Underground Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

people are actually doing: don’t they think that there’s something humiliating in taking your pants off and putting them back on dozens of times to become the world champion in your category? They think about it and nod. And then Théo adds in all seriousness: ‘Yes, but the guy who cuts bananas in two with his hand, just like that, skin and all, that’s a real feat, isn’t it, Mum?’
     
    Mathilde strokes Théo’s cheek and laughs.
    And then they laugh too, all three of them, astonished to hear her laugh.
     
    For weeks, in the morning light, as they sit round the kitchen table, hoping to hear her voice, searching her face for the smile that’s no longer there, she has felt as though her sons are looking at her like she were a time bomb.
    But not today.
    Today’s the twentieth of May, and all three of them have gone off, bags and satchels on their backs, reassured and calm.
    Today’s the twentieth of May, and she’s started the day by laughing.

Lila put her bag in the boot and got into the car beside him. Before he pulled off, Thibault called in to say he’d be starting his shift half an hour late. Rose said that they’d cope with the doctors they had. It hasn’t got crazy yet.
    They drove in silence. After an hour Lila fell asleep, her head against the window and a fine trickle of saliva running from her mouth to the top of her neck.
    He reflected that he loved her, loved everything about her, her fluids, her substance, her taste. He felt as though he had never loved in this way, with this constant feeling of loss, with this feeling that nothing could be foreseen, nothing could be held on to.
    On the outskirts of Paris the traffic got heavier. A few miles from the ring road, they almost came to a standstill. Stuck behind a lorry, he relived each moment of last night’s dinner. He could see himself leaning across the table, his body inclining forward, reaching towards her. And Lila sitting back in her chair, distant as always. He could see himself and the way he had sunk in little by little, trying to give the right answers to the questions she kept asking – what are you looking for? What do you want? What do you need ideally, and what if . . .? A barrage of questions so that she didn’t have to say anything about herself, about what she was seeking, so as not to disturb her own silence.
    Him, trying to look good, be funny and witty and nice and relaxed.
    Him, his mystery removed, stripped bare.
    Him, a fly trapped under a glass.
     
    He had forgotten how vulnerable he was. Was that what being in love meant, this feeling of fragility? This fear that you could lose everything at any time, through a slip or a wrong answer or an unfortunate word? Was this uncertainty about oneself the same at forty as at twenty? And if so, was there anything more pitiful, more vain?
    Outside her place he turned off the engine. Lila woke up. He leaned over to kiss her. He slid his tongue into her mouth. One last time. He laid his hand on her breast, the fingers outstretched. He stroked her skin in the place he loved so much and then he said: ‘I want us to stop seeing each other. I can’t go on like this, Lila, I can’t. I’m tired.’
    The words were unbearably banal. Clichés that added insult to injury. But they were all he had.
    Lila got up and opened the door. She went round the back of the car to the boot and then came back, with her bag over her shoulder. She leaned down and said, ‘Thanks.’
    And then after a moment, ‘Thanks for everything.’
    There was neither pain nor relief in her expression. She went into her building without looking back.
    He had done it.
     
    He let Rose know that he was on call and she gave him his first address over the phone: high fever, flu symptoms. She called back a few minutes later to ask if he could handle sector six in addition to four. Frazera had broken his wrist the previous night and the fracture was displaced. The controller hadn’t yet found a doctor to replace