The Rest of Their Lives

by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent

  ‘MALITH. Double-word score, which gives me twenty-two points,’ she crowed. ‘Your turn, mademoiselle.’

  Manelle refrained from pointing out that it had been her turn to go first, if her memory was correct, and she also decided not to mention that MALITH with a double-word score came to twenty, not twenty-two points. As for the meaning of the word itself, she did not even have the pleasure of asking its inventor, because Ghislaine de Montfaucon, a widow and fit as a fiddle for her ninety-two years, hastened to enlighten her. The malith is a very hard stone found on the slopes of volcanoes. Manelle smiled as she turned over her tiles. The letters A and U which would have enabled her to make SPATULA had miraculously been transformed into a G and an H. Using the A from MALITH, she made do with TAGS and drew three tiles from the cotton pouch. Tiles which, once a month, were washed thoroughly and dried one by one to keep them sparkling clean. Hygiene was no laughing matter for Ghislaine de Montfaucon.

  11

  The hospital morgue was in the basement, on level -2. Ambroise stepped inside the spacious lift and pressed the button. Beneath the smell of disinfectant coming off the walls lurked the acrid stench of corpses, which grew increasingly persistent as the lift descended. It was an oily smell that clung to your skin, your clothes and your hair and which, he knew from having experienced it many times, would pervade his sinuses and lodge behind his forehead to haunt him even after he was back in the open air. A smell of abomination. The best definition he’d ever heard of those emanations had been whispered to him by an elderly stretcher bearer: smells you shouldn’t look at.

  ‘Well, well, it’s Monsieur Ambroise in person!’

  Ambroise was always delighted to see Boubacar and Abelardo, the two morgue attendants. One was black and brawny and the other pale and puny. ‘My brother from another mother,’ Boubacar would often joke while his colleague looked on wearily. When asked what they did for a living, they would reply ‘morgue attendant and apnoea specialist’, which profoundly baffled the questioner. The two buddies knew a thing or two about holding their breath because when they opened some of the containers they had to do so for a long time. This basement was their realm, their second home. You didn’t go to the hospital morgue, you went down to Bouba and Abel’s.

  Perpetually clad in their green overalls – not the surgeon’s green, no, a horticultural green, the Senegalese attendant would always point out with the utmost seriousness – they never left their burrow except to go up to the wards to collect the dead, store the bodies in the containers and take them out on request, receive the undertakers, prepare the prayer room and greet the families. For all of them – pathologists, undertakers, embalmers, the deceased’s relatives – Boubacar and Abelardo were the gatekeepers. They were the custodians of the temple and the morgue’s living memory. The two friends knew each one of the occupants of the eighteen drawers in the long-stay room, the one reserved for the forensic institute. Madame Mangin in number nine left yesterday for burial. Monsieur Dompart in number twelve is to be re-examined by the pathologist tomorrow.

  The small room where they spent the greater part of their time was a bright, colourful island. The walls were covered in postcards of turquoise seas, mountain vistas, photos of laughing women and children, weddings and celebrations. Images of life above, far from the world below and its smells you shouldn’t look at. Bunches of flowers everywhere made the place look cheery. Armfuls of carnations, roses and tulips of all colours, and floral arrangements not claimed by the families generally ended up here. This room was their raft, a raft bursting with life in the middle of a lake of stagnant, oily water. Bouba got up from the table and gave Ambroise a bear hug, crushing him to his breast.

  ‘How’s my young white witch doctor? Still rousing the dead?’

  ‘It’s what I do best,’ retorted Ambroise, extricating himself from Bouba’s bear hug to embrace Abel.

  ‘Will you have a bite with us? You’ve got the time, it’s just a cosmetic job and the family won’t be here before three p.m.’

  ‘That’s kind of you but I’ve already had lunch.’

