* * *
The suture is completed at last. The transplant organ is purged, the air evacuated so that no bubbles rise into Claire’s brain: now the heart is ready to receive blood.
The tension around the table skyrockets. Harfang announces: Okay, we can fill it up now. This filling is measured to the nearest milliliter, requiring a carefully calibrated flow: if they go too fast, the organ might be permanently deformed. The nurses hold their breath, the anesthesiologists watch vigilantly, the perfusionist sweats — while Alice remains composed. Nobody in the theater moves a muscle; a dense silence covers the surgical bed while the heart is slowly irrigated. And now, at last, we reach the electric moment. Virgilio grabs the paddles and hands them to Harfang; the devices remain suspended in the air for a moment; their eyes meet, then Harfang motions with his chin to Virgilio, go ahead, you do it — and in that moment, maybe Virgilio gathers every prayer and superstition he knows, maybe he begs God, or maybe, on the contrary, he thinks back through everything they have achieved up to now, the sum of their actions and the sum of their words, the sum of spaces and feelings — and he carefully places the electric paddles on either side of the heart, glancing at the screen of the electrocardiogram. Ready? Clear! The heart receives the electric shock, and the world stands still above what is now Claire’s heart. The organ stirs weakly: two, three little jolts, and then it stops. Virgilio swallows, Harfang rests his hands on the edge of the bed, and Alice is so pale that the anesthesiologist, afraid she might collapse, takes her arm and helps her off the step. Second time. Ready?
Clear!
* * *
The heart contracts — a shudder — and then there are tremors, so tiny they are barely perceptible, but you can see them if you look closely, those feeble beats, and slowly the organ begins to pump blood into the body, as it used to. The beats, strangely fast but regular, soon form a rhythm, like an embryo’s pulse, that jerky percussion heard during the first ultrasound, and what we are hearing is indeed embryonic — the first heartbeat, a new dawn.
* * *
Did Claire hear Thomas Rémige’s voice during her anesthetic dreams, as he sang his song of a good death? Did she hear him at four in the morning as she received Simon Limbres’s heart? She is placed under extracorporeal assistance for another thirty minutes, and then, like Simon, she is sewn up, the retractors releasing the tissue for a delicate ladylike suture. She remains in the theater under surveillance, surrounded by black screens that trace the luminous waves of her heart, while her body recuperates, while the bedlam of the room is tidied, while the implements and compresses are tallied, while the blood is wiped away, while the team breaks up, while everyone discards their surgical scrubs and dresses in their own clothes, while they splash water on their faces and wash their hands, then leave the hospital to catch the first metro, while Alice recovers and risks a smile as Harfang whispers into her ear, so, little Harfang girl, what did you think of all that? while Virgilio takes off his surgical cap and lowers his mask and decides to ask her to join him for a beer somewhere in Montparnasse, for a plate of fries and a bloody steak, to prolong the atmosphere of this night, while she puts on her white overcoat and he strokes the fur collar, while the first rays of daylight touch the undergrowth and the moss turns bluish, while the goldfinch sings and the big surf comes to an end in the digital night: it is 5:49 a.m.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maylis de Kerangal is the author of several novels in French: Je marche sous un ciel de traîne (2000), La vie voyageuse (2003), Corniche Kennedy (2008), and Naissance d’un pont (published in English as Birth of a Bridge, winner of the Prix Franz Hessel and Prix Médicis in 2010). She has also published a collection of short stories, Ni fleurs ni couronnes (2006), and a novella, Tangente vers l’est (winner of the 2012 Prix Landerneau). In addition, she has published a fiction tribute to Kate Bush and Blondie titled Dans les rapides (2007). In 2014, her fifth novel, Réparer les vivants (published in the United States as The Heart), was published to wide acclaim, winning the Grand Prix RTL–Lire and the Student Choice Novel of the Year from France Culture and Télérama. She lives in Paris, France. You can sign up for email updates here.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Sam Taylor is an author and translator. He is the author of the novels The Republic of Trees, The Amnesiac, and The Island at the End of the World, and has translated several books from the French, including Laurent Binet’s HHhH, Hubert Mingarelli’s A Meal in Winter, and Joel Dicker’s The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. You can sign up for email updates here.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from “La Nuit Je Mens”: words and music by Alain Bashung, Jean-Louis Pierot, Edith Fambuena, and Jean Marie Fauque. Copyright © 1998 Universal Music Publishing SAS and Chaterton Prod. All rights for Universal Music Publishing SAS in the U.S. and Canada controlled and administered by Universal Musica, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dr. Wendy McLaughlin and Dr. Michael Metz for their advice on the medical terminology used in the book.