Celine Curiol - Voice Over

She started walking again. Each step left another portion of pavement behind her that reappeared, unchanged, in front of her. She was moving along a conveyor belt, her feet carried by the tectonic spinning movement of a universe whose gravitational pull had lost its power over her. She was walking without going anywhere, to stay on her feet in the midst of people who could move forward simply because they knew where they were going. She was walking to convince herself that she wasn’t immobile. There was a time when she knew how to put her talent for motion to good use, to travel from Paris to London, to go from her apartment to the gare du Nord every day, to show up for their meetings. Now she should have struggled, broken the rules on purpose, shoved someone aside, spat on him, hurt him, performed some impulsive random act that would allow her to re-enter the flow of cause and effect, the altercations and frolics that pulled people along by the nose and gave them a sensation of being alive.

She would have liked to disappear on the spot, not to die but to disappear, in a puff of smoke, shrinking down to nothing or vanishing into thin air. No one around her would notice a thing. Suicide, a real suicide, seemed impossible to her. She would need to make an immense effort to achieve something she could just as easily attain through patience. She would need a method that was one hundred per cent foolproof, a powerful determination to overcome her own instinct for survival. And she wasn’t even sure that it was actually death she was after, but rather a permanent state of profound indifference. Life consisted in performing a series of gestures and movements triggered by a reflex or a summoning of the will. She concluded that in order to be spared it was enough no longer to want anything.

The rain had stopped falling. She noticed it because she was the only person still holding an open umbrella. She closed it and continued walking. At one point, she thought she heard someone calling her name. People rushed past her, their faces expressionless, paying no attention to her. She turned around: he was there again, his hair wet, his features drawn. I’ve spent the past three days looking for you. It was definitely his voice, but the man now coming towards her hadn’t moved his lips. She shook her head and hurried into a shop. She had to speak to someone, but she didn’t have the right words. She was sorry she had never learned English. She began walking up and down the aisles, in between shelves crammed with objects, some vacuum-packed, others wrapped in plastic or stacked in tins. French, French, she repeated, first in a low voice, then more and more loudly as she penetrated deeper into the shop. People were beginning to turn round as she went by, giving her startled looks, which they quickly hid. And then, someone said yes. A man wearing jeans and carrying a backpack was looking at her. Next to him was a woman wearing jeans and carrying a backpack, holding a clothes-hanger and a long, beige, patterned dress. The man and woman appeared to be a couple. She assumed they were tourists, fellow countrymen, allies. With a bit of luck, they could even have come from the same city she did. She was so happy to see them, almost reassured. She went over. From where she was standing now, she could no longer keep an eye on the front entrance. Talk to me. Taken aback, the man and woman stared at her in silence. You don’t understand what I’m saying, I’m asking you to talk to me so he won’t come back. The couple gave each other a puzzled look, shrugged their shoulders, and turned their backs on her. Please, wait! She wasn’t about to let them go that easily, finding others like them would be hard. Just as she was starting after them, the man turned around, grabbed her wrist and pressed a banknote into her palm, giving her an embarrassed shrug. She looked at the note as the identically dressed man and woman walked off. She wanted to shout after them to stay and talk to her, five minutes would do. Then she remembered Paris and the night she received two hundred and fifty euros for passing herself off as someone else. Here too she could have invented a new identity for herself, told one of those lies that came so spontaneously to her. But she couldn’t do it any more. Her old reflexes were gone, something had changed. As her true self, she was worth only five pounds. In the past, she would probably have found that amusing. No longer.

She was still walking down Hereford Road when he came back for a greater length of time. He began walking next to her in silence. Although she didn’t dare turn her head, she could sense that he wasn’t very well either. At a red light, he spoke to her. My feet hurt, do you want to stop for a coffee? She clapped her hands to her ears. If she didn’t listen to him, he would vanish. But even through her palms she could still make out his muffled words. Stop sulking, I’ve told you I’ve been looking for you, isn’t that enough? She couldn’t allow herself to react. I’ve looked almost everywhere, you know, I was waiting for you to get in touch. If she gave in, they would quarrel and she’d never be able to get rid of him. Now that I’ve found you, you’re not going to behave like a little girl, are you? Like a little girl. It was easy for him to say that. Let me remind you that you’re the one who came late. She gritted her teeth, trying to focus her attention on a man who was covered in white make-up and pretending to be a statue. Around him were a dozen onlookers all waiting for that moment when an eyelid, a corner of the mouth, a finger would twitch. If it’s because of what happened with that man. She stopped. She felt people pushing their way past her, but she couldn’t move. She’d made a mistake, she needed to look him straight in the eye to put an end to this ridiculous comedy. His pallor, his stubble, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look ill. There were smudges of dust on his suit, the top buttons of his shirt were open. She’d never seen him in such a state, she almost pitied him. If he had actually been there, she couldn’t have fought back the urge to take him in her arms and comfort him. Since you’re not making the slightest effort, I’ll come back when you’re in a better mood. And, just as she was about to reply, he disappeared for good.

For several hours she followed the meanderings of the street, which seemed to go on for ever. Hunger had taken hold of her stomach, and because her legs were stiff from exhaustion, she was gradually slowing down. She had lost awareness of her surroundings, then of her own body, as if she were constantly sliding outside herself. At the last minute, the sight of a particular object, sometimes real, sometimes without shape or consistency, or a barely formulated thought, would pull her back. In that way, she managed not to fall down.

The red color had caught her eye. She didn’t remember walking past other telephone boxes earlier, and it struck her that this particular one was meant for her. It was not an ordinary part of the urban landscape but a temptation, or rather a command to do what she hadn’t dared contemplate until now: to call him at home. It went without saying that she would not ask a single question, she would simply listen to the voice at the other end of the line as if she were some kind of anonymous crank caller.

She went over to the empty phone box. After several tugs on the door, she managed to get it open. The enclosed space stank of beer and urine. She took a deep breath, went in, keeping her head down to avoid the stench, and let the door close behind her. A black can of Guinness and several cigarette butts lay strewn in the corners of the concrete floor. People had come here before her to shut themselves away in this confined space, to get angry, to get worried, to get happy at one end of a wire. She knew the number by heart, like those childhood recitations that can never be erased from memory. She still had some change. She lifted the receiver, put it to her ear, fed in the coins, and began to dial. That was when she saw the photographs. There were about a dozen of them, all roughly the same size. Each one had a name and telephone number at the bottom, in colored letters. Most of the women were topless. Some of them also showed their naked buttocks in G-strings. All had struck enticing poses, a promising wink, a tempting pout, a display of admirable teeth. But what impressed her most was the look in the eyes, which revealed nothing more than what these women wanted to reveal. Their contortions were a stark contrast to what she was about to do. After looking carefully at each one, she put the receiver back on the hook, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the box straight away. When she felt up to it, she would go home.