  The two morgue attendants ate all day long. Whatever the hour, the table in the centre of their cubbyhole was always laden with food. Today, home-made puff-pastry parcels sat next to fried cassava. Ambroise wondered how it was possible to savour any food in a place like this. ‘Believe it or not, you can cope with the smells better on a full stomach,’ Bouba had once said to him. Ambroise accepted the glass of wine that Abel was holding out to him, a rioja produced by a Spanish cousin near Penedès. ‘Heard the one about the pathologist being interviewed by a journalist?’ asked Bouba. ‘The hack asks: “Doctor, how many autopsies have you carried out on dead bodies?” and the pathologist answers: “All my autopsies have been carried out on dead bodies”.’ Ambroise smiled. He enjoyed Bouba’s often cynical wisecracks. It was a strange phenomenon, this contrast between the exuberance of the two morgue attendants and the environment in which they worked, as if the fact of being in constant contact with the dead heightened their love of life.

  ‘I put your customer in room three. Here’s the bag of clothes,’ added Bouba, holding out the suit in its protective cover. Don’t look for the shoes, there aren’t any. His dentures are on the trolley.’

  Ambroise walked up the corridor to the treatment room. Already undressed, the deceased, an Asian man of seventy-two, was covered with just a sheet. There were bruises from the drip on his wrist and Ambroise could decipher on his neck the vestiges of a tracheotomy. His body was disturbingly thin. Cancer had the distinctiveness of emptying its host, drying up faces, devouring the fat and then the flesh, leaving to the Grim Reaper nothing but a skeletal body stuffed with medicines. Devoured from the inside by the gruesome beast, thought Ambroise. On the slightly distended abdomen, a pretty green patch was spreading, a sign that bacteria were already present and ready to invade the body. Even if the remains deserved the full treatment, in Ambroise’s view, the family had decided to restrict the intervention to the bare necessities; the funeral was scheduled for the following day. He checked the identity of the deceased then put on his protective clothing to begin the grooming. Ambroise had no difficulty in flexing the body, as rigor mortis had not found many muscles in which to sink its claws. The Master liked to cite the following Czech proverb when he found himself in the presence of a corpse that was all skin and bones: ‘When there’s nothing, there’s nothing even for death to take.’ He cleaned the eyes and nose before draining the orifices. He put the dentures back in, sutured the neck where the tracheotomy had punctured it and placed patches over the eyes. Having sewn up the mouth, Ambroise washed the deceased from head to toe with a disinfectant solution. With his fingertips he rubbed moisturizing cream inside the lips. The man weighed less than forty kilos, so dressing him took no more than a few minutes. His dark skin required no particular make-up. A light comb-through was enough to plaster his wispy hair to the top of his head. He slipped the cushion under the dead man’s neck to raise his head. Dressed in a fine anthracite-grey suit, with a tie, the skeletal corpse that had confronted him on his arrival had regained a semblance of humanity in less than half an hour. He pulled the sheet up to the chest. Not knowing the deceased’s religion, Ambroise merely placed his hands on top of the fabric, without joining them. Satisfied, he put away his things and dropped in to say goodbye to the masters of the house and tell them that they could take the body up to the presentation room. He found Bouba alone, eating a slice of tart and reading the latest Canard enchaîné.

  ‘I’m done. Say goodbye to Abel for me.’

  ‘Come back whenever you like, you’re at home here, young white witch doctor! And don’t ever forget this: only dead fish swim with the current!’

  Boubacar’s hearty laugh echoed as in a cathedral, following Ambroise into the lift.

