The Rain Watcher

by Tatiana de Rosnay

  The Seine worries him, but not half as much as waiting to hear about his father. No news from the hospital. Dr. Yvon would have called had there been anything serious. Or so Linden imagines. He has another subject to fret about: canceling all their departures for this afternoon and finding out if the hotel can put them up awhile longer. He showers, gets dressed as fast as he can. Down at the front desk, not a sign of Agathe, but instead, a casual young man who doesn’t seem to understand that Linden must speak to the hotel director, Madame Fanrouk, as soon as possible. He is told Madame Fanrouk doesn’t come in on Sundays. Masking his irritation as best as he can, Linden asks if they can keep their rooms for a couple more days. No problem for his parents’ room, but, unfortunately, only his sister’s room is available tonight and tomorrow. Linden puts a reservation on both rooms. He’ll have to sleep in Tilia’s room, and he wonders how she will react to that.

  He knocks on his mother’s door, gently, and then a little louder, as there is no answer. Tilia opens up, her face and hair a mess. Linden can tell she has hardly slept. She asks if he has any news from the hospital. He shakes his head.

  “Mom has a really high fever,” she whispers, her voice low. “And her dry cough is terrible!”

  When he sees his mother’s face, Linden can tell this is not a simple cold. She is flushed, her eyes sunken. They need to call a doctor, right now. Tilia agrees, and gets on the phone to reception. She is told a doctor will come within the hour. Tilia makes some kind of joke about their family get-together turning into a nightmare. Linden grins halfheartedly. Then he suggests to his sister that she go take a shower and rest for a bit. She seems exhausted; she needs a break. He’ll look after their mother now and he’ll let Tilia know what the doctor says when he gets here. His sister leaves the room, thankful and weary.

  Linden sits on a small sofa. His mother has her eyes closed, but she coughs from time to time, and winces when she does so. He asks her gently if she wants any water and she shakes her head. She smiles weakly at him. He smiles back. He looks around at the room. He would do anything, anything, to get his father back here. Every time he thinks of the hospital, his stomach churns. He is not going to say anything to his mother. He will keep his worries to himself. On the bedside table, he notices his father’s reading glasses and a book. The Man Who Planted Trees, by Jean Giono. He is intrigued. To his knowledge, his father hardly ever reads books. It is a slim copy, only forty pages long, published by Gallimard, the famous French publisher. On the flyleaf, he discovers unfamiliar handwriting: To Paul Malegarde, the modern-day Elzéard Bouffier, with my highest admiration.

