The Ninth Life of Louis Drax

by Liz Jensen

  She looks uneasy. —I haven’t really spoken to many people since–

  The image of Louis’ calamitous accident hangs in the air between us.

  —Time to start then, wouldn’t you say?

  —Yes, I suppose so. It’s been very isolating, the whole thing.

  —You have family? Friends?

  —My mother lives in Guadeloupe. She’s been meaning to come over, but my stepfather’s very ill with Parkinson’s.

  —And there’s no one else?

  —Not really. I have a sister, but we don’t see each other. We fell out a long time ago. There is a short silence as we both ponder this. I would like to ask the reason for the estrangement, and for her husband’s absence, but don’t want to appear tactless.

  —Dr Meunier said you had a radical approach. I was glad to hear that, Dr Dannachet. Her mouth twitches again: a small muscle spasm. —Because I think Louis’ condition needs radicalism.

  I return her smile, with what I hope is humility, and give a small, self-deprecating shrug. Might a woman like Madame Drax be impressed by what she has heard of me? Swiftly, I slap the thought down, but not too soon to feel shame at my own ridiculousness. The trouble with being married to someone like Sophie is that you get daily, affectionate reminders of your own absurdity, and imagine her amused laughter in your head.

  —He gives a little flicker of life sometimes, she continues, stroking her son’s hair softly. I can see how her love for him is anxious, immensely protective. —His eyelid twitches, or he sighs, or grunts. Once he moved his hand, like he was trying to clutch at something. Things like that, they give you hope, and then ... All this paraphernalia. She indicates the gastrostomy and catheter tubes emerging from beneath the sheet, attached to silicone bags. She stops, bites her lip. Swallows. She knows he may never emerge.

  That this could be where she has brought her son to die.

  —I know. Gently, I place my hand on her arm, the way doctors are permitted to. —It’s unfortunately all too easy to mistake small movements for a form of consciousness. But believe me, they’re not voluntary or purposeful, I am afraid they are just tics, evidence of sporadic, uncontrolled motor function.

  As I speak, I stroke the boy’s brow and then, gently lift the eyelid: his iris is a dark-brown empty pool against the conjunctiva’s pellucid white, motionless in the socket. Not a flicker.

  She has heard it all before, of course. Like most of the relatives, she will have spent time reading up on her son’s condition, talking to doctors in the field, downloading the latest medical literature from the Internet and devouring personal tales of bereavement, despair, false hopes, and miraculous recoveries. But we must go through the motions. She needs to unwrap the small package of words she has come with, and enact the rituals of need. In return I will give her what rituals I have, such as they are. No machine can bring these people back. It’s nature that struggles.

  —See the nurse over there with the flowers? I point to a matronly figure who has entered with a huge armful of pink peonies. —That’s Jacqueline Duval, the ward sister. Our secret medicine. She’s been with us twenty years.

  Jacqueline spots us and waves, signalling that she will join us when she has arranged the flowers by Isabelle’s bed. She does it swiftly and with style, while keeping up a non-stop flow of talk directed at Isabelle. Just watching her makes me smile. She’s better with relatives than I am. That is, she knows how to get through to them, how to say the right thing at the right time, hold back when tact is called for. Many have cried on her shoulder and if the need arose and I could shake off my hierarchic inhibitions, I’d do so myself.

  —I’ve read about your Awareness Accretion theory, says Madame Drax as Jacqueline stands back to admire the peonies. —And Memory Triggers and Lucid Dream States and ... well, Dr Meunier told me that you believe in things that other doctors don’t.

  There. She has revealed the truth at the heart of her ritual. And soon, in meagre return, I shall disappoint her by disclosing the bald, depressing truth of mine. But first Jacqueline joins us, shaking Madame Drax by the hand and bending to stroke Louis on the cheek.

  —Welcome, mon petit. I’m going to spoil you rotten.

  Madame Drax looks faintly aghast at the intimacy, and seems about to say something, then checks herself. But within days, Jacqueline will have won her round. I indicate that we should all move out of earshot, and gesture Madame Drax down the ward towards the French windows. I lower my voice.

