I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là)

by Clelie Avit

  I’ve only taken three steps in when I know that something has changed. I sense a difference, and not a reassuring one. Half of the room is far too clean, and yet there are footprints all over the floor. The jasmine is masked by lots of other smells and, when I go over to the bed, I can see little bits of pencil eraser on the sheets.

  People have been in here today. It’s strange. It could be Elsa’s family, but that would be surprising. Perhaps friends is more likely. That would explain all the footprints. On the other hand I don’t know what they would have been drawing, and then rubbing out. But I leave all this aside and concentrate on Elsa. Or rather I concentrate on “Elsa and me.”

  Since this morning, I’ve felt almost euphoric at the thought of coming into this hospital room. It’s not normal.

  I keep repeating that over and over. It’s not normal. It’s not normal. There’s nothing normal about getting excited over visiting someone who doesn’t move, doesn’t feel, doesn’t think, and doesn’t speak, and who, above all, I do not actually know.

  For the nth time since I first stumbled into this room, I wonder what I am doing here. And for the nth time I don’t have the answer. It doesn’t matter, I think to myself, sometimes it’s OK to be ignorant. That’s what my boss always says, but then he always ends with, as long as we take steps to banish our ignorance as soon as we notice it’s there. Well, I’m long past that stage now. Perhaps I should be setting myself some kind of time limit, though—something which forces me to figure out what I’m doing here and what I think it’s going to achieve.

  I go to a chair that is positioned at an angle to the bed. It’s in its usual position, so presumably everyone must have stayed standing when they came in earlier. I don’t go near the clipboard. From what I learned on my first visit, the doctors don’t give much away on those pieces of paper. And from what I can make out in front of me, the wires, tubing, and other apparatus that keep Elsa with us here on earth have neither increased nor diminished in number since I last saw them.

  It’s as though nothing has changed at all since I was last here.

  Perhaps that’s why I like it.

  And all at once it seems so obvious that I sigh out loud. Of course, that’s why I come here! Nothing changes in this room. Elsa is always here, passive, immobile. She always breathes with the same rhythm. Things are always left in the same place—well, what few things there are. Only the main chair navigates a few centimeters this way or that, but otherwise it’s like a bubble in which time has stopped.

  It’s a bubble to which I have temporary access. How long will I stay in this bubble? How long will Elsa stay in this bubble?

  I sit down. Great, I’ve just found the answer to one question and replaced it with two others! It looks as though my mind is always going to go around in circles whenever I’m in here.

  I start thinking: It’s Monday, maybe I’ll give myself one more week. I can have until next Monday to consider what to do about these visits—surely that should be enough. It’s not as though I have a hundred and one choices. Either I keep coming, or I stop coming. And as far as Elsa’s concerned, either she stays asleep, or she wakes up. There’s no way I can find a solution to Elsa’s predicament, of course, but I can find a solution to mine. Today, though, I decide on a reprieve. I’ll stop asking myself questions.

  I’ve already taken off my shoes and my jacket, which makes me look like some sort of astronaut. I put away my gloves, my scarf, my papers, the car keys, the keys to my mother’s house and to mine. I have almost the entire contents of my apartment with me, in fact. Not that there’s much there. I didn’t keep anything that I’d shared with Cindy, so that meant getting rid of most of my things, both useless and useful. My mother says that I should make the new place more my own, but she also says a lot of other things that I ignore, so I haven’t done anything about it yet.

  I install myself in the chair. At least I try to, groaning to myself when I realize that I have forgotten to bring a cushion with me to make the rigid plastic a bit more comfortable. I consider my jacket, but it won’t help much as a cushion. I look around as though I might find a solution somewhere else in the room. I can’t see anything. I check the little shower room in case there’s something in there—but there isn’t, not so much as a towel or even a comb or a toothbrush to serve as my cushion. I come back into the bedroom and see my only possibility. And then I realize that I’ve been incredibly rude ever since my entrance.

  “Shit! Uh… sorry, Elsa. Hello. I was in another world—I was thinking. Yes, it does happen from time to time… There’s too much going round and round in my head at the moment to give you a brief summary of my thoughts, so I’ll leave it at that for now. Let’s be honest, though, it’s not as if you’re going to talk it all through with me anyway.”

  I look around once more. I don’t really like the solution I’ve found, but it’s better than nothing, and who will ever know? The only person who could actually be bothered by it probably won’t even realize.

  I go over to the bed and run my hands over the wires. When my fingers hover over the pillow, my muscles stiffen involuntarily. I can’t. First, because an inanimate body is very heavy. Even though Elsa can’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds, she would still be a significant weight to lift. And second, because I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, even though she probably wouldn’t feel a thing. It would be as though I were taking advantage. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that either.

  I stay still for several seconds, and then I take my hands away and put the wires, tubing and other things carefully back in place. Elsa hasn’t moved a muscle; though I’m not sure what I was expecting from her.

