by Susan Conley
“Au revoir,” Picard says to us by the door. “Au revoir, mes amis.” Good-bye, my friends.
The carpet in the lobby of the old wing of the hospital is green and hard like turf, and Luke trips on the way out and falls. Then he cries. “I just like it here,” he says when I kneel and try to pick him up. “I just want to stay alive a little longer.”
“Of course. Of course you do.” I pull him to standing. “Of course you want to stay.” And I don’t cry even though I want to stand there and sob with him. Or scream. I’d like to scream in this old, forgotten part of the hospital where they’ve stashed us and see what would happen. It’s so quiet. I want to scream and see if someone would notice us.
On the drive home there’s the slow letdown. Like I’ve been up too late on a boozy night and now there’s the incipient hangover. Fighting this disease is starting to feel like an accumulation of trips to the doctor where nothing much happens. There’s so much buildup. Yes, we got the AZT started, but what does that mean really? Everything is so much starker outside the hospital safe zone.
I space out and ram into a green Citroën at the intersection of Boulevard Haussmann and a street called Boulevard Malesherbes. I think I crack the other car’s back fender and I scream. Luke puts his hands over his face, while an angry French woman in a tight black skirt suit raps on our car window. “Do I have to talk to her? Don’t make me. You do it,” I say.
“You have to open your door.” Luke talks with his eyes closed. “Please make her go away.”
I climb out and follow the woman to her car, which is double-parked in front of ours, hazards blinking, and I pretend to examine her fender. I nod and say in French, “Yes. I am so sorry. I’ll pay for everything.” I just want this over with. I’m tired. I’ve been driving impaired. The woman and I stand on the side of busy Boulevard Haussmann while cars fly by, and wait for the police. After twenty minutes I climb back into the car. Luke’s fallen asleep. When will the immigration officers find Gita? When will they come looking for me again? I want to get my brother home. The police finally come, and after they’ve taken my information and driven away, I climb back in and put my head on the steering wheel. Luke places his hand on the back of my leather jacket and tries to pat my back. His seat’s almost fully reclined to take the pressure off his sitting bones.
“Is it impossible for you to drive?” I can’t believe I ask him this.
“I have to pee is the thing,” he says, his voice rising. He’s wrapped the black scarf twice around his neck, even though it’s mid-June, and this heightens his gauntness. “So drive on, mon amie! To the nearest leafy patch by the side of the road! Drive on!”
“You always have to pee!” I scream. I’m so grateful that he hasn’t fallen apart. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”
“I know. I know. I may have a condition.”
I pull out into the traffic, and we crawl home. I get Luke into the apartment and give him some orange juice from the supply I keep in his fridge. Then I call Gaird at the movie studio. “He fell,” I say when Gaird answers. “Luke fell down.”
“I will come home. I’m leaving now.”
I run water in the tub in Luke’s bathroom and climb in and wait for a headache that’s coming. This feels new—like we’ve entered a different phase. Luke fell in the hospital. He never falls. I want to call Macon and tell him about the AZT. I want to say how sorry I am, and could he please come home now. I blew it and Gita’s gone and everything’s not what I thought it would be. Macon will say he isn’t sure which is worse: that I knew what I was doing or that I was foolish enough not to think about what I was doing.
I can’t call him. He wouldn’t talk to me, anyway. And Delphine wouldn’t let me through. I lie in the tub and look down at my breasts and my stomach and the V of lighter hair between my legs. My disconnect to my own body seems immense. My boyishness has given way to rounded hips. I think of Sara’s pregnant belly. Tumescent. The word sounds like the roundness it describes. I can’t imagine a pregnancy. Can’t get my mind to hold the idea of it. And yet I want it too. The thickening. The life growing inside. I can hear jangling keys. Then the apartment door opens. Gaird yells, “Hallo?”
I sit up in the tub and pry at the rubber plug with my big toe. Thank God he’s come home. And that there’s someone else here with us. Thank God for Gaird and his world order.
THE POLICE ARE outside my apartment when I get back—same two from the center but not in uniform. They wear brown sports coats and flash badges at me. “We will need to search your rooms,” the bald one says in French. Somehow this destabilizes my knees and I can’t walk naturally. I’m not afraid of jail. I’ll get out eventually. But I don’t want to implicate Sophie or the asylum center. We climb up the stairs and into the apartment and my legs feel gelatinous. They pull open the silverware drawer and reach around in the cupboards. They take down the dried cherries. The salted almonds. The flour. Olive oil. Dark baking chocolate. Vanilla.
