He climbs laboriously down from his high stool and walks towards her. She feels embarrassed, hasn’t the least idea what his intentions are. She stirs what remains of the cold chocolate at the bottom of her cup. He looks like a tramp, bushy beard, dishevelled oily grey hair, multiple layers of clothing, and yet is carrying Chanel, Longchamp and Armani shopping bags, lots of them. She signals to the waiter, who has just discovered a cache of hidden treasure under his thumbnail. The legs of the chair in front of her scrape over the tiled floor. May I, asks a deep voice. Without waiting for a reply, the man sits down and arranges his fancy stuff on a second chair. I did some shopping, they’re having sales this week. The man studies her face. He doesn’t strike her as aggressive; he awakens her curiosity, and so she lets him talk. I’m not what you think. Odd introduction. Neither is she what he thinks, but in her case it is far less obvious. He explains to her that he is not what he seems. You know, a tramp, a homeless person. But he prefers people to assume that he is; it helps him with his investigations. As he talks he holds her gaze; his eyes serious to dispel her doubts. The object of his investigations? Human nature; he’s been studying it for several years. Compiling data about people’s behavior in the face of poverty. His appearance suggests one thing, his bags another; his words attempt to make it all coherent. She can’t decide whether he is lying or telling the truth. A bit of both. He is lying, but thinks he is telling the truth; or else telling the truth to justify his deception. You don’t come here often, I’ve never seen you before. True, but for once she felt like dropping by after work. She is not about to start telling him her life story; after all, she has to remain on her guard, she promised herself. He’s found a lovely little scarf, pure wool; he’ll show it to her. He thrusts his hands into the Armani bag and brings out a hirsute piece of cloth, which he displays proudly without unfolding it. Not bad, eh? I haven’t tried it on, but the color should be fine. Tell him that he’s off his rocker. . She prefers to answer that yes, the color goes well with his skin tone. Visibly the man wasn’t expecting that; he seems pleased. She wouldn’t work at the station by any chance? Surprise. Yes, she works at the station; as she says the words she blushes, without knowing why, as if she had been caught doing something red-handed. She wonders how he could have guessed that she. . Her voice? That would be a first. No one has ever recognized her like that before. A person would need to have spent a hell of a long time listening to announcements over the loudspeakers to be able to make the connection. But if he spends the night asleep in some corner of the station, then perhaps it is her voice that wakes him every morning. And she thought she was talking into thin air. There might be someone without a train to catch who listens to her reciting times and destinations. She doesn’t dare ask him if he lives in the station; that would cast doubt on the truthfulness of what he has said. He has started talking again. Do you like theater? She doesn’t know; it depends. The timing of the question couldn’t be better. Funny you should ask. That’s where I’m going tonight, though usually. . He smiles as if to reassure her. She’ll like it, he’s sure she will. However much she tries to tell herself he is raving, the impression persists that he already knows her. He is following her every reaction. She succumbs to the fascination of small details: the strip of red skin fringing his lower eyelids; the way the hairs of his beard poke through his skin; the sudden, slight dilations of his nostrils as though, from time to time, they had to make way for more voluminous particles of air. It’s better to go to the theater alone. He says it while continuing to stare at her. No way can the man know. He could just as easily have remarked that it’s better to carry an umbrella when it rains. But no, he had to mention the theater, precisely on the day when. He found her sitting in a café on her own; he drew his conclusions from that. The wonders of logic, psychological decryption, a gift for observation. Absolute knowledge allows the future to be foretold. You don’t agree it’s better to go alone. Oh it is. It is.
Whatever the extent of the oddball’s divinatory powers, she is no longer in the mood for guessing games. A small gesture to the waiter, who is now studying them closely, not missing a crumb of their weird tête-à-tête, a perfect distraction for a rather dull late afternoon. She pays, gets up. The man’s voice for the last time. You’re right to go alone, trust me. She shrugs her shoulders but is happy to hear those words. No one has ever proved that guardian angels don’t exist. Not angels who have wings, like the ones she saw the other night on Ange’s back, but angels who protect you, the real guardians.
The rooflines of the apartment buildings appear perfectly distinct, their symmetrical placement down the length of the avenue far more striking than usual. The declining light bathes the façades in its orange hues. She has passed this way dozens of times, but this evening the sight of these stationary buildings does her good. Lit as they are, the walls are no longer barriers but mirrors, filtering moods so that only the best ones remain. One day she was given a pair of tinted orange sunglasses. They made the world more beautiful. She wore them at every opportunity, dreading the moment when she would have to take them off. After several delicious weeks, she lost them. Where or how, she had no idea. She has had other pairs since then, of course, but has never found the desired effect again. Which has led her to conclude that for every pair of eyes there exists a specific tint. Color is absorption, what remains of light deprived of certain wavelengths. Orange equals light minus blue, simple arithmetic. All the colors mixed together gives white. Maximum superposition, absolute density. What she needs is to filter out a certain blue wavelength which makes the world a little too cold for her. Yet she also knows that losing those glasses was not a bad thing. If they had stayed with her, she would have grown accustomed to them. Repetition would have diminished the effect.
It’s eight o’clock. She is outside the theater, which looks the way she imagined it would. A small, finely crafted building resembling a palace. Unique architecture for a special place. The few times she has been to the theater, it felt as if she were stepping into a sanctuary meant for an initiated few. The solemnity such places exude makes her uneasy. The artifice of the sets and the costumes prevents her from letting go of herself. If it were up to her, all plays would start out on the pavement. No calls for silence, no spotlights, no tiers of raised seats. The actors would mingle with the crowd and suddenly launch into their roles. At the foot of the stairs, people dressed for the occasion have started to gather. She feels rather drab by comparison. They are waiting as well, but not the way she is. They are out for the evening, want to have fun; whereas she is on a mission and has come to find the actress who bears her name. She collects her ticket and stations herself slightly off to the side of the stream of new arrivals. The muffled buzz of conversations, the clusters of lights on the walls and ceiling, the faces, made-up, freshly shaven, cleansed of worry in anticipation of what they are about to see, give her the impression that she is inside a cocoon. The notion of time has been abolished. The people are the same ones who gathered here a hundred years earlier, all they have done is change their clothes to keep up with current fashions. She seems to be the only one who has doubts about her role. What she lacks is an escort, someone she could imitate. No one is paying attention to her, she reflects, it therefore must mean that she really does stand out. If she were a ghost, she would roam the foyer at every performance in the hope of finally being seen. If he had been there, he would have acted as a buffer between her and them.