And then, she felt his lips on her neck. Her entire body quivered. She stopped at once, not daring to move. She wasn’t sure what to make of it; she had never been kissed like that before. Thrown so abruptly, so shocked, her mind struggled to regain its balance. He wanted to show his affection; it was a game. He took hold of her shoulders and made her stand up. She let him guide her, unable to grasp what he was expecting from her. When he turned her around to face him, what she saw in his shining eyes both pleased and terrified her. He told her that she was very pretty. She knew he wasn’t supposed to say that, and it frightened her. She tried to laugh in order to pretend that what was happening wasn’t happening. But instead, she only let out a brief moan, a ridiculous sound of protest. That was when she saw him place a hand on one of her small, growing breasts. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t do that, but she was afraid to go against him. He would laugh at her, consider that she was no longer worthy of his affections. She could have stepped back. Making a noise was out of the question, the window was open, she would have risked being noticed. What they were doing was forbidden. If the others had come in, they wouldn’t have believed her and she would have been punished. She could have left the room and escaped. Only she hadn’t. Her guts had contracted so much, she couldn’t move. She was no longer able to act on her own.
He had guided her over to the bed and told her to lie down. The bedsprings creaked again. She had closed her eyes. Foolishly she told herself that at last she was going to find out what sex was. She had felt his hands on various parts of her body. Later, she heard him groan. Something wet ran over her belly.
The room is dark and hushed. She realizes that she has told it all in one go, as if her voice had been the instrument of a consciousness much freer than her own. She wonders if she’ll have the strength to lift her body when the moment comes. But then again, perhaps the brother will refuse to leave the Balearic Islands and she will be allowed to remain lying on that bed for the rest of her days. People will come and care for her, like a sick patient, they will feed her and wash her, they will be far more concerned about her fate than back when she was willing to walk on her own two legs without any help. She won’t have to go anywhere, she won’t have to make any more decisions, a horizontal existence in which her eyes will always be able to rest on the same white ceiling or close whenever she chooses, without having to get ready for bed at fixed times or to twist and turn in search of a comfortable position, which she would have to abandon reluctantly on waking. When she turns her head, she is surprised not to detect in him a calm similar to her own. Tight-lipped and frowning, he studies her face, then shakes his head and pulls up the duvet to cover her nakedness, a mirror of her exploited vulnerability. He slips his boxer shorts and shirt back on then lies down beside her. She feels like telling him it doesn’t matter, that it’s all water under the bridge. His look of pained compassion is starting to worry her. Perhaps he has seen in her account something she could have missed after all these years. Or worse, he could be undergoing the same transformation that Marion went through after the confession on the school bench. And then he’d never be able to separate her from what she has just confided in him; his every look would bear the trace of what he had experienced through her words and her words alone. Forget what I said. He stares back at her as if she’s just gone beyond the limits that each person sets in order to reach an understanding of the world around him. Forget, how can anyone forget something like that? You mustn’t feel guilty. Between anger and pity, he hadn’t noticed guilt. She grabs the edge of the duvet and pushes it aside, comfortable in her nakedness. Don’t you find it strange that we have hair down here? He doesn’t seem to want to think about it. He puts his hands on her arm as if he’s about to shake her, you don’t seem to realize how perverse. . He doesn’t finish his sentence and hugs her as tightly as he can. Let’s go away; I’ll take you somewhere. She’s not sure she follows. Somewhere? I don’t know, London, have you ever been there? She shakes her head. Well then, London it is. London. The name bounces around in her head, sparking small jets of joy. At last her turn has come. Like all the others she has seen so often getting on trains, she is the one who will be going away, with him. And not just anywhere, but abroad, to the place where she imagines the gare du Nord’s longest rails come to an end.
They’ll leave the following weekend. When he announces it to her the next evening, there is no mistaking his change of heart. His voice is firmer, more cheerful than usual. Making up his mind to go away with her appears to have temporarily settled the matter for him, whereas previously his only response was to avoid her. Your ticket will come through the post. He arranges to meet her by the entrance to customs on Saturday morning at 8.30, half an hour before departure. Will that be OK? I don’t have a passport. He reminds her that she only needs her identity card, because of the EU. She knew about the existence of the European Union, but she hadn’t been aware of the passport thing. The free movement of goods and people, young lady; but that doesn’t mean you can forget your card. He tells her that it’s going to be good, really good, she’ll see. She gets a sudden, overwhelming urge to touch him through the receiver. See you Saturday, then.
She didn’t dare ask him what he’s going to tell Ange to justify his absence. Probably a lie similar to the one he told her. A business trip. But Ange won’t be waiting, at least not in the way she had, because when all is said and done Ange is the one he’ll go back to. Or maybe not. She smiles to herself. There is a mirror next to her, and she sees herself in it. Not quite the same face, at least different from the one she saw that day in the toilets at the bar. A somewhat troubling discovery. Not that she finds herself more beautiful or younger, feature by feature her face hasn’t changed at all. Yet she is more herself, closer to the ideal image of who she thinks she is. She shuts her eyes, opens them again, the impression persists. She wants to say hello, as if she were meeting herself for the first time, a bit nervous but fully intent on getting to know this new version of herself in the mirror. It didn’t occur to her to ask him how long they will be gone. To play it safe, she’ll ask for four days off.
She finds a nylon sports bag buried in a back corner of the hallway closet. With broad red and white stripes, a single zip, an adjustable strap, and tiny fluff balls of dust clinging to its edges. She doesn’t remember buying it. Or receiving it as a present. Or having put it away there, or ever having used it. It probably belonged to the previous tenant, who mislaid it or just left it there to get rid of it, too lazy or too guilty to throw it away. The presence of an abandoned bag in her apartment strikes her as an excellent omen. A bit on the small side maybe, yet without any visible defects. But if they are only going away for two days, which seems likely given the circumstances, she doesn’t need to take too much. And if by luck they were to prolong the adventure, she considers it equally sensible not to overburden herself.
She has laid out two piles of clothes on her bed. The essentials and the optionals. Panties, bras and socks are separate. In the pile of essential items is her talismanic black dress, worn the previous day at the brother’s apartment. She looks over the two mounds, trying to imagine herself in the streets of London wearing each outfit, like a model at an open-air fashion show. She would walk confidently, smiling as if she loved strutting about, and the delirious spectators would be applauding. She wonders if the English sulk as much as the French. She seems to remember that they have a reputation for being quite pale, because of the bad climate, that the men are blond and the women aren’t admired for any special physical traits. She decides to remove the red dress from the pile of optionals and stuffs it into a drawer. No point in carrying the memory of Maxime all the way to another country. She still has to eliminate a sweater and a pair of trousers before her travel wardrobe can fit inside the orphaned bag, which she has trouble calling her own. One hour later, the bag is ready. There was no need, of course, to get her things ready so soon. But this way she doesn’t run the risk of leaving something behind in the rush, which she would later regret having forgotten. She makes sure that her identity card is in her handbag. She puts the sports bag on the floor in the hallway so she can say to herself every evening on returning home from work, this is the proof that we’re going away. Two days later, the tickets are in her mailbox, satin-smooth, stiff, flawless. One Paris-London ticket, one London-Paris ticket. She reads everything that is printed on them, from the top left to the bottom right. There’s her name, the name of the two cities, the departure and arrival times, her carriage and seat number, the price, and all those figures whose meaning she has never understood. She counts on her fingers, happily realizing that she was right: they aren’t going away for two days but four. She carefully puts the tickets in her bag for safekeeping.