Consolation (26 page)

‘Her hand was icy. When I took it into my own, I suddenly realized that that old fellow, who could have been her father, and who didn’t even like women – he’d been her only love story . . .

‘She insisted I talk about him. Tell her my memories, over and over, even the ones she knew by heart. It was a bit of an effort, but I had an important appointment that afternoon, and I was doing a lot of sleeve-adjusting to keep an eye on my watch without it being obvious. And to be honest I really didn’t feel like reminiscing any more . . . Or at least not with her. Sitting opposite that ravaged face – it spoiled everything . . .’

Silence.

‘I didn’t suggest any dessert. What was the point? She hadn’t eaten anything anyway. I ordered two coffees and called the waiter back to signal to him to bring the bill at the same time, and then I went with her to her metro station and . . .’

Sylvie must have felt that the time had come to help him a bit: ‘And then?’

‘I never took her to Normandy. I never called her. Out of cowardice. So that I wouldn’t have to see how she was going downhill, so that I could keep her in the museum of my memories and stop her from giving me a guilty conscience. Because it was too much . . . And yet my guilty conscience did trouble me, and I’d lighten the load every year when it came time to send greetings cards. From the agency, of course . . . Impersonal, commercial, stupid, and acting the fine gentleman I’d add a few words by hand and “hugs and kisses”, like a rubber stamp. I called
her
two or three times after that; in particular, I recall one time when my niece had swallowed some medicine or other . . . And then one day my parents, who hadn’t seen her in a long time, told me that she had moved away and that she’d gone . . . to Brittany, I think –’

‘No.’

‘Pardon?’

‘She wasn’t in Brittany.’

‘Oh really?’

‘She was not far from here.’

‘Where?’

‘In a housing estate, near Bobigny.’

Charles closed his eyes.

‘But how?’ he murmured, ‘I mean, why? That was the one thing she was determined never to – I remember, the only promise she ever made, never to – How can that be? What happened?’

She raised her head, looked him straight in the eye, let her arm drop alongside the armchair and let it all out.

‘In the early 90s . . . Well, I suppose it was then, I’m not good at dates . . . You must be the last person she went to have lunch with in those days . . . Where to begin? I’m lost, now . . . I’ll start with Alexis, I guess. Since it was because of him that everything started to go to pieces. She hadn’t had any news from him for years. I think you were one of their only links as well, weren’t you?’

Charles nodded.

‘It was hard for her. So as a result she was working an enormous amount, piling on shifts and overtime, never taking any holiday, living for the hospital alone. I think she was already drinking quite a bit, too, what have you . . . It didn’t prevent her from becoming head nurse, and she was always in the toughest departments . . . After immunology she went to neurology and that’s when I started working with her. I liked working with her . . . And she was a lousy head nurse by the way . . . She preferred care-giving to organizing people’s shifts. She would forbid the patients to die, I remember . . . She’d shout at them, make them cry, make them laugh . . . In short, all sorts of things that weren’t allowed . . .’

A smile.

‘But she was untouchable because she was the best. Whatever
she
was lacking in the way of medical knowledge she made up for with the way she cared for people.

‘Not only was she the first one to notice if there’d been any change, even the faintest symptom, but in addition she had an extraordinary instinct . . . A nose . . . You can’t imagine . . . The doctors had understood as much, and they always arranged it so that they could do their rounds when she was on duty . . . Of course they’d listen to the patients but when she added something, believe me, it did not fall on deaf ears. I’ve always thought that if her childhood had been different, if she’d been able to go to university, she’d have made a truly great doctor. One of those who do honour to the profession, without ever forgetting the first and last name or the face or the concerns on the chart . . .’

She sighed.

