She said it so well, with a mixture of professional pride and personal regret, that the others believed her — she sensed it at once. There is a brief freeze-frame. The man with the stoop feels a bit of a jerk now that he has his answer. He manages a polite rejoinder, all the same: And have you been in the business long? Maybe he’s not quite so lacking in imagination, after all. Quick as a flash, her voice steady. Ten years, I started young. Even the virulent husband is taken aback; a few more details, and he could almost feel sorry for her. She knows that none of the four men will dare ask her how much she charges. Besides, they have ceased to look upon her with kindness: she is no longer innocent. Only the two women continue to regard her with curiosity. And then, all at once, a heart-felt cry from the wearer of Iranian veils: life can’t be easy for you. It isn’t sarcasm or disdain, but sincerity, and it plunges all present into what, from the outside, appears to be intense introspection. At which point he returns with a strawberry tart, Ange, and nine dessert plates. Ange inquires about the subject of their conversation. She then realizes that she has overstepped the mark. I was talking about my work, she says eventually, as the others maintain an obstinate silence. Yes, it’s unusual, says Ange, people always forget that’s a job, too. Frowns from the guests, surprised by such tolerance on the part of their hostess. Silence reigns as Ange dexterously divides the tart into near-equal portions. The sugary taste in the mouth helps the dinner to continue as if nothing had happened. No one else deigns to show any interest in her now; the man with the stoop hasn’t even dared lay another finger on her plate. One thing is for sure, there won’t be any more questions for the remainder of the evening. She wonders how many of them will remember the interlude which briefly disturbed the course of their evening. There was a prostitute at Thingamabob’s the other night; she seemed like a nice girl. She imagines herself as an anointed saboteur of the social order. A single word from her and she had switched identity in their eyes: reality had cracked in a place they never would have suspected.
Before leaving, she went to the toilet. On opening the door to come out, she found the husband standing in front of her. Laughter was emanating from what seemed to be a very distant living room. At first she thought the husband was waiting his turn, but he made no move to enter. He took her for a different person; she had snared him with an unpremeditated lie. With dexterous movements of his thumb, the husband keyed her number onto the screen of his mobile phone; he asked for her first name again before entering the toilet.
She kisses air, pressing her cheek to each of the guests’ in turn. Ange, tipsy, falls into her arms before he accompanies her to the front door. She is on one side of the threshold, he is on the other. He reels off end-of-evening phrases: thanks for coming, did you have a good time? I hope you enjoyed the food? She nods her head, understands that they won’t mention the kiss again. A mishap unworthy of further thought. Now all that stands between them is the false impression he has formed of her, but she feels unable to persuade him otherwise. The battle would be lost in advance if she were the one who decided to lead it. She turns towards the stairwell. I’ll call you. The door banging shut drowns out the last syllable. As she leaves the building, the street is deserted except for a couple walking in her direction. The woman is pushing an empty stroller. A few paces behind her, a man is carrying a baby in his arms. As the man passes in front of her, the child gives her a little wave.
She thinks of her own death. As if it were a cessation, the sudden interruption of a current, the annihilation of what she is. At any moment. She concentrates on the physical duration of time. Each instant could be the last, yet each instant, once over, becomes a reprieve. And, one by one, the instants pass, nothing happens, or rather everything does: she doesn’t die. As if waiting for the impact of a shot which will be fired from an unknown direction and hit her in an unknown place, she forces herself to remain stock still to try to feel the imminence of her death. All she perceives now is her own breathing — automatic, beyond her control, capable of being smothered every time she inhales. She would have stopped breathing, swallowed her last gasp of air: she might have croaked without even realizing it. The exercise brings on a twinge of panic, but afterwards her confidence returns and she feels less vulnerable. She wonders what the last image she sees will be, what fleeting morsel of the world will flicker in front her eyes before it vanishes. She would never know what image sat on her retinas at the zero hour of their countdown to decomposition; she would never know what message was being relayed by the last nerve impulse to enter her brain. As a child she used to imagine herself dying then coming back to life to spy on the reactions of those closest to her. She enjoyed imagining the consequences of her death. The scene was always constructed more or less along the same lines. Those who had known her were crying, telling each other how much they had loved her, and from this grief, which she pictured in all sorts of ways, she drew strength. She was getting her revenge on them; her dying was their punishment. Much later she found out that this mode of behavior wasn’t peculiar to her. Psychologists have a term for this childish instinct which is supposed to disappear when you reach adulthood.
She is still in bed, studying the outline on the wall of the sun’s rays filtered through the window, when the phone rings. His voice. She can’t believe that he’s calling her so soon, less than twenty-four hours since they last saw each other. From the clipped, cut-off sound of his words, she can tell that he is annoyed. Because of the sweater, no doubt. Ange can’t have appreciated the fact that a piece of plastic was left attached to the material, and he is now going to order her to find a way to get that damn security disc off. He already must have spent the entire morning wearing himself out, directed by Ange’s nervous commands. No, I’m not asleep. It’s about last night. She senses that he is troubled, which makes her uneasy in turn. She could come clean with him about her shoplifting from Promod, but she fears the effect her spur-of-the-moment crime would have on him. It’s about what you told the others. He says that all his friends really believed that she was a prostitute. It can’t have done them any harm to meet one. Did you think you were being clever? He finds it pretty odd to lie like that, for no reason. Such is the paradox of a lie: so long as everyone equates it with truth, they’re prepared to accept it, but the moment a lie is discovered to be a lie, it’s seen as a personal insult. Why should there always be complex reasons for lying? Truth, that endless Chinese box, is not terribly attractive. A lie at least has the merit of being complete and is often far more coherent than its opposite. Apparently she has succeeded in putting off the man applying for the post of boyfriend. They believed me, after all; I must really look the part. From the sound of his breathing in the receiver, she senses that he has relaxed slightly. And this subtle change in mood indicates that he got the message. Her heart reminds her of its presence: something simultaneously shrinks and expands inside her chest. Neither one of them speaks. She waits for him to come out with the usual words, the ones that restrict her to a clearly defined category, the female friend. But this time silence no longer seems enough for him to push on with his usual, pre-formatted phrases. They remain silent, as if to absorb the transformation that is taking place. And through this interruption in the automatic rhythm of their verbal exchanges, she has the sense that, for the first time, they understand each other. For the first time — she can feel it — the thought of a relationship with her has crossed his mind. Eventually he says, Ange is calling me, I have to go.