I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) (11 page)

D
amn you, Julien! Argh!”

The curse comes straight back to me like a boomerang when, a second after shouting this, my finger is pinched in the stroller's hinge.

Clara moves around inquisitively in her crib. I put her back in there as soon as I realized that the simple flick of the stroller that Julien had promised was not going to be sufficient to make it open up. I take a step back from the wreckage and look at my watch. At this rate, I'll never have enough time to get it all done. Never mind, I'll have to try again later.

I open the cupboard and get out the baby carrier and its straps. At least I won't have to fight with this one. I glance back at the stroller, which remains resolutely folded.
Just you wait till tonight, my friend. Tonight I'll find the instruction manual and we'll really see who's boss.
I have no intention of disturbing Gaëlle and Julien to ask them to help me, so it'll be a solo mission, but I think the booklet I saw on a table in the other room should make an excellent battle companion.

I put on the baby carrier without any trouble and do up all the necessary buckles. I pop Clara into it, after a moment spent covering her gorgeous little face with kisses, and readjust it to fit her. We're ready to go out. I'm proud of myself, in spite of my stinging failure with the stroller.

Outside, everything is gray. The snow that fell last night has already melted around the tires of cars and buses, and what remains has lost its luster in the haze of exhaust fumes. The sky looks ominously dull.

It's frightening how much the weather can change in a single day. Last night it was snowing, and today it looks as though there's a storm coming. That's why I wanted to take the stroller out, because it has a plastic hood which would protect Clara if it started to rain. But instead I've got a big umbrella, which will keep us both dry if necessary. I suppose I could always stow her away under my raincoat if I needed to, but I'm sure the umbrella will be enough.

I walk along the de-snowed sidewalk. It's no bad thing that the snow has melted, because it could have been slippery otherwise and that would have slowed me down considerably, especially with Clara strapped to my front. I catch the eyes of several women my age and their glances linger, drawn by what must be some kind of Dad-skier allure. After the hat, the jacket, the gloves, the scarf, and the snow boots, there is only Clara to show that I'm not about to hit the slopes.

Every time a woman smiles, my internal playbook takes me to page
60
: “Smile Politely Back, You Never Know.” I force myself to turn the page and read the next instruction (“Go on Your Way”), asking myself what is so extraordinary about seeing an over-dressed man carrying a baby. I could add the epithet “extraterrestrial,” after “Dad-skier.”

The journey to the hospital is a lot shorter from Julien's house. No need to take the car, no need either to collect my mother. I arranged it with her. Or rather, she arranged it with a friend. Clara was my excuse not to have to join them on the visit to my brother today. I just had to wait until my mother would have finished and left the hospital. Now it's four in the afternoon, it should be perfect. With any luck, the friend who went with her will have invited her back to her house. Perhaps they'll have dinner together. That would do my mother good. It would do everyone good.

I get to the hospital quickly. Clara is looking around her with eyes full of curiosity. At that age, everything must seem interesting. With the layers I put on her, and our brisk walk, neither she nor I has had the chance to get cold on the way here.

I opt for the elevator instead of the stairs. Once again, I notice the meaningful glances from the women standing with me in this confined space. They seem to be women of all ages, in fact. I make eye contact with one woman in her thirties. She is very pretty, radiant even, and she seems pleased, full of hope somehow, to see me with Clara. I don't understand her interest until I see her get out of the elevator at the maternity ward.

When we arrive at the fifth floor I hardly have to lift my little finger before everyone gets out of the way, pressing themselves against the walls to let me out. It is such a foreign experience that I burst out laughing as soon as the metal doors slide closed behind me.

“Do you see the effect we're having on them?” I say to Clara, tapping her on the nose.

Suddenly I hear a familiar voice. I raise my eyes and all my lightheartedness immediately drains away. At the end of the corridor my mother is pushing a wheelchair. In the chair is a man, my brother. It was his voice I recognized. I look quickly around me. The staircase is several meters away, but I hardly have the chance to take a step in that direction when my mother spots me from down the hall.

“Thibault?”

I hear the surprise in her voice, and a whole range of other things as well. It is a mother's gift, or maybe a woman's, to be able to fit an entire dictionary's worth of meaning into a single word. I know that in her “Thibault?” there is: What are you doing here? Why have you come? Have you changed your mind about your brother? It's Clara! She's gorgeous, let me come and say hello! How did you get here? You told me you weren't coming! And that's just for starters.

I stand still, planted like a tree, to wait for the little cortège to come and join me.