  “Do you remember when I said the chair was uncomfortable?” I say, returning to the object in question. “Well, I was thinking about borrowing one of your pillows, but you look pretty well settled there, so it wouldn’t have been very gentlemanly of me. Never mind for now! I’ll just sit it out on this hard chair that’s like a plank of wood, all rigid and unmoving, while you stay comfortable under your nice soft covers. And before you protest, I mean it: You don’t need to worry about me, Elsa. But thanks anyway.”

  After ten minutes, I am more than certain that this chair is an instrument of torture, conceived to keep visitors from staying too long. The doctors and nurses don’t like it when there are too many people in the rooms. With this type of furniture they can rest assured that no one will ever linger. I wriggle around on the plastic, seriously thinking of leaving. I could just go and freeze in the car while I wait for my mother.

  But I don’t want to leave.

  The Book comes open in my head and then takes me to page 13, which says: “There Is Only One Option Available to You.”

  Yes, I know what that is, but it’s not exactly the best idea I’ve had. In fact it’s downright inappropriate, and if anyone came into the room I wouldn’t be able to get away with my “I’m just a friend” line.

  I sigh for the fortieth time since I arrived, and get up again. I feel like a child who is about to own up to doing something naughty. Except in this case, I’m preemptively owning up before it actually happens.

  “So, Elsa. I’m afraid this chair really isn’t working for me after all. Either I can go… or you can make a bit of room for me on there.”

  I’ve already started making my way around the bed to install myself by the window. It looks as though there’s a bit more space on that side, but it’s only an illusion because actually she’s positioned right in the center, so that the mattress fits snugly around the indent made by her body. I move toward that side, so that I’ll have a little protection if anyone comes into the room. With a bit of luck no one will be able to see me at all once I’m lying down. With a lot of luck, no one will even come past.

  I slide my hands underneath Elsa, careful to pick up the blanket as well. I can’t bring myself to put my hands directly on the gown covering her frail body. I try to lift her and move her over a little bit, without disturbing the w
ires or anything else. I fail.

  Letting out my forty-first sigh since coming into the room, I pick up the clipboard at the foot of the bed. She weighed a hundred and twenty pounds when she arrived at the hospital. In her state she could easily have lost ten, if not more. Good grief, I’m not even capable of lifting a hundred pounds. I’m going to have to do some exercise.

  I forget the idea of moving Elsa and content myself with shifting all the wires to the other side. I lie down silently beside her, ramrod straight in the thirty centimeters of mattress available to me, but oddly enough I relax immediately.

  The mattress is strange. It doesn’t feel anything like my bed at home, but I suppose if a person’s got to lie, or halfsit on this thing for weeks on end, there must be a material adapted specifically to suit their requirements.

  Reassured, I position myself again, with my back to Elsa. In spite of her inactivity, her warm body has the effect of a cover.

  Very comfortable, these mattresses…

  I’m asleep in less than ten seconds.

  Chapter 9

  ELSA

  Even if I could move, I don’t think I would want to. I’d stay absolutely still so as not to disturb him, and silent so as not to wake him up. Perhaps I would let myself turn my head a little to watch him sleep, but nothing more.

  I followed all of Thibault’s back-and-forths about what to do before he lay down with a new kind of heightened attention. I never dreamt that he was going to lie down next to me. I’d have thought it might feel a bit morbid to try and go to sleep on the same bed as a person in a coma but, once again, my visitor surprises me. And to think that my mother sometimes hardly dares to touch me. Thibault is practically glued to my side. At least I think he is. I have to assume my bed is not enormous, so there must certainly be parts of us that are in contact with each other.

  Physical contact… the thought makes me want to quiver with delight, or jump up and down like a little girl at the prospect of chocolate ice cream. I haven’t felt the slightest tactile sensation in almost twenty-one weeks. The last thing I felt was the snow covering my body, which was not a wonderful feeling. In fact, I’d give my entire collection of climbing carabiners to feel even a patch of Thibault against me. There must be layers of clothes and covers between us, but some of his heat would transmit through to my skin and that would be enough.

  To tell the truth, right now I could enjoy the idea of feeling contact with anyone at all—the care assistant coming to do my lip balm; my sister putting her hand on mine; Steve, Alex, and Rebecca kissing my forehead. But Thibault is different. He’s my secret. He’s my breath of fresh air. Even though I still don’t have a clue what he looks like.

  Automatically, I ask my brain to turn my head and open my eyes, but then I realize the futility of this command: “Tell my neurons to put my eyes back into operation.” Just like that. It won’t work. They said so this morning.

  I begin to wonder if I am actually capable of experiencing a feeling of hatred for those doctors, perhaps for all doctors and all their trainees, even the one who tried to stick up for me. They’ll convince him to give up on me, too, eventually. In my angry delirium, I see them all trooping across my imagination as evil villains in mint green scrubs with caricature heads. I start to hope that one of them makes a wrong diagnosis and gets the sack for it, but I stop myself.

  No, a wrong diagnosis would mean that someone doesn’t get cured. I can’t wish that on anyone. Especially as that person could be me. It could easily be me…

  It could be me!

  I imagine myself leaping out of the bed, shouting something like “Eureka!,” but instead I internally congratulate myself.

  It could be me, the wrong diagnosis, with all those theories I didn’t understand about the remaining two percent of hope.