  Linden can’t make out the name scrawled at the bottom of the page. The book was probably a gift from one of his father’s numerous devotees, those who followed his tree-saving exploits closely. As he leafs through the text, he gathers Elzéard Bouffier is the hero of the story, a quiet shepherd from Provence who single-handedly planted an entire forest over a time span of forty years, replenishing the dried-out ecosystem of a deserted valley. His father is similarly considered a hero by many, by those for whom trees mean just as much, if not more, than human beings. He had seen cliques gather at Vénozan just to listen to Paul. He used to make fun of them behind their backs with Tilia, mocking their fervor and veneration, but deep inside, he was awed by the influence his father seemed to have over them. Nature specialists and scientists came from far and wide to see Mr. Treeman, and Linden soon grew used to seeing cars parked in the drive when he got home from school, and his mother’s mentioning his father was busy again. It was always odd to see his father, customarily so uncommunicative, speaking unbrokenly in front of strangers who drank in every word as if he were God. Sometimes Linden would go and sit with his snack just to listen to his father, hiding behind a bush, a chair, or a tree, unnoticed. The journalists always wanted to know how his passion for trees began; they asked that question over and over again, and Paul was never impatient with them. He explained, amiably, that his parents had not given a second thought to nature. Neither of them spent time in the garden. For him, it was another story. At a very young age, he learned to watch trees, how they grew, how different they were, what they needed, what they feared. It was here, at Vénozan, in the arboretum planted long before his day, that he slowly became accustomed to the world of nature. His father had allowed him to cultivate a little patch of garden all to himself. He was interested in watching plants grow, although he was too small to have an idea yet of the names of plants and flowers he loved. He spent hours there by himself with his spade and his rake, planting and weeding. He learned that anything to do with a garden, anything to do with trees, was slow. Nothing happened overnight, except the devastation left by a violent storm. Later, as a young man, when he had lovingly and painstakingly reshaped the garden at Vénozan, which his father had let grow into a tangled mess, he by then knew he was going to spend the rest of his life tending to trees, not as a landscape gardener, which was his first job, but as an arborist. Paul always told journalists and followers about the first tree he saved, when he was barely fifteen. Linden knew the story well, but he enjoyed hearing it. Paul was working on a shrubbery in the fortified village of Le Poët-Laval, near Dieulefit. A wealthy businessman from Paris had bought an ancient mansion with a walled garden. He was having the entire property redone, perhaps not in the best taste, and had convinced the mayor to ax a three-hundred-year-old plane tree on the fringe of his premises because it threw too much shade on his swimming pool. At least fifteen meters high, the tree was a beauty, with its thick, leathery leaves and its olive-gray bark flaking away in patches, divulging the smooth milky surface beneath. Paul was outraged when he heard of Monsieur Morel’s intention. No one seemed to be shocked by what was going on. No one seemed to care. The mayor had other, more important things to do than to worry about an old tree. No one listened to the young boy, who became angrier and angrier. One spring evening, after the sun had gone down, Paul knocked on each door of the small village, introduced himself, and explained the situation. He told them that the villagers could not sit back and watch the tree be destroyed. The tree was just as much a part of the village as they were. It was certainly one of the oldest trees in the area. It had to be saved. It had to be protected. Too bad for Monsieur Morel’s swimming pool. Little by little, the inhabitants listened to Paul. He was young, he was convincing, and he was one of them. He spoke their language, he had their accent, he was from neighboring Sévral. Not like the contemptuous Parisian who hardly glanced at them when he arrived in town. A petition began to go around, more and more people signed it. Paul sped to each local village on his bicycle, the petition in his pocket. It was creased, stained by rain, coffee, and rosé, but over four hundred villagers ended up signing it. Even so, the mayor turned up his nose at it. Evidently, he was on Monsieur Morel’s side, fawning in an obsequiousness that Paul found repellent. There was only one thing left to do, Paul told the journalists, who were drinking up his every word. Chain himself to the tree. Two other citizens accompanied him on this defiant mission; toothless Violette Sediron, all of eighty-eight, and Roger Durand, his age, also a nature lover. It caused quite a stir. The lumbermen had arrived with their chain saws and lorries, to find three human beings tied to the tree. When the police were called to the scene, more villagers joined Paul, Violette, and Roger. Soon, a hundred people were fiercely guarding the tree. The local newspaper came and took pictures. Other villagers brought food and drink to the protesters. Everyone chanted: Save our tree! Save our tree! It was a magical, wondrous moment, Paul recalled, his face lighting up, and it was even more so when Monsieur Morel agreed to have the tree’s branches trimmed, and never to cut it down.

  On the bedside table, Lauren’s phone makes a buzzing sound, startling Linden. She makes no motion toward it. After a while, it vibrates again. Linden reaches out to grab it. Perhaps it is concerning Paul. The name flashing on the screen is vaguely familiar: JeffVDH. Then he remembers. Jeffrey van der Haagen. His mother’s fiancé from before Paul. Jeff
came to Vénozan one summer, years ago, with his wife and daughters. Blithe smile, well groomed, neatly parted hair. Boring, but nice. While Linden is pondering whether to take the call or not, there is a knock. The doctor. He puts down the phone and gets up to open the door.

  The doctor examines his mother and flatly announces Lauren has a bad case of the flu. It could last up to a week. There is nothing to do except take medicine to keep the fever down, and rest. When the doctor leaves, Linden calls Tilia to inform her. One of them will have to go out to buy the medicine for Lauren. Tilia says she will be right over; she is just out of the shower. Meanwhile, Linden uses his phone to cancel their train and plane tickets for later on today. This takes a moment. When he’s done, he wonders whether he should call Marie, his aunt. His father is not close to his only sister. He decides to wait until he hears what Dr. Yvon has to say. He checks his watch, waiting to be able to return to the hospital. Part of him wants to go there right now, but he knows he won’t be able to see Paul; he needs to remain patient. He leaves Lauren in Tilia’s care. She’ll deal with getting the prescription. Back in his room, he sends an email to Rachel Yellan, explaining the situation as briefly as possible. He remembers he has an important job lined up for this Tuesday, the portrait of a political figure, a senator, who has at last agreed to be photographed at home with her family in Massachusetts. It will have to be put on hold, or Rachel will need to appoint another photographer. Linden doesn’t care, not one bit. How strange. His job used to mean everything to him; it used to take first place each time. Not anymore.