  12

  On 18 September, Ambroise had an appointment to visit Isabelle de Morbieux, as he’d done every year for the past four years. The retirement home, Le Clos de la Ros
elière, stood among the wooded hills to the north of the town. After driving several kilometres along a winding road, he turned his van onto the tree-lined avenue that led to the residence. The opulent building came into view bathed in the afternoon sunshine and surrounded by carefully manicured lawns. White marble benches were dotted around in the shade of majestic oaks. The expression ‘retirement home’ was never uttered in this place. It must have been among the words that were banned because they might remind the residents that they were elderly people who had reached the end of their lives. In this type of place, a pressure-relief mattress was called a ‘comfort accessory’. Disguise the fact that this was a place to die beneath the veneer of elegance and the gilding of a luxury residence – that was the stated aim of La Roselière. Everything here gave the illusion of a peaceful future in a delightful environment, surrounded by staff who were both biddable and competent, the only sounds being the twittering of the many birds nesting in the copses in the grounds. A magnificent optical illusion, thought Ambroise as he entered the lobby. He believed he could read the same weary resignation on most of the faces of the residents he passed. Despite the size of their wallets, and the effort and resources deployed to delay the moment, there was no doubt that decay eventually set in here as elsewhere. In the coolness of clean sheets and beneath the high ceilings, amid the bustle of the cleaners and the nurses, the gentle hum of the air conditioning in summer and the warmth exuded by the radiators in winter, people ended up caving inwards, their senses dissolving in the softness of the carpets.

  He ignored the lift and bounded up the wide staircase with a light step. The rooms on the second floor all had the names of flowers. Iris, Gladiola, Pansy, Daffodil, Edelweiss, Hibiscus. Ambroise always wondered, not without a smile, if there were any rooms called Thistle, Dandelion or Nettle. Orchid was right at the end of the vast corridor. He rapped twice. A clear voice invited him in. Apart from a handful of centenarians, the colony consisted mostly of nonagenarians, among them Isabelle de Morbieux. Ambroise recalled the first time he had set foot in this place, four years earlier. ‘No need for any equipment,’ Roland Bourdin had said, ‘living client. An Elysium Plus,’ he’d added, with a note of respect. ‘She asked to see you, don’t let her down. Contracts like this, you know, don’t grow on trees.’ The Elysium Plus, the only formula for which Roland Bourdin deigned to use the definite article and a plethora of adjectives. This Rolls-Royce of contracts was ideal for clients like Isabelle de Morbieux who wanted to arrange everything while they were alive so as not to leave the task of organizing the final journey to others. A top-end, turnkey post-mortem formula, with funeral services reflecting the exorbitant price. Noble wood coffin, fine silk padding, music and plentiful Gregorian chants playing while the body is displayed in the chapel of rest, designing the announcement and printing three hundred cards on 200 gsm satin paper, provision of a giant wreath of fresh flowers, fine gold engraving on the plaque, supply of two finely engraved ciboria with candles, the release of doves on leaving the cemetery, a condolence book with vellum pages and lambskin cover and – the icing on the cake – complete preservation of the body carried out by an experienced professional. That was why Isabelle de Morbieux had asked to meet the embalmer who would perform the procedure. Ambroise had encountered a sharp mind in a tired body. At over ninety, the elderly lady had lost her aristocratic bearing and could only walk with a Zimmer frame, and she even used a wheelchair to go into the grounds, but her face still had an extraordinary youthfulness and the film that time annoyingly places over the eyes of the elderly had not yet marred the brightness of her gaze. But the most surprising thing was her voice, a strangely clear voice which it was hard to believe could come from such a frail body. She had not concealed her surprise at finding out how young Ambroise was, confessing that she had been expecting to meet one of those old professors in corduroy trousers rather than a youth who looked like a barely pubescent medical student and not the experienced professional mentioned in the contract. He had reassured her as to his skills, telling her that if Bourdin & Sons had entrusted him and no one else with this assignment, it was chiefly because of his recognized expertise. He neglected to mention that it was also, and above all, because he was the only person available when the funeral directors had called. Even so, Isabelle de Morbieux had been dubious as to his ability to take care of her body properly when the time came. She had bombarded him with questions clearly intended to put his professional know-how to the test. Somewhat infuriated, Ambroise had ended up spouting the famous expression that the Master was in the habit of declaiming from his podium to his students: ‘No client has ever complained about me during their lifetime.’ Contrary to all expectations, the old woman had burst out laughing. From that moment, the ice had been broken and the conversation had continued in the most amicable way. Isabelle de Morbieux expected him to proceed like an artist with his model. ‘I want you to get to know my wrinkles while I’m alive,’ she’d told him. ‘I want you to immerse yourself in me now, all the better to reconstitute me when the day comes.’ She had shown him the cosmetics she used, the way she did her hair. Then she’d told him about her young days, her life as a woman before the autumn had come and withered her flesh and her senses. Her husband departed too soon, her daughter who came every Sunday and took her for lunch in town, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, whose colourful drawings covered an entire wall of her room. An hour and a half later – the time for a treatment, Ambroise had thought – she bade him goodbye, not without making him promise to come back the following year, same day, same time, for which he would be paid. The old lady was making an appointment with her embalmer as she would with her cardiologist, her ophthalmologist, her pedicurist or her dentist. ‘For a check-up,’ she’d added mischievously.

