The Ninth Life of Louis Drax

by Liz Jensen

  —There was water everywhere. It was like a pool or a lake, but it was too dark to see. My face hurt. I could feel it was cut and bruised, and my nose was smashed. I couldn’t move my legs and only one arm worked. When you’re all alone in a cave you think the strangest thoughts. I couldn’t remember anything about the past, except her name. My wife’s name. I wrote it on the wall in blood so that I’d remember it. I keep thinking that if I went back there, I could see it. And I’d know her name again and maybe everything would make sense. I wrote my baby’s name too. We had a baby.

  —How old was it?

  —I don’t know. Just a baby, I think. A tiny baby.

  —Did it have a stupid hat with bunny ears?

  —I don’t know.

  —Well, was it a boy or a girl?

  But he doesn’t know that either. —Maybe you were a cave explorer and you lost your way and you ran out of supplies. That’s why you’re so hungry.

  —Maybe.

  —And maybe I was a boy who fell because he was always having accidents; he was an Amazing Accident-Prone Boy.

  —Yes. You were.

  I was going to ask him how he knew that but he’d gone again. I knew he’d come back though. Nightmares like that, they go on and on, and you’re not the one who decides.

  Then some time goes by and Dr Dannachet comes and reads aloud from La Planète bleue, and Gustave watches him and doesn’t say anything but I know what he’s thinking, because I’m thinking the same thing. He’s getting tired. We know because we can feel it in his voice and his skin and his bones. Plus he took a Valium. Doctors do that sometimes, if things get to them. Things have been getting to him.

  And now he’s reading the bit about monster tube-worms that are gross to look at because they’re just huge long tubes of slimy flesh, bigger than a grown-up human’s arm. One end’s a mouth and the other’s a butt but only an underwater expert or another tube-worm can tell which is which. They live on the deep-sea bed four kilometres down where it’s full of poison. Things happen there that can’t happen on land. There’s life in places where there shouldn’t be life because it doesn’t make sense that a creature could survive on poison. But it isn’t poison to him. He’s completely used to it, he was born there, and if you tried to take him away from it, he might even die.

  —Watch, says Gustave.

  And Dr Dannachet’s suddenly stopped reading and you can hear the book fall on the floor and he doesn’t pick it up.

  —Now’s your chance, says Gustave. —You know what you have to do, Young Sir. Do it now. While you can. He won’t feel a thing.

  —Will you help me?

  —I can’t. I have to leave you for a moment now, Young Sir. You have to do this on your own.

  And he goes away into a corner of the room where everything’s white and starts coughing and coughing and coughing until out comes blood and sick. And while he’s over there watching me from his corner, I do the thing we’ve been thinking about but not saying. Because if you say it, it breaks.

  True to her assurance, Jacqueline somehow saw to it that Natalie Drax did not return to the ward that day. That night I stayed in my office late and finished drafting the paper for Lyon. Sophie was out again with Guy Vaudin’s wife, Danielle, and a gaggle of other female friends, empowering herself or whatever women do when they’re feeling unfriendly towards their husbands. I didn’t want to go home through the heat of the olive grove and arrive at an empty womanless house, so, feeling restless and at a loose end, I went back to the coma ward to visit my silent troupe.

  The night-nurse told me that Isabelle had been very active again, so I sat with her for a while, holding her hand. When she first came to us her nails were bitten to the quick; now they were long and elegant, manicured and varnished by Jacqueline. A sleeping beauty. She shifted, opened her eyes briefly, gave a light yawn, and then sank back into a torpid state.

  After chatting to her for a while – I gave her my thoughts on the new physiotherapist, Karine, who I had just taken on, and was pleased with – I glided from bed to bed, propelling myself in the swivel chair, until I came to Louis Drax. I looked at his soft cheeks, the waxy skin, the parted mouth, the long dark lashes. I stroked his hair. It was sleek and thick, and already seemed longer than when he first arrived. He was motionless. Tonight I would sit with him. Tonight, for his mother’s sake, for the sake of the woman whose sad, lovely face was becoming a strange, discomfiting fixture in my heart, I would try to be a good doctor to him. Be there for him, tell him about where he was and what we were trying to do for him here, perhaps even enter his head. He had made a huge effort to communicate. Had even managed a few tiny, astonishing words. Such a sudden, extraordinary impulse does not come from nowhere. Had Louis Drax been more conscious, all along, than I had dared hope or imagine?