  —Back in a minute, mon chéri! says Jacqueline, patting Louis’ arm. —I’m sure you’re going to settle in well, petit monsieur. And remember, your wish is my command!

  The three of us walk down the ward. —What I was about to tell you, in reference to what you have heard of my work, Madame, is that my success rate is not as good as people think, I murmur. —It’s a delicate field. So many factors are at play, not all of them physical. So please Madame, don’t raise your expectations too high.

  We step through the French windows and out to the paved patio that gives on to the garden. As I try to ignore the bluster of that maddeningly hot wind, I am struck again by the vertiginous beauty of this slice of tamed land, its foliage now buffeted by the air’s tumult in a tumble of silver and magenta, mauve and white. But Madame Drax does not respond to the garden or the talent of Monsieur Girardeau who we can see in the distance, pulling hanks of dripping algae out of the ornamental pond. Her eyes are derelict. She is not ready to step outside her pain. How can I explain that her own suffering will not help her son, and that it is not an act of abandonment to free herself from it for a fraction of a moment to watch a ladybird or smell a summer rose? What can I do to make that poor tense face soften into a smile? Absurd thoughts. Picturing Sophie’s silent sneer, I clear my throat, step back a little from the wind’s hot pull, rearrange the thoughts in my head.

  —Jacqueline, I was just telling Madame Drax that the recovery rate for someone in Louis’ condition is far from high.

  Jacqueline nods, shielding her eyes from the sun. I can see that like me, she has not quite got the measure of Madame Drax yet. —But we keep positive, she says. —For everyone’s sake, including our own. Optimism is a great restorative. We do our best to manufacture it here.

  Later she will tell Madame Drax about her son Paul. Not to depress her, but to ease in the thought that death is sometimes the only way out of this place. Jacqueline came into nursing because of Paul. Twenty-five years ago, when Paul was eighteen, he had a catastrophic motorbike accident. He was in a coma for eight months and then he died. She has been in the same position as all the relatives who come here, fraught, and in a state of suspended mourning. Of the two of us, her human expertise is the greater. But Madame Drax does not seem to be interested in acknowledging Jacqueline’s presence. I am the expert, in her eyes.

  —But Dr Dannachet, your methods! (Her voice changes pitch; I had not guessed she would be quite this volatile.) —Your revolutionary methods!

  Jacqueline and I exchange a glance. Madame Drax has read some of those magazine articles about Lavinia Gradin and my other successes, of course (‘Pascal Dannachet: Champion of the Living Dead’). But suddenly, I seem to be negating them. Madame Drax looks hurt, betrayed. I have let her down. Yes: fragile. Extremely so.

  —My methods aren’t really so revolutionary, I say soothingly. —They’re practised quite widely. But yes, they seem to have an effect. In some cases. Much of it’s to do with faith. Attitude. Psychology. But I really do urge you not to get excited. Don’t anticipate too much. I will do what I can; we all will. But the largest part in your son’s recovery will be played by his family. By you.

  —You need to realise that, Madame Drax, says Jacqueline softly. —Blood ties and emotional bonds can go far beyond anything we can do. He needs to feel your love and your presence. Be there for him, and he’ll feel it. He’ll know it.

  But when Jacqueline touches her arm to reassure her, Madame Drax winces in response, pulling slightly away from the contact
as though it might bruise her. This tiny dance of pain shows a struggle going on. You see it often. Too much sympathy and you dissolve. Finally she forces her features back into dignity, and says,

  —Of course. That’s what I heard. That’s how I want it.

  Of course she does. Her son is her only child. She has lost everything. She seems very alone. No wonder her face is such a taut, blank mask.

  —Tell me, Madame, I say, smiling. —Tell me what sort of boy your son was.

  —Is, she says. —I think you mean is. Not was.

  Again, Jacqueline and I look at one another – but my ward sister’s solid, benign presence reassures me that my tactlessness will be smoothed over. Within a week, Jacqueline will have taken this broken-hearted woman fully under her wing, educated her in the ways of the clinic, and made her a part of the extended family of coma relatives. I have seen her do it time and time again, even with the most traumatised parents.

  —Madame, I am sorry. As I think you know, it would be unwise to assume an improvement will be ... immediately forthcoming. But of course we must never give up hope.

