Voice Over

by Celine Curiol

  They have sat down on the banks of the Seine, by the Pont Marie. Not the side where the students show up in the afternoons and where people come to smoke and have fun on summer nights. But the other side, which is quieter. They sit close to each other. She lets her legs dangle over the water, her eyes wandering randomly over the golden buildings in front of her. He sits cross-legged; stealing glances at her out of the corner of his eye. This goes on for an indeterminate length of time. Then he says, how are things? His voice sounds new, as if he had never used this voice before. But the ensuing silence worries her slightly. A giant sightseeing boat is advancing along the river; a mass of tiny tourists are waving their hands. The boat-load, drowning under the didactic onslaught of a nasal voice, holds their attention for a moment before getting sucked into the shadow of the bridge. She leaves her eyes trained on the exact spot where the boat has vanished; he keeps his eyes on her. Then he asks. What are you thinking about? The passage of the boat has given her a little time. She shrugs her shoulders. Nothing. She doesn’t know. About so many things that she doesn’t say. I’ve never seen you look so pretty.

  She then has the certainty, the troubling, flattering certainty, that he is about to kiss her. She is dying to let him. Hasn’t she imagined it dozens of times, this kiss that is in no way accidental? And yet something tightens inside her. She is on the edge of a cliff and can’t go any further. After this kiss, there will be no turning back, she will no longer be able to love him in her own little corner without triggering strange defence mechanisms over which she has no control. She has looked forward to this scene for so long, has wanted it more than anything else. But now she puts off doing what she has yearned for all these months. His wanting to kiss her turns into a threat, and his desire feels like a weapon that could only wound her. A frightening reflex that she is powerless to stop. She feels ridiculous, at a loss. The spell is broken. Taking hold of her hand, he gives it a squeeze; she squeezes his back. She wishes she could stay like that, but she can’t stop herself from erecting a barrier of words between them. We should be going. Another tourist boat is passing along the river, in the wake of the one before it. At first glance, its passengers look the same as the ones before.

  They walk back over the Pont Marie. He must be telling himself that he made a mistake, that her behaving like a jumpy teenager doesn’t make any sense. He must not understand what she wants from him any more and must be thinking about Ange. He’ll be able to tell her the truth: nothing happened, I held her hand, she wasn’t feeling well, you know, she tends to be fairly unpredictable. And yet the story about the prostitute had made an impression on him. For the first time, he had realized that she wasn’t the bland woman he had taken her to be. In front of city hall, he must have watched her for a few minutes before calling her name. Her hidden, darting looks, her hesitations, her air of being present and yet absent, as if her body were translucent. People find it annoying, she knows that. And yet he had seemed to put up with it, at least until now. He can’t ever have met anyone like her, surely that is what attracts him. In her awkwardness and abrupt way of asserting herself, he must recognize something of himself. And afterwards? How could he deal with her spontaneous reactions? How can he even consider getting involved with her? And risk upsetting a life which, when all is said and done, must suit him just fine. Keep Ange at a distance, risk hurting her or living with a guilty conscience. And all that for a woman who recoils before he has even offered her his lips. If kissing is already such a trial, no wonder he loses heart and doesn’t want to imagine anything further between them! I’ll walk you back. He spoke in a flat voice. An immense traffic jam has brought the Rue de Rivoli to a halt.

  He steps away, and she doesn’t have it in her to hold on to him. Too little time, too little intimacy. In less than an hour, she has ruined everything. First prize for disappointment, the clear winner. She should have known that she wouldn’t be up to the task. And yet she thought she had prepared herself. Tell him that there are good reasons to justify her behavior but that she doesn’t know how to explain them. A whole string of insults come to mind—opportunist, nasty coward, cheap asshole, pickup artist. But using them against him wouldn’t help her case. If he thinks he’s easy to get close to, if only he knew how much patience she’s needed. He must be comparing her to Ange and, it goes without saying, she doesn’t stand a chance. She would like to tell him that he shouldn’t think like that. Ange is Ange; she has her wings, she knows how to fly, light and charming. She, on the other hand, has no wings. She has a voice which she uses correctly only when addressing strangers. She has never asked to take Ange’s place. She has never asked for anything. Besides, it was he who phoned her. She isn’t even sure what she wants. If only she could be certain that he was like the others, she would know how to back off and leave him alone. But she thinks of him in a way that she has never thought of anyone else before.

