Voice Over

by Celine Curiol

  For a long while they say nothing. The conversation between Ange and Momo eventually dries up. Their eyes now roam between the empty cups and the passers-by. The despondency of a Sunday afternoon drawing to its close. Vague existential questions roil in minds assailed by the looming specter of a new week. Gearing up to return to the relentless cycle: five days of work, two days of rest. She forces herself to ignore the brazen glances coming from Momo, who can’t keep still any longer. Perhaps they ought to go and smoke that joint now, he says. It’s his birthday, after all. The information appears not to move the other two as much as it had moved her; they don’t even ask Momo how old he is. Ange is tired, they’re going to head home. She doesn’t feel much like going to Momo’s by herself. She makes an effort to seem sorry, she too has to work tomorrow. Momo looks vexed. That’s unemployment, you get the chance not to work Mondays. He still doesn’t seem altogether convinced of the benefits of his situation. She finds it touching, though—this forty-year-old man so in need of company, who struggles against his solitude. OK, but she won’t stay long. Two pecks on the cheek for Ange. Just as she presses her cheek to his he whispers, I’ll call you soon. To keep her agitation in check, she looks into his eyes for confirmation of what appears to be a promise. He has already turned away, with Ange on his arm. She no longer has the least desire to smoke anything at all, but Momo, who has perked up considerably, gestures to her: this way.

  There is no name on the door, which Momo opens with a single twist of the key. The television is so loud that it practically sucks the oxygen out of the apartment. Kamel, Momo calls out and as if by magic the host of the program shuts his trap. A narrow dark corridor leads to the main room, which barely manages to contain a sofa, a low table, a loft bed, and a gigantic television set. On the screen, an audience sitting in a studio is applauding, docile, open-mouthed. Behind small name cards, three august contestants are tasting their thirty minutes of fame. Kamel gives her a brief nod then flops back onto the padded sofa. On the glass-topped table is an open carton of orange juice, some cigarette papers, a clear plastic bag with some dark green herbs inside. Momo invites her to sit down and goes off to the kitchen to fetch two glasses. Kamel changes the channel and stares at a cute young thing in a short skirt who has just appeared on screen. Even without the sound, the young woman’s gesticulations manage to convey the drama of the situation. She casts a quick glance at Kamel, who ignores her completely. She can still see daylight outside through the gap in the drawn curtains. Momo hands her the glass he has just filled with orange juice and then asks Kamel if he isn’t bored with watching TV. Kamel shrugs, without taking his eyes off the young starlet now locked in a kiss with a stunning-looking man. Kamel puts the sound back on, and as Momo rolls the promised joint the three of them let the serial draw them in. To speak would seem superfluous, even misplaced. Momo takes two drags on the long slender cone of red-tipped paper then hands it to her. She inhales the smoke, easing herself further back on the couch. Then she offers the joint to Kamel, who reaches a hand out into space. It isn’t long before the bones in her skull seem to soften slightly; she feels herself lifted several inches above the level that gravity normally holds her to. Your friend’s cool. Momo has interrupted the heroine of the TV serial. She hasn’t the slightest desire to discuss Ange’s qualities with him. She prefers Kamel’s attitude and imitates his impassive shrug. Her mind has gone blank; she is floating somewhere between her body and the screen.