‘She was great. And it was because she had no more life of her own that she gave them so much, I suppose . . . Not only did she look after her patients, but their families as well . . . And her youngest co-workers, too, the little auxiliaries who would go into certain patients’ rooms dragging their feet, it was so hard for them to put a bedpan under a body that was so . . . She would touch people, take them in her arms, caress them, come back after she’d put in so many hours already, out of uniform, with a bit of make-up, to fill in for the visits they hadn’t got, or more. She’d tell them stories, talked a lot about you, I recall . . . Said you were the most intelligent boy on earth . . . She was so proud . . . This was at a time when you were still having lunch together now and again, and lunch with you was sacred. Good Lord, no messing around with the schedule, there, and the entire hospital could go hang! And then she’d talk about Alexis, and music . . . She invented all sorts of stuff, concerts, standing room only, fantastic contracts . . . In the evening . . . and we’d all be staggering with fatigue and you could hear her voice in the corridor . . . Her lies, her fantasies. She was comforting herself, then, she didn’t fool anyone. And then one morning, a call from the emergency services was like a bucket of cold water on her head: her so-called virtuoso was dying from an overdose . . .

‘And that’s when she began to go downhill. For a start, she didn’t expect this at all – which will never cease to surprise me in fact – the old story about the shoemaker’s children. She thought he
was
smoking a joint or two from time to time because that helped him to “play better”. A likely story . . . And here’s this woman, the most professional person I’ve ever worked with – I’ve been talking about her gentle ways, but she also knew how to be tough, she could keep them all at a distance: the Grim Reaper, the doctors who were always overwhelmed, the snooty little interns, her blasé colleagues, the administrative stuffed shirts, the invasive families, the complacent patients – No one, you hear?
No one
could resist her. They called her
La Men
, they said,
Amen
. It was her mixture of gentleness and professionalism that was so astonishing, so exceptional, and which earned her their respect . . . Wait, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say . . .’

‘The emergency services –’

‘Ah yes. Well, she utterly panicked. I think she’d been traumatized, I mean medically traumatized, “damage and injury to the structure or the functioning of the body”, by the early years of the Aids epidemic. I think she never got over it . . . And the knowledge that there was a strong chance, no, that’s the wrong word, a strong probability that her son would end up like all those poor wretches, it . . . I don’t know . . . It broke her in two. Snap. Like a stick. After that it got harder for her to hide her drinking problem. She hadn’t changed, but it wasn’t her any more. A ghost. A robot. A machine for smiling and bandaging; a machine you obeyed. A name and a number on a badge on a blouse that stank of booze . . . First she quit her position as head nurse, said she’d had enough of dealing with all the bloody paperwork, then she wanted to go halftime so she could look after Alexis. She went to great lengths to get him out of there and get him admitted into a better centre. It became her reason for living and, in a way, it saved her, too . . . You might say it was a good splint . . . But as a respite it was short-lived because . . .’

She removed her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose, for a long time, then continued, ‘Because that . . . that bastard, forgive me, I know he’s your friend, but I can’t think of any better word –’

‘No. He . . .’

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing. I’m listening.’

‘He sent her packing. When he’d got enough strength back to
be
able to string two words together, he calmly announced to her that, as a result of the work he’d done with the “support team”, he mustn’t see her any more. He announced it very kindly, too . . . You understand, Mum, it’s for my own good, you mustn’t be my mother any more. Then he kissed her, something he hadn’t done for years and years, and he went off to join the others in his lovely garden surrounded by a tall iron fence . . .

‘And she requested sick leave for the very first time in her life. Four days, I recall. After the four days were over she came back and asked to work the night shift. I don’t know what reasons she gave them, but I know why she did it: it’s easier to tipple when the hospital’s quiet . . . The entire team was great with her. She had been our rock, our point of reference, and now she became our biggest convalescent. I remember this marvellous old man, Jean Guillemard, a doctor who’d spent his life working on multiple sclerosis. He wrote her a wonderful letter, full of detail, reminding her of the many cases they’d worked on together, and he concluded by saying that if life had given him more opportunities to work with first-class people like her, he’d probably know more than he knew now, and he’d be leaving for his retirement a happier man.

‘Are you all right? Another Coke, perhaps?’

Charles started. ‘No, no, I . . . thanks.’

‘I think I will have something, myself, if you don’t mind . . . Talking about all this, you’ve no idea how it upsets me. Such a waste . . . Such a monstrous waste. An entire life, do you understand?’

Silence.