I boil water and make a cup of lemon tea and pretend I’m calm and that this is customary. But really, what the hell are they doing here? It seems sort of ridiculous. She’s one girl. Who may or may not have been aided and abetted. They have time to send two men to my apartment? The kitchen feels so much smaller with all of us in it. Cramped. It’s a room Macon and I have made meals in. Kissed in. It’s the room I may have known him best. Where is he? Where is he? I know where he is. He can’t be anywhere else but the house in Chantilly. “Would you like tea?” I ask. “Or coffee? I could make coffee very quickly.”
They both decline with a wave of their hands and move on to my bedroom. I stand in the doorway and watch them pull out my top drawer and dump everything in it onto the bed—slips and bras and lace underwear and T-shirts. It was a one-time thing, I want to tell them. I broke the law by helping a girl. I won’t do it again. Please. Could you just go now. What they don’t know is that I’ve taken all the girls’ writings from the class on Rue de Metz and stashed them at Luke’s, and Gita’s letters are safe with Sara. There isn’t anything left in my apartment that ties me to the girls.
But is Gita getting food? Does she have a place to sleep? I can’t get her face out of my mind. I can see her sharp jawline and the soft shape of her mouth. I can make out a blurry smile but not her eyes. I can’t see her eyes and they would tell me so much about her if I could. Maybe they’ll put me in the city jail. That would be fair. City jail. I’ve probably compromised the center’s funding. Probably made it so much harder for any girl to ever get out of there. An hour creeps by. The police rake through the bathroom drawers. Scan the piles of books in the living room. Then, without a word, they walk to the door and say, “Merci” and leave.
I never thought they would take it this far. I sit down on the floor in my bedroom and close my eyes. I think Gita’s gotten away. Far away. I’m not crying. There’s relief mixing in with my guilt. They’ve got nothing to go on. Gita’s going to be okay. I haven’t tried to pray in maybe twenty years, but I can see the face of Krishna on Gita’s medallion. I sort of invoke him in my bedroom. It’s not a real conversation—not the kind Moona or Gita would have with him. It’s a self-conscious thing that I do in Gita’s honor. But I say his name out loud, and it feels good. I say, Thank you for letting her walk away, and I don’t say anything else after that.
It gets dark outside. All the windows are open in the apartment, so I can hear the rain on the street and the pattering on the roofs of cars. I pour a glass of wine in the kitchen and call Luke. “How do you feel? Are you throwing up? Are you nauseous?”
“It’s all good. Gaird’s here and he made chicken soup and I’m really tired but okay.”
“That’s fantastic. You’re tolerating it. Hooray.” I’m smiling at the phone. “I’m not going to French jail, by the way.”
“Were you ever really?”
“The police were here. They actually took the time to come to my apartment.”
“Don’t they have better things to do?”
&nb
sp; “They looked through my stuff, and I mean closely through my bras and my deodorant, and they didn’t find anything. I think Gita’s going to make it now. I think they’re done with her.”
“You have to hope that she’s street-smart. She needs to choose the right people. It’s all about the right people.”
“I know.” I don’t say again how guilty I feel. I’ve set her up to be preyed upon, and why didn’t I see all the dangers before I let her go?
“I have to go to bed now.”
“Good night, Luke. Hanging up now.”
“Hanging up.”
25
Vaccine: any preparation used to confer immunity against a specific disease
Classes end at the academy. Another week passes. Then it’s July. The delicious month. The heat is on full. I meet Sara at our spot below the Pont Neuf. She likes to walk in the early morning now, before the city gets too hot. The linden trees create a canopy of leaves, so we can walk in and out of their shade by the river. There’s no breeze. The water is still and silky. “Luke’s so much better,” I say. “Your drug is working now. He isn’t in pain. He’s going to work every day, and he’s eating. His numbers are way up.”
“Picard is very pleased,” Sara says. “I talked to him yesterday. There are patients like Luke who get second lives.” She’s like a small truck—front-heavy and moving slowly. So she’s waddling really, and completely beautiful. The baby’s due in two weeks. “Thank God Luke is one of them. Not all of them see their T cell count climb back into normal like his has. I’m calling this his summer reprieve.”
