ONCE UPON A DEMENAGEMENT, RETRIEVED ARCHIVES 1

                 He’s waiting for me around the corner, at the exit, I told myself as I was getting off the métro.  There’s always someone lurking around the corner waiting for some single woman to get off the métro car alone on X’mas Day.  The excessive violence of my pushing the exit door open made the poor guy turn around in alarm.   He was just another bored middle-class Frenchman on his way home to maman.  At the top of the escalator, a bright blue electric truck attacked my foot.  « New toy, is it ? »  I thought to myself brightly, grinning at the French brat.  In front of the Parfumerie I noticed that the Santa-on-a-bike had stopped peddling.  Today of all days, even electrified Santa needs a rest.

                  At the beginning of the year I told myself I’d write a short story.  Now at the end, clutching Brian Forbes’ « Inside-the-filmworld » novel, I thought, my story had become an epic extravaganza or a short poem.  In another five days, I will turn 30.  Ripe old age for a woman of the world to tell her tale.

(December 1982, Paris)