Underground Time (10 page)

In her store cupboard, Mathilde checks that her phone line is working. She picks up the handset, dials zero and waits for the tone.

Reassured by the possibility of contact with the outside world, she hangs up.

She stretches on her chair, slides her palm over the Formica and listens for the sound of time silently passing. There are still two hours till lunch.

She would have liked to wear a skirt, to make her satin tights sparkle in the morning light. Because of her burn, she’s had to put on trousers. Because it was the twentieth of May, she chose the lightest, most flowing ones.

Had she but known.

The phone rings and she jumps. Simon’s mobile number appears on the screen, which confirms that her line has indeed been transferred.

His maths teacher is off and he wants to know if he can skip the canteen and go to his friend Hugo’s for lunch and then back to school for the afternoon.

She says yes.

She’d like to talk to him, to prolong their exchange, win a few minutes from boredom, find out what life outside is like today, on the twentieth of May. She’d like to know if he has noticed something unusual in the air, a humidity, a languor, something which resists the city and its eagerness, which opposes it.

She can’t ask him questions like that, as absurd as that – they’d scare him.

For a brief instant, she dreams that she could ask him to come home at once, to get his and his brothers’ things ready, one bag each, no more. Because they’re going away, right, now, all four of them. They’re going away somewhere the air is breathable, where she can start all over again.

In the background she can hear street noise. He’s going to his friend Hugo’s for lunch. She can tell he’s in a hurry. He’s fourteen, he’s got his life to live.

Mathilde sends him a kiss and hangs up.

She has her hands on either side of the phone. Her hands are like the rest of her body – inert.

Some way off, a photocopier is spitting out 150 sheets a minute. She listens to the machine’s regular rhythm. She tries to distinguish each note, each sound – the fan, the paper, the drive mechanism. She counts off – 112, 113, 114 . . . She remembers a winter’s evening a long time ago when she had to stay late with Nathalie to finish a presentation on the department’s activities. The office was empty. Before they left they had to print out four copies. Mathilde had pressed the green button and the repetitive, insistent noise of the machine had filled the whole place. And then the noise turned into music and they danced for as long as it lasted, barefoot on the carpet.

That was another time. A light, carefree time.

Today she has to pretend.

To look busy in an empty office.

To look busy without a computer or an Internet connection.

To look busy when everyone knows that she isn’t doing anything.

When no one is waiting for her work any more, when her very presence is enough to make people look away.

Before, she used to check how her friends were getting on. She’d call them. A few stolen minutes when she got back after lunch or between two meetings later in the afternoon. She maintained the link, shared the day-to-day stuff. She’d talk about the children, her projects, where she’d been. Anecdotes and essentials. Now she doesn’t call any more. She doesn’t know what she’d say. She’s got nothing to tell. She refuses dinner invitations, evenings out, she doesn’t go to restaurants or the cinema any more. She doesn’t leave the house any more. She’s run out of excuses, she has got lost in ever vaguer justifications, has hidden herself from their questions, left their messages unanswered.

Because she can’t go on pretending.

Because there always comes a moment when they ask: ‘How’re things at work?’

Under their scrutiny, she feels even more helpless. They probably say there’s no smoke without fire, she must have done something wrong, slipped up. In their eyes, she’s the one who’s not doing so well. Who has problems. She’s no longer one of them. She can’t laugh about her boss any more, can’t talk about her colleagues, feel pleased that the company’s doing well, or worry about the difficulties it’s having with that concerned look. The look of someone who works. She doesn’t give a damn. She couldn’t care less any more. They don’t know the extent to which the little boxes they work in are hermetically sealed. The extent to which the air they breathe is polluted, saturated. Or else it’s her. Her who’s not doing well. Who is no longer adaptable. She who is too weak to get her way, mark her territory, defend her position. She whom the business has isolated for health reasons, like a tumour that’s discovered late, a collection of unhealthy cells cut from the body. In their eyes, she feels judged. And so she keeps quiet. No longer answers. Crosses the street when she runs into them. Waves from afar.

And so for weeks she has been living in a closed circle with her children, expending energy for them that she no longer possesses. Nothing else matters.

And when her mother rings, she tells her she’ll call back because she’s snowed under.

The photocopier has stopped and silence has returned.

Oppressive.

Mathilde looks around. She wishes she could talk to someone. Someone who knows nothing about her situation, who wouldn’t feel sorry for her.

Because she has time, all the time in the world in fact, she decides to call the insurance company. She’s been meaning to do it for several days to find out the amount she’ll be able to claim on the orthodontic treatment that Théo is starting soon.

That’s a good idea. That will occupy her.

Mathilde takes her insurance card out of her bag and dials the number. The recorded message tells her that her call will be charged at thirty-four cents per minute. Excluding waiting time. The computerised voice asks her to press # and then choose the reason for her call by pressing 1, 2 or 3. The computerised voice suggests different scenarios among which she is supposed to recognise her situation.

To speak to someone – a real person with a real voice capable of giving a real answer – you have to break free of the menu. Not yield to the suggestions. Resist. Not press 1, 2 or 3. Maybe 0? To speak to someone, you have to be different, not fit any box, any category. You have to lay claim to your difference, not correspond to anything, to be quite simply
other
, in fact: with another reason, another request, another operation.

By doing this you sometimes manage to exchange a few words with a real person. Other times the recorded message loops back on itself, returning you to the main menu and it’s impossible to get out.

