Underground Time (21 page)

But not today. She can’t do it. Something is resisting, deep down, she can feel it, something which won’t let go. A sort of anger that her body can’t rid itself of, something within her which is in fact swelling.

‘Don’t you know it? It’s a really well-known cream in the tanning world.’

The man burst out laughing. Mathilde opened her eyes. Several faces had turned towards him. Sitting on the seat opposite, the girl shook her head, no, she didn’t know this cream, however incredible that might seem. They both had the same tanned complexion, verging on orange. Mathilde concluded that they must work in a tanning salon.

There are such things. These people work in the tanning world. Others in the nightlife or the restaurant world, or in the fashion world or television. Or even in conditioner.

In what world do undertakers work?

And what world does she belong to? The world of cowards, the weak, the quitters?

In the tunnel before the gare de Lyon, the train stopped. The lights went out, then the noise of the engine ceased. Silence descended suddenly. Mathilde looks around, her eyes struggle to adjust. No one is speaking any more, even Mr Orange has gone quiet.

People seem on guard, in the darkness their pupils shine.

She’s stuck in the middle of a tunnel, shut in the lower part of a double-decker carriage, she’s breathing damp air, saturated with carbon monoxide. It’s too dark for her to make out the expressions of confidence on other people’s faces which might reassure her. Conversations are slow to pick up again.

Suddenly it seems to her as though they are linked in a drama that is about to happen. They have been picked by fate, it’s their turn this time. Something serious is going to happen.

She’s never been afraid in the RER, even late at night, even when she goes home after 9 p.m., when the trains are almost empty. But today there’s something in the air that constricts her chest, or else she’s the one who’s not OK, who’s out of her depth.

She’s in danger, she can feel it, an immense danger, though she cannot tell if it’s inside or outside her, a danger which takes her breath away.

Ten minutes later an announcement informs passengers that the train has stopped in the middle of the track. In case they haven’t noticed.

The conductor requests that they don’t attempt to open the doors.

The lights come back on.

The man from the tanning salon starts speaking again. A wave of relief ripples out around him.

At last the train moves again and is greeted with a general ‘ah’.

Mathilde gets off at the gare de Lyon. She retraces her route from this morning in the opposite direction.

At the interchange she tries to hurry, to fit herself into the flow.

She can’t. It’s going too fast.

Underground, the traffic rules are inspired by the highway code. You overtake on the left, and slow vehicles are requested to keep to the right.

Underground, there are two categories of traveller. The first follow their line as though they are suspended above the void, their path obeys precise rules from which they never deviate. By virtue of a wise desire to save time and effort, their movements are accurate to the nearest yard. You can tell them by the speed they walk at, the way they take the corners, and the impossibility of catching their eye. The other category dawdles, stops dead, they allow themselves to be carried along and go off at tangents without warning. The haphazardness of their path threatens the whole system. They interrupt the flow, throw the crowd off balance. They are the tourists, the disabled, the weak. If they don’t keep themselves to one side, the herd takes on the task of excluding them.

So Mathilde stays on the right, sticks to the wall. She withdraws so as not to get in the way.

On the stairs she holds on to the handrail.

Suddenly she again wants to scream. Scream till her throat hurts, scream to block out the noise of footsteps and conversations. Scream so loud that everyone falls silent, everything is interrupted, stops moving. She would like to scream: ‘Get out of here! Look what you have become! Look what we have become! Look at your dirty hands and pale faces. Look at what filthy insects we are, crawling beneath the earth, repeating the same actions day after day under the neon lights. Your body wasn’t made for this. Your body should be able to move freely.’

Mathilde goes through the doors that mark the entrance to the metro.

At the point where several lines meet, there’s anarchy. In the absence of markings on the floor, you have to cut across the current, create your own route.

There are those who get out of the way to avoid a collision of bodies, and those who consider by virtue of some vague right that other people should get out of their way.