  The ward was quiet except for Isabelle, who uttered small noises every now and then, and twisted a little. She was the most physically active of my patients, and the closest, I estimated, to recovering consciousness. The nurses reported a marked change in her sleep/wake cycle since her father’s arrival; these events are rarely coincidental. Perhaps we were about to see something.

  I was still in a state of nervous excitement so I took a Valium and settled myself down with Louis. I read aloud to him from La Planète bleue, which Sophie had got hold of for me. It was just the sort of thing I used to read when I was Louis’ age, as a devotee of Cousteau. But I was tired, and I could feel my voice becoming weaker and fainter as I charted the life-cycle of a rather unappealing deep-sea creature called a tube-worm. I don’t remember the book falling from my hand to the floor.

  I don’t think I slept long – it felt like seconds rather than minutes – and I woke with a wrenchingly uncomfortable start. I’d had a nightmare. A huge worm was tunnelling its way into my phrenological map, which was wrapped in bloody bandages. It was one of those absurd but somehow plausible dreams, from which you wake and wonder if you really have escaped. I spun the chair and got to my feet quickly: as I did so, I heard the young nurse at the night-desk draw in a breath. I’d surprised her.

  —Sorry, Dr Dannachet, she whispered, tiptoeing up to me. —You gave me a shock. You were so fast asleep.

  —What time is it?

  —Half past four. I should have woken you before but I didn’t dare.

  —Why on earth not? It’s much later than I thought.

  —Sorry. It’s just that, well – earlier on, about two hours ago, you were sleepwalking. I heard you’re not supposed to wake someone who’s–

  —What? I felt myself go hot and then very slowly, cold. —Where did I go?

  —I didn’t really see, but you left the ward. It was around two o’clock. I had to change a bedpan and then I made myself a tisane in the kitchen. When I came back, you were walking down the ward, back to Louis’ bed. I thought you were awake, but when I spoke to you, you didn’t say anything and you looked a bit strange. That’s when I realised. I walked you back to your chair and you sat down again, and just stayed asleep.

  —Bizarre. Were my eyes open?

  —Yes, but it didn’t look like you could see out of them. You looked ... well. You looked blind, Dr Dannachet. Completely blind.

  Nobody likes to lose control, especially in front of a junior member of staff. I told Nurse Marie-Hélène Chaillot, who was looking at me anxiously, that she had done the right thing, absolutely and exactly the right thing, as recommended in all the textbooks. I tried to make a joke of it, but inside I was disturbed. What had triggered the episode? Was I somehow regressing?

  Trying to muster some reason in my half-woken state, I took a couple of paracetamol, thanked Nurse Chaillot and made my way out into the night. The warm air came as a shock after the cool of the clinic, and I instantly felt the pressure of the day’s residual heat like a weight on my shoulders. The olive groves shone eerily in the light of an almost full moon, and my shoes caught the dew, reflecting stars. I turned and looked at the clinic, low and flat on the hilltop. Its flu
orescence seemed brighter than ever, giving it an aura that buzzed around its outline before dissipating in the starlit sky. It looked like a temple or some other holy structure – a place that could house miracles, a place where miracles hatched and belonged. Yet for once my mind was not soothed by this thought. I inhaled the scented night air deeply, trying to shake off whatever strange miasma had infected me. But it seemed to have crept into my lungs, under my skin. I was almost light-headed with exhaustion.

  When I came home, Sophie woke and rolled over under the sheet, sleepy and hot. Our air-conditioning system had broken the previous year, and ever since we’d made do with an electric fan which now spun lazily next to the bed, stirring the heat around rather than cooling the air.

  —Nice evening? she murmured.

  —I was at the clinic, I told her.