The voice tells her that an adviser will respond in a few minutes. Mathilde smiles. She tries to identify the call-waiting music. She knows the tune, but that’s all; she can’t think what it is.

She waits.

At least she’ll have spoken to someone.

She’s put the phone on loudspeaker. With her head in her hands she has closed her eyes. She hasn’t heard Patricia Lethu come quietly in. At the moment when their eyes meet, the music stops. The computerised voice announces that as all their advisers are currently busy, the company invites her to call back later.

Mathilde hangs up.

Patricia Lethu is blonde and tanned. She wears court shoes that match her suits and gold jewellery. She is one of those women who know that an outfit shouldn’t combine more than three colours and that you should wear an odd number of rings. In summer she wears white, beige or oatmeal, reserving dark colours for winter. Every Friday she locks the door of her office and flies off to Corsica or somewhere, somewhere in the south, somewhere with nice weather.

She’s said to be married to the number two in a big car manufacturer. She’s said to have got her job with the company because her husband is the best friend of the president of the subsidiary. She’s said to live in a vast apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement. She’s said to have a lover who’s younger than her, a senior manager in the holding company. Names do the rounds. Because, for several months, Patricia Lethu has been wearing shorter and shorter skirts.

In the holidays Patricia Lethu goes to Mauritius or the Seychelles with her husband. She comes back more tanned than ever.

The HR director only leaves her office for special occasions – retirement parties, company meetings, Christmas celebrations. The rest of the time she has lots of work. You need to make an appointment.

This morning there’s a bitter twist to her mouth. She looks around her with embarrassment.

Mathilde is silent. She has nothing to say.

The jet which a man releases when he urinates travels sufficiently far from his body to produce a splashing sound. Which covers the silence.

It’s not long before they can hear the torrent of the flush. In the toilets someone coughs, then turns on the tap. Mathilde knows it’s Pascal Furion because she saw him go in.

The smell of Glacier Freshness now pervades her office.

Patricia Lethu listens to the sounds coming from the other side of the partition. The blowing of the hand-dryer, another bout of coughing, the door closing. In normal circumstances Patricia Lethu is one of those women who know how to avoid silence. But not today. She doesn’t even attempt a smile. Look at her closely and Patricia Lethu appears at a loss.

‘I was told you had moved office. I . . . I didn’t know. I wasn’t here on Friday. I promise that . . . well . . . I’ve only just found out.’

‘Me too.’

‘I see that you don’t have a computer. We’ll sort that out. Think of this as a temporary solution. Don’t worry, we’ll—’

‘You passed Jacques’s office, didn’t you?’

‘Eh, yes.’

‘Was he there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘No, I wanted to see you first.’

‘Right, listen. I’m going to call him now. I’m going to call him in your presence and ask to speak to him. For the tenth time. Because I would like to know what to do, you see. Today, for example, in your opinion, what sort of work can I do without a computer, without having been to any team meetings and without having been copied in on any internal document for over a month? I am going to call him because Jacques Pelletier is my line manager. I’m going to tell him that you’re here, that you’ve come down, and I’m going to ask him down too.’

Patricia Lethu gives a nod. She doesn’t say a word. She must be finding it hard swallowing.

She has never seen Mathilde enraged like this. In a milder tone, Mathilde reassures her: ‘Don’t worry, Patricia. He won’t answer. He never answers. But you’ll see when you pass his office again that he’s still there.’

Mathilde dials Jacques’s number. Patricia Lethu holds her breath. She’s rotating her wedding ring with her thumb.

Jacques doesn’t pick up.

The HR director goes over to Mathilde and sits on the edge of her desk.

‘Jacques Pelletier has complained that you’ve behaved aggressively towards him. He says it’s become very difficult to communicate with you. That you show strong signs of resistance, that you’re not on-message with the direction of the team, or of the company.’

Mathilde is stunned. She considers the phrase ‘on-message’ and how grotesque it seems. How far should she be
on-message
with, stick to, espouse, be at one with, melt into, merge with the company? Submit to it? She isn’t
on message
. She’d like to know how being on message can be measured, how it can be counted, evaluated.

‘Listen, it must be three months since I had a conversation worthy of the name with Jacques Pelletier and several weeks since he last spoke to me. Apart from this morning to tell me that my office had been moved. So I really don’t see what this is about.’

‘I . . . well . . . we shall resolve this problem. Of course, you are only here temporarily. I mean, this . . . this can’t go on.’

The rolling of the toilet-paper dispenser interrupts their exchange.

Suddenly it seems to her as though Patricia Lethu is going to collapse. Something in her eyes. Discouragement. Something which passes very quickly, an expression of disgust.

The HR director sweeps her hair back. She no longer dares look at Mathilde.

With a movement of her right foot, Mathilde sets her chair in motion. The castors glide her over to Patricia.

‘I’m not going to hold it together, Patricia, I can’t take any more. I want you to know. I’ve reached the limit of what I can bear. I’ve asked for explanations, I’ve tried to maintain a dialogue, I’ve been patient, I’ve done everything in my power to sort things out. But now, I warn you, I’m not going to . . .’

‘I understand, Mathilde. This office, without light or a window . . . and so far away . . . I know . . . it’s untenable.’

‘You know as well as I do that it’s not about the office. I want to work, Patricia. I take home three thousand euros a month and I want to work.’