  My morale lifts with a single jolt. I feel like a seesaw.

  That could be me. I could wake up and prove them wrong. After all, no one imagined that I’d be able to hear again, but it’s happening already. If I could just open my eyes or give any outward sign of life…

  The question remains, though: How to do it? At the moment all I do is listen and wait. But have I really tried to do anything else?

  Five minutes ago, I chickened out of an attempt to turn my head because I thought I couldn’t do it. I didn’t see the point. They are all so categorical about me and what I’m capable of, but no one has actually experienced being in this coma… I am going to allow myself to doubt their theories. This is liberating.

  But a part of me also has to admit that the doctor made me angry. Even if only to annoy him, I’d like to be able to wake myself up. But today, here, I have a feeling there’s another reason I’d like to wake up. And until now, I’d never really made the conscious effort to do it. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, even though I have absolutely nothing to do but think.

  Of course, the effort implies a general control of muscles, not to mention much more of the brain than is at my disposal at the moment. I don’t control either one or the other, with the exception of the auditory zone, but if that section has agreed to start functioning again, why shouldn’t the others follow? The million-dollar question remains, though: how am I going to teach myself?

  The answer follows, as though it has been waiting for this moment to come forward. I have to think, of course, because at the moment it’s the only thing I am capable of doing. To think that I am about to turn my head. To think that I am about to open my eyes and get my eyesight working. To imagine myself as solid as a rock, a thinking superhero, capable of anything I set my mind to.

  I brace myself for the onslaught.

  Knowing that I have a hidden objective helps considerably. Well, it’s not that hidden anymore. I am dying to look at Thibault. If I manage to turn my head, which would already be quite a feat, and then to open my eyes, an achievement of miraculous proportions, I might at last be able to see what my favorite visitor looks like.

  I should be blushing at these thoughts, but my parents aren’t exactly great company on their visits, and my sister’s only interested in her boyfriends. And Steve, Alex, and Rebecca don’t come that often. There aren’t many contenders for the top spot.

  I spend the entire length of Thibault’s nap commanding myself to turn my head and open my eyes. I alternate between the two because, frankly, the whole operation is rather tiresome, but I have the breathing of my temporary roommate beside me for motivation. Each time he breathes in, I imagine that I turn my head, each time he breathes out, I imagine that I open my eyes and see him. Every version of him that I imagine for myself is slightly different, but there are certain points which always stay the same. I am certain, for example, that he has brown hair, though I have no idea why.

  I continue my mental efforts until I hear a movement on my right. The sound suggests that Thibault is not just stirring in his sleep, but waking up properly. He must have been snoozing for at least an hour while I’ve been trying to turn my head. And while he certainly succeeded at being asleep, I can’t say as much for the success of my own new activity. Maybe the new thinking technique will have a cumulative power, but at the moment I don’t feel the slightest change.

  The grunting and sighing sounds next to me pull me from my reflections. He seems to sit up, then get up, and then he stops moving. I am starting to wonder why he is staying so still when the regular breathing I hear a little way from me stops suddenly.

  “Shit! Your tubes!”

  His exclamation gives me a shock. I wonder what the problem is with my tubes.

  “I must have pushed you while I was asleep and it’s pulled all of these gadgets. Luckily none of them have come out!”

  Hearing him mutter like this is quite amusing, but I don’t remember him moving enough to cause what he has just said has happened. I hear him rearrange my wiring. I often wonder what I must look like amid all these “gadgets,” as he describes them. The first time, I thought I must look something like an insect in the middle of a spider’s web. Then
I decided that I preferred to think of myself as a carabiner in the middle of a rope rescue system. Like the ones they use to pull people out of crevasses. It’s a bit more like me, and it certainly seems more sophisticated. But above all, it carries with it the notion of lifesaving. Whereas in the other case…

  There’s movement around me again when the door to my room opens. Thibault must freeze like a block of ice because I don’t hear anything from his side. The new intruder comes in and Thibault still says nothing.

  “Hello. Are you family?”

  I recognize the voice of Loris, the junior doctor who defended me this morning. Now I know who he is, I wonder what he’s doing here, but Thibault’s answer interests me even more.

  “No, I’m just a friend. And you? I mean… are you her doctor?”

  I interpret the short silence as a head being shaken.

  “I’m just a house officer doing the rounds.”

  “Ah.”

  I’d have given the same response as Thibault. In almost seven weeks, not a single “house officer” has come to do any rounds. I think the session this morning has brought him here.

  “Did you have a question?” he asks.

  “Uh… no, nothing in particular.”

  I hear Thibault move around the bed. He must be trying to collect his things and make a quick exit. When Steve, Alex, and Rebecca surprised him, they managed to put him at ease, but today I have little hope that the junior doctor will be able to do the same because he’s not saying a thing.

  I try to picture the situation for myself. I remember that Thibault is still in his socks and that the covers on the right side of my bed must be messed up. I’d love to be able to laugh or to feel that little shiver of excitement I would surely experience at the prospect of his illicit imprint on the mattress being discovered. Just to feel the adrenaline of the forbidden, or at least the unexpected, would be quite exquisite.