much as a glance. The tramp went round behind him; then clapped the filthy palms of both hands down hard on the two healthy pink cheeks. Astonishingly, the boyfriend relied only on his voice to ward off his assailant, who hurried away, limping. A beefy security guard set off in pursuit.
It seems that tonight the tramps are not out to cause a stir. They are wandering among the travellers as usual, gauging with practiced eye each one’s willingness to part with a few euros. Outside the brasseries in front of the station, foreign tourists are studying the menus, perplexed. She walks along the Boulevard Denain. At a bakery, she stops to buy a pain au chocolat with almonds. One small piece at a time, she consumes the soft, greasy confection, which she chews with the skill of an expert. Once the pastry is finished, she goes into Promod. The only people inside the store are women, their eyes riveted on the clothes hanging on rails at various heights. Pounding techno music complements the décor, making for a reasonably tolerable whole. By the entrance to the store, a young security guard is shaking his thick thigh in time to the beat. She observes him and wonders where his thoughts are sending him: a bar, a beer; to a football game, a serial on TV . . . After Work. She walks over to the displays. With one hand, she slides the hanging clothes along their rails. No one is talking around her. She picks out an item at random, though not without checking its size. She makes her way over to the fitting rooms, where a young woman briefly asks her how many articles she has. The cubicle is cramped; with the curtain drawn, she has her nose pressed up against the mirror. Onto the single coat peg she piles the sweater, price tag still dangling, her jacket, and her tank top. Ten seconds later, the small bundle collapses to the floor, where she leaves it. She slips on the black sweater and surveys the result. Tugs it down, pulls up the sleeves, adjusts the neck, twists round to see the effect from the back, assessing whether any added appeal might be derived from the combination of this sweater and her chest. But everywhere the material is creased, too loose, makes her seem ugly. Needless to say, no 18-euro sweater is going to turn her into a model, and she concludes that it’s her body whose proportions are wrong, not the sweater. She slips back into her clothes—clothes she has worn long enough for them to fit. Outside the changing room, there is no sign of the salesgirl. She rolls the sweater up into a ball and stuffs it into her bag then proceeds through the displays, her eyes fixed on the automatic glass doors. She keeps her pace steady. She knows the alarm will be going off soon. The shoppers pay her no heed, not yet realizing that it is she who has made off with a measly 18-euro sweater from Promod. You earn your own living, don’t you, Miss? The security guard hasn’t spotted her yet either; his thigh is still moving to the beat, his eyes locked onto the beer he is going to drink two hours and forty-six minutes from now. She is coming up to the detector panels. The guard turns his head, sees her; she purses her lips but keeps on walking. The techno music slowly leaves her ears and is replaced by the din of car engines. She can now feel the tickle of fresh air on her face. She is out, the alarm has not gone off, she is safe. It takes her several seconds to grasp what has just happened. She hardly dares smile, for fear that a passer-by will catch her expression and report her on the spot. The métro entrance is in sight, no one is going to point the finger now. An act gone unnoticed, lost amid a thousand others, missed by an infallible electronic device. Defiance in the face of technology and science, the system failed. Pardoned without even having been convicted. Only in her own eyes will she have been, at one time in her life, a black-sweater thief.
Back home, she wolfs down a bowl of pasta garnished with bits of onion and tomato. Dinner over, she takes the sweater out of her bag. The security disc is tightly affixed to the wool. She fails to see how she might get it off. Giving up, she folds the sweater and puts it away with the rest of her things. Later, she dozes off in front of a TV serial in which the heroine, a woman in her forties who looks ten years younger on screen, can’t make up her mind between her taciturn husband on the one hand and her childish lover on the other, because she loves them both equally but not in the same way. Love. There is something about that word that makes her sick to the core. She prefers to go it alo
ne, without someone to make her believe he can raise her above reality. Love bears the mark of whoever gives birth to it. You only truly recognize it once, the first time, whether it’s tender or painful. Hers, her first love—it has taken her years to admit—was hardly very enviable.
One day a man had told her to go see a shrink because when she’d felt his penis inside her, she couldn’t go on. In a calm voice she had simply said, pull out. No shriek of panic, no pleading. Blushing, the man had pulled out. For a while they lay there, side by side. It was then that he told her she ought to go see a shrink. After that he got dressed: would she mind telling him when she changed her mind? And off he went. It didn’t occur to her that he could be upset; she believed him.
He calls on Thursday. She realizes that she has been waiting for him to phone. How are things? He never presents himself as if he were sure he is the only man who calls her. She likes that proof of familiarity. Fine, and Ange? Fine. She confirms that she will be going to the dinner party. Several of his friends will be there, he informs her. One of them is really nice, you’ll see. His voice modulates to that of a travelling salesman: a tacit way to let her know he thinks the man in question ought to be to her liking. Soon he’ll be listing this person’s qualities to her. She feels like asking if he also offers home delivery. But instead she says nothing. As does he. The mood has changed; she senses his embarrassment at the other end of the line. About what happened the other night, I’d had a bit to drink. There, he’s mentioned it. Not to tell her that he enjoyed it, but for her to rid him of his guilt at desiring another woman. A few banal words, and his heart slots back into place. The message seems straight-forward: what happened was just one of those things. By making it clear from the outset that the kiss could only have bothered her, he’s denying her the right to have the least feeling in his regard. For him, the situation is clear; their brief moment of intimacy had simply been a consequence of his drunkenness. She takes a breath. No offence taken; I was the one who kissed you. See you tomorrow. Then she hangs up.