  He must get out of the hotel. There is no way he can sit in front of the television, watching the Seine rise hourly on the screen while he waits to be able to go to the hospital. He grabs his coat and leaves. The cold stings his skin as soon as he steps out. The snow has turned into slush; the rain is back to falling steadily, as if it will never stop. No umbrella, no hat. His hair is soon wet. He walks up boulevard Edgar-Quinet, then along boulevard Raspail to Denfert-Rochereau, noticing that the area around the huge statue of the sitting lion seems strangely empty, and then reminds himself this is Sunday morning. He chooses the café on the corner of rue Daguerre and sits down, ordering hot chocolate. The place is not too full, and he appreciates the quiet. He asks the waiter for the Wi-Fi code and plugs his phone into the electrical socket in the wall. He Googles stroke and then wishes he hadn’t. The more he reads, the more his anxiety increases. How will his father ever recover? Many people, he reads, suffer from the physical and psychological aftereffects of a stroke, and have permanent disabilities. He can’t bear thinking about it. What state will his father be in later on today? He realizes he is afraid of walking into the hospital room. He will be alone, without his sister and mother for support. Without Sacha. He will have to face it alone. He will have to hide his fear from his father. This is what parents do, don’t they? They protect their children; they never let their children realize they are afraid. Now he will have to do this for his father. Linden remembers his father hacking a viper to death with a spade on the terrace at Vénozan, just as it was about to slide into the house. Paul seemed calm and in control, but Linden could see his hands were shaking. Later, he learned his father hated snakes and feared them. But he never showed it. He must act like that today, by his father’s bedside. Calm and in control.

  He peruses the news on Twitter. The twelfth arrondissement seems to be the most flooded area so far. This is where the Seine enters the city from the east. Electrical power is failing in some streets near Bercy. More Métro stations near the river are being closed, with cement walls erected around them. The Jardin des Plantes, the botanical garden and museum that host the only Parisian zoo, is being evacuated. The government will no doubt launch “Plan Neptune” on Monday, set up in cases of utmost emergency. Linden discovers Paris is making headlines all around the world. Will the Seine rise higher? The question is on everyone’s lips.

  But there is only one subject that matters to Linden right now. His father. His father, and nothing else.

  When he arrives at the Pompidou hospital in the beginning of the afternoon, he asks for Dr. Yvon at the medical staff office at the intensive care unit. A busy-looking nurse tells him Dr. Yvon will not be back until Tuesday morning. He feels let down, disoriented. Obviously, doctors need time off, but he had been certain she would be here when he returned. He asks the nurse if he can see his father, Paul Malegarde, and she shrugs. Yes, of course, he is in room 24. She seems so careless, so uninterested that he takes it as a hopeful sign, a sign that his father has recovered, that he is fine, that they will be able to walk out of this place sooner that he thought.

  He treads down the linoleum-lined passageway, not wanting to look into the contiguous rooms, where patients lie in bed. More nurses and doctors brush by. Linden is not familiar with hospitals. He has never been ill, has never broken a limb. The last time he ever went to a clinic was to see his sister after her accident, in 2004. At that time, he was working as an assistant to a fashion photographer. The crash occurred in the beginning of August, and Linden remembers the scorching heat of the hospital at Bayonne, his parents’ anguish, and the shock of Tilia’s bandaged body, her black-and-blue swollen face.

  The door to room 24 is shut. Linden opens it gently. The first thing he sees is an unknown woman in her late thirties, and behind her shoulder, a dark and hairy stranger with a plump leg held up by a contraption. There is a sour stench in the room, that of flatulence and perspiration.

  “Sorry,” Linden mutters. “I guess I got the wrong room.”