  So every year on Isabelle de Morbieux’s birthday, Ambroise walked into Orchid room on the dot of three. She would be waiting for him curled up in her armchair, with a bulky Bible sitting on her scrawny thighs. ‘I have never come across a better novel than this one,’ she explained, closing the book. ‘Action, suspense, intrigue, the fantastic, baddies, goodies, it’s all there,’ she said admiringly. Ambroise smiled. This woman was like those very old plum trees which, despite their cracked trunks and dry, crumbly bark, are reborn every spring to produce the best fruits come summer. She inquired after his health. He asked her in return how the past twelve months had been for her. ‘Like a long winter by the fireside,’ she replied. Neither mentioned the main reason for his visit. The old woman merely showed Ambroise a new wrinkle that had appeared, the latest liver spot on the right side of her forehead, discussed with him the way to use a little more foundation there to conceal the indelible mark. Often, Ambroise simply listened, letting her talk about herself. ‘I’m bored,’ she confessed. ‘Boredom can be painful, you know. It sets in surreptitiously then haunts your days and your nights like a dull ache that you can never shake off. It stabs you sometimes, making you cry, then ebbs, it goes, it comes, but in the end, you have to live with it because boredom, when you’re ninety-four, isn’t the same as when you’re twenty. There’s room for it to take root and weave in and out of your memories and your regrets, to fill the voids. It is a drowning that only ends with your last breath. But knowing that I will be in good and beautiful hands when the time comes, I am much less afraid of death, you know. Come, that’s enough about me. Let’s drink instead to your youth and your future, young man,’ concluded the old woman, jerking her chin in the direction of the mini fridge that gave out a constant hum in a corner of the room. Each year they shared the same ritual with a bottle of Clairette de Die and a plate of macaroons. They clinked glasses, flute against flute, and crunched the biscuits in silence. Life outside entered the room through the half-open window in a joyful chirruping. When it was time for him to leave, Isabelle De Morbieux held Ambroise’s hand between her bony fingers a little longer than usual.

  ‘I am happy to know that it will be you, Ambroise.’

  ‘Me what?’ he a
nswered, perplexed.

  ‘The last man to see me naked and to take care of my body.’

  There was nothing salacious in these words. They were just the expression of her sincere relief. For the first time, he detected a change in the old woman’s voice. It was the somewhat subdued voice of a person making ready to depart.

  13

  ‘Wakey, wakey, lovebirds,’ shouted Manelle cheerfully as she always did when she went into the Fourniers’ bedroom and drew back the heavy curtains to let in a ray of light. Because when it came to being in love, Hélène and Aimé Fournier were as besotted as during the early days of their marriage. And although they had slept in separate beds for more than a year, they still insisted on being in the same room, side by side. A hospital bed with a hoist for her, a single bed for him. Manelle waited until the elderly woman had finished raising herself up with the help of the trapeze bar and then pivoted her slowly into a sitting position.