Beside the Sea (8 page)

I remembered his father. Kevin often saw him without realizing it, and he didn’t know either, the father. Well, he may have guessed, he might have wondered. I don’t know and it’s better that way. He was very young, he’d left school and was training to be a plumber, something like that, his parents were the caretakers of our building, he came to the flat once, something to do with exterminating rats, I think, or a Christmas box, I had a problem with my radiators and he came in to have a look. He reminded me of my brother, that boy, Didi they called him.

In the end, memories don’t always help. It was like the things I was thinking about were taking me away from Kevin, I’ve always had trouble concentrating for any length of time, but who could tell me how much time had passed? I’m not used to memories, do they take long? Are they quick? How many times had I changed hands? Was I hurting Kevin? Was he frightened? Had the moon moved in the sky? Was it getting lighter and lighter or was it me getting used to the dark?

All of a sudden I was frightened Stan might be watching me, like he watches me when I stay sitting in the kitchen for hours. And I didn’t even know where Kevin was now. Death is full of people, but
where are they all? What are they like? And, most of all, how do they get on together? Stan really had to join Kevin, he couldn’t be left all on his own like that, Keep an eye on your brother, Stan, keep an eye on your brother… I lifted the pillow. Very gently. Slowly. I lifted it high up above Kevin’s head and then I put it down on the bed so I could see. See my little boy. He hadn’t moved. His face was still turned towards the wall. His hair all over the place. His eyes closed. But his noonoo wasn’t in his mouth any more. I realized it was over. I moved right up to him, he wasn’t breathing any more, he didn’t smell of him any more already, he wasn’t sleeping any more, no, it was something else.

I stayed there, looking at him for a while. He was dead. I put his hands under the covers so they didn’t get cold. The moon was making little pictures on him, shadows, little men just the way he likes them. I pushed the hair off his forehead, tidied it a bit and then I kissed him. You should always kiss the dead. My head was spinning, my mouth was full of cramps, full of ants, even the roof of my mouth and my teeth. I was thirsty.

Stan moved. It startled me. He turned his face towards me. I had to get on with it. Get on with it fast. Very gently, I picked the pillow back up, walked round the bed, on tiptoe, and sat down next to him. My back was blocking the moonlight. I couldn’t see a thing. I would have liked to see
Stan’s face one last time. He was in the dark already. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, what he was dreaming, and did he already sense that his brother was dead? Kevin was waiting for him. He couldn’t be left on his own at the gates of death, at just five, how would he cope? I had to work fast. I couldn’t. I couldn’t make my mind up, I’d already given so much for Kevin, it had taken so much effort to see it through, to remember and feel the time passing.

I wanted to open the window and feel the rain on me, have a good dousing and look right at the moon, if I could have landed on it like I did on the big wheel, rested a bit somewhere far away and full of light, if I could I would have done it, would have breathed that distant air.

I had one child dead and the other alive. That was no good. You can’t have that: one here and the other on his own. I’d rather have both hands empty than have an arm missing and lean to one side like a cripple. I had one child dead and the other alive, I had to get a move on.

I was holding the pillow tight against my stomach and I rocked for a while to give me courage. I shouldn’t have let Stan get so big, what was he thinking about on that beach, just before he thumped my arm? He had walked along that beach like he was used to it, had he seen it all already? Was it really too late? I’d let him grow up because he was the older brother and the littl’un couldn’t go without him, one without the
other was impossible, you have to appreciate that, one without the other… And before? Yes, before Kevin was born, what was Stan like? I couldn’t remember… I can’t picture myself in hospital, or walking in parks, I see myself standing over him at night, watching him in pain, when a baby coughs I always think it’s going to tear itself in half, I was afraid of that, yes, I was afraid for him, definitely… but it’s all so hazy, and maybe it isn’t him, maybe I’m the one I can’t capture any more because I wasn’t really there.

What was the time? Do we go around the moon or does the moon go around us? Are there any people in this hotel or did I imagine someone knocking on the wall, someone dropping something, I don’t think this hotel makes a profit, no, it should be demolished, and quickly too, rip off the doors and pictures, make the earth shake under those beds that are too big for the rooms. I prayed for the earth to shake, I said, Oh God make the earth shake! and I rocked myself with the pillow against my stomach.

