* * *
They are speaking in the past tense now, the father and the mother. They have begun the story. For Thomas, this is a tangible step forward, the signal that the idea of the death of their child is slowly crystallizing. He places the case file on the table, rests his hands flat on his thighs, and opens his mouth to continue speaking. But then, without warning, everything is up in the air again: Sean leaps to his feet and begins pacing around the room, agitated, abruptly declaring this is bullshit, all this crap about generosity, I don’t see why Simon being generous or liking to travel should give you the right to think he’d want to donate his organs, that’s too easy, and anyway, what if I said he was selfish, would that be the end of it? He stops pacing around, approaches Thomas, and whispers in his ear: Just tell us if we can say no, go on. Marianne, shocked, turns to him and cries out Sean! But he doesn’t hear her, he is striding around the room again, his pace increasing. Finally he leans against the window, his back to the glass, his silhouette black and huge against the daylight: Go ahead, just tell us the truth, are we allowed to refuse or not? He is snorting like a bull. Thomas doesn’t blink; his spine stays straight, his clammy hands remain glued to his jeans. Marianne stands up and walks toward Sean. She holds out her arms but he turns away, walks three paces along the wall, spins on his heels, and punches the wall with all his might: the window shudders above the Kandinsky poster, then he groans: Fucking hell, I don’t believe this! and, devastated, turns to face Thomas, who is now standing up, white as a sheet, frozen, immobile, and announces in a decisive tone: Simon’s body is not just a box of organs that you can help yourself to.
The process is suspended if the attempt to discover the deceased’s wishes, carried out in tandem with his loved ones, ends in refusal.
* * *
At last, Marianne grasps Sean’s hand. Fantastic, she whispers, stroking it, that’s just what we need, then leads him over to the couch, where the two of them sit down, take deep breaths. There’s a lull. Marianne and Sean each drink a glass of water; neither is particularly thirsty, but they need to buy time, to keep moving, rediscover the right frequency so they can speak again.
At this point, Thomas thinks the whole thing is screwed. Too tough. Too complex, too emotional. The mother maybe, but the father … there’s no way back, it’s all going too fast. They’d barely had time to realize their tragedy before they had to decide about organ removal. He sits down too. Picks up the file from the coffee table. Does not insist, or seek to influence them, manipulate them, use his authority. Does not act as the agent for a silent but oppressive game of emotional blackmail, a pressure that is all the more powerful on Simon’s parents because young, healthy donors are so rare. He does not, for example, tell them in no uncertain terms that French law prescribes the principle of presumed consent in the absence of membership in the national organ donation refusal registry. Spares them the tortured question of how presumed consent can be the rule when the donor was dead and could no longer speak, could no longer consent to anything. Spares them the legal fact that, by never having said anything on the subject to his family, Simon has effectively said yes, another rephrasing of the dubious dictum silence implies consent. Yes, in the end, he keeps quiet about those texts that would so easily have undercut the meaning of this dialogue, making it a mere formality, a hypocritical convention, when the law as a whole suggested something more complex, based on reciprocity and exchange: as each person is considered a potential organ recipient, is it not logical that each person should also be considered a potential organ donor after his or her death? Once the conversation takes this turn, he will only mention the legal context to people who are neutral on the question of donation, or in order to comfort families after they have already agreed, using the law like a handrail to support them as they move forward.
He closes Simon’s file and rests it on his knees again, signaling to Sean and Marianne Limbres that they may quit this dialogue if they desire and leave the room. They’ve refused — it happens. There has to be a place for such a decision: the possibility of refusal is also the condition for donation. He should shake hands and say goodbye now. The interview has failed, and he has to accept that fact. Thomas’s principle is absolute respect for the wishes of loved ones, and he also understands the indisputable nature of that which makes the body of the deceased sacred for those who loved him. It’s his way of preventing an approach that risks becoming — supported legally and ethically by the letter of the law and the shortage of transplant organs — a steamroller. His gaze sweeps the walls of the room: from behind the window, a bird is watching them. A passerine. Seeing it, Thomas immediately wonders if Ousmane will drop by his apartment to feed Mazhar, the goldfinch, fill its trays with clean water and organic grains, those multicolored grains grown on a balcony in Bab El Oued. He closes his eyes.
* * *
Okay, what would you remove? Sean asks this, head down, eyes to the ground, and Thomas, surprised by this change of course, frowns and then instantly adjusts to this new tempo: The heart, the kidneys, the lungs, and the liver; if you agree to this, you will be kept fully informed and your son’s body will be restored. He lists the organs unwaveringly, a symptom of the urge he always feels to favor dry precision over evasive vagueness.
The heart? Marianne asks. Yes, the heart, Thomas repeats. Simon’s heart. Marianne is dazed. Simon’s heart — clusters of blood cells merge in a little sac to form the first vascular network on the seventeenth day; pumping begins on the twenty-first day (very weak contractions, but audible on highly sensitive equipment designed expressly for heart embryology); the blood flows through the growing vessels, nerves form in tissue, veins, tubes, and arteries, the four chambers develop, and by the fiftieth day everything is in place, if unfinished. Simon’s heart — a round belly rising gently at the bottom of a portable crib; the bird of night terrors flapping distraught inside a child’s chest; the staccato drumbeat syncopated with Anakin Skywalker’s destiny; the riff under the skin when the first wave rises — feel my pecs, he said to her one evening, muscles tensed, monkey face, he was fourteen years old and in his eyes she could see the new glow of a boy taking possession of his body, feel my pecs, Mom — the diastolic melt when he saw Juliette at the bus shelter on Boulevard Maritime, stripy T-shirt dress, red Doc Martens, art portfolio tucked under her arm; held breath on Christmas Eve, the surfboard unwrapped in the middle of the freezing warehouse, opened with that mixture of meticulousness and passion, the way you slice open an envelope containing a love letter. The heart.
But not his eyes — you don’t take his eyes, do you? Her scream stifled with a palm held to her own mouth. Sean shudders, instantly shouts no, never, not his eyes. His groan dies to silence and Thomas looks at the ground, I understand.
This is another area of turbulence, and he shivers, swims through it, knowing that the symbolic significance differs from organ to organ — Marianne reacted only to the idea of removing her son’s heart, as if removing his kidneys, liver, or lungs was more conceivable, and she refused the removal of the corneas, which, like the muscle tissue and the skin, are rarely the subject of the family’s consent — and understands that he must compromise, make an exception to the rule, accept their restrictions, respect this family. It’s empathy. Because Simon’s eyes were not only his nervous retinas, his taffeta irises, his pure black pupils in front of the natural lens; his eyes were his gaze, the way he looked at you. His skin was not only the mesh of his epidermis, his pores, it was his light and his touch, the living sensors of his body.