  The television is off. That’s the first thing she notices on opening her eyes. Next to her, Kamel is asleep. The room is plunged into semi-darkness, night has fallen. She gets up and goes to inspect the tiny kitchen. By the sink, a yogurt container has tipped over under the weight of the spoon left inside it. Momo has vanished. Perfect: she’ll at last be able to slip away without having to invent an excuse. She grabs her bag, which is sitting by the couch, and heads for the door, only to find it locked. It takes several seconds for it to dawn on her: she is locked inside an apartment with a total stranger and doesn’t even know who lives there. She reflects on the chain of events that led her to this place, on the moments when she could have made a different choice and avoided being trapped. She could have gone on walking when Momo first approached her, she could have left him after the first coffee, she could have followed Ange’s example and gone home, she could have refused the joint, she could have smoked it but left straight afterwards, she could have stayed awake. But she did the opposite, never suspecting that the sum total of these tiny decisions would lead her to this spot. She hasn’t the slightest idea how to leave an apartment other than by the front door. She returns to the living room as quietly as she can so as not to wake Kamel. Slipping through the gap in the curtains, she carefully eases open the French doors that lead on to a small stone balcony with wrought-iron railings. She is surprised to discover that the apartment is on the top floor. Down below, two men are in motion, one of them trailing the flattened form of a dog. All she can hear is muffled music and the noise of a distant engine. Gusts of strong wind rattle the shutters attached to the wall by metal hooks. Tightening her grip on the guardrail, she imagines herself floating down, following the swirling currents of air, as light as a dead leaf, until she reaches the ground and regains her freedom. Given her current physical state, she can’t hope to pull off such an exploit: she is well and truly locked in. How long can she wait for Momo to return? More than that, she’s not even sure that he’s coming back. Call for help. She could phone him, at the risk of waking up Ange. Only she doesn’t know the address of the apartment; nor did she pay attention to the route Momo took to get here. And besides, he would probably want to contact the police. She would have to explain her reasons for being here, and the police would notice they had been smoking pot. They might even search the apartment and discover a quantity of cannabis far in excess of what three people would have on hand for their personal use. She would be charged with trafficking in illicit substances and wouldn’t have enough money to afford bail. Too risky. She is starting to feel cold on this strip of balcony suspended over a void. No way is she going to stay in this apartment; she wouldn’t last long. She remembers a film about the Second World War. In it, a Jewish man was hiding out in an apartment. Following the disappearance of his perverse caretaker, the place turned into his prison. It was the middle of winter. After eating every bit of food down to the last crumb, he took to his bed, where he stayed under the blankets, motionless. Watching the scene, she wondered what goes through the mind of a man who can no longer feed himself, who has nothing left to do except wait for an unexpected rescuer: how would his thoughts change as the hours ticked by and his body ate away at itself from inside? She thought about the stench of her own decomposing body, how it would alert the neighbors, and how, as usual, turnout at her funeral would be low. Stories every bit as sordid were heard the previous summer, when old people died in their own homes from heat exhaustion without anyone noticing. The government was held responsible, not the old people’s children. But she is not ancient enough for this particular situation to get the better of her. There is only one solution: to wake up Kamel and ask him for the keys. The guy seems a bit of a lump, but harmless enough. Encouraged by this idea, she decides to put her plan into action. But when she goes back inside the room, Kamel is no longer on the sofa. Stunned, she stares at the crumpled place where he had been sprawled out a short while earlier. She looks around the room. How could he have vanished? She hasn’t even heard the front door, which is still locked. She checks the kitchen. No sign of Momo or Kamel. All that remains for her to do now is to sit down on the couch and wait for someone to come and save her.

  She thinks back to her afternoon. She was walking towards Place Carrée when Momo approached her. She remembers that when she heard the voice call out, Miss, she was looking up at the top of a tree, where a strange bird, a cross between a pigeon and a sparrow, was perched. She didn’t have time to get close enough to examine it carefully. Again, she sees the subtle changes taking
place in Momo’s eyes as she gradually relented. What gives the impression that the look in someone’s eyes is changing? She has the beginnings of answers but always comes back to the same vague conclusion: the shape. But the shape of what exactly? The skin around it? Of the pupil? The iris? She doesn’t know. She thinks back to the firm pressure of his hand on her shoulder, as if he had known she was about to get up and wanted to stop her. His eyes, which carefully avoided her, while wandering suspiciously over Momo. The phrase she had uttered in a single breath. She doesn’t remember the exact words she used, only the sense of relief she had experienced afterwards. Whether he replied yes or no by then hardly mattered: she had dared to take a step she never would have thought herself capable of. Then he said, I’ll call you, he didn’t say when. He didn’t say yes or no. Mentally she weighs the effect either word would have had on her. In fact, she’s not sure that she wants to go to the theater with him any more. She fears being alone with him, even though in the past she has invented numerous permutations of precisely that situation. It has taken her too long to make it happen, and she has grown used to drawing on that well of possibilities. It would be better if he refused so things between them can carry on the way she wants them to, in an imaginary realm where confrontation and disappointment can be avoided. Isn’t it more exciting to mold reality in one’s own private laboratory the way one chooses to? For if he accepts, the mechanisms of seduction will be set in motion. She will have to behave as she would in any other romantic adventure: resist her desire then give in to it. As always, the beginning would lead to the end. She will have to love him and suffer for it. She promises herself that she will do everything in her power not to wait for his phone call.