  —Do you realise, Dr Dannachet, that he actually came back from the dead? Isn’t that quite unusual? I mean, apart from in the Bible–

  At this point, I stop her quickly. I don’t like the way this is heading. The brittleness of her voice disturbs me.

  —It certainly is unusual. Remarkable. But death, you know ... death is never as definite as people think. There have been other cases of drowning where . . . I mean, there’s a thin line. It happens.

  I step back, feeling embarrassed, and look desperately at my watch. Time to go. Meeting nearly over. Jacqueline, too, is aware of needing to be elsewhere: she hasn’t washed Isabelle’s hair yet, she explains. Her father is arriving today while his ex-wife takes a much-needed break from their daughter’s bedside. It’s his first visit in a year; he lives abroad.

  —We’ll catch up later, Madame Drax, she says. —Just ask me or one of the ward nurses if you have any questions. And welcome again.

  —It wasn’t just a fluke, Dr Dannachet, Madame Drax says insistently as we watch Jacqueline’s full, cushiony figure heading back inside. —I hope that’s not what you’re telling me. It wasn’t. I know my son. I know what he’s capable of.

  I confess that much as I would like to encourage the poor woman to be positive, I don’t really want to go down this road with Madame Drax. People get strange things in their heads sometimes. I watch the progress of a Red Admiral that dances past us, zigzagging across the lavender and settling on a violet lupin.

  —Look, please just accept my apologies, I say gently. —And tell me about Louis. I need to get to know him.

  Her mouth purses in what I read as acquiescence; all of a sudden, our wrong-footed exchange seems to have exhausted her emotionally. She lowers her eyes for a moment, and then stares through the French windows at her son’s bed at the end of the ward, as though drinking in the new situation. Her hair shines in the sun, a fine mesh of copper and gold. I wonder what it would feel like to stroke, then feel a flush of guilt at the inappropriate thought. To quash it, I quickly think of Sophie and the flowers I will choose for her this afternoon. Zinnias. I’ll buy her zinnias.

  —Louis is an extraordinary boy, she says softly. —An extraordinary boy. We’re very close. And the thing is, I don’t know how I could live without him. Ever since he was born, we’ve always ... communicated. Known what the other one was thinking. Like twins. And now – She is swallowing down huge sobs.

  —Yes? I ask gently.

  —Well, I’m beginning to think – after what happened – She stops and inspects her hands – small, neat hands, the nails carefully manicured and varnished in pale, shell-pink. A good sign: ravaged though she is, she has not let herself go as so many of them do. Again I notice the pale band left by her wedding ring. —This will sound very stupid, she says. —And superstitious and ignorant, and not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear from anyone – well, anyone educated. But if you knew Louis, if you knew what he’s like, and everything he’s been through–

  —Then what? I ask. I can’t help it: tentatively, I permit myself to rest my hands, lightly, on her narrow shoulders, to look her full in the face, to try to read it.

  —I’ve come to believe something about my son. Listen, Dr Dannachet, he just isn’t like other children. He never has been. I think–

  —Yes?

  —I think my son’s a kind of angel, she blurts.

  And her despairing eyes flood with tears.

  Boys shouldn’t make their mamans cry. And if their maman does cry, boys should be there to comfort them and say I’m sorry things went wrong, Maman, I’m sorry your heart’s in your mouth the whole time, I’m sorry the danger got me and I’m in a place where you can’t reach me. I know you tried to stop it. I know you said Got to protect him, got to protect him. I know you did. It’s not your fault it didn’t work.

  Boys shouldn’t make their mamans cry, especially if they’ve had a difficult life and Grand-mère lives in Guadeloupe that’s too far away to visit where they grow papaya that has seeds in it a bit like hamster droppings. And back in the time before Gustave, boys shouldn’t spy on their maman because they’ll get the wrong end of the stick, they’ll start thinking weird things and start inventing stuff just to impress people and it’ll end in tears. But sometimes you can’t help it because you need to know things and it’s not on a CD-ROM where you can click on the picture to make the creatures do stuff, and learn about their Habitat and their Nutrition and Life Cycle and How They Rear Their Young and blah blah blah. But I haven’t got the one about humans because maybe they haven’t made it yet. So I have to spy on them and listen to them doing secret things like sexing each other (uh-uh-uh) or crying or having an argument or a secret conversation about Disturbed Children.

