I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) (8 page)

“Uh… Yes, I asked him but he didn't answer. He just kissed her on the cheek, but it was obvious that he wanted to kiss her properly. And he probably didn't dare because I was there… Oh, it's OK! There are still a few more days for that…”

I block this out instantly for two reasons. The first is because Thibault gave the impression of wanting to kiss me “properly.” The second because Loris has started sobbing. What's happened to him?

“Sorry, that was a terrible thing to say. But they want to unplug her! Can you imagine? I know, it's a part of my job but… This is tearing me apart. Oh, wait. My beeper's going.”

I had noticed the vibration for a little while but couldn't identify what it was.

“I'd better go… Yes… See you later… I love you, too.” I hear a deep sigh come from my junior doctor before he closes the door behind him. I would sigh as well, if I could.

I
blink. The violent neon light is an excuse to avoid my mother's gaze. I'm back in the hospital, as though I had never left, and, for the second time in less than a week, I'm almost happy.

Wednesday, visiting day, has been identical to Monday so far. Work, idiotic smile noticed by colleagues, the detour to go and pick up Mom, the pause in front of room
55
, her attempts to get me to go inside.

I pretend not to notice. I still have the bitter aftertaste of my semi-attempt to go in on Monday. I don't want to try again now.

And I have something much better to do.

I head to room
52
. The picture is still stuck to the door under the number. Now that I've heard about the accident from her friends, I doubt that Elsa is particularly fond of that glacier. I still have some difficulty understanding her passion, especially given what it has done to her.

I start to open the door and then freeze. There's a voice inside, which has just stopped on hearing me turn the handle. It's a girl's voice. And it's not Rebecca from the first visit. I hear a chair being pushed back, and then the sound of hesitant steps. I let go of the handle, looking for somewhere to run. I am pathetic, I think to myself.

But whoever this person is, I have no desire to explain my reasons for being here to them. Or to tell another lie, or some noncommittal form of the truth, or to avoid speaking at all. I've had enough. I just wanted to come and relax for a while, in a calm place. Nobody would accept that as an explanation, though. Well, no one except Rebecca and her boyfriend. Steve didn't really seem to like it much.

The staircase is too far. The girl would certainly see me running as soon as she opened the door. This is ridiculous. I throw myself onto a chair a few meters away and it seems to work. I try to look bored, hardly catching her eye. She looks like a student, about twenty; she peers down the corridor, one way and then the other, before going back in.

My shoulders sink and I sit back in the chair. I said that I find myself pathetic or ridiculous, but really I should say wretched. I come to a hospital to see my brother and support my mother but all I want to do is hang out in a lifeless stranger's room, sneaking around so that nobody knows—and this is all, supposedly, in the name of tranquility.

I'm just making one terrible mistake after another. With my brother, with my mother, with the preservation of my tranquility. I shouldn't be subjecting Elsa to all this, just because I refuse to visit a member of my own family. She doesn't need me, and here's the proof: She had her three friends in there the other day, and now she's got another visitor.

I surprise myself by hoping the other person leaves quickly. And then I add “selfish,” after “wretched,” to the list of reproaches, and sink a little deeper in my chair.

This is the first time that I've lingered in the corridor on the fifth floor, so I look around the place. First, my eyes rest on the door to the staircase. I could still seek refuge there, but, even sitting here on the hard plastic, I don't have the heart to get up again. There's a window at one end, two swing doors at the other, which must lead on to the next antiseptic corridor, and a few dull-looking tables. The faded pink of the paint on the walls is vomit-inducing. I can't understand why they insist on so many pastel colors. Maybe they're afraid of shocking the patients with anything too vibrant. Although perhaps it could work the other way around if they livened the place up… Oh, I don't know. I've never been in a coma, or in post-coma rehabilitation. I have no idea what effect colors have on people. In any case, I'm going off on a tangent here. If what I'm doing is sitting here, imagining how I'd feel about paint colors if I were plunged into a coma, I really do have a problem.

I realize that my eyes have been resting on something for a little while. I'm looking at another number,
55
. I almost leap out of my skin when I realize that my chair is placed very close to it. I've been ten centimeters away from my brother's door for the last few minutes. I think it's quite an achievement to have stayed here all this time, even without knowing it. Here is my actual problem: room
55
and its occupant.

If it weren't for him, why on earth would I be wondering what it's like to be in a coma? Excuses, police, explanations, signed confessions, and two young lives wasted. That's all I've thought about since he woke up. But what would it actually be like to be in my brother's place? To have drunk too much one night, knowing it was dangerous. To have run over two girls without even really noticing I'd done it. Apparently he almost fainted when they told him what had happened after he woke up. Good. I hope he got the fright of his life.

And the time when he was inactive in the bed, lost somewhere in his thoughts while his body recovered, what must that have done to him? How did that feel? Did he feel anything? Did he relive anything? What do you do when you're in a coma? Do you think? Do you hear other people? The doctors told me to speak to him, but I couldn't say a word.

With Elsa it took me less than two minutes to start talking.

But Elsa's done nothing wrong. Whereas my brother…

A noise disturbs my thoughts. I roll my head slowly to one side while still leaning against the wall. My heart beats faster as I realize that it's my mother's voice I can hear through the crack in the door. She is persistent. She never closes this door, as though she's still hoping that I'll change my mind and wander in.

