Underground Time

by Delphine de Vigan

  In the distance, Mathilde recognised Pierre Dutour, Sylvie Jammet and Pascal Furion. They were smoking outside the building. When she reached them, they stopped talking.

  That’s how it began, with this silence.

  This silence that lasts a few seconds, the embarrassed silence. They looked at each other. Sylvie Jammet began fishing for something in her bag. Eventually they acknowledged her with: ‘Morning, Mathilde.’ They pretended to continue their conversation but something stayed hanging in the air between them, between them and her. Mathilde went into the building, got out her card and swiped it in the time clock, which was showing 10.45. She waited for the beep and checked the screen: MATHILDE DEBORD: ENTRY REGISTERED. She went to the drinks machine and put some money in the slot. She pressed the button and watched the cup fall and the liquid flow. She picked up the coffee and walked past the data-processing department. Jean-Marc and Dominique gave her a wave and she waved back. They didn’t stop what they were doing. The glass door of Logistics was open. Laetitia was sitting at her desk, her phone glued to her ear. Mathilde felt as though she was avoiding her eye.

  Something wasn’t quite right, the usual ritual wasn’t quite being observed.

  It had spread, gone further.

  Mathilde pressed the lift button and followed the lift’s progress on the illuminated display.

  Just as the doors opened, Laetitia came dashing out of her office and rushed in behind her. They kissed in greeting. Between the first and second floors, Laetitia stopped the lift. Her voice was shaking.

  ‘Mathilde, he’s replaced you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘On Friday, when you weren’t here, the girl from Communications, the one who was doing work experience, took your office.’

  Mathilde was speechless. This didn’t make any sense at all.

  ‘They moved your stuff. They’ve put her in your place for good. Nadine told me they’ve given her a permanent job.’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s all I was able to find out.’

  Laetitia restarted the lift. Mathilde could hear the sound of her own breathing in the silence. There was nothing else to say.

  Mathilde got out at the fourth floor. As the doors closed, she turned round and said, ‘Thanks.’

  Mathilde went along the corridor. She passed the open-plan area. They were all there: Nathalie, Jean, Éric and the others. Through the glass she could see them, absorbed, busy, in a state of great concentration. None of them looked up. She had become a shadow, impalpable, transparent. She no longer existed. The door to her office was open. Immediately she noticed that her Bonnard poster had disappeared. She could see a pale rectangle where it had been.

  The girl was indeed there, sitting on her chair in front of her computer. Her jacket was hanging on her peg. She’d taken possession of the territory. Mathilde forced a smile. The girl answered her greeting in a weak voice without looking at her. She grabbed the phone and dialled Jacques’s internal number.

  ‘Mr Pelletier, Mathilde Debord is here.’

  He came up behind her. He was wearing his black suit, the one for important days. He looked at the time on the clock and asked her if she’d had a problem. Everyone had been looking all over for her for two hours. Without waiting for her reply, he expressed concern about whether she was feeling better, if she’d had a rest, ‘because you’ve been looking really tired lately, Mathilde’. Jacques glanced at the girl, watching her reaction. With just a few words hadn’t he just given an outstanding demonstration of how good and kind he was? Just goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything people say, the rumours that do the rounds . . . Mathilde began explaining that she had taken a day off to go on her son’s school trip, but as she uttered the words she felt pathetic. Why did she have to justify herself? How had it come to this, providing justifications for her days off?

  It was the first time he had spoken to her directly in weeks. In her high heels, she was a couple of inches taller than him.

  A long time ago, on the way back from a meeting, Jacques had asked her if she could wear flat shoes, at least on days when they had to go out together. Mathilde had found this admission of weakness touching. They had laughed about it and she’d promised she would.

  ‘As you can see, we’ve made some changes in your absence. I sent round a note last Friday explaining the objectives of this new structure, which will be achieved notably through a new organisation of space in order to facilitate the information flow within our team. In addition, we have the pleasure of welcoming Corinne Santos, who joined us this morning. Corinne has a similar background to you. She worked for a few months at L’Oréal in the international division and she’s just finished a placement in Communications, where she worked wonders. She’s going to help us set up the product plan for 2010, she . . .’

  The sound of Jacques’s voice faded out for a few minutes, was drowned out by a buzzing noise. Mathilde was standing facing him, but could no longer hear him. For a moment it seemed to her as though she was going to dissolve, disappear. For a few seconds all she could hear was a terrible deafening noise that came from nowhere. Jacques’s eyes went from the girl to the window, from the window to the open door, from the open door back to the girl. Jacques was talking to her without looking at her.

  ‘You’ll find a copy of this note in your pigeonhole. In your absence, I took the liberty of having your things moved to 500–9, the empty office.’

  Mathilde tried to get air into her lungs, air that would let her cry out or get angry.

  There was no air.

  ‘In order to avoid having to disconnect and reconnect all the equipment, Corinne will be using your computer from now on. Nathalie has copied your personal files on to a memory stick, which you can ask her for. IT will give you a new workstation as soon as possible. Any questions?’