  They walk down into the métro. Music is coming up from below. You hear it? He nods. At the bottom of the steps, a rolypoly little man is sitting at a miniature keyboard. His thick fingers pound the keys of the instrument, which emits more or less harmonious metallic squeaks. They pause to watch the unusual spectacle. She recognizes the piece: Für Elise. E—D—E—D—E—B—D—C—A—C—E—A—B, with a rock beat. She used to play it and always detested it. Just then, he takes hold of her arm and turns her towards him. She senses that he wants to say something serious to her. But the sight of him standing in front of her like that, embarrassed, with that awful music in the background as the little man presses on, improvising some grotesque tune, gives her a fit of giggles. Taken aback, he lets go of her. His arms drop to his sides. Again an unexpected turn. Do I make you laugh? She shakes her head, as if trying to get rid of the silly idea that has wormed its way into her. Explain before he takes offence and gives up on her for good. It’s the piano, I used to play it when I was little. He doesn’t understand. He looks at the little man, who is more pathetic than funny. He no longer feels desire for her, she can sense it; he no longer knows the reasons that prompted him to come for her. You ought to go, Ange will be waiting. She spoke without hostility or bitterness, with an assurance that stood in stark contrast to her retreat just moments earlier. Soon, they will have put an end to this shaky adventure, which they wrongly believed they had wanted to embark on. And suddenly she thinks she knows what he wants to say to her: Ange is the one I love. Ange’s beauty, her assurance, her straightforwardness, and he would compromise his relationship with such a woman! All she can ever be for him is a fantasy, a solitary, bewildered creature who arouses his curiosity. It was out of pity that he arranged to meet her, at once flattered and sensing a responsibility for the interest she showed in him. He confused his willingness to do something for her with some amorous feeling.

  She doesn’t dare touch him. The energy that flowed between them has been cut, replaced by a mass of isolating air which their hands can no longer penetrate. It feels as if she has been dropped into a void, without warning. She sees him turning things over in his mind, searching for the right reasons. Now, yes, she is ready to kiss him, but she doesn’t dare. She thinks about rolling around on the floor, faking an epileptic fit or a faint. Then he would have no choice but to stay and look after her. The ground is right there; all she has to do is throw herself down. Whether she faints for real or not hardly matters, he could never be certain that she faked it. Truth or lie: in moments of urgency, you no longer make the distinction. As soon as he turns his back on her, she will be overcome by despair, and yet another disappointment will be added to her collection. She has to stand up for herself. Why should she allow him to leave her like that, as if she had the plague, just because she wouldn’t let him plant his lips on hers? She isn’t quite sure what the symptoms of an epileptic fit are. Better the faint, then. She just has to let the muscles in her knees and neck go limp and collapse in a heap. She will probably get hurt a little if he doesn’t catch her in time. Too bad about the bruises. She closes her eyes, he open
s his mouth. But he doesn’t have the courage to tell her; nor she to let herself fall. See you later, they finally intone in unison. His face tense, he strides off towards the turnstiles. She remains where she is, both hands clutching the hem of her jacket.

  Then come two weeks of forced daily grind. Without her knowledge, a piece of lead has been inserted into her chest. At times she looks for the operation scars on her upper torso, but the skin is taut, unblemished. Her outer layer is intact; the damage is on the inside. Every gesture is an ordeal, a conscious effort to convince herself that eating, going out, working, sleeping are in fact necessary for her to go on living. She doesn’t want anything. She’d like to stay on her sofa staring out the window, like old people in a rest home who have nothing but their past to mull over. Her existence is a succession of moments at home and moments at the office, interspersed with brief trips outside, a cycle that goes on and on for the simple reason that she doesn’t know what to replace it with. She spends the weekend in pajamas, listening non-stop to “A Lucky Guy” by Rickie Lee Jones and gulping down cornflakes straight from the packet.

  Two evenings in a row, she forgets to switch on the light before sitting down on the sofa. The telephone doesn’t ring. But she no longer pays attention to that either. She doesn’t talk much any more. She just moves her head a little when her co-workers say hello; not even their disapproving looks bother her. There is only one thing she forbids herself to do: to foul up when announcing the trains. Her voice remains constant, a limpid stream that betrays none of her anxieties. During those brief moments when she is speaking into the microphone, she is leaving her leaden body behind and merging with the vibrating air that emanates from her throat.

  Later on, she can’t remember any of her thoughts from this period.

  After a week of this dry routine, she wakes up one morning with the sensation that the lead inside her has broken up into several pieces and migrated to different parts of her body. The heaviness is still there, but it seems more evenly distributed now. In order to make this new state last, she knows that she has to keep herself busy. Reorganize her clothes in the wardrobe, put the magazines in order on the shelves, rearrange the bottles of cleaning products in the cupboard under the sink. She makes sure that she always has something to do, scrupulously makes her bed and does the dishes, scrubs the bathtub twice a day, tidies up, washes herself meticulously, reads the posters in the métro. Whenever she inadvertently gets bogged down, she replays the scene on the Île Saint-Louis. Pinpoint the exact instant when they began to draw apart. She goes back to a second or two before the fatal moment, when she wasn’t able to let herself be kissed. The sequence is always the same: there is that incredible, almost palpable tension between them. She realizes what is coming, panics, talks, the tourist boat goes by, and then it’s over. She would like to erase what happened next. The shame of it! Even twelve-year-old girls know how to stick their tongue into a boy’s mouth and move it around while breathing through their nose. Nestor Karma had warned her: details count. The kiss had to be precisely that. She blames herself for her behavior until eventually she convinces herself that it couldn’t have been any other way. She writes It wasn’t my fault on a piece of paper, which she tapes to the back of the toilet door.