  “No, you didn’t,” the woman replies, moving away so he can see a curtain drawn against the bed. She gestures toward the back of the room. Linden walks in, not understanding, then realizes there is another bed behind the curtain. His father is stretched flat out on the mattress, with tubes in his forearm and in his nose. His eyes are shut. His face is distorted by an unbearable, ludicrous expression, almost as if he were winking or smirking at a lewd joke. Behind him, machines monitor his heartbeat with mechanical beeps. Paul seems oddly puny, as if his muscles have wasted away. Where is the strong, sturdy figure Linden is used to? Linden feels out of breath, dazed. He doesn’t know what to say to his father; he doesn’t know what his father can understand or hear. He comes closer, warily, puts his hand on his father’s shin. Paul’s eyes remain closed.

  “Papa, it’s me,” Linden says in French. “I’m here.”

  He sits down on the chair by the bed. Is his father in a coma? The doctor had not mentioned that. The patient on the other side of the curtain begins to moan. His whimper goes on and on. Linden wishes he would stop. The woman murmurs something under her breath, and the man quiets down at last. The foul reek fills up the place.

  Linden leans closer to his father’s ear. He whispers that Lauren has the flu and Tilia is looking after her. But what he really wants to know is how his father feels. Paul makes no sound. His eyelids twitch. Does this mean Paul is never going to speak again? Linden asks Paul gently if he can hear him, if he can open his eyes. Still there is no response. Meanwhile, the hairy man starts to whine again like a panicky child.

  The door clicks open, a doctor and a nurse step in. They attend to the other patient first. Linden can’t help overhearing. The fat, hairy man’s name is Pascal Beaumont. He had a stroke a couple of days ago. The doctor tries to explain to Madame Beaumont that her husband is going to be operated on, but he can’t get a word in edgewise. Madame Beaumont, bordering on hysteria, badgers him with incessant questions: When is her husband going to sound like himself again? Why hasn’t he been operated on yet? Why can’t her husband have a single room? She has a strident, annoying voice that pierces eardrums. If only she would shut up. When the doctor finally turns his attention to Paul, Linden can tell the man has little patience left. He also longs to bombard the doctor with queries, but he holds back. The doctor is his age, more or less, with long, thin, expressive features and sharp coffee-colored eyes. Linden cannot help, even in crisis situations
like this one, considering a person or a place with a photographic appreciation. Dr. Frédéric Brunel would be a very interesting model to shoot, with his languid eyelids, ivorylike pallor, and the cluster of fine lines around his droopy mouth.

  “Malegarde…” the doctor says. “You’re the photographer?”

  Linden nods. This happens from time to time. But he wasn’t expecting it, here or now. It seems out of place, inappropriate. Dr. Brunel examines Paul’s chart at the foot of the bed, asks the nurse to check his blood pressure and temperature. Madame Beaumont’s face peeps around the curtain, taking it all in. The doctor goes on to say how much he enjoys Linden’s work. Linden’s discomfort increases. He doesn’t want to hear about what the doctor thinks of his work; he couldn’t care less. He wants to know how Paul is, if he is going to survive, if there will be outcomes concerning his future. At last, Dr. Brunel stops talking. He bends down, slides Paul’s eyelid open. He shines a little light into Paul’s eye. Paul blinks. The doctor seems satisfied. He scribbles a few things down on the chart. Then he turns to Linden. Paul needs to be monitored closely. He will have to stay in this ward for another week. It’s too early yet to know exactly how his brain had been affected, but his situation is stable, not worse. And that’s positive, apparently. They don’t know if they will need to operate just yet. That will become clear within the next week or so. Linden wants to know what his father sees, what he hears, what he understands. Is he in a coma? He is aware his tone is urgent, demanding, and he prays he doesn’t sound like the interventionist Madame Beaumont, but he must know. He must know, now. The doctor moves toward the window, away from the prying ears of Madame Beaumont. He looks out on the wet roofs, the sullen gray sky. He doesn’t seem irritated by Linden’s questions. On the contrary, it appears he wishes to take time to answer them. Again, Linden notices how remarkable the man’s profile is, the nose with its prominent bridge, the fine protruding chin. His father is in a poststroke no-man’s-land, a most uncomfortable place to be, Dr. Brunel explains. He can’t talk, he can’t move, but he can definitely see and hear. It is not a coma. He is like a dependent baby who can’t do anything by himself anymore. He will have to learn all over again. The best thing Linden can do is to talk to him, slowly, and, above all, to be patient.