Révol sleeps. There is a notebook close by on the desk so that he can, upon waking, write down the images he’s glimpsed, the sequences of actions and faces, and perhaps Simon’s will be among them — his black hair rigid with dried blood, his olive skin tumid, the pale domes of his eyelids, forehead and right temple covered by a beet-red halo, the stain of death — or perhaps he’ll see Joanne Woodward, alias Beatrice Hunsdorfer, Matilda’s borderline insane mother, rushing into the auditorium after the science fair is over, emerging from the shadows in a formal evening dress, sequins and black feathers, staggering drunk, glassy-eyed, and declaring in a slurry voice, one hand planted on her chest: My heart is full, my heart is full.
13
They held hands as they followed Thomas Rémige, and, deep down, the reason they accompanied him, walking once again through this maze of corridors and sterile zones, waiting patiently as they entered each new level, holding doors open with their shoulders, in spite of the black meteor that had just crashed into their lives, in spite of their obvious exhaustion, the reason they did all this was because of the look in Thomas Rémige’s eyes — that look which kept them in the land of the living, that look which already seemed priceless. And so, as they walked, the two of them moved closer, interlacing their fingers, touching together the fleshy pads of their fingertips and their bitten nails edged with dead skin, brushing their dry palms, the rings on their fingers, and they did it without thinking.
* * *
Yet another part of the hospitaclass="underline" a place styled after the living room of a sample apartment, light and airy, with elegant if unexceptional furniture — an apple-green couch in a synthetic fabric that feels like velvet, and two stuffed vermilion chairs — the walls bare apart from a color poster for a Kandinsky exhibition — Beaubourg, 1985—and, sitting on the coffee table, a green plant with long, thin leaves, four clean glasses, a bottle of mineral water, and a small potpourri dish that smells of orange and cinnamon. The curtains stir gently in the breeze that comes through the cracked-open window, and the few cars that come and go in the hospital parking lot below are clearly audible, as is the screech, like sonic scratches over all of this, of seagulls. It’s cold.
Sean and Marianne are sitting next to each other on the couch, awkwardly, intrigued in spite of being so shaken, while Thomas Rémige sits on one of the vermilion chairs, holding Simon Limbres’s medical file. Even though they are sharing the same space, however, inhabiting the same time, at that precise moment, nothing in this world could be more distanced than those two beings, in their pain, and this young man who has placed himself before them with the aim — yes, with the aim — of gaining their consent for the removal of their child’s organs. Here are a man and a woman caught in a shockwave, at once thrown into the air and smashed down into a broken temporality — a continuity brutally severed by Simon’s death but which, like a headless duck running around the courtyard, keeps going senselessly — a temporality woven from pain, a man and a woman in whose heads are concentrated the whole tragedy of the world. And here is this young man in a white coat, cautious but committed, determined not to jump the gun, but highly aware of the silent countdown in a corner of his mind, knowing all too well that a body in a state of brain death quickly deteriorates, that time is of the essence — and torn between these two imperatives.
* * *
Thomas pours water into three glasses, stands up, and crosses the room to close the window. As he moves, he observes the couple carefully, never takes his eyes from them — this man and this woman, Simon Limbres’s parents — and in this moment he is undoubtedly preparing himself mentally, conscious of the fact that he is about to mistreat them, to carve into their pain with questions they know nothing about right now, asking them to think and to formulate responses when they are zombies, stunned by pain, hurtling through black space. In all probability, he prepares to speak the same way he prepares to sing, relaxing his muscles, regulating his breathing, aware that punctuation is the anatomy of language, the structure of its meaning, visualizing his opening phrase as a sound line, weighing the first syllable he will pronounce, the one that will break the silence, slicing instead of cracking the eggshell, quick and precise as a blade stroke rather than a fissure that meanders slowly up the wall when the earth trembles. He begins slowly, reminding them methodically of the context of the situation: I think you understand now that Simon’s brain is being destroyed; nevertheless, his organs continue to function; this is an unusual situation. Sean and Marianne blink in acknowledgment. Encouraged, Thomas goes on: I’m aware of how painful this is for you, but I have to broach a delicate subject — his face is haloed by transparent light and his voice becomes imperceptibly louder. It sounds absolutely clear when he declares:
We are in a context where it would be possible to consider the donation of Simon’s organs.
* * *
Wham. In that instant, Thomas’s voice hits the right frequency and the room seems to resonate like a gigantic amplifier. It is a high-precision delivery, as perfect in its timing as the wheels of a jet landing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, the paintbrush of a Japanese calligraphist, a tennis player’s drop shot. Sean lifts his head, and Marianne jumps, their eyes capsizing in Thomas’s calm gaze — they are beginning to comprehend, with terror, what they are doing here, sitting in front of this handsome young man with his classical features, this handsome young man who continues speaking in a composed voice: I would like to ask you if your son ever talked to you about this, if he ever expressed his views on the subject.
The walls dance, the floor rolls. Marianne and Sean are in shock, their mouths agape, eyes staring emptily at the coffee table, hands writhing, and the silence that fills the room is thick, black, vertiginous, a mix of panic and confusion. A chasm has opened up, here, in front of them, a chasm that they can only imagine as “something,” because “nothing” is unthinkable. They struggle with this, facing that black hole, together, even if they are not feeling the same emotions or posing the same questions — Sean has become solitary and silent over the years, combining clear-headed unbelief with a sort of lyrical spirituality, based in the myths of Oceania, while Marianne had her first communion in a flowered dress and tennis socks, wearing a crown of fresh flowers on her head, the host stuck to the roof of her mouth, she prayed for a long time each evening in the bunk bed she shared with her sister, kneeling on the upper bunk, saying the words out loud in those pajamas that made her itch, and even now when she enters a church, she explores the silence as if it’s the texture of a mystery, seeks out the little red light shining behind the altar, inhales the heavy odor of wax and incense, observes the daylight filtering through the rose window in colored rays, the wooden statues with painted eyes, but remembers the intense sensation that ran through her in that moment when she removed the halter of faith from her neck. The two of them conjure visions of death, images of beyond, postmortem spaces deep in eternity: it’s a gulf hidden in a fold of the cosmos, a black and rippling lake, it’s the kingdom of the believers, a garden where beings move, their flesh resuscitated by the hand of God, it’s a lost valley in the jungle where forsaken souls flutter aimlessly, it’s a desert of ashes, a sleep, a diversion, a Dantean hole at the bottom of the sea, and it’s also a hazy shore reached in a delicately worked wooden canoe. They are leaning forward, arms crossed over their stomachs, nursing the shock, and their thoughts converge in a funnel of questions that they do not know how to ask.