The television is off. That’s the first thing she notices on opening her eyes. Next to her, Kamel is asleep. The room is plunged into semi-darkness, night has fallen. She gets up and goes to inspect the tiny kitchen. By the sink, a yogurt container has tipped over under the weight of the spoon left inside it. Momo has vanished. Perfect: she’ll at last be able to slip away without having to invent an excuse. She grabs her bag, which is sitting by the couch, and heads for the door, only to find it locked. It takes several seconds for it to dawn on her: she is locked inside an apartment with a total stranger and doesn’t even know who lives there. She reflects on the chain of events that led her to this place, on the moments when she could have made a different choice and avoided being trapped. She could have gone on walking when Momo first approached her, she could have left him after the first coffee, she could have followed Ange’s example and gone home, she could have refused the joint, she could have smoked it but left straight afterwards, she could have stayed awake. But she did the opposite, never suspecting that the sum total of these tiny decisions would lead her to this spot. She hasn’t the slightest idea how to leave an apartment other than by the front door. She returns to the living room as quietly as she can so as not to wake Kamel. Slipping through the gap in the curtains, she carefully eases open the French doors that lead on to a small stone balcony with wrought-iron railings. She is surprised to discover that the apartment is on the top floor. Down below, two men are in motion, one of them trailing the flattened form of a dog. All she can hear is muffled music and the noise of a distant engine. Gusts of strong wind rattle the shutters attached to the wall by metal hooks. Tightening her grip on the guardrail, she imagines herself floating down, following the swirling currents of air, as light as a dead leaf, until she reaches the ground and regains her freedom. Given her current physical state, she can’t hope to pull off such an exploit: she is well and truly locked in. How long can she wait for Momo to return? More than that, she’s not even sure that he’s coming back. Call for help. She could phone him, at the risk of waking up Ange. Only she doesn’t know the address of the apartment; nor did she pay attention to the route Momo took to get here. And besides, he would probably want to contact the police. She would have to explain her reasons for being here, and the police would notice they had been smoking pot. They might even search the apartment and discover a quantity of cannabis far in excess of what three people would have on hand for their personal use. She would be charged with trafficking in illicit substances and wouldn’t have enough money to afford bail. Too risky. She is starting to feel cold on this strip of balcony suspended over a void. No way is she going to stay in this apartment; she wouldn’t last long. She remembers a film about the Second World War. In it, a Jewish man was hiding out in an apartment. Following the disappearance of his perverse caretaker, the place turned into his prison. It was the middle of winter. After eating every bit of food down to the last crumb, he took to his bed, where he stayed under the blankets, motionless. Watching the scene, she wondered what goes through the mind of a man who can no longer feed himself, who has nothing left to do except wait for an unexpected rescuer: how would his thoughts change as the hours ticked by and his body ate away at itself from inside? She thought about the stench of her own decomposing body, how it would alert the neighbors, and how, as usual, turnout at her funeral would be low. Stories every bit as sordid were heard the previous summer, when old people died in their own homes from heat exhaustion without anyone noticing. The government was held responsible, not the old people’s children. But she is not ancient enough for this particular situation to get the better of her. There is only one solution: to wake up Kamel and ask him for the keys. The guy seems a bit of a lump, but harmless enough. Encouraged by this idea, she decides to put her plan into action. But when she goes back inside the room, Kamel is no longer on the sofa. Stunned, she stares at the crumpled place where he had been sprawled out a short while earlier. She looks around the room. How could he have vanished? She hasn’t even heard the front door, which is still locked. She checks the kitchen. No sign of Momo or Kamel. All that remains for her to do now is to sit down on the couch and wait for someone to come and save her.
She thinks back to her afternoon. She was walking towards Place Carrée when Momo approached her. She remembers that when she heard the voice call out, Miss, she was looking up at the top of a tree, where a strange bird, a cross between a pigeon and a sparrow, was perched. She didn’t have time to get close enough to examine it carefully. Again, she sees the subtle changes taking place in Momo’s eyes as she gradually relented. What gives the impression that the look in someone’s eyes is changing? She has the beginnings of answers but always comes back to the same vague conclusion: the shape. But the shape of what exactly? The skin around it? Of the pupil? The iris? She doesn’t know. She thinks back to the firm pressure of his hand on her shoulder, as if he had known she was about to get up and wanted to stop her. His eyes, which carefully avoided her, while wandering suspiciously over Momo. The phrase she had uttered in a single breath. She doesn’t remember the exact words she used, only the sense of relief she had experienced afterwards. Whether he replied yes or no by then hardly mattered: she had dared to take a step she never would have thought herself capable of. Then he said, I’ll call you, he didn’t say when. He didn’t say yes or no. Mentally she weighs the effect either word would have had on her. In fact, she’s not sure that she wants to go to the theater with him any more. She fears being alone with him, even though in the past she has invented numerous permutations of precisely that situation. It has taken her too long to make it happen, and she has grown used to drawing on that well of possibilities. It would be better if he refused so things between them can carry on the way she wants them to, in an imaginary realm where confrontation and disappointment can be avoided. Isn’t it more exciting to mold reality in one’s own private laboratory the way one chooses to? For if he accepts, the mechanisms of seduction will be set in motion. She will have to behave as she would in any other romantic adventure: resist her desire then give in to it. As always, the beginning would lead to the end. She will have to love him and suffer for it. She promises herself that she will do everything in her power not to wait for his phone call.