Lorraine Connection

Title Page
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
Praise
About the Author
Copyright

A room enclosed by four grey sheet-metal walls, bisected by a conveyor belt carrying two rows of television screens and their cathode ray tubes, under the glare of neon lights from which a stray electric wire dangles. Two rows of four women sit facing each other on either side of the conveyor. Autumn is around the corner and it is very chilly: when they took up their positions this morning it was still dark outside. All the women know each other and feel almost close in this confined space where they work as a team on collective output and bonuses, but no one feels like
talking
, since the prospect of long nights and short days dampens their spirits.

The women, also looking grey in their short overalls, lean
forward
, their eyes constantly moving from the aggressive
oblong-shaped
bases of the cathode tubes filing past them to the tilting polished-steel mirrors overhead. The same crushing images of the same tubes are reflected from a different angle, as if
magnified
. Holding tiny soldering irons, they add a few final spots of solder then, on leaving the production line, the finished cathode ray tubes are conveyed to the next workshop on the other side of the sheet-metal wall, where they will be packaged, stored, and ultimately despatched elsewhere, generally to Poland, where they will be given plastic casings and become television sets.

The girls can hear only muffled sounds from the factory floor, but the noise from the conveyor belt bounces off the sheet-metal walls and dictates the rhythm of their days.
Clack,
the conveyor starts up,
hiss,
two seconds, the tubes start moving,
clack,
stop. Each girl leans forward, the soldering irons sputter, one, two, three, four blobs, and in ten seconds they straighten up. Rolande, at the end of the line, gives the tubes a quick once-over to check the accuracy of the soldering.
Clack,
sssh,
the belt moves forward, minds blank, their hands and eyes work automatically.
Clack,
one, two, three, four, glance,
clack,
sssh
… Aisha’s face between two tubes, wan, twenty years old,
should
be
in
better
health.
Clack,
one,
I
was
in
better
shape
at
twenty,
two,
pregnant,
ditched,
three,
alcoholic
mother,
violent,
four,
who
was
already
sponging
off
me,
glance,
clack,
sssh.
Aisha,
her
eyes
vacant,
violent
father.
Clack,
one,
my
son,
ruffling
his
hair,
two,
caressing
his
face,
affection,
three,
the
factory
no
way,
never,
four,
study,
study,
study,
glance,
clack,
sssh.
Aisha,
work,
can’t
stand
it
any
more,
clack,
one,
since
the
accident,
two,
the
accident,
the
blood,
three,
blood
everywhere,
four,
throat
slit,
glance,
clack,
sssh.
Aisha
covered
in
blood.
Clack,
one,
she’s
afraid,
two,
me
too,
three,
all
of
us,
afraid,
four,
the
sheet-metal
walls
exude
fear,
clack,
sssh.
Aisha,
her
father
yelling,
clack,
one, blinding flash, from floor to ceiling. On the other side of the production line a tube explodes, the briefest scream,
earsplitting
.

Émilienne keels over backwards, Rolande’s palm
automatically
hits the emergency button, the production line comes to a halt, a wire is fizzling all the way up to the neon light,
orangey-yellow
sparks and a very strong smell of burning rubber or some other substance, sickening. Silence. Rolande clambers on to a chair and picks her way over the conveyor between two cathode tubes. Émilienne is lying on the floor on her back, white, rigid, eyes closed, lips blue. Six months pregnant. Her belly protrudes through her half-unbuttoned overalls. An alarm goes off
somewhere
on the other side of the partition. In the total silence of the cramped room, Rolande speaks quietly, in a precise monotone: ‘Aisha, run to the offices, grab a phone and call an ambulance, the fire brigade. Go, hurry.’ Aisha rushes off. Rolande kneels down, Émilienne’s hair is spread on the worn-out vinyl tiles. The floor’s filthy, when was it last cleaned? She feels ashamed, removes her overalls and places them under the head of the injured,
possibly
dead, woman. Émilienne doesn’t appear to be breathing. She leans over her, attempts mouth-to-mouth, senses a breath. She gently unbuttons the neck of Émilienne’s blouse and frees her legs from under the overturned chair. A scorch mark on the seat. The girls are all on their feet, staring expressionlessly, their mouths closed, leaning against the sheet-metal walls, as far away as possible from Émilienne.
What
was
I
thinking
about
earlier?
Fear?
This
is
its
natural
home.
Réjane, who sits next to Émilienne on the production line, murmurs in a quavering voice, her hands trembling:

‘Maybe we should give her heart massage.’

‘Do you know how?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither.’

One women slaps Émilienne’s face and dabs at it with a wet cloth, the other massages her hands, weeping.

Antoine Maréchal, bespectacled and in blue overalls, is juggling schedules and attendance sheets in the personnel office. He is the foreman of the assembly-finishing-packaging section, and each day is a monumental challenge to maintain output with
absenteeism
ranging between ten and twenty per cent. Closer to twenty per cent on this autumn day. What dross, all bloody Arabs or women. They don’t know the meaning of work. The Human Resources Manager in person comes into the office, thirty-something, in a tailored suit, expensive shoes of Italian leather, an incompetent, cocksure young upstart, still wet behind the ears. Maréchal, in his fifties, a lumbering figure in his overalls and safety boots,
shudders
with repressed hatred.

‘Mr Maréchal, how convenient, just the person I wanted to see. The latest figures show an absenteeism rate of thirteen per cent in your section over the last month.’

‘I know. I’m dealing with it.’

‘It’s the highest rate in the factory. If you don’t do
something
about it, you’ll be jeopardising the survival of the entire company.’