I lift my arm blindly, trying to reach the handle to close that door once and for all, when I hear my name. I've been trying to ignore whatever they're saying inside, but I can't ignore the sound of my own name.

“… still doesn't want to come.”

“Am I not his brother anymore?”

“You can't blame him for being confused.”

I notice that my mother hasn't really answered the question. Perhaps because she is not sure of the answer, or because she doesn't want to say it out loud. I don't even know what I would have said myself. It's true that I've hated him since he caused this accident, but we still share a surname, we still have the same mother. In a basic, fundamental way we'll always be family.

Except that I don't feel as though we are a family anymore. A family has love and respect; it lives through highs and lows, but there always has to be some kind of basic harmony and understanding. Like Gaëlle and Julien. My brother has sunk a hundred meters below ground level, and I have no desire to help my mother drag him back up to the surface. He got down there all by himself, he'll have to dig himself out alone.

“… frightened.”

I open my eyes at once—that was my brother's voice again. In spite of myself, I listen.

There's a long silence. My mother hasn't answered, or perhaps she just murmured something. My hand is still suspended above the door handle, my breath suspended in my throat.

“I was frightened before. And I'm still frightened.”

The little air that is left in my lungs is stuck there and I feel as though a trickle of cold water is being poured over my entire body. I start to cough uncontrollably and cover my face with my hands. Even if I had wanted to hear the next part of the conversation, I wouldn't have been able to. In any case, at this moment I see the girl come out of Elsa's room.

With my breath still caught in my throat, I watch her head for the elevators. As soon as the doors close, I leap out of my chair and hurry over to room
52
.

I turn the handle as though my life depended on it and close the door, leaning back against it with relief. My muscles are so tense you'd think that I had done battle with a tiger to get into the room. In here there's only the electrical whirr of the machines attached to Elsa. But the thoughts I tried to leave out in the corridor are still with me.

If my brother was frightened, he deserved it. If he's still frightened, he still deserves it. But perhaps it shows some regret.

I shake my head, clenching my fists. I refuse to make excuses for him, or to make room for some kind of redemption. I want to continue to hate him for what he has done. But it's true that he is still my brother. So perhaps it's impossible for me to hate him through and through.

That doesn't make sense to me either. Nothing makes sense, except being in room
52
. And I'm here, and the smell of jasmine is gently soothing my mind and making me breathe easier. I've found my lighthouse, the luminous signal that brings me back to dry land after a voyage in deep water. I've found my refuge, and it's a lot better than sitting in a stairwell.

Better, too, than a chair in the corridor beside the abyss into which my brother has fallen.

“Here, I bought you this.”

Julien hands me a book with a yellow and black cover before he even says hello. There's still snow on his hat and his cheeks are red from the cold. I arrived at the pub a few minutes before him, so I've already had time to defrost.

“What is it?” I ask, taking his jacket and putting it on the bench next to me.

“Read the title, that should answer all your questions.”

Julien strips off layer after layer until he is left in just a T-shirt. I pick the book up from the table.
Comas for Dummies
. Who would dare publish a book with this title? I put it down and concentrate on Julien. He has just ordered for us both and is settling back into his chair.

“I didn't think you'd be able to come,” I tell him, almost apologetic.

“I negotiated an hour with Gaëlle. It's the best I could do. Although, there might be a way we can make it a bit longer.”

“What's that?” I ask, hopefully, because I really don't want to go home straightaway.

“Gaëlle has suggested that you come home with me again, like last Wednesday.”

Her concern is touching, but I decline the invitation. “I can't come and squat at yours every time I have a bad day. I'll just have to get over it. I should have been miserable yesterday, or tomorrow when you aren't busy.”

“That's not how it works though, is it? You can't schedule these things. And, you know Gaëlle, there is a little deal to be negotiated into this.”

“What deal?”

“The same as last time: that you'll give Clara her night bottle. With one small extra thing…”

Julien adds the last bit with a cheeky smile. The penny starts to drop. Gaëlle's large/small scale has always been completely back to front.

“Go on then, what is this gigantic extra thing she wants from me?”

“Well, it's actually a gigantic extra thing we both want from you.”

“Well, there's a turn-up for the books,” I joke.

“We want you to take Clara for the weekend.”

“What?”

My “what” sounds a bit like a duck being strangled, and several drinkers on neighboring tables turn to see what's going on. I ignore them and carry on staring at Julien, as though he has just told me he's planning to grow another head.

“Are you mad? A whole weekend?”

“Only from Friday night to Sunday night,” he perseveres. “You'd stay at ours—it's easier for you to come to us with an overnight bag than for Clara to come to yours with the entire contents of our apartment in tow. Gaëlle can explain how the bottles work and all the rest. But you already know most of it.”

“Julien, every time I've given Clara a bath or anything like that, you've been there. I mean, if anything went wrong, how could you fix it if you were far away? Where are you going, anyway?”

“Gaëlle's booked a
gîte
in the mountains.”

“So I'd have no means of contacting you…”

“We're not going to the ends of the earth,” Julien laughs, “and there is reception up there. But we know you'll be fine.”

“You're definitely the only ones who think so.” I take a large swig of my pineapple juice. Even its sweetness can't eclipse the terror I feel at the thought of being responsible for Clara for two whole days. “Can't you ask Gaëlle's parents?”