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.
She would have done anything for him to be there. She would have done anything not to think about him. She would have done anything never to have met him.
Back at the hotel, she passed a man on the stairs. He didn’t say anything and kept his eyes trained on his shoes; all she could see was the top of his shiny bald head. She had an urge to grab hold of him and shake him as hard as she could until he finally looked up at her and felt scared. As he went by her, she clicked her tongue against her palate. The man turned his head. C’est vous qui baisiez toute la nuit? The man shrugged his shoulders with an air of doubt, and continued on his way down.
She finished the first pack of ham and devoured the second. She ate four yogurts and several pieces of fruit. She ate as much as she could until she could eat no more. It was then that she remembered the photographs. She took them out of the folder, which was still in her bag, and studied them for a long time. Now she was there, now she could recognize herself. She placed the three photos upright on the desk. She filled the sink with water and put them in to soak. She wanted to see if the images would dissolve and then be washed away when she pulled the plug. Sitting at the window, she waited. When she went to check, the black-and-white versions of her face were floating intact beneath the surface of the water. She took out the sopping pieces of paper and scrunched them into a ball, which she threw in the toilet.
That night she had a dream. She was a man and there was a brown paper bag over her head. His wrists had been tied behind his back, hands were firmly gripping his arms, forcing him to walk despite a leg stiff with pain. He could see blood dripping onto the dust between his filthy bare feet. There was a tiny hole in the bag, a peep-hole through which he was trying to look out at sections of the ransacked city. And then something happened; he had reopened his eyes in the dream. He was free. He was hobbling along a road in the middle of a forest cut in two by a streak of limpid sky. Up ahead, by the side of the ditch, he realized there was a woman, her swollen belly protruding under her dress. She stood motionless, arms dangling at her sides. He had to take her with him, that was the only possibility, even if the presence of this unknown woman would slow down his escape. Hurry up, he told her as if it were a threat. She began walking behind him, not saying a word. Suddenly a contraction rooted her to the tar-covered road, dappled with writhing spots of sunlight. Her two slender hands supported the weight of her child. He went over to her; it’s coming, she murmured.
Startled awake, she had to get up to drink some water from the tap. In the street, a man was walking by with a dog. Trotting along with its snout a few inches from the asphalt, the animal was tracking a smell that emanated from a step or a post. At the other end of the leash, the dog’s master would tug the unwilling animal away, then continue walking along with large strides. After the man and his dog left her field of vision, she went back to bed. For a long while she sought sleep behind her closed eyelids. Then she sensed him. He was standing at the foot of the bed, holding the TV remote control and manuevering it as if it were a magic wand which could cast visual spells. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him. He seemed impatient despite his kind look. Eventually she shrugged her shoulders to let him know there was a problem. He fiddled with the buttons on the remote control and then suddenly, in mid-sentence, sound was added to the picture, exactly as if a plug had just been reinserted into a socket somewhere . . . would you like to watch? Slightly wary of this sudden apparition, she told him that she hadn’t understood. What do you want to watch? She hadn’t really thought about what she wanted to watch, he could choose, she didn’t mind. You said the same thing yesterday, he remarked in a harsh tone. Confused, she said in that case she would like to watch a film. He pointed the remote control at the television, the screen remained blank, but he appeared to be satisfied. He lay down beside her and took hold of her hand.
Someone was knocking gently and insistently not far from her. She opened her eyes. The cleaning woman pushed open the door and froze when she saw her still in bed. Neither one of them could say a word. A few seconds later, she gestured for the young woman to come in. Embarrassed, the maid headed straight for the sink and began scrubbing without so much as a sideways glance. She got out of bed. She realized that she had gone to sleep fully dressed.
From the vending machine in the lobby, she bought an orange juic
e, which she went out to drink on the front steps of the building. Today was her last day. According to the ticket, she would have to leave early the next morning. If she spent another day like the previous ones, it would be hard for her to keep a grip on her mind, which was beginning to show symptoms of weakening. What had happened during the night worried her, and she could feel a powerful urge rising inside her to act in an unusual manner, to go beyond the boundaries of what was rational and acceptable. For example, she could no longer see any valid reason for keeping silent when she was alone or for not breaking certain rules of decorum, such as not spitting or burping in the street, not scratching her nose or rump in public, not swearing up and down the avenue. To keep these impulses in check, she decided to take a walk. She would go without any particular aim in mind, and to guard against getting lost she would use the following method: she would pick a street that led away from the park and stay on it. If she reached the end of it, she would turn left. And if she reached the end of this second street, she would then retrace her steps. She would therefore turn only once, to the left, and would be sure to remember the way.
A light rain began to fall. She went back up to fetch her umbrella. The cleaning maid had gone from the room. On the bed lay a fresh white towel.
Hereford Road, the name suited her and she turned onto that street. Laden down with a heavy plastic bag on each arm, a woman was walking along, head hunched into her shoulders to protect herself from the rain. A black cat slipped out from under a car, cut across the pavement and sprang up onto a low wall, where it settled, oddly indifferent to the weather. From time to time it was seized by a sort of nervous tic and would begin licking its fur, agile and diligent. She went over and ran her fingers between the ears of the animal, which arched its back as high as it could. Suddenly, in a single flash, the cat whipped round and bit her index finger. The pain caused her to let out a soft groan, her hand came down hard on the mouth of the cat which, after toppling off on the other side of the wall, bolted away, its tail bristling. The animal’s canines had left two small blood-incrusted marks on her finger. She licked it gently, listening to the water. Which flowed along the gutter, fell into the storm pipes, ran down the façades, streamed over the windows of buildings and parked cars, slid along the veins of leaves, dripped from the ribs of umbrellas, light, fluid sounds crushed by the tumult of the city. Wherever it had come from, by whatever path it had taken, the water was returning to the earth, forming into pockets of liquid connected by underground canals; water, exploded into millions of particles, was now one.
Hereford Road led to a wider road with motorized vehicles moving in both directions. She turned left, as planned. A little further on, she came to a park enclosed by railings which ran the length of the street. She put her head through two of the cold bars. She was a prisoner, and she dreamed of escaping into that world of green lawns and abundant trees, of going to sit down on a bench and waiting there, protected by her umbrella, for the day to end. To do nothing, to move only in order to breathe, that seemed the only way out for her. She felt drawn to this state of minimal functioning as if it were a drug that would cure her of her need to commit senseless acts. Yet she had to resist it. Another bout of prolonged immobility could have a harmful effect on her. She feared he would take the opportunity to return.
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.
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