‘No, how could you . . . Hospitals are another world, and people who don’t belong can’t possibly understand. People like Anouk and me have spent more time with sick people than with our loved ones . . . It was a life that was very hard and very sheltered at the same time . . . A life spent in uniform . . . I don’t know how they manage, nurses who don’t have that thing that’s considered a bit old hat nowadays – a vocation. No matter how I try I just can’t imagine . . . It’s impossible to last if you don’t have it. And I’m not talking about death, no, I’m talking about something that’s even more difficult. About . . . about faith in life, I think. Yes, that’s the hardest thing when you work in such a difficult industry, not to lose sight of the fact that life is more . . .
I
don’t know . . .
legitimate
than death. There are some evenings, I swear, when the fatigue is absolutely vicious. And you feel this dizziness, this sort of pull towards . . . and you . . . Well, listen to me,’ she chuckled, ‘I’ve gone quite philosophical all of a sudden! Ah, doesn’t it seem a long time ago that we were in your parents’ garden having those battles with the candied almonds!’

She got up and went into the kitchen. He followed her.

She poured a large glass of sparkling water. Charles stood with his back against the railing of the balcony, on the twelfth floor, above the void. Silent. Unwell.

‘Of course, all those kind things people said were very important to her, but what helped her the most, at the time – helped only in a manner of speaking, though, because of what came afterwards – was what one man alone, Paul Ducat, said to her. He was a psychologist who didn’t belong to any particular service, but who came several times a week to the bedside of the patients who asked for him.

‘He was very good, I have to admit. It’s daft but I really got the impression, I mean physically the impression, that he was doing the same job as the cleaning crew. He’d go into those rooms full of putrid fumes, close the door behind him, stay there sometimes ten minutes, sometimes two hours, never asked us a thing about our cases, never said a word to us and scarcely said hello, but when we’d come in after he’d gone, it was . . . how can I explain . . . the light had changed. It was as if the chap had opened the window. One of those huge windows without a handle and which are never opened otherwise, for the simple reason that they have been sealed shut.

‘One evening, late, he came into the office, something he’d never done before, but he needed a sheet of paper, I think, and . . . She was there, with a mirror in her hand, putting her make-up on in the half-light.

‘“Sorry,” he said, “may I switch on the light?” And he saw her. And what she was holding in her other hand, it wasn’t an eye pencil or a lipstick, but the blade of a surgical knife.’

Sylvie took a long swig of water.

‘He knelt down next to her, cleaned her wounds, that evening and for months afterwards . . . He listened to her for a long time,
and
assured her that Alexis’s reaction was perfectly normal. Better than that, even – vital, healthy. That he would come back, that he had always come back, hadn’t he? And no, she hadn’t been a bad mother. Never in her life. He had worked with a lot of addicts, and those who had been well loved made it through more easily than the others. And God knows he’d been loved, hadn’t he! Yes, he laughed, yes, God knew! And he was even jealous! He said that her son was well taken care of where he was, and that he’d ask around, he’d keep her up to date and she should go on behaving the way she’d always behaved. Which meant she should simply be there for him and, above all, more than anything, be herself, because it was up to Alexis to find his way now, and it could be that that way might lead him away from her . . . At least for a time . . . Do you believe me, Anouk? And she believed him and . . . You don’t look well. Are you all right? You’ve gone all white . . .’

‘I think I’d better eat something but I . . .’ He tried to smile. ‘Well, I . . . Do you have a bit of bread?’

‘Sylvie?’ he said, between two mouthfuls.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re a good storyteller . . .’

Her eyes misted over.

‘For good reason. Since she died, that’s all I think about . . . Night and day, little fragments of memories come back to me, all the time . . . I’m not sleeping well, I talk to myself, I ask her questions, I try to understand . . . She’s the one who taught me my profession, and it’s to her I owe the most important moments of my career, as well as the craziest laughs. She was always there if I needed her, she always found the right words to give people strength, make them more tolerant . . . She’s my eldest daughter’s godmother, and when my husband got cancer she was marvellous, as usual . . . With me, with him, with our little girls . . .’