Celine Curiol - Voice Over

She retrieves a bottle of whisky from the disarray of a kitchen cupboard. Six inches of golden liquid. She swallows the first gulp with a slight wince. The taste gives her goose bumps. Alcohol dissolves most troubles, penetrates the mucous membranes, slows the nerve impulses, relaxes obsessive thoughts — the fragile, drunk heroine is condemned to eternal sadness. A fairy tale in reverse. Total flop. No one cares any more about the ravages of passion; our age has stopped believing in them. And yet people cry out for drama more than ever, ready to pay a high price in exchange for it. There has to be action, upheaval, constant change. Thrills are required to distract and impress the customer. The abrupt halt of their telephone conversation appears to signify a rupture, but not one she can take seriously. Whisky number two. She feels as if they have set out to explore a region where the climate is harsher. Heavy showers, bundle up, bursts of sunlight early in the morning. She pictures the two of them in long oilskins by a stormy sea, hunched over to shield themselves from the gusting wind. How to talk in such conditions? The first thing to do is to seek shelter. She feels certain that each of them knows where to find the other. She knows the place where he has gone to hide. She actually should be congratulating herself: she’s rescued them from one hell of a tight corner. Raising her glass, she toasts the empty room. For now, it’s bound to be a bit painful. There are moments, she explains to her green plant, when radical measures are required if the worst is to be avoided. If their conversation had got out of hand, they would have ended up throwing their raw feelings in each other’s faces. Full-blown carnage and no one to wipe up the mess afterwards. She now has to wait for calm to return. It will take time. She can’t imagine what he might be doing now, still less what might be going through his mind. Chances are he is with Ange. In which case, he’s having a beer in the living room or eating with her in the kitchen. If she were a fly, better still an ant, stationed on the edge of the sink with antennae out, she would listen until Ange chased her away with a swipe of her sponge. What a revelation it would be! In her human form, she has never overheard even a snippet of private conversation between them. The odd words required for the smooth functioning of their life together — shall we go, can you take my bag, yes I’ll have some — but nothing resembling a discussion or a row. She therefore lacks the material with which to reconstruct their conversations. Perhaps they are watching a film on TV, he very intent, Ange distracted, announcing the solution to the mystery in advance, he complaining, she apologizing. It’s not my fault, it just slipped out; anyway, you guessed as much. Or else they are making love. The image of a dark room filled with sighs, then more sighs. Mustn’t switch on the light: what his naked body is plotting against Ange’s would appear in full view. She doesn’t want to know, which is understandable. She finishes the bottle. Is he upset? Angry? Offended? Riddled with remorse? Or perhaps pleased? Glad to be rid of her? Can he see her, a blot of yellow oilskin in the midst of a damp fog, hidden in some far corner of his mind? She juggles the various options but can’t manage to sort them out. She lacks key data. Even for herself, the storm had brought down a number of certainties she felt were solidly anchored. Such as there could never be any misunderstandings between them. How does one define a misunderstanding, though? The magazines on the shelf don’t deign to reply. Between them there had previously been an understanding, which has mutated into a misunderstanding. What is the difference? She has had too much to drink; she is unsure about the next steps. Good and evil are both an arbitrary distinction and an infernal dichotomy. The main thing is to understand each another. She doesn’t have the strength to carry on talking to the furniture. She dozes off.

The ringing of the phone pulls her from the depths of sleep. She is stretched out on the sofa between two pairs of bronze arms and bronze legs. With much difficulty, she extends her hand to catch hold of the receiver and stop the noise in her ears. She doesn’t say “hello,” doesn’t have a single drop of saliva left in her mouth. How are you? For the first time, he has said it with feeling. No longer is it mere politeness or a verbal tic: he wants to know how she is. The expression is no longer a screen, it conveys genuine intent. For the first time, she doesn’t parrot back like a fool, OK. She gives a real answer to his real question. I have a terrible headache. Even as it sinks in that he is there, at the other end of the line, that he has called her back. She is surprised, but she tells herself it couldn’t have been any other way. The storm has passed, their bond has held. The forgiveness is tacit, the hard feelings have never been explicit or implicit, there never were any. It’s the start of intimacy. Two people who know the same thing, without having to put it into words. The conversation that follows is the one they haven’t had yet: What time is it? Seven o’clock. I’m going to be late. Did I wake you up? I’m glad you did, I didn’t think I’d slept for so long. You needed it. And you, did you get some sleep? Not much. He must have faced facts. What has happened between them isn’t trivial. He hurt her, and it has affected him more than he could have imagined. Despite all his past efforts, he can no longer delude himself about the essence of what exists between them. Ignoring it is now more awkward than acknowledging it. And he acknowledges it, as she just understood from their conversation. I’ll call you, he says. The words are the same, the intent has changed: she believes him. As she puts down the phone, her whole body is electrified. Tonight she will go to the theater alone, but that doesn’t matter anymore.

She is at the microphone. She reads out: The TER 47433 service, bound for Beauvais, departing at 11:22 am, will leave from platform number 7. The TGV 7040 from Lille will arrive at platform J. Attention please, attention please, please note the change of platform. This regional service will be stopping at Amiens, Lamotte-Brebière, Daours, Corbie, Heilly, and Méricourt-Ribemont. Her voice fills the entire station, soaring over the platforms, the halls, sailing into corners, crashing into glass walls. She is present everywhere, and yet no one recognizes her. There is a little trick she does to avoid stumbling over her words: she focuses on what she is saying without focusing on the fact that she is saying it. Never fails. The travellers soak up the information she sends them through the invisible loudspeakers. She is perfectly anonymous, talking to everyone and yet addressing no one. Occasionally she dreams that one of them won’t head straight for the taxi rank, won’t rush down the stairs into the métro, won’t revert quite so quickly to his habitual self the moment he steps off the train, and that instead he’ll stop and tell her about what he saw during the course of his trip. All she knows about the towns and villages to which they travel are their names and positions on the map. That is all she has to picture them. Her own journey goes only so far as announcing destinations, navigating between syllables of names, pronouncing numbers and letters correctly. On the rare occasions when she has taken a train, she experienced the same sense of misgiving that a doctor would who has to undergo medical treatment. And then, in order to get away, you need to know where to go; you need a destination. A motive is what tears through the protective layer of the everyday. Departure is an upheaval, which can only be calmed by the pleasure of experiencing the desired place. She would have liked to travel everywhere; in other words, nowhere. But while she may never have had a valid reason to leave, she now has a good excuse to stay.