Maréchal removes his glasses, snaps down the sides and puts them in his overalls pocket, next to the red ballpoint pen and the blue ballpoint pen, and rests both hands on the desk, which creaks.

‘Listen, Mr Human Resources Manager, you’re new here. I’ve been here since the day this factory opened, and not a month has gone by without the management threatening closure. Anyone would think they’d only opened it so they could close it down. So that kind of talk won’t go very far with me. I don’t give a damn if your place closes down. I’ve got my house, it’s not long till I retire, I’ll pocket my bonus and go off gathering mushrooms.’ The pager clipped to Maréchal’s belt starts beeping. ‘Excuse me, I’m wanted on the factory floor.’

He leaves the Head of HR casting around for a reply and goes next door into the main factory building. The clanging,
clattering
, scraping and the din of engines. Confused sounds, he thinks. Memories of the powerful, constant roar of the blast furnace, the roar of fire. Nostalgia? Not really.
It
cost
my
father
his
life. 
He
was
confused
too.
The main factory building, divided into numerous enclosed areas which you have to cross or skirt around to reach the long, central corridor, cluttered with a discarded Fenwick engine, empty pallets and dustbins. In front of him, a gaping doorway leading to a narrow room entirely taken up by a machine which, at the time of its installation, was to
revolutionise
the chemical treatment of microprocessors. A purpose-built room, specially insulated against dust and temperature variations to prevent the machine from overheating and breaking down for lack of ventilation. Idle for a year and a half.
Some
clever
buggers
must
have
dismantled
it
and
nicked
some
of
the
parts,
can’t
blame
them.
A rush of anger.
And
it’s
my
section
that’s
jeopardising
the
future
of
the
factory.
Wanker.

Aisha’s running down the main corridor towards him. Trouble of one kind or another. Without stopping, she yells at him:

‘An accident, a short circuit, Émilienne’s dead! I’m going to call an ambulance.’

Maréchal catches himself thinking
if
she’s
dead,
it’s
too
late,
and hastens his step, while Aisha runs on in the direction of the offices. He goes into the finishing workshop and the first person he sees, in the opposite doorway, is Nourredine, the packaging foreman. A good worker, fair enough, but a real troublemaker, always protesting, wanting to put forward his own ideas. What the hell’s he doing here? The place stinks. He immediately spots the scorch marks caused by the short circuit running from floor to ceiling. He looks down and sees Émilienne’s body lying at his feet, and, kneeling beside her, Rolande and Réjane, who is
shaking
, sobbing and wailing:

‘She’s been electrocuted, she’s dead.’

Émilienne, unconscious, pale, her lips blue, her body racked with spasms accompanied by groans.
Right,
she’s
not
dead.
Women
always
exaggerate.
I
need
to
take
charge
of
the
situation
and
show
that
bloody
Arab.
A quick glance around the room. The girls are all there, pinned against the walls, white as ghosts. Rolande looks less shaken and anyway, she’s the production-line supervisor, a good worker, she’ll lead the others. He leans towards her:

‘Everything’s fine, the ambulance is on its way. Move away, you need to give your friend air. Until the ambulance arrives you must all go back to your places. Once the ambulance is here, we’ll see what has to be done.’

Rolande is still holding Émilienne’s head. Nobody’s paying any attention to the foreman. Rolande’s mesmerised by the puddle of water spreading between Émilienne’s legs.

Maréchal bends down and takes her arm.

‘Her waters have broken.’ Her head is bowed, her voice husky.

Maréchal doesn’t understand what she’s saying.

‘Ms Lepetit, do set an example. Go back to your seat. We must calm everyone down, let the paramedics do their job, and then get back to work. It’s nothing to worry about, you’ll see.’

Rolande seems to be waking from a nightmare,
it’s
nothing
to
worry
about,
bastard,
get
back
to
work,
swine,
don’t
you
dare
touch
me.
She suddenly stands up, thrusts his hand from her arm and gives him a resounding clout that sends him sprawling on his back amongst the girls’ legs. Not one of them holds out a hand to help him to his feet. He gets up, crimson with rage. Nourredine has come into the room and he leaps over the conveyor, grabs the foreman’s shoulders and marches him outside.

‘Calm down! You’ve no idea what they’ve just been through. The short circuit was so powerful that next door we could see the flash through the partition. And the woman’s scream …’ he has difficulty finding the words ‘… was like something from beyond the grave.’

The fire brigade arrives at the double, led by Aisha. Nourredine continues to push Maréchal out of the way. Within seconds, Émilienne is hooked up to a drip, placed on a stretcher and
carried
away.

Aisha’s lying in the dark, in a cubicle in the medical room. Her production line has been halted, electricians have been called out urgently from Pondange to carry out repairs. The foreman said that everything would be sorted in time for the second shift. Meanwhile, the girls on the opposite line, supervised by Rolande, have gone back to work. To work. Aisha faints.

Between these sheet-metal walls, white from the flash of
electricity
, resonating with the scream, Émilienne’s body, a few feet away from Aisha, keeling over backwards, rigid, entangled in her chair. And the other accident, no more than a month ago, right in front of her, the headless body, standing there for ages before
collapsing
, blood spurting out of the neck, the warmth of the blood on her hands, her face.
I
am
cursed.
Forget
Forget.
Think
about
something
else.
I
don’t
want
to
go
home
before
clocking-off
time.
My
father
at
home
with
all
his
questions.
Why
aren’t
you
at
the
factory?
I
shan’t
tell
him
anything.
Not
a
word.
Nothing
happened.
I
can’t
talk
any
more.