  A good way is to use the baby monitor they keep in case you get Cot Death again in the night, even though you’re not a baby any more. You can switch it round so you can listen to what they say when you’re in your bedroom eating cereal, the kind with dried raspberries in, and they’re in the kitchen having a secret talk. You might not know how the raspberries get like that. They freeze-dry them, it’s a special process.

  —We should tell Louis the truth, says Papa. —I’m sorry Natalie. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

  —And damage him for life? says Maman.

  —You’re exaggerating. He has a right to know, and I’d rather he heard it from us. He knows there’s something that doesn’t fit. It’s quite uncanny how he picks up on things. Look at the way he senses all your moods. Anyway, he’d accept it. He knows how much I love him. It won’t be a problem.

  I put down my spoon. Mohammed’s running on his wheel so I put a pencil in to jam it and stop the noise. Because I need to hear but maybe I don’t.

  —He’d ask questions, says Maman. —You know Louis. One question always leads to another, and then another, and another. Until you get to the one you can’t answer.

  Her voice is wobbly. Got to protect him, got to protect him, she’s thinking. She’s probably looking in the little mirror now, the one by the sink. That’s what she does when she’s thinking. It’s her thinking mirror.

  —So let him. Perez is there. He can help him deal with it.

  —Surely you’re not saying we should tell him the whole story? About Jean-Luc and–

  Her face in the thinking mirror. Scared.

  —No. Of course not. Not all of it, obviously.

  Papa’s probably sitting at the kitchen table, cleaning his Swiss Army knife that Mamie gave him last Christmas, that he calls a Big Boy’s Toy. Eighteen blades, and you don’t know what half of them are for. Her back’s to him but he can see her face in the thinking mirror.

  —How much of it, then? About how he came into the world? About how you and I met? God, Pierre, I can’t believe you’d want to do anything so destructive. Don’t you think the poor kid hasn’t got enough problems as it
is? You know what they call him at school? Wacko Boy.

  —That’s exactly why I suggested a shrink!

  —But it’s me who has to take him, isn’t it? I’m the one who gets driven half-crazy dealing with him afterwards!

  Then I guess she doesn’t want to look at her face in the thinking mirror any more, because she’s crying again. She cries at least once a day and sometimes twice, because it isn’t easy being the mother of a Disturbed Child.

  —I’m sorry, Pierre. But I’m just saying – no, I’m insisting, Pierre, I’m insisting – that we drop the subject. It’s best he doesn’t know. He’ll just get confused and anxious on top of everything else. Think of all the self-loathing. We drop it right here.

  Eating isn’t allowed in your bedroom. Maybe that’s why I stopped chewing and maybe that’s why I suddenly couldn’t swallow anything. Maybe that’s why I had to spit it out into Alcatraz before I took the pencil out of his wheel so Mohammed could run again. But afterwards when I thought about it, I couldn’t see the big deal because I already knew where I came from. The doctors had to cut her open like the emperor Julius Caesar’s mum, and pull me out with a meat-hook and we both nearly died. So it was all blah blah blah and not even worth spying on. But I wondered about Jean-Luc. Who’s Jean-Luc? What’s self-loathing?

  Lots of people – not Maman of course, because she knows I’m not a liar – but other people, thought I was making the accidents up. I wasn’t though. Not all of them. Anyway I was lucky, because I never cared if people believed me, especially Fat Perez.

  Every Wednesday after school, when all the others are doing ateliers or catéchisme or watching TV, I’m visiting Fat Perez who’s a mind-reader who isn’t any good at mind-reading and to punish him you could post some hamster droppings to him in an envelope, except maybe he’d think they were papaya seeds and plant them in a pot because he’s so dumb and he’ll wait and wait and wait for them to grow but they never will. And sometimes I count aloud just to drive him mad, un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix onze douze, or in English, one two three four five except then I have to stop because I don’t know what comes after five.