  —Briefing Madame Drax? she yawned. —Drying her tears? Feeling excited because she’s convinced you’re the only person in the world who can save her son?

  I wasn’t up to arguing. I still felt bleary and groggy.

  —I need to sleep.

  —Well, the spare room’s ready for you.

  I was too tired for any discussion of my rights, though her body would have comforted me in the way it always managed to. I thought of telling her about the fact that I had sleepwalked, but something – something aside from her current hostility towards me – stopped me. What it was, I cannot fathom. I simply cannot. I do not understand myself at the best of times, and in those turbulent, heat-stricken days that followed Louis’ seizure, I was more disconnected from myself than ever.

  I slept badly, and it felt as though what little sleep I got provided the opposite of nourishment. The next morning Guy Vaudin and I ran two more sets of brain scans on Louis and cross-checked them against one another. But nothing we could see made any sense. What happened, we agreed, simply should not have happened. It was a physical impossibility. Like Louis’ bizarre return from the dead in Vichy General Hospital, it defied logic.

  —Write it up anyway, said Vaudin. —You never know. In the meantime, I think we should play it down with the mother.

  I agreed with him; after her outburst at Louis’ bedside, I was becoming increasingly worried about her mental state, and the last thing I wanted was to encourage her ‘angel’ theory about her son.

  —The comatose are not immune to changes of environment, I told her later that morning. She had returned to Louis’ bedside suitably contrite, but with a quietly desperate look on her face. There was fear, too. Yes, she was afraid of something. Her own hope, perhaps? It would not be unheard of. Under her thin tan, her face was the same unearthly white I had seen yesterday, as though the episode had drained her of blood. She wore no make-up, and for the first time I noticed fine lines around her eyes. She looked thin and ill, and I wondered whether I should suggest a check-up. —It’s not uncommon for them to make a small involuntary movement, shortly after they have been moved to a new bed, I told her, trying to make my voice carry authority. —It means nothing. It should not be misinterpreted – consider it a freak anomaly.

  Could she detect the tiny shudder of uncertainty at the back of my voice? Or was her closed-off face merely a sign that she was elsewhere? In denial, was the phrase that Philippe Meunier used.

  —I’m so sorry Pascal, said Natalie. Her voice was a low, haunted whisper. —About the way I reacted. I was so shocked. Do you understand? I was so sure he was coming back. When he spoke–

  —And I’m sorry I pushed you. I didn’t mean to. I hope I didn’t hurt you.

  —You’re stronger than you think, she said, drawing up the sleeve of her blouse to show her upper arm. My breath caught in shock as I saw the ugly purple bruise on her skin.

  —Did I do that? I whispered, horrified. —I’ve never hurt a woman before.

  Guilt swamped me.

  She smiled ruefully. —It’s OK. I’ve had worse. My husband could be quite violent.

  I closed my eyes.

  —He beat you up?

  She looked away and flushed, which I took as a yes. I have never fathomed what attracts people to one another, or how passionate love curdles to poison. Except that sometimes it has to do with sickness, a demented yin and yang of punishment and subjugation, of worst fears dawning, worst impulses fed. I felt my own marriage to Sophie to be solid, healthy – subject only to the usual tidal shifts that happen over the years. Our current phase, which traced a slow arc of mutual neglect – was recent. But did I have it in me to be otherwise?

  —I’m not like that, I blurted. —You have to believe me.

  —I know, she said gently. I was grateful for the delicacy with which she moved on. —Look, I’ve made another cassette for him, she said, showing me. The title Maman 3 was written on it in neat handwriting.

  —Good, I said. I was trying to sound normal, but inside I was heaving with panic at the sight of that bruise. —Play it to him. Speak, too. You never know what might happen.

  She put the headphones on Louis’ ears, pressed the start button, and sat holding his hand, and stroking his hair. All the mothers tend to be very physical. I wondered if it had always been that way between them. Just as I was thinking this, the boy’s face gave a small twitch. It probably meant nothing, but Natalie Drax chose to think otherwise because she smiled at me with a hesitant kind of triumph. And despite myself, despite my self-revulsion and the residual rage I still felt over her reaction the day before, I felt some returning warmth towards her. In that brief second I remembered our kiss and her vulnerability in that tiny, explosive moment in the garden, and I forgave her everything and inwardly begged her to forgive me my own disconnected impulses, for an uneasy thought was beginning to stir within me: had I meant to hurt her? Might something small and sick within me be wondering, at this very moment, what her smooth freckled skin would look like with more bruises? I felt cold.