  Her stomach rumbles with the sound of an emptying pipe. She realizes she hasn’t eaten a thing since morning. They have finished the carton of orange juice. The cupboards in the kitchen contain only a salt shaker and a bottle of oil. There are the filter papers and the small packet of weed on the table, but smoking would make her appetite keener. She lies down on the sofa. She has no idea how much time has passed since she realized Momo and Kamel had disappeared. Closing her eyes, she tries to empty her mind, but anxiety prevents her from falling asleep. Her heartbeat doesn’t slow; at a dizzying rate her brain continues to produce bits of ideas, pieces of thought, unrecognizable images, which she feels powerless to stop. Her chest tightens, she has just remembered that tomorrow is Monday. If she is not out of here by then, she’ll miss the start of her shift; disciplinary measures will be taken against her. The thought of being reprimanded, or even fired, by a boss she can’t stand adds to her distress. She wants to believe that between now and the early morning Kamel or Momo will be back. If they stay out all night they’ll still have to come home in the morning, even if only to grab a few hours’ sleep. Feeling cold, she covers herself as best she can with her jacket. He must be peacefully asleep, in a warm, comfortable bed, while here she is freezing. She pictures Ange snuggled up against him, sleeping the sleep of the righteous. She feels certain that woman never has nightmares. Ange is protected by her honesty and her directness, which undo the traps before she even reaches them. With her rectitude and her principles, Ange would never find herself locked in by two strangers in an apartment whose precise address she didn’t know. Any more than she would let herself be paid 250 euros for not having sex with a diplomat! She would. Ange knows how to be pleasant and cheerful with everyone, yet she never lets herself get caught out by unforeseen events. Anyway, there are no such things as unforeseen events in her life, just plans put into operation. Her power lies in her ability to strike up conversations with just about anyone, while at the same time maintaining a prudent distance so that nothing untoward can happen to her. For example, Momo said more to Ange than he did to her, despite her being the one he initially tried to pick up. Yet Momo made no attempt to seduce Ange, and it is not Ange who now finds herself shivering on a couch-shaped raft which no wind is coming to push. For her part, she would have been only too delighted to settle for a friendly, civilized chat with Momo, before calmly setting off for home. So what is it? Perhaps it’s because Ange gives the impression of being in control of whatever she does, whereas she acts without thinking. For Ange lives things the way she planned to live them and draws satisfaction and strength from having followed her plan to the letter. It probably has to do with willpower. Ange looks happy, Momo had said. What about her? What does she look like? No one ever tells her. She is not like Ange, it’s as simple as that. I will never be like Ange, get that through your thick skull. She admits her fate is not as enviable, but it is hers. What happens to her could never happen to Ange. Which could also mean that she will never live with him.

