I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) (9 page)

“They're not available, and she wants to test you out.”

That doesn't surprise me, coming from Gaëlle, and I even manage a smile. It was Julien's idea to suggest me as Clara's godfather. I don't think Gaëlle was quite convinced at first. When I accepted, I never imagined the initiation process I'd have to go through. Up until now, I think I've passed all the tests, but this must be the last one, the ultimate one which will decide if I'm to be trusted or not. Even though I know that there aren't many alternatives now, with the christening less than two weeks away.

“Tell Gaëlle I'll do it.”

“Are you sure?” Julien asks, grinning.

“Yes, it's fine, but she'll have to give me a full demo tonight. If I'm being assessed I want to come prepared.”

“She's going out tonight, so I'll sneak you the answers,” he laughs.

“Ah, that's why you've only got an hour?”

“Exactly. Girls' night.”

“She gets about a bit, that wife of yours!”

“And so do I—this is the second time I've shirked my fatherly duties to come out and see you,” he reminds me.

“That's true.”

With business concluded, we move on to other things. I discreetly slid
Comas for Dummies
onto the bench at the start of our conversation so that it wouldn't be in Julien's eye-line, in case he was tempted to deviate onto that subject. I succeed in avoiding any questions about Elsa, and concentrate exclusively on the weather, my brother, my apartment, and my brother again, until our glasses are empty and Julien's hour is over.

We go in my car and, when we reach their apartment building, we have to run up the stairs. Julien's eyes are glued to his watch; he knows what he's in for if he goes beyond the time limit—Gaëlle has had him on a tight leash ever since her pregnancy. He is already on the third floor before I have reached the second. Another reminder that I ought to be getting more exercise.

I hear Gaëlle open the door and congratulate us on arriving in the nick of time. I've barely got my breath back on the doorstep when she puts Clara into my arms.

“Wait! I've still got my cold, snowy jacket on, she'll freeze!”

“With the Babygro she's wearing, no chance,” answers Gaëlle. “But if you're not quick about sorting yourself out, she might start crying.”

I push Julien aside to get into the living room as fast as possible. Gaëlle gives me no respite; anyone would think my weekend had started two days in advance. I undress awkwardly, trying to hold on to Clara at the same time. I feel like a high-performance juggler.

This game must amuse Clara because I can see the corners of her mouth lift as I pass her from one side to the other while I struggle to get my arms out of my clothes. I even manage to take my shoes off with one hand, and I hear the laughter coming from the hallway. Gaëlle and Julien are watching me. Apparently the test is underway.

Gaëlle waves at me and then kisses Julien. I look away so as not to intrude on their brief farewell, which is not actually that brief. When it looks as though the kiss is going in quite another direction I move farther into the other room. I don't blame Julien. I've seen the outfit Gaëlle is wearing under her coat; she looks stunning.

When Julien comes in after closing the door, he has the silly smile of a happy man on his face and his hair is slightly ruffled. I pass Clara to him so that I can finish taking off my sweater, and then I take her back while he takes off his jacket. It must be a funny picture, from the outside. Two guys passing a baby between them. We could be a double act.

I follow him into the bathroom and watch him bathing his daughter. My little lesson begins, and I take the reins for a minute while he goes to look for some clean pajamas.

“So, how was today's visit?” he asks, rummaging through a cupboard.

“I didn't see my brother.” I feel bad not quite telling him the truth. He deserves better.

“I'm not talking about your brother, Thibault.”

He's a sly dog, that Julien. He hasn't lost sight of the main topic of the evening for a moment. He's just been lulling me into a false sense of security and waiting for the time when I'm too distracted to evade his question. I take Clara out of the water and put her delicately onto the towel. She waves her little arms at me.

“Same as the other times. I slept,” I say, moving back to let him pass.

“So you never do anything but sleep when you see her?”

“I talk a bit, but she doesn't exactly make much conversation in return—what do you expect me to do?”

My reply must have been adequate, because Julien doesn't say anything else. He finishes dressing Clara and puts her in my arms while he sorts out the rest of the bathroom. I dance around the room with my goddaughter while he arranges the drawers and puts her toys away.

“What are you going to do?”

That's the same question I've been asking myself for days. I stop dancing, suddenly pensive.

“I don't know what I can do, but I know what I'd like to happen.”

“What?” he asks.

“I'd like her to wake up.”

“That's down to her. You know that.”

“I'm beginning to wonder.”

