Black and white photo of a fine line script tattoo reading Je ne sais quoi on the inner forearm, with a relaxed hand extended to the right.

Je ne sais quoi script on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a forearm with a small script tattoo reading Je ne sais quoi, written in thin, cursive black linework. The lettering runs diagonally up the forearm from the wrist, and the hand is open and relaxed at the right of the frame against a dark background. The shading is soft and the lines are crisp and even.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Script Lettering Phrase

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hélène, the train from Lyon was late again, so I have written this on the back of a menu in the buffet at Chambéry, where the coffee tastes of tin and the waiter keeps calling me mademoiselle as if he has forgotten my name. You asked me on the platform what I meant by saying you had something I could not name. I have been turning it over ever since, the way you turn a coin you suspect is foreign.

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It is the way you tuck your pencil behind your ear before you have finished the sentence. It is the half-second you spend choosing a word in your own language, as though you are checking it for cracks. It is the shop on the Rue des Cordiers that sells only buttons, and how you held the brass ones up to the window as if they were medals from a war nobody remembers. Nothing about any of it is remarkable on its own. Together it is something I have no dictionary for.

So I went to Monsieur Vallier, the stationer, and asked him to write it out for me in his best hand. He said it was a phrase that admits it has no translation, and that people who use it are usually admitting something else. I told him that was rather the point. He laughed and charged me four sous for the ink.

I am carrying the paper in my coat, folded small. When the train pulls in, I will be the one at the window, holding my wrist up to the glass so you can read it before you ask me anything at all.