The woman tripped over his case and moved away without apologising. He said ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’, or some equally choice expression. Words which were not his own. Tiredness was all it had taken to turn him into this hypersensitive creature, whose violence had been bottled up for too long and might explode at any moment.
When the train arrived, Thibault sat opposite her so that he could keep watching her. Why he found this woman so fascinating he couldn’t have said. Nor why he wanted to talk to her.
The woman was avoiding his eye. It seemed to him that she was getting paler and paler. She sat up straighter to hold on to the rail. About ten passengers got on at the next station, and she had to give up her folding seat. He kept looking at her and then he told himself he couldn’t keep staring at a woman like that.
He took his mobile out of his pocket and checked yet again that he didn’t have a message.
He kept his gaze lowered for a few minutes. He thought about his apartment, about the warmth of the alcohol which would soon course through his veins, about the bath he would run later in the evening. He thought that he could no longer go backwards. He had left Lila. He had done it.
And then again he looked for the woman, beyond the mass of bodies – her feverish eyes, her blonde hair. This time she met his eye. After a few seconds it seemed to him that the woman’s face was changing imperceptibly, even if nothing had actually shifted, nothing at all, that it was registering a sort of surprise or abandon. He couldn’t have said which.
It seemed to him that he and this woman shared the same kind of exhaustion, a dispossession of the self which cast the body towards the ground. It seemed to him that he and this woman had lots of things in common. That was absurd and childish. He looked down again.
When the doors opened again, most of the passengers got out. He looked for her in the tightly packed crowd.
The train moved off. The woman had disappeared.
He closed his eyes for a few minutes.
The train slowed again and Thibault stood up. There was something shining on the floor. He picked up a role-play card with a strange name and held it in his hand for a few seconds.
The doors opened and he got off. He threw the card in the first bin he came to, then took the stairs that led to the corridor to another line.
Carried along by the dense, disorganised tide, he thought that the city would always impose its own rhythms, its haste, its rush hours, that it would always remain unaware of these millions of solitary journeys at whose points of intersection there is nothing. Nothing but a void, or else a spark that instantly goes out.
A Note on the Author
Delphine de Vigan is the author of No and Me, which was a bestseller in France and was awarded the Prix des Libraires (The Booksellers’ Prize) in 2008. Her other novels include Jolis garçons and Soir de décembre. Underground Time was shortlisted for the 2009 Prix Goncourt.
By the Same Author
No and Me
A Note on the Translator
George Miller is the translator of No and Me. He is also a regular translator for Le Monde diplomatique’s English-language edition, and the translator of Conversations with my Gardener by Henri Cueco and Inside Al-Qaeda by Mohammed Sifaoui.
First published in Great Britain 2011
Copyright in the original text © 2009 by J.C. Lattès
Copyright in the English translation © 2011 by George Miller
First published in 2009 in France by J.C. Lattès as Les heures souterraines
This electronic edition published 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in London (www.frenchbooknews.com)
The rights of Delphine de Vigan and George Miller to be identified as the author and translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
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ISBN 978 1 4088 2417 7
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