  The noise had stopped. There was a silence between them and she felt dizzy.

  There were no words.

  Corinne Santos looked at her. Corinne Santos’s eyes said, ‘I feel sorry for you. It’s nothing to do with me. If it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else.’

  Corinne Santos’s huge blue eyes were asking for forgiveness.

  On two occasions in January Mathilde asked for a meeting with the HR director. Patricia Lethu assumed a suitable expression and listened to her. She took notes and ticked boxes. She spoke to her in the affected way that people who are in good health adopt with those they have to handle carefully. Patricia Lethu explained patiently how complex the world of business had become, that it was subject to competitive pressures, to new markets opening up, not to mention EU directives, and how much all that, here as elsewhere, contributed to creating tension, stress and conflict. She described the harsh realities of business as though Mathilde were coming out of a convent or waking up from a long coma. With a sigh, Patricia Lethu added that HR directors all faced the same difficulties, it was a real headache, and in addition there was this ever-present pressure on objectives. It wasn’t easy – it wasn’t easy for anyone. You had to arm yourself, remain competitive, not allow yourself to be outpaced. Because it was undoubtedly true that those employees who were weakest psychologically would soon find themselves on the front line. Moreover, the business was doing a great deal of thinking about these issues and was considering setting up seminars run by outside consultants.

  Patricia Lethu counselled patience. With time, things would get back to normal, a solution would be found. You had to accept that nothing was for ever, embrace change, make adjustments, be ready to reposition yourself. You had to take a good look at yourself. Maybe the time had come for Mathilde to think about a new direction, update her skills, take stock? Life sometimes forced us to take the initiative. Thus far Mathilde had been able to adapt. Patricia Lethu was confident that things would work out. She shook her hand.

  Looking at it more closely, it’s been noted in Mathilde’s file that she is in a conflict situation with her superior. Over a su
dden personality clash.

  The company seeks information, takes note, considers the situation without investigating why it has come about, without examining whether the claim is well-founded. And by virtue of the same logic, it allows Mathilde to be deprived of her job. Because she’s incompatible.

  Given that confidence has been damaged, and bearing in mind the major challenges that marketing faces today, it is natural that Jacques should make arrangements and reorganise the department. Because the business must respond to constantly changing demands, give itself the ability to anticipate them, to win market share, to strengthen its international position, because the business cannot be content to follow, because the business must be cutting edge. That’s what Patricia Lethu told her at their second meeting. As though she had learnt by heart the ‘2012 Horizon’ leaflet put out by the head of PR.

  Jacques’s attitude, the reasons for his behaviour, the machinations Mathilde was subject to, cannot be considered in and of themselves. The scenario isn’t foreseen in any software or on any checklist. The business agrees to recognise that there is a problem, which is the first step towards the search for a solution. Internal transfer seems most likely, but posts don’t become available all that often, and some of them, when they do fall vacant, aren’t being filled.

  At the end of the meeting, in a more hushed tone (having made certain that the door was properly closed), in a sudden outburst of solidarity, Patricia Lethu advised her to put down in writing the points of disagreement with Jacques. And to send her emails with confirmation of receipt.

  ‘But rest assured, we’ll find a solution, Mathilde,’ she hastened to add.

  For a few weeks Mathilde no longer had anything to do. Nothing.

  Not just a slack period, a slowing-down, a quiet stretch, a few days to catch her breath after a period of working flat out. Nothing as in zero, a complete void.

  At the start, the team continued to seek her help, to consult her, to draw on her experience. But every document approved by her incurred Jacques’s wrath. All it took was for her to have looked at a file, to have glanced at a study, or intervened in the choice of a contractor or a methodology, or given her agreement for a product plan, for him to oppose it. So gradually Nathalie, Jean, Éric and the others stopped coming into her office and asking her advice. They found the support they needed elsewhere.

  They chose which side they were on.

  So as not to risk being next on the list, to preserve their peace of mind. Through cowardice more than ill will.

  She doesn’t blame them. Sometimes she tells herself that at twenty-five or thirty, she wouldn’t have had the courage either.

  In any case, it’s too late. Without realising it, she has allowed Jacques to construct a system of avoidance and exclusion, whose effectiveness is ever apparent and against which she can do nothing.

  Her ring binders and files have been piled up, split between the shelves and the cupboard with sliding doors. Mathilde finds the contents of her drawer in a cardboard box on the floor: vitamin C, paracetamol, stapler, Sellotape, felt-tips, Tippex, biros and various supplies.

  She’s never had photos of her children on her desk. No vases, pot plants or holiday souvenirs. Apart from her Bonnard poster, she’s brought nothing from home, hasn’t tried to personalise her space or mark her territory.

  She’s always felt that the company was a neutral, emotion-free zone where those things didn’t belong.

  She’s been transferred to office 500-9. She’ll put away her things, settle in. She tries to persuade herself that it’s not important, that it doesn’t alter anything. She’s above it. Should she feel attached to her office the way she would to a bedroom? That’s ludicrous. Here at least she is far away from Jacques, far away from everything, at the other end.

