Celine Curiol - Voice Over

She wakes up. Her mouth is dry. She gets out of bed and shuffles cautiously over to the sink. She brings her lips close to the tap. The water smells of bleach. Through the window, she glimpses a dark shape moving about in the park.

She wakes up. She can no longer ignore the promptings of her bladder. The door creaks as she opens it; the light makes her squint. She goes down the stairs as quickly as she can, afraid that she might meet someone. The timer-light sounds like the chirping of a cricket. The floor tiles in the toilets are cold. She thinks she has stepped on something wet. She doesn’t dare sit down on the seat and pees standing astride the bowl. She finds no paper to wipe herself with.

She woke up. Day had dawned outside.

She left the room, carrying her handbag with her. At the front desk, she saw a pair of hands poking over the counter; she didn’t drop off her key. To her surprise, she noticed that all the houses around the park were identical, with their white façades, their columns, their raised front entrances, and their large windows. She wondered if the occupants all dressed the same, so as not to stand out. She headed right, although she could just as well have headed left. The few people passing by at that moment were all going in the same direction. She decided to do what they did, they obviously knew where they were going. She reached a crowded road, with shop fronts on either side. Unable to read the instructions, she had to try several combinations of buttons before she could withdraw four hundred pounds from a cash dispenser. She didn’t know how much a pound was worth, but four hundred seemed to be an interesting number, probably because of the four. She then stopped in at some kind of café after reading, with the satisfaction of having understood, the word sandwich on the window. All the tables were empty, except for one, where a woman sat resting her elbows. She chose to sit as far away from her as possible. The place smelled of fried butter and cigarette smoke. A waitress took her time before coming over. She said sandwich and the waitress said something in response. She shrugged her shoulders, the waitress returned with a menu, she pointed randomly at the first line. A few minutes later, a mound of bread, ham, and cheese landed in front of her. She ate because she was hungry, the sandwich oozed mayonnaise. She noticed that the other customer had the face of a witch and was rolling cigarette after cigarette, half-smoking each one before stubbing it out in the ashtray, which she engaged in intimate conversation, without uttering a sound, merely by moving her lips. She left, feeling rather ill, and set off in search of a supermarket. Since she was afraid of getting lost, she decided to keep to the main commercial street. She ended up going inside a place that went by the bizarre name of Sainsbury’s, where she bought a dozen tomatoes, carrots, oranges and apples, a dozen yogurts, five packets of vacuum-packed cold cuts and two cellophane-wrapped loaves of bread. It took her a certain amount of time and struggle to get it all back to the hotel, after she lost her way turning into what she thought was her street. She made a dash for the stairs to avoid being spotted by the owner of the hotel. Back in her room, she put the yogurts and cold cuts inside two plastic bags, which she placed on the windowsill. The rest of the food she put away in the cupboard. She then brought a chair over to the window and settled down to observe the park and the street. The aim was simply to observe, perhaps even to comment on what she saw if she felt an inclination to formulate a thought, but above all not to reflect on anything that had to do with her. Seen from above, the people didn’t look very different from the ones in Paris. She noticed a few squirrels in the park, as well as a bird she had never seen before. When the light started to fade, she was still in the same spot.

After eating a tomato and several slices of cured ham, accompanied by some bread and an apple, she lay down on the bed. She slept no better than she had the previous night and was woken up several times for no apparent reason. She didn’t hear her neighbors making love, but when the door to the toilets was left open, there was the sound of water running in the flush. There was a murmur as well, as if two people were whispering somewhere in the room, unseen.

The next day, after some hesitation, she climbed out of her clothes. She took a cold shower in the plastic cabin. Removing some clean clothes from the sports bag, she rolled the dirty ones up into a ball before stuffing them into the desk drawer. Once again, she installed herself at her observation post, nibbling on bread and from time to time crumbling little pieces onto the window sill.

Since moving into the room, she hasn’t spoken. And now she feels as if her voice has been hidden somewhere inside her body, as if it were a living creature in the process of dying.

Later on, she heard a key in the lock. A young woman dressed in overalls appeared in the doorway and mumbled something with such ingenuousness that she immediately nodded in assent. The maid entered and began remaking the nearly untouched bed. She had done no more than cover herself with the blanket during the night when she felt cold. The maid passed a cloth over the night table, a sponge round the inside of the shower unit and the base of the sink, then picked up the white towel she had used to dry herself with. She watched these efficient movements without seeming to bother the maid who mechanically went about her tasks as if no one else was in the room: her body was at work, but her mind was elsewhere. It occurred to her that she could offer her services to the hotel and in exchange live here for an indeterminate length of time. There would be no need for her to talk, she would learn the two or three English phrases necessary for the job, that would be enough. She could have another life, and far more easily than she ever imagined before coming here. The maid put a clean towel on the bed before withdrawing in silence. She finished the rest of the bread then went out.

The park gate was open, she sat down on a bench. The air was chilly, the sky grey and monotonous. Now and then, she saw the upper portion of a scalp pass by on the other side of the thick hedge. She drew circles in the gravel with her heels, stared at her hands, clicked her tongue, flicked non-existent specks of dust off her clothing. A squirrel with a frayed tail approached to within a metre of her feet. Up on its hind legs, it sniffed the air. She cleared her throat and spat, but her spittle fell short and the little animal bolted for the cover of a protective tree. She had absolutely nothing to do. She felt like a bored patient who hasn’t the strength to do something to help the time go faster. She felt permanently out of breath, even though she hardly moved. Her heart was beating oddly, as if out of rhythm, as if she were constantly being dropped into a void. She tried to rekindle her enthusiasm. She was on a trip to London, there was an entire city around her to explore, she couldn’t leave without finding out what Big Ben really was. But none of this inspired the least shudder of curiosity. She had to face the facts: monuments or no monuments, she couldn’t have cared less. She had not an ounce of willpower left. Just getting herself down to the park had required an effort.

Later on, she stood up and walked round the park, tearing off bits of leaves as she passed by, sprinkling them at her feet. She went over to a tree and let herself hang from the first branch she could reach. The bark grazed her skin slightly, but she jumped up, trying to get her legs high enough to hook them over the branch. But they fell back heavily to the ground, not making contact. After about fifteen attempts, she gave up: she no longer knew how to climb trees.