  The rumbling of a motorbike in the street. She opens her eyes, she has slept. It takes her several seconds to get her bearings from the slit of bright light between the curtains. No one has come, and she is still on the same couch, no warmer, her stomach tense. She closes her eyes again. She has run out of patience, doesn’t want to stay inside this cage a moment longer. By banging loudly on the door she might manage to alert the neighbors. Except they are also likely to call the police. To escape the room’s sense of confinement, she takes refuge on the balcony. Beyond the rooftops and the pointed hats of the chimneys, the sky is starting to brighten. For the moment it is only an indistinct halo of pale light, the tips of the sun’s rays sliding the length of the planet, sweeping the night from their path. Several vehicles are gliding below. The city will soon be coming to life. She decides to call him as soon as the sun is up. To hell with it. Too bad about Ange, too bad about what she thinks, too bad if he blames her for letting herself be lured in like a little kid, too bad if he loses all respect for her. She will ask him not to call the police, and they’ll try to find another solution. He won’t refuse to help her. Perhaps his first thought will be that she is lying, the way she lied about being a prostitute, but she’ll know how to convince him. In any case, she won’t have a choice. So there is no point panicking. One way or another, she’ll get out of here. Besides, any minute now Momo and Kamel could turn up with a bag of warm croissants. Everything is possible, after all.

  Despite the cold, she stays out on the balcony to watch the sunrise: the sky turning from a very pale blue to gold, the warming of the stone façades, the rubbish lorries trundling by, the birds singing, the steady rise of sounds and voices. Privileged moments. The day looks set to be fine. As the sun rises over the apartment buildings, she goes back inside. She spends a long while searching for the phone, at first all excited at the prospect of her imminent release, then more and more alarmed at not being able to locate it. Eventually she is forced to admit that there is no telephone in the apartment, and she is convinced that she has lost her final chance of escape. She sits back down on the couch. She is exhausted.

  There’s a sharp cracking sound above her head. The noise is coming from the loft. She has no idea what to expect. On top of everything else, she may also have to share the premises with a mouse. There’s no limit to how low a person can sink. Heart pounding, she climbs the few rungs of the ladder leading up to the bed. And there before her appears Momo’s puffy face. You been crying? He mutters in a sleepy voice, but she is unable to speak.

  She asks Momo for the keys. After locking up the night before, he fell asleep with them in his hand. He didn’t want to wake her. She doesn’t listen to his explanations. Insults or kisses, either would do to celebrate her release. But she doesn’t have time: she wants to go. Momo watches in disbelief as she rushes out, not even bothering to close the door behind her. At least give me your number. She smiles, pictures Momo adding the words, it’s my birthday. Without replying, she charges down the stairs.

  She is now walking in the street which she had so yearned for all night. What she saw from high above she now sees up close. Everything seems immense, but at last within reach. With every step, she exults at the sensation of the firm ground beneath her feet. Before turning the corner, she looks up, tries t
o spot her night-time perch. She never would have thought that the sight of a balcony could be so moving. She feels like someone released from prison after being wrongfully convicted. After a few bad turns, she finds the Châtelet métro station. Twenty minutes later, she will be at home. She will eat an entire packet of LU biscuits, take a shower, get changed, leave again, get to the station slightly out of breath, relieved, read 7:53 on a clock. Crossing the station concourse, she will, as she often does, imagine herself boarding a train. But at eight o’clock she’ll be sitting at her desk, ready to announce the 8:15 am TGV to Lille, as she does every Monday morning.

  I’ll call you. I’ll call you soon. A subtle nuance. How should she interpret it? The shift from a vague future to an immediate future—is it just a way of talking or does it suggest the start of something serious? A need to get closer to the anticipated action? A code to be deciphered?

  For four days, the telephone has been silent. She has hardly spoken a word. The usual questions and comments to colleagues, reduced to an absolute minimum—How are you? Good weekend? Awful weather! Not a peep about her misadventures. She has no intention of stoking rumors with an account of the past twenty-four hours. She knows full well that whether she boasted about it or complained, it would do her no good. More than a year ago, she overheard a conversation in the women’s toilet at her office. The voices of two women, each in her respective cubicle, who thought they were alone. She had come in; the women had carried on, no more able to see her than she was able to see them, each from behind her closed door, skirts pulled up, ass exposed, chatting away as calmly as though they were sitting over a cup of tea. They had tried out several adjectives on her—quiet, cold, withdrawn—until they finally settled on the vaguest and broadest of them all: strange.