He takes Clara and I follow him into the living room. In two minutes and with only one hand, he has prepared everything necessary for giving her the bottle. I pick up the feeding cushion and sit beside him on the sofa.

“Here, do some revision,” he says, passing her to me, “and that way I've got you cornered and you'll have to keep answering.”

“Answering what?”

“Well actually I haven't really got any more questions, maybe just some advice.”

“What's that?”

“Be careful.”

For a few seconds, the sound of Clara sucking on her bottle is the only thing audible in the room.

“Be careful about what?” I murmur, even though I know exactly what he means.

“You're falling in love with a girl you know almost nothing about. If that was the only thing you had to worry about, it would probably just about be OK, but you're also falling in love with a girl who might never wake up.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I know what you've told me, Thibault. There's apparently no improvement, and I think you're very caught up in this for someone who only came across this girl a week ago.”

“I know.”

I do know. It's the only answer I can give. Eventually I manage to say, “I get you,” but Julien knows that. I've understood, listened to, analyzed, and digested each of his words already, because they've already been going through my head for a little while.

“But I'd still like her to wake up.”

T
he scraping of the door handle wakes me. I know at once that it's the cleaning lady. Her footsteps, her cart, her radio. It's nighttime, between midnight and one in the morning. It didn't take me long to work out why the cleaning was done at this time each night. This is the one place in the hospital where there's no risk of waking most of the patients.

She passes the broom quickly under my bed, spending a bit longer on the edges of the room. I had visitors today, my sister and Thibault, so she will almost certainly have to use the mop.

I like being woken by the cleaning lady, because of her radio, though “woken” is rather a grand way of putting it. Apart from the commentary of the DJ, who seems to be about as asleep as everyone else at this time of night, the music she listens to isn't bad. It makes me laugh to myself inside my head to think that I am up-to-date with the latest hits. If I get out of here I'll know the words to all these songs. That would surprise everyone.

The cleaning lady goes into the little bathroom, only used by my visitors—I hear her grumbling that they could use the bathroom on the corridor, but she cleans it all the same. That takes about two songs and an ad break.

When the music comes back on she is on her way back into the bedroom. It's a song I love. I wish I could hum along. It reminds me of some of my best moments out on the glacier. I lose myself for a few minutes, remembering the return journeys from my climbs, when I allowed myself to sing. I only ever sang on the descent, when the hard part was over, but that always meant that it had gone well.

Yes, for the length of a song I can forget where I am and feel normal…

I know the tune and most of the lyrics by heart, so I sing along in my head. I can hear the mop passing back and forth on the floor. If I were the cleaning lady, I would at least mop in time with the music. She breaks up the rhythm with her random swipes across the floor, and her tired little sighs. But then she stops suddenly, and the broom handle falls sharply to the floor. I'm not too worried, I would have heard if she'd had a fall. But she seems to have frozen to the spot. Suits me, I suppose—it means I can hear the song better.

“Santo Dios!”

Her whisper is so charged with fear that, reluctantly, I leave my mental repetition of the chorus. What could she have seen that has alarmed her so much? I can't feel the visceral sensation of fear, but I can still imagine what it provokes in me. A tingling feeling in the stomach, a sudden chill on the nape of the neck, my breathing reduced to a single stream of air, and my whole body tense, searching for the slightest sign or detail that can rationalize this fear, and make it go away again. But I suppose that reaction is particular to me, because I hear the cleaning lady leave the room in big strides. I can hear her rubber-soled shoes squeaking very fast all the way down the corridor, before the door to my room has even swung closed.

But she has left the radio, so I can finish listening to my song in peace. The song finishes and the next is one that I like less.

The door opens again, and, pointlessly, I command my brain to use all its power to identify the people coming in. Turn your head, lift your chest, open your eyes, and then send back all the information you capture. Of course, I don't do any of that, but I imagine myself doing it. Since Monday, I have integrated this process into my every waking moment; it has become almost automatic in the space of two days.

I listen attentively to what's happening around me. There are two people: the cleaning lady and someone else. They whisper at first, so it's hard to make out properly what they're saying, but as soon as the door is closed and they come farther into the room, the volume of their voices rises.

“I'm telling you that I heard something!” insists the cleaning lady.

“Maria, I'm afraid that's impossible.”

At least this conversation has enabled me to discover the name of the person I listen to the radio with, but it's the sizzling crackle of what she is saying that compels me to keep listening.