“Here,” she says as she gets closer, “this is Amelie, the friend who brought me. We stayed at hers for a little while, that's why I'm here so late. Were you looking for me?”

Without knowing it, my mother has just given me my excuse. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to explain my presence at the hospital.

“I tried to find you at home and you weren't there. I was worried. Normally you're home by now.”

“Oh, silly boy,” she says, putting her hand to my cheek. “I could have been with Amelie, you know that. Why didn't you try my cell?”

“You always leave it switched off, Mom, it didn't even occur to me.”

“What was the point of me buying you that phone?”

The voice that has just inserted itself into the conversation feels like a punch in the stomach. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Until now, Clara has blocked my vision of the silhouette in the chair my mother is pushing. But now that my brother has spoken, I can't go on ignoring him. I open my eyes and slowly lower my gaze toward him.

“Hello, Sylvain.”

“Hi, Thibault! Haven't seen you around here for a while!”

I want to sigh heavily but I hold myself back. My brother sounds the same as ever. I don't know why I even bothered to hope that the accident might have changed him. You can never have a sincere conversation with him; he is absolutely incapable of saying anything without being irreverent.

“I wonder why,” I retort, holding his gaze.

Sylvain doesn't look much like me. His blond hair has always been more obedient than mine, for a start, and his blue eyes have brought many more girls to their knees than mine could ever dream of doing. I see the scars across his cheeks. Another on the bridge of his nose. I let my gaze wander over the rest of his body. An arm in plaster, and both of his legs. The doctor said that the car's dashboard had literally snapped across his knees. I had a knee injury once and the pain was almost unbearable. No wonder my brother lost consciousness and went into a coma for six hours. He must really have suffered. But that doesn't excuse him.

“As friendly as ever,” he replies.

I was prepared for an insolent reply, but his tone is more detached than I expected. You'd almost think he was hurt. It's not like him at all. He must be trying to get rid of me.

“And you're as carefree as ever,” I answer dryly.

“That's enough, you two.”

I would have expected those words to come from my mother, but no. It's her friend who speaks up, her eyes moving from my brother to me with obvious reproach. I understand why a second later when I see my mother's white knuckles gripping the handles of the wheelchair.

“Sorry, Mom, didn't mean to…”

My brother and I speak at exactly the same time and, for the first time in this encounter, I feel the family link that unites us. The words came out of our mouths in unison and my mother's eyes widen, but the magic doesn't last. In the next breath, it's all gone.

I put my hand on hers to reassure her. She looks at me with tears in her eyes. I kiss her on the cheek and whisper in her ear.

“Sorry, Mom, I'm still not ready for this.”

At this moment Clara starts to wriggle. My mother's attention is immediately turned toward her, and so is Amelie's, and I find myself answering all their questions about her health, her parents, their weekend, and how I am coping with her. They share stories about how they managed with their own children as babies, and I listen with half an ear, my eyes fixed on the tiny hand playing with the zip on my jacket.

“Are Julien and Gaëlle well?” asks my brother, his voice lowered now.

This new way of speaking is radically different from the one I have always associated with him. I can't decide whether it annoys me or not.

“What are you trying to do then, little monkey?” I say, still looking at Clara.

“Stop it, Thibault. At least answer my question.”

“They're fine.”

“And you're their babysitter now, when they go away?”

“As you can see.”

“Thibault…” he sighs.

That must be the first time I've ever heard him sigh. Normally, he sniggers constantly, and there's a smug smile that I've always wished I could wipe off his face. This at least sounds more sincere. Perhaps I should make an effort.

“For today, yes, it's the first time.”

“You look as though you know what you're doing.”

His voice surprises me again and makes me lower my eyes toward him. He is looking strangely at Clara. It's not the same as the way I look at her, but nevertheless I think I see some affection and maybe regret in his expression. Fleetingly.

“Are you in training?” he says, laughing again.

His laughter is clearly not genuine. It's as though he is hiding behind it, like a bad joke. A very bad joke, in fact, because a moment later his face takes on a look of utter devastation. I'm having a lot of trouble interpreting his behavior. I don't know how to respond.

I could answer no, but I don't want to say anything that could spark a tirade of mockery. I could answer yes but it might provoke any number of other questions. I choose my words carefully.

“I'm enjoying myself.”

I think I have just surprised my brother for the first time in a long while. He doesn't respond, but just stares at Clara and me. And then his eyes break away and are lost somewhere at the end of the corridor. My stomach tenses strangely, and my throat tightens. I realize that I want to go on talking to him, but I don't know what to say. So I don't say anything and instead wait for my mother and her friend to finish their little discussion.

