Free Voice Over by Celine Curiol

living-room table? Make a phone call? To whom? She has done all these things before; she knows what sensations they produce. She’d like to come up with other, more distracting activities, but right now, nothing occurs to her. And so she stays on the sofa, unable to make up her mind. She rubs the tiny piece of skin next to her nail over her upper lip until the phone rings. She knows that it’s not him, not twice in one day, not after what happened this morning. She picks up. Hello, it’s Maxime. She doesn’t know the voice or anyone named Maxime. She’s about to say, you’ve dialled the wrong number, but Maxime goes on. We met last night at the dinner party, you gave me your number. I wanted to invite you for a drink.
    She regrets not buying the pink dress, which would have been an excellent costume for the role she is getting ready to play. In any case, she still needs to wear a dress—that feminine symbol, the inverted corolla. Only one passes muster, short, red, and simply cut. Quick check on the state of her calves: passable in soft light, not so great to the touch. Hair removal is no small business. Excluded are creams and those electrical devices supposed to extract the hair by its root; they leave a lot to be desired, she tried all of them a long time ago. She doesn’t have time for an appointment at the beauty salon. Besides, that never really worked for her, on account of the nagging feeling of being at the doctor’s: the long sheet of paper crumpling under you as you lie down, the harsh light revealing the skin’s imperfections. The shame is not appreciably different when she is lying on her stomach and senses the beautician appraising the appearance of her rump barely shielded by a pair of panties that are never up to standard. She is sure she presents a pitiful sight to those eyes
accustomed to seeing so many fit and toned women, who look good even before their treatments have started. Her first weeks in the capital, she knew no one. After she got knocked down by that car, she had hobbled her way to the Emergency room of a hospital. Looking after herself was her responsibility, young woman of eighteen that she was, suddenly in charge of a life, her own. At the hospital, only curt instructions—no prizes for having taken care of herself and got that far safely. A nurse sat her on an examination table and rolled up her trouser legs. And that white witch’s first words: you might want to shave them now and then. These days, she couldn’t care less. But this evening, she has to be impeccably turned out: so a few strokes of a razor blade it is; too bad if in three days’ time hair density per square centimetre will have doubled. Powder for her eyelids, black eyeliner, some red lipstick—she redraws her face, taking care to accentuate her features.
    Lots of people in the métro. Lethargic and tyrannical young people. Couples of every kind picking a quarrel or wrapping their arms around one another. A few skittish old coots keeping out of harm’s way. An agitated young man is talking loudly, chopping the air with his arms in front of a pair of hippy types, male and female, who watch him expend his precious energy at a dizzying rate. I got me a gun, ya’see; I got a gun. His audience of two look on, impassive. I mean, I could blow y’all away, know what I’m sayin’? The future killer produces the onomatopoeic equivalent of three gunshots. But . . . I ain’ gonna. Is he bluffing? She wouldn’t bet on it. Elsewhere on the platform people are turning a blind eye. The kid is telling anyone who will listen that he’s done time, and on the word “time,” his eyes lock onto hers. She looks away, wisely directing her gaze clear
of this lunatic. Hey you! The rumbling of the approaching train swallows the rest. She heads the other way and takes advantage of the jostling crowd to slip into one of the cars. As his face passes behind