“Well I'm telling you that I didn't dream it, Doctor! I heard a noise and it came from her.”

“Maria, excuse me if I allow myself to doubt you.”

This time, I hear the voice more clearly and it's definitely my house officer and defender. I was right to think that his boss was going to put him on night shifts. I suppose he hasn't had cause to come in before, because nothing ever happens.

“You don't believe me?” Maria asks with incredulity.

Her Spanish accent perfectly suits the mental picture I had made of her. And now I imagine her, eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the junior doctor as though she were about to reduce him to a pot of ashes for daring to doubt her. But Loris won't allow himself to be intimidated.

“Maria, this woman's case is hopeless. There's nothing more we can do for her.”

“What? Are you telling me that you're going to give up on her, like Madame Solange next door?”

“Jesus, Maria! Do you know the names of all the people in here?”

“Do not take the Lord's name in vain, Loris. And yes, I know your name as well,” she adds, like a knight drawing her sword before an adversary. “What did you think? That we all refer to people as numbers like you do? Not everyone has patients who can't answer back!”

“Are you saying that you would prefer to work somewhere else?”

Maria's intake of breath is as deep as mine would have been. But the doctor finally answers her question.

“Yes, we are going to disconnect her.”

“When?”

“We don't know yet.”

“Why?” persists Maria, now like an NYPD cop, dogged, mid-interrogation.

“Because it is impossible for her to come back to us.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Medicine is a science, Maria! And I'm not about to give you a course in it now. You can read the clipboard at the end of the bed if you like. There was a comment added there at the beginning of the week. Go ahead, have a look!”

Loris's exasperation is now evident. I hear Maria petulantly detaching the clipboard from its hook. She doesn't hide her fury either.

“Look on the first page, the comment at the bottom, in the right-hand margin.”

“I can't see anything,” Maria retorts.

“Yes, you can see it. You just don't know what it means.”

“These scribblings here? Could say anything.”

“It says ‘minus X.' We put an ‘X' to indicate that we are waiting to know exactly how many days remain, the time during which the family decides.”

“I don't believe you. No one could be that heartless.”

“It's the truth. It was me who had to write it there. I don't like it any more than you do, but that's how it goes.”

“That's how it goes?” repeats my heroic cleaning lady. “You know what, Loris?”

“What?”

“You disappoint me.”

I prepare myself for what's coming next, sure that the young doctor will defend himself by saying that the opinion of a cleaning lady is of little importance to him, but I'm surprised when silence follows instead. Relative silence, because the radio is still playing.

“I disappoint myself as well, Maria, but what can I do?”

I wonder if he's going to start crying again. I hope for his sake that he manages to keep it together.

“You could behave like a man, Loris, rather than a puppet. Now, just listen to me and do what you like with what I'm about to say. I was mopping and I heard a noise. It wasn't the mop. It wasn't the radio. It wasn't just her breathing. It sounded as though there was a word behind it, as though she was trying to say something.”

“Her vocal cords won't be able to function after such a long period of inactivity.”

“I didn't say that she spoke,” says Maria, “I said that she was trying to.”

There is an irritated sigh from Loris. I hear him shuffle his feet, and then he stops.

“Very good, Maria. You've persuaded me to give her a quick check over. But I'm really only doing it so you'll leave me in peace.”

“Ah, there's a good man!”

I can hear a little smile of victory in her reply and I can hear the resignation in his. He gets two or three things out of his pocket while Maria goes back to her cart as though nothing has happened. During this time, I hang on to the little glimmer of hope that this conversation has given me. If she isn't making it up, it means that I managed to make my lips move, all thanks to that song.

I hear the doctor bend over me. I think he must be touching me; he has pulled back the covers. But I am only half paying attention; my entire concentration is focused on the song that has just been playing. I go through the words and the tune in my head. In my mind I scream almost the whole song, but it's fair to assume that nothing leaves the confines of my head because Loris completes his examination with another sigh.

“I am sorry, Maria, but nothing has changed. Believe me, I would have loved it to be different. No, please don't say anything else.”

She must have been about to protest.

“I'm going back to my room now. Don't hesitate to call me if something real happens.”

“It was real.”

“According to you, yes. But I'm telling you that it is impossible.”

“According to you,” she repeats.

Loris leaves. Then so does Maria with her cart.

I'll come back to my little glimmer of hope in the morning. For the moment, I wish I could cry.