The following afternoon, on her way back from the gare du Nord, she drops by a stationer’s. She chooses a sheet of wrapping paper. Multicolored lines on a grey background. The paper is smooth and has a satin finish. The man behind the counter rolls it into a slender tube, over which he slips an elastic band. Leaving the shop, she wonders how she should hold it. It could be a sword or a walking stick, or a magic wand. She ends up tucking it under her arm. Because, obviously, what she is carrying is a baguette.
Ange is in mid-conversation as she opens the door. She seems pleased to see her and gives her a kiss on both cheeks before ushering her into the hallway. The fragrance of boeuf bourguignon fills the apartment. Her arms are still in the sleeves of her jacket as Ange takes hold of the collar to hang it up. She says, I’m late, but gets no answer from Ange. She keeps her handbag with her. The zip wouldn’t work after she put the package inside, trying not to crumple the wrapping paper, which was already damaged at the corners. Ange is about to charge into the living room, majestic in her high heels, when she holds her back by the arm. I have something for you. As best she can, she extracts the package from her bag. Ange’s eyes fix on the multicolored lines as her fingers eagerly press the wrapping paper. Seconds later, the paper is on the floor and in Ange’s large hands the sweater suddenly resembles a small furry black animal. Ange likes it—she hasn’t seen the Promod label yet, not to mention the magnetic security disc. Ange puts the sweater down on a chair. I’ll introduce you. He has appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. He smiles at her, but Ange is already leading her off to present her to the other guests.
There are four men and two women. Some are standing, some are sitting, as if they were posing for a photograph. When she follows Ange into the room they freeze, look her over, size her up and she finds this collective evaluation irksome. She kisses the women, shakes hands with the men, which they always find a bit surprising. But that’s how she prefers it; she doesn’t have to explain. It’s always the same: whenever she touches a person for the first time, her eyes have a tendency to look off to the side. But now she makes an effort, she wouldn’t want them to assume immediately that she is shy. Ange enunciates first names. She recognizes her own but doesn’t remember any of the others. She doesn’t do it on purpose: her memory refuses to register that kind of thing the first time round. Ange invites her to sit down. Somewhat laboriously, the conversations get going again. The two women perched on the sofa offer her embarrassed smiles. No excess emotion, no sudden effusions: they’re figuring out how to interact under the circumstances. She looks at third fingers and counts two wedding rings. Which leaves only two possibilities as to who the guy she is supposed to like might be. Ange presses a glass of white into her hand, then, just as quickly, beats a hasty retreat to the kitchen, where he is busy stirring solids and liquids in a large pot. As for her, she has no right to see him until he is good and ready. His hair must smell of onion and bay leaf, his forehead of the salt from his sweat. In the meantime, she turns her attention to the two bachelors. Neither one pays her any attention, engaged as they are in a discussion that requires all the seriousness they can muster. One has a slight stoop, gesticulates a lot; the other has metal-framed glasses and from time to time runs the tip of his tongue over his lips. The couple sitting on the other couch have stopped talking in low voices. They are inspecting the contents of the room, he from the right, she from the left, to be sure they won’t miss a thing. A real bit of teamwork. They’ll compare notes when they go to bed: what they liked, what they might eventually buy for themselves. Even so, she detects a hint of boredom stirring in her neighbors. Her silent presence is beginning to be embarrassing. It won’t be long, she senses, before someone tries to draw her out. She takes a sip of white wine so as to seem busy. The husband sits up and leans slightly towards her, about to ask a question. At which point Ange sweeps into the living room, barks out, dinner’s ready, and makes everyone jump. She suddenly feels like saying to Ange, who is increasingly agitated, that they’re not deaf, but instead she just sketches a faint smile in the direction of the husband and wife to show that she has noted their intention to enter into oral communication with her.
Everyone heads meekly over to the table. Ange assigns places; someone points out that there are nine people present and it won’t be possible to seat men and women alternately. She hangs back and takes a quick look inside the kitchen. He has his hands in the water, his head tilted back as he blows locks of hair from in front of his eyes. After a few seconds, he senses that she is watching him. He gives her a wink and whispers, I’m coming. I’m coming: a promise that has the effect of an order. If only there were just the two of them, she wishes, in this archetypal early twenty-first-century kitchen. Because now she understands “I’m coming” to mean “leave me alone,” and not “I’ll be with you in a second.” She retreats. The outside world has suddenly shrunk, and the inside has become dense and enormous. She tells herself that she must look like the Michelin-tire man. But no one seems to mind. She proceeds robotically over to the table and, without thinking, flops down onto an empty chair. She didn’t realize straight away that she was the one Ange was speaking to. The tone of voice is impatient. No, not there, that’s my place. Ange points a commanding finger at another chair at the end of the table. She says nothing. She gets up and slips in between one of the husbands and the man with the stoop. There now remains just one empty seat, directly opposite hers, reserved for the chef, who at last makes his entrance. A thunderous chorus of “Ahhs” from the guests, the metal sound of cutlery. Each plate contains a small triangle of toast, a dollop of crème fraîche, and a slice of smoked salmon. She is going to have to force herself. Smoked salmon is served at one out of every two dinner parties she is invited to. She recalls the supermarket slogan: “Chic and cheap.” It feels as if she is chewing an oily piece of salted rubber. This show-dinner is starting to get on her nerves. As she sits there eating her slice of dead fish, searching for a way not to feel sic
k, the guests resume their conversation, now that their stomachs have been gratified. They are discussing one of the couples’ most recent trips. To Iran. The woman keeps going on about how she had to wear a veil over there. The others adopt sympathetic demeanors; as for her, she seems to have found it rather amusing. She even tells Ange and the other woman that if they ever decide to go, she’ll give them the address of the shop where she bought the cloth for the veil.
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