This evening Mathilde goes towards the platform, looking straight ahead, as though she’s been struck full force.

This evening she feels like the entire surface of her skin has become permeable. She is a mobile antenna linked to the aggression around her, a flexible antenna, bent in two.

If he looked at his watch, he’d know how long he’s been there, trapped in his car, stuck behind a 4×4 with smoked-glass windows. If he looked at his watch, he would start crying.

It’s jammed, blocked, paralysed. In front, behind, everywhere.

All around him.

From time to time, a cacophony of horns starts up, drowning out the sound of his CD player.

For as far as he can see, the traffic is stationary. Shops are beginning to pull down their shutters, lights are starting to come on in some buildings. Furtive shapes at windows are assessing the extent of the damage.

The man in front has turned off his engine. He’s got out of his car and is smoking a cigarette.

Thibault rests his head on the steering wheel for a few seconds. He’s never seen this before.

He could turn on the radio, listen to the news. He’d probably find out why things are so jammed.

He doesn’t give a fuck.

The city has closed on him like a trap.

The man gets back in his car and moves forward a few yards. Thibault takes his foot off the brake and freewheels.

That’s when he notices a parking place,
almost
a parking place on the right. A vacant space into which he should be able to manoeuvre himself.

He has to get out of this fucking car.

He’ll leave it there and take the metro. He’ll come back and get it tomorrow.

He makes several attempts, full lock in each direction, and ends up managing it, with one wheel up on the kerb. He picks up his case and his raincoat and slams the door.

He walks to the nearest station. At the foot of the stairs, he looks at the map, works out the shortest route home. He buys a ticket at the counter and takes the stairs to the platform.

He approaches the tracks and puts his case down.

He stands waiting.

Opposite him, the posters are full of summer light. Opposite him, the posters are showing off their sarongs, their golden beaches and their turquoise seas.

The city that crushes human beings is inviting them to relax.

On the platform, Mathilde stopped in front of a vending machine. The electronic sign was announcing the next train in four minutes.

She thought that if she sat down she would never be able to get up again.

She looked at the women’s bodies, their endless legs, smooth and tanned, the sun creams and the bottles of mineral water. And then the posters got jumbled, confused into a single moving canvas, a kaleidoscope of bright colours which spun around her. She felt her body pitching, she closed her eyes.

Later, as the platform filled up, a veil descended upon the whole station, a veil of dark tulle which reduced the intensity of the light.

The people were erased, she could feel their presence, sense their movements, but couldn’t distinguish their faces any more.

Her legs were giving way beneath her, very gently. She was holding the Argent Defender card in her right hand; it seemed to her that she was leaning on him, that he was carrying her.

People were talking among themselves, braying into phones, listening to music which leaked from their headphones.

The noise from the people grew louder. The noise from the people grew unbearable.

Mathilde went closer to the track to look for the train. She leaned to the left, peering into the darkness of the tunnel. In the distance she thought she could make out the engine’s headlights.

She stumbled against something, a bag or a case.

The man said: ‘Shit, can’t you look where you’re going?’

When he bent down to pick up what looked like a doctor’s bag, Mathilde noticed his left hand. It had only three fingers.

She passed in front of him. She felt the man’s eyes watching her movements, she sensed his gaze on her back. She didn’t have the courage to meet his eyes, or anything else around her, her whole body was taken up with remaining upright.

The train came into the station, the warm air it stirred up blew against her face. She closed her eyes for barely a second to avoid the dust.

She stepped back to wait for the doors to open and let people off.

She got into a carriage in the middle of the train, and slumped down on a folding seat. The train set off with a lurching motion, she felt sick.

The man with the case was now sitting in front of her, looking at her.

Some outlines attract attention because they are longer or more fragile. The woman was blonde and wearing a big black coat. He noticed her at once. She was standing too close to the edge, unsteady, half stumbling, which the people around her didn’t seem to notice. But he did. She came nearer to him and he almost told her to move away, she was standing so close.

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.