“Are you coming downstairs with us?” she asks.

“I…”

“You're not staying up here, are you?”

“I just want to… digest all this.”

I glance at my brother. He is still staring at the end of the corridor. There's only a window down there, but I doubt he's actually paying attention anyway; he seems to be watching the clouds pass. He is lost in thought. My mother did say that he was using the time to think. Maybe she is right to believe in him. In any case, I've never actually succeeded in having a real conversation with him before.

“Well… whatever you think is best,” begins my mother. “Will you at least come down in the elevator with us?”

Luckily, I've already managed to think of a way to stay in the hospital without anyone knowing. “I always take the stairs, you know that.”

“Ah.”

I faintly perceive her disappointment, but even if I had intended to leave, I would have said the same thing. She smiles sadly at me and leans on the wheelchair to make it move. Her friend nods her head at me. My brother's eyes are still staring into the distance.

I stay still until they've deposited my brother and the doors of the elevator are closing behind them, my mind in turmoil. As soon as I hear the doors click, it's as though I'm a clock which has just been reset. I stroke Clara's bonneted head distractedly and start to walk toward my destination. I've already spotted the photo of mountains that is Scotch-taped between the two numbers. I know that photo by heart now. I even think I know where it was taken—I spent several hours looking for it online last weekend.

I put one hand on the handle and the other on the door to push it open, and I take a deep breath. I don't know why, but I feel anxious.

A
new voice. Pure and luminous, like snow that has just fallen. It's as though a golden snowflake is drifting toward me. This is almost the most wonderful sound I have ever heard, second only to the deeper voice which murmurs alongside this new one. A rainbow and a snowflake together: I don't know how they could ever coexist from a weather point of view, but they are coexisting now in my room.

A vivid image comes back to me. I have seen a rainbow and snow at the same time. Once on a glacier. It had snowed in the night, and the snow melted as the sun came up into a transparent sky. There was water flowing through the glacial rills, the currents of melted ice, snaking, sinuous all the way through the glacier. A little crack in the ice had made a mini-waterfall, just enough to make a rainbow when you looked at it from the right angle. Snow and a rainbow together. It is possible, then.

I want to smile. At my memory. At the wonderful present that Thibault has given me by bringing this brand-new person with him to visit me.

Suddenly, it all collapses. Thibault has brought a baby with him. My brain immediately sets about coming up with every possible scenario that could have given rise to this situation. My morale plummets twenty meters under the ice. I feel as though I am suffocating.

I start to panic. It feels as though I am back under the avalanche in July. The atmosphere presses down on me from all sides and, like this summer, I have no way of crying out in terror. In my mind all I can perceive is chaos and destruction. It's been ten days since my last nightmare and now, awake, I am living through the compound horror of all those days at once. Terror in its purest form.

In the midst of all this I can hear a sound, very far away, smothered by the howling wind which is buffeting me on all sides. I try to concentrate on the sound, to assign it a color, a texture, a flavor, anything that will help me escape this anguish. I try to focus all my attention on it, blocking out the memories of my accident. But as soon as I succeed in getting them to move out of the way, they bowl back in even stronger. In my head I am screaming for someone to save me and, suddenly, everything stops.

“Elsa! Elsa! My God, what's going on?”

My rainbow stutters, his colors waver. Thibault is stricken. The baby has started to cry. This new chaos of sounds ought to be unbearable, especially so close to my ear, but no, it reassures me more than anything I can imagine. I hear a beep which comes and goes, the sound of my hair dragging across the pillow, a continuous murmur.

“Elsa! Elsa. Elsa.”

The sound of the baby's cry grows sweeter, and then all the nearby sounds overlap each other.

“I'm sorry, Clara. I was worried about Elsa. Shh, shh. There we go.”

The baby hiccups gently and calms down in a few seconds. It sounds as though I'm not the only one who is soothed by Thibault's voice.

The door of my room opens with a clatter. Hurried footsteps, it must be two people. Everything is happening very fast.

“Oh…
you're
here.”

My house officer. He sounds both taken aback and a little angry at once.

“Look after her!” cries Thibault. “Who cares if I'm here or not!”

“That baby is going to put me off,” replies the junior doctor, tartly.

“Don't even think about it, I'm staying right here!”

“Doctor?”

A woman's voice. Must be the nurse whose hands have been moving over me for the last couple of seconds.

“Yes?” he answers.

“There are a few broken attachments, but everything else seems stable.”

“What?”

“I said, everything is stable.”