  Every time she thinks about him, the pieces of lead shift, crushing her insides.

  One evening after she has eaten her dinner, rinsed her plate and cutlery and wiped up the crumbs with a sponge, she finds it hard to sit still on the sofa. She switches on the television, but instead of soothing her, the programs accentuate her disquiet. The two-dimensional beings gesticulating on-screen look like sad puppets, as if life had been reduced to a limited number of pre-ordained movements. She switches off the set, stands up, and wanders around the apartment searching for something to do. But no sooner does she take hold of something than she loses all interest in it. Using it becomes an empty gesture, bringing neither distraction nor relief. She has only herself for company; the lead is starting to exert its grip once more. To go out, to meet someone, in the hope of feeling something other than her own physical limits.

  The street is empty. She wonders what day it is and has to make an effort to remember. Monday. Rain has darkened the pavements, patches of damp stand out on the walls, the air smells of vegetation, as if man-made odors no longer existed. She walks along suspended above her regular footsteps, fascinated by the ease of her movements. And so it goes until the combined effects of the wind and the rain begin to wear off, until her surroundings become oppressive, as though everything around her were gradually drying up. Ill at ease once again, she goes into a bar. The only customer seated at a table is a young man on his own, writing. Three men laughing in chorus with the barman at the counter. Some music playing in the background lends the place a vague romantic charm. She has stepped into one of those realms where external events are transformed into words and stripped of their consequences. They let her sit down without paying attention to her. A few minutes later, the barman comes over with a dishcloth over his shoulder and the hint of an amused smile still playing on his lips, the last trace of the story told by the men at the counter. But he vanishes the moment he takes her order, leaving her alone, still craving company. For a few seconds, she turns her attention to the young man, who is contemplating the loose sheets of paper that have barely been touched by ink, but he doesn’t look her way once. A newspaper has been left on the seat next to her. L’Inédit. She has never seen any copies of it except in this place. She opens it at random and begins to read.

  Religious communities, political communities, ethnic communities, minority communities, a place where we find others who resemble us. In all societies, a need to conform. Innovation is a risk machine, use it cautiously, it isn’t included in insurance contracts. You will not be covered for refusing to respect the prevailing way of life. Go out of your way to run yourself aground! What’s the point, death lurks in the wings. Without surprises, no bad surprises; stay perched on the branch where your predecessors made their nest. Be careful: any shifting around could lead to a fall. Do as you please, but stay within the norms; you are being watched. Enemies of the unusual are united, but there are no half-measures for the ones who have escaped conventional thinking. Every day, hundreds of people avoid one another. Because of modesty, of cowardice, of incomprehension, of laziness, of fear, of pride. There is no button to push that would slow them down, for what is left behind must be, in theory, found ahead. Waste, the evil wrongs of a consumer society in which infinite choice is permitted and, once attained, bears the misleading designation of freedom. We glance at others as though they were shop windows. Man adores ease. He battles on to prove, wrongly, that he is right, he revels in empty words, loyalty, integrity, trust. Trust vanished a long time ago. People want things to run well, but things have no legs, they exist or they don’t. People shut themselves away in ugly, rickety dwellings. At least they hold together, just don’t get too close to the edge. Never has the cult of the goddess Security had such a following. If the agreement of tenses is a basic rule of language, agreement among human beings is as rare as a solar eclipse. Don’t miss it. Assuming your senses have not been numbed. Most of the time, circumstances dictate everything else. There are no truths, only points of view. It is always the next note that reveals the accuracy of the one before it. You have to listen to a piece all the way to the end in order to appreciate its beauty. It’s true that boundaries shift, ways of thinking evolve, but power relations continue to impose their laws. Today, in the West, women who wear the veil are a symbol of the absence of choice. The innocent pupil raises his hand: Sir, is television a form of submission? You’ve got it all mixed up. Human-rights advocates will howl: you have the choice. In a word, explain the difference between choice and freedom. Subtlety is the enemy of power. Stir up the concepts in a single pot, fodder to be served to the masses to fatten them up and keep them quiet. Choicefreedom—capitalism’s hi-tech weapon. The mission of the savior of the globe is to spread democra
cy in order to stimulate markets. Money does not guarantee happiness, but it helps. Make a note of that, it will come in handy later on. In the year 3000, statues of the kings of petrol, father and son, will be erected at the entrance to the capital of the world. All advertising posters will read: Organize your capital, Plan ahead. This is the quest for the Holy Grail of our time. Man will never be cured of his mortality.

  The article is by someone named Gaëtane Lonrice. She isn’t sure she has understood what the writer is trying to demonstrate. She swallows a gulp of red wine, looking at the wall opposite her. A large painting hangs there showing about thirty nude women sitting, kneeling, or lying on their sides, grouped into a swarm. They have been painted in such a way that their eyes converge on a single point—the viewer, who sees only their faces, their necks and shoulders, sections of their arms and legs. In the foreground, however, there is a woman whose breasts and pubic hair are visible. What the composition seems to suggest to her is that the intimate parts of the other models are not worth showing since they are the same as the first’s. Only their faces make them different.