  At the end of the end, where no one comes except to go to the toilets.

  Mathilde sits on her new seat, swivels, checks the castors. The desk and the side table are covered in a fine layer of dust. The metal filing cabinet doesn’t match the rest. In fact, looking more closely, the furniture in room 500-9 is made up of disparate items that correspond to the firm’s different periods: light wood, metal, white Formica. Room 500-9 has no window. The only source of light comes from the glazed panel which separates it from the supply store, which does have external light.

  On the other side, room 500-9 shares a wall with the men’s toilets for the floor, from which it is separated by a plywood wall.

  In the company, room 500-9 is known as ‘the storeroom’ or else ‘the shit-hole’. Because you can very clearly detect the smell of Glacier Freshness air freshener as well as the sound of the toilet-paper dispenser.

  Legend has it that a restless trainee over the course of several weeks recorded precise statistics about the number of trips to the toilet and average consumption of toilet paper of all the managers on the floor. An Excel spreadsheet appeared on the desk of the managing director at the end of the study.

  That’s why room 500-9 stands empty most of the time.

  Mathilde has placed the Argent Defender in front of her. She’s more than half-tempted to talk to him, or rather murmur in a beseeching tone: ‘So what are you going to do?’

  The Argent Defender must have nodded off somewhere, taken a wrong turning in the corridor and ended up on the wrong floor. Like all princes and white knights, the Argent Defender displays a dubious sense of direction.

  From where she sits with the door open, Mathilde can see all the comings and goings. Count, note, establish possible links. It’s a distraction at least.

  Éric has just gone by. He was looking straight ahead. He didn’t stop.

  Mathilde hears the sounds, identifying them one by one – the lock, the extractor fan, the jet of urine, paper, flush, washbasin.

  She doesn’t even want to cry.

  She must have slipped by mistake into another reality. A reality she cannot understand or take in, a reality the truth of which she cannot grasp.

  It’s not possible. Not like this.

  Without anything ever being said. Nothing that would allow her to go beyond, to make amends.

  She could phone Patricia Lethu, ask her to come down right away and show her that she doesn’t even have a computer any more.

  She could throw her files around the room, fling them as hard as she can against the walls.

  She could leave her new office, start shouting in the corridor, or sing Bowie at the top of her voice, play some chords on the air guitar, dance in the middle of the open-plan area, sway on her heels, roll on the ground so that people look at her, to prove that she exists.

  She could call the managing director without going through his secretary, tell him she doesn’t give a fuck any more about proactiveness, the optimisation of interpersonal skills, win-win strategies, the transfer of competence, and all these fuzzy concepts he’s been feeding them for years, that he’d do better to get out of his office, to come and see what’s going on, to smell the sickening stench that’s invaded the corridors.

  She could show up in Jacques’s office armed with a baseball bat and methodically destroy everything: his collection of Chinese vases, the talismans he brought back from Japan, his ‘director’s’ armchair in leather, his flat-screen and his CPU, his framed lithographs, the glass on his storage cabinet. She could tear down his Venetian blinds with her bare hands, with one gesture sweep all his marketing literature on to the floor and trample it in a fury.

  Because there is this violence in her which surges up all at once: a continuous cry held back for too long.

  This is not the first time.

  The violence first appeared a few weeks ago when she realised what Jacques was capable of. When she understood that this had only just begun.

  One Friday evening, when she had just got home, Mathilde received a call from Jacques’s secretary. Jacques was held up in the Czech Republic. He had agreed to write an article for the in-house journal on product innovation in the division, but he was snowed under, he
wouldn’t have time. And so he’d asked Barbara to get in touch with Mathilde. The article had to be submitted by Monday morning at the latest.

  For the first time in weeks, Jacques was asking something of her. Through an intermediary, it was true. But he was requesting her help. To do that, he must have uttered her first name, and recalled that she had written dozens of texts for him which he had signed without changing a single comma, or remembered at the very least that she was still part of his team.

  The timing could have been better. Mathilde and the boys had planned to spend two days with friends. In addition, she was intending to take a half-day on Monday morning to go for an X-ray after the plaster came off her wrist.

  She said yes. She’d cope somehow.

  She took her laptop to the country and worked through most of the night from Saturday to Sunday. The rest of the time she laughed, played cards, helped prepare meals. She went walking by the river with the others, breathed in the smell of the earth in great lungfuls. And when people expressed concern about whether things at work had sorted themselves out, she said they had. Jacques’s request was enough for her to believe that the situation could change, go back to how it was before, to believe that ultimately it was just a bad patch, a crisis they would get over and which she would forget in the end, because that was how she was – she didn’t bear grudges.

  On the Sunday night she sent the article to Jacques using the company’s internal mail, which she could access remotely. He would have it when he got in on Monday morning, or perhaps even that evening if he was back. She fell asleep with a feeling of achievement she hadn’t known in a long time.