Stan moved slightly, he turned his face towards the window, it made me jump, and what if he woke up and saw Kevin, how could I explain and convince him to go too? Stan was moving, but maybe he wasn’t there any more than his brother was, he was wandering in a dream, the closest country to death. Yes, I had to take my chance while he was dreaming and then he would do like Kevin, he would simply
slip from one country to the other.

I looked outside. It didn’t look like morning was coming, at night the hours stretch out, all hooked onto each other, all the same, nothing to tell them apart, that’s why it’s so long and that’s why you can get lost in it. Living those hours through the night one by one can drive you mad, it’s like having an eye ripped out, you lose your balance… and that badly drawn moon which couldn’t make up its mind to be a proper one was no longer helping me now that my back was blocking its light. It wasn’t generous and dazzling now, I’d thought it was on my side but deep down I knew everything had given up on me. I had to take care of Stan, who would give me the strength?

He moved again, his hands came out from under the covers, I was sure his cheek had creases from the pillow, but I couldn’t see well enough to check. He had such fine skin and the sheets always left marks on him. He used to grumble about it. When I got up it was already too late, they’d faded, but he told me about them, he often told me it worried him, I’d never seen it, this thing that bothered him.

I looked at him for a long time, like I wanted to get inside him, to find a little door and be inside him, he once told me how come we stand on the ground instead of falling over or flying away, It’s because the earth pulls us towards it, he told me, and I wanted it to be the same here, to be pulled
in by him, for him to be my earth, and definitely, definitely not to hover above him but fall towards him like a magnet.

And I put the pillow over his face. I covered it and then sat closer, right next to his face so I wouldn’t let him go, not ever. And it was him, it was Stan who helped me. He didn’t struggle, just his legs a bit, straightening out in little jerks, he tapped my back, and I liked it, how long was it since our bodies had touched each other, just our hands, nothing else for such a long time, since for ever perhaps.

His legs stretched out and then he went quiet. Kevin had pulled his hair and said Stan and he said He’s my whole brother and there was the day he picked him up from nursery and the littl’un was all upset but full of admiration He’s my whole brother and the day Stan threw himself in front of a barking dog to protect him He’s my whole brother and the breakfasts Stan used to bring me in bed on Sundays the sound of the mug against the plate Kevin’s little footsteps following him a whole family and Stan watching me sleeping and Stan watching me stare at the kitchen wall and Stan who’s afraid I’ll wake up on my own a whole family a family far away from the hostile world.

I was exhausted. My hair had fallen across my eyes, drenched with rain and sweat, were they
together
at last, did I have to go on struggling, my
heart was pounding, there was only one heart now for three people or was Stan still there? Who was on their own? Kevin or me?

Never cold again, I thought. And I pressed. Never cold or ashamed again. My arms were so tired they were shaking, I turned my face to the moon, it looked so bloody proud, up there, so high up there, asking me whether I could hold out for a whole night, one whole night isn’t so hard, I’d held on for so many years, with the chemicals, without the chemicals, with sleep and with insomnia, with my own kids and with kids that the world swallowed up.

I collapsed, my body against Stan’s. Between our two faces, a pillow with his last breath in it, my son’s last effort. I got back up gently, I was sweating and cold. I took the pillow away, put my face very close to Stan’s and I saw it, I saw the mark left by the sheets on his cheek. He hadn’t lied. I kissed him, there, right on the mark, his soft crumpled skin.

I had two dead children. And them? What did they have? I stood up to look at them both, now they were the same. I looked at their bodies hidden by those old sheets and thin blankets, Kevin’s curled up in a ball and Stan’s stretched out. I looked at them and I saw. I saw something I’d never thought of, something I’d never imagined ever: Kevin’s face
was turned towards the wall, and Stan’s towards the window. They had their backs to each other. They weren’t together, no, each had gone his separate way. They weren’t joined together in death, they’d lost each other there.

And I screamed.

Peirene curates its books according to themes. Each year we publish a new series – three books which form a cluster in terms of style and/or content. All our authors are
award-winners
and bestsellers in their own country.