“Does that mean she's OK?” Thibault cuts in.

“You're making this very difficult!” shouts Loris, almost losing his temper.

“She just had a spasm so monumental that I thought she was going to shatter into pieces!” Thibault shouts back, in a voice that sounds like a rainbow turned to red. “How do you expect me to behave?”

“What have you done?” asks the junior doctor.

“Me? Nothing!”

“All these wires are detached and you're saying that you haven't done anything?”

“She practically sat up in the bed! That spasm was violent enough to detach all your damn gadgets!”

“Those gadgets are the only thing keeping her alive!”

“So why is everything stable then?”

The baby starts to cry again. Thibault immediately turns his attention back to her. His murmurs take a little longer to reassure her this time, because he has just been shouting. To one side, I can hear the doctor come over to the nurse and they talk in technical terms. I hear some clicking of tubes, the drip being adjusted, the covers straightened. Little Clara is calm.

“I'm sorry,” says Loris.

I assume that I am OK. At the same time, I dare to hope that my survival instinct would be alarmed again if I was actually in danger of… but I cut off the ending of that thought.

“I'm sorry I was so cross,” replies Thibault, his voice back to its normal shades.

“You say that she had a spasm?” continues Loris.

“It only lasted a second, but I think that must have been the longest second of my entire life.”

“Can you describe what you saw?”

There is a brief silence, as though Thibault is gathering his thoughts. The nurse continues her work over me.

“It all happened at once. I was taking off Clara's hat and the beep of the machine that takes her pulse, the one you showed me the other day, started going really fast. The next second, Elsa just stiffened right up, unbelievable. It was very violent… I didn't see what happened to all the monitors and tubes, I just concentrated on her.”

“I understand.”

He gives a few instructions to the nurse, and then continues.

“Nothing in particular happened when you arrived?”

“No, nothing. Really. I had been in here for barely a minute. I hadn't even taken Clara out of the carrier. And, as you see, she's still in there. Will you give me a minute?”

“Go ahead.”

So Clara, the little golden snowflake, is strapped to Thibault's chest. That explains why the noises were so close.

“Is this your child?” asks Loris.

In a second my whole being is racing again. I feel the tempest starting to bring chaos back into my head.

“No, she's the daughter of some friends of mine.”

Everything is back in order. Clara is not Thibault's daughter. What intense relief.

As soon as I've had this thought I give myself a mental slap on the wrist. What was I thinking, getting into a state like that? What does it have to do with me whether Thibault is the father of a golden snowflake or not? I need to look at the evidence and try to get some perspective. I'm holding on to Thibault, but he doesn't belong to me.

“I see,” answers the doctor. “You know that normally we don't allow babies to come onto this ward.”

“Ah, I didn't know that. Can we stay for now anyway?”

“Today, my eyes are closed. But not next time.”

I think the nurse has finished her checks, because I hear her smoothing my covers and replacing the sensors. The metallic noise of the clipboard being replaced in its holder confirms this a few moments later.

“Doctor? Have you filled in the notes?”

“Write them for me, if you wouldn't mind.”

He dictates something in incomprehensible jargon, then signs the page that the nurse passes to him. Then she leaves the room.

Thibault must have finished arranging himself. I hear him relaxed, throwing Clara up and down in the air. I don't think he has gone so far as to remove his shoes this time, however. If he's come with a baby, he certainly isn't here to sleep.

“You haven't answered my question,” he says suddenly.

“I'm sorry?” says Loris, surprised.

“How is it possible that with all those things disconnected she can still breathe?”

“Her body can keep itself alive for around two hours. She can breathe herself and maintain her vital functions during that time. But after that she needs assistance again.”

“Is that normal?”

“It happens sometimes. It's a sign to us that the body still hasn't recovered and that the coma is still necessary.”

Without a doubt I would have preferred it to have been the junior doctor who spoke to my parents about unplugging me, rather than the consultant. He has a far less categorical way of speaking about things. He almost makes my coma sound like a natural and benign state.

“Do you have any idea how long she'll stay like this?” asks Thibault.

“I can't answer that question.”

“Why? Because you don't know?”

“Because you're not family.”

My trusty house officer sounds almost apologetic. I get the feeling that he would like to say more, but that he is holding back. “I'll leave you with her,” he says, after a moment's hesitation. “Have a good day.”

“You, too.”

Loris leaves us alone. Clara, Thibault, and me. I am still shaken by what has just happened. Silence reigns. Even the baby's little noises are discreet. I ask myself what is happening. I have the impression that my rainbow is losing some of his shine.