  —Thank you, she murmured. —Thank you for all you’ve done for Louis.

  —It isn’t much, I said. I still felt contaminated by my own thoughts.

  —It’s more than you know, she said, and touched my arm lightly with her hand, as she rose to leave.

  That small gesture touched me deeply, going straight to the core of my guilt. She had reached out to me at last, on her own initiative, just as I had recognised my own capacity to abuse her trust. As I watched her slight figure moving down the ward and into the corridor, and thought of the bruise on her arm, I realised that it was impossible not to feel an immense sense of pity – and what is pity if not a skewed admiration? – for a woman who asked for nothing. Who appeared, I should say, to ask for nothing. Whose pride perhaps prevented her from articulating her need, but whose whole psyche was screaming to be saved from her own internal hell. Isn’t pity one of the higher forms of love? My heart yearned for her, yearned to take away her pain, including the pain I myself might have caused. Call me a middle-aged fool, but what I felt for her, in that moment, seemed sacred.

  The heat escalated unbearably over the weekend. We have dangerous summers in Provence, sparked by human madness, fuelled by tinder-dry forests. Two years ago, the whole hillside just a kilometre from the clinic was scorched to blackness; the smoke took days to lift and the fire helicopters circled endlessly above the devastation like furious mosquitoes. By this stage in the summer the heat had become so intense it was almost unbearable to be outside in the daytime. I wondered how Natalie was managing in her cottage. Perhaps she had made friends with some of the other relatives. I hoped so, but could not picture it. Although I hadn’t kept a firm eye on her visits, I had the feeling she was spending more time than was healthy with her son. Maybe that’s why things had got so out of hand. They were very close, she’d said. The way she touched him – the obsessive stroking of his hair, the way she flung herself at him after his fit – confirmed it. I don’t know how I could live without him. Touching, but worrying, too. It’s all too easy for relatives to identify so closely with their loved ones that they forget about their own needs
completely.

  All weekend I went about the chores of leisure-time in a trance, counting the hours before I could be back at work and see Natalie Drax again. In the meantime, Sophie and I reached a quiet truce. We ate meals together, discussing domestic topics but otherwise avoided one another. An electrician came to fix the air conditioning. I had a haircut which my barber assured me made me look younger. Sophie tended to the plants, had lengthy conversations with the girls in Montpellier, and read novels, while I thought about Natalie. About what she had gone through and must still be suffering. I saw the bruise on her arm again and again. Its image hovered in my mind like a filthy secret.

  I spent Monday working my way through a pile of paperwork and preparing my slides for the talk I was giving in Lyon on Wednesday. I’d asked Noelle not to disturb me, but around four o’clock there was a hesitant knock on my door.

  —There’s a phone call for you that sounds very urgent, she said. —The mother of Louis Drax. Immediately I told Noelle she had done the right thing to interrupt me, and took the call. Natalie was in tears and could barely speak. She sounded frantic.

  —Pascal, I’m at my house. I – her voice choked. —Look, I absolutely I need your help. Can you–

  And then she abandoned all semblance of control and broke down completely.

  —Please, Pascal! she shrieked. —Something terrible’s happened. You’ve got to come, now! I need you!

  I grabbed my keys and flew out.

  A dog was barking madly as I opened the front gate. All the way, as I ran through the blisteringly hot olive groves down to the village, I’d been filled with a sense of dread that I would arrive too late. Perhaps Natalie was even more vulnerable than I had imagined. If you are alone in the world, you reach breaking point faster and by simpler routes than those who are surrounded by family, friends, colleagues. And she had none of these. She had a son in a coma and an abusive husband who was on the run from the police. Had she done something stupid? And if so, should I have spotted it coming?