There Anita was, all too visible, and yet appallingly invisible. She had reread her notes and reckoned that she would have enough to write two hundred and fifty words. She walked around the village, several small boys were playing a game of tag. Stone houses, lace curtains, spick and span alleyways, what are the lives of people here? What are they thinking about, those young men leaning against the wall of the town hall, their mopeds within easy reach, watching the celebration without taking part, with a mixture of scorn and derision in their eyes? She took several extra photographs, picked up a black pebble streaked with mauve, gathered a few daisies from the roadside for Laura.
When she got back to her car she caught her reflection in the window and suddenly she understood. She was not at all the person they had been expecting. The game she sometimes played with Laura came to mind: spot the odd one out. A vegetable among fruits, a pair of spectacles among pairs of shoes, a red flower in a yellow field. She was the stranger with dark skin (what to call it? black? brown?) among the whites.
Anita got into her car but did not drive off right away. She had certainly found it difficult doing her work that day but she could not set aside the feeling of pure joy that had overcome her as she noted a few lines on her pad and the words had come to her naturally, authentically. She had felt capable of being in the moment while at the same time observing it. That instant in this village forgotten by the tourist routes was one of absolute truth. These winding lanes, which had followed the same course for hundreds of years, these stones, gleaming from being trodden underfoot, what do they tell and what effect do they have on people? Was this not just what she had wanted to do for so many years? To chronicle the ins and outs of the world? She could not give up so soon.
To be sure, this was not the way she had imagined the profession. She remembered the editorial offices in Paris where she had done an internship and the somewhat unreal aspects of it that she had not particularly enjoyed at the time, but that, in the end, she occasionally missed a little, those extremely elegant and well shod young women who chose to call themselves “girls,” the assignations kept amid the hubbub of the city, the apartments smelling of coffee and beeswax, evenings spent quietly writing her article, in her studio apartment, in a café, anywhere at all, it did not matter, provided one was in Paris.
She started her car and began composing her piece in her mind. There was no question of giving up so soon.
Week in, week out, she deposits Laura at the school and plows back and forth across the countryside. On the first few occasions she braces herself fully for the moment when she must call up all her energy, as one calls up the sum total of a lifetime’s experience to fashion a shield from it, the moment when looks will be focused on her. Every time there is the same surprise, the same questioning, whatever the location—a village square, an athletic field, a forest road, a cultural and sports center, a school playground. She would like to be able to spare them this but apparently on the telephone she has no accent, her name does not suggest anything foreign, and when the conversation has gone well and ends with the words “See you tomorrow; we’ll be waiting for you!” she would love to be able to warn them—the way you warn people that your child is allergic to nuts or your elderly father is a bit deaf—but the truth is, this is not the same. Being allergic to nuts does not show on your face.
When she gets out of the car and closes the door she cannot refrain from glancing at her reflection in the window and remembering who she is, so as not to forget the image she presents to other people. To act as if everything were normal, not be offended, not be angry, never to jump to conclusions.
Week in, week out, she throws back her shoulders, smiles, steps out confidently but without vanity. She dresses in a neutral style, leaving her colored bracelets, her skirts with mirrors, her brightly colored dresses, and her wooden necklaces at home. Gradually, it seems to her that the looks of surprise are less frequent. Occasionally someone will ask her a question and get into conversation with her. Occasionally someone will ask her opinion, someone will let drop that they liked her last piece, someone will take her arm, someone will invite her to taste something, someone will insist on her drinking a cup of coffee, someone will ask if she is married, if she has children.
Then on the journey home the beauty of the countryside seeps into her, the poppies, the colza, the forsythia beside the roads, the colors floating above the meadows like a motley kite, the vibrant heat at the edges of the fields of corn, the cool emanating from the pine forests.
Now she is not weary, not vulnerable, she believes in the possibility of being an equal, a fellow human being, a sister, even. Now that deep inner thrill returns to her, the slow reawakening of that blazing hope of her youth, that of becoming a writer. Now in the evening she takes up a notebook again, she begins to write, to hope, but each time, as in a soufflé, the words collapse. But this is not a problem, for she is convinced that soon she will find a story to tell, a fantastic idea that will stand up, that will stay the course. A story she can keep an eye on from afar, even when tired, even when weary, even when disappointed, and