“It’s a miracle drug, Sara. It’s unbelievable. He’s gained weight. He’s actually put pounds on.”
“But AZT isn’t a cure, remember. It just slows cell replication down.”
“We’re biding our time until the vaccine.”
“The vaccine isn’t anything to count on either, Willie. The vaccine is still far off. We’ve got to keep looking for other ideas. Other treatments.”
“They’ve got to be close. Aren’t doctors working around the clock in labs all over the world?”
“They’re making progress. Dr. Picard will be one of the first to know. When is your ticket for Delhi?”
“In two weeks. Crazy, huh? I can’t go. How can I go to India right now?”
“Go to India and do the book research.”
“I can’t leave Luke.”
“He’s got Gaird. He’s got me. He’s got Picard. He’s healthier than you or I am, for God’s sake, right now. His T cells are up around eight hundred. Willie, if you don’t go, I will be so pissed off at you. You need to go for your book and your career and your sanity. For all of our sanities. You need to get out of Paris. Please. Please do this for me. You can’t just hang around waiting for Macon to call you.”
“If I go, I’ll never see Macon again. What if he finally calls, and I’m out of the country? Then everything we had will be over.”
“It will just be on pause. That’s how I’m thinking of it—as a pause.”
“A very long pause. I’m trying to give him up.”
“Well, you can’t do that until you talk to him. You’ve got to call him.”
“He won’t listen.”
“How do you know unless you make the phone call and get him on the line and say your piece? Say what’s in your heart? Maybe he’s got pride. Maybe he’s just waiting for you.”
“Maybe he’s beyond forgiveness.”
“Go to India then and lose yourself in that.”
“Will you be Luke’s person if I go? Will you call him and call Gaird and visit?”
“Of course I will.”
We walk for an hour. There are dark mallards on the river with black-oiled heads. Mallards in Paris? Theirs must be a long migration. I put Sara in a cab back up on the bridge and kiss her cheeks through the open window, both sides twice. “I love you.” I’m so glad I remembered to actually say it. Maybe that’s all there is in the end—the speaking of the love.
Her pregnancy and how big she is make her even more lovable. Vulnerable. Wise and powerful all at once. It raises things up—makes me want to hug her and tell her what an amazing mother she’ll be. I tap the top of the cab as it pulls away. Then I start walking home.
What’s Sophie doing at the center right now? Even if she never forgives me—even if I never see her again, I miss her. I cross over the bridge to the Right Bank and walk until I get to the shops around Les Halles and the enormous metro station. Then I take Boulevard de Sébastopol for another half hour to Rue de Metz. I stand across the street from the asylum center, inside the Syrian sandwich shop. There are two metal spits that spin meat by the door. I hope Esther’s getting ready for her hearing. It would be great if she could practice speaking really loudly. Precy will be fine in the courtroom. But you can hardly hear Esther unless she speaks up. Zeena and Rateeka will need translators who are willing to show real emotion in front of the judge. What am I doing here? Is this my life? Underneath it all every day is this longing to hear Macon’s voice. To have him move the bangs out of my eyes.
I walk across the alley to ring the buzzer and ask Sophie for forgiveness. All I have to do is tell her how sorry I am and say what’s in my heart. I stand in front of the door and will something to happen—someone to come in or out. Someone to see me on the surveillance camera. Then I get scared. I feel foolish. What if Sophie won’t even let me in? I turn around and I don’t stop walking until I’m home. All that time I’m missing Macon. Angry at Macon. He left me. How could he just walk? But when I pick at it a little and stare it down, I know I’m really angry at my mother. Angry and so sad that she’s gone and I’m here, making all these bad choices.
IN THE MORNING I make piles on the floor in my bedroom for India. I’m taking Sara’s advice. Getting ready for my trip. It feels more satisfying than I thought—T-shirts and two pairs of wide cotton pants, plus a long, dark cotton skirt. It’s Pablo’s birthday today. I know this because weeks ago Macon drew a heart around July 2 on the calendar and wrote the words “Pablo’s Day” in the small white square.
Rajiv calls at ten-thirty. Sara’s in labor. They’re on their way to a birthing center near the Bois de Boulogne. “Oh my God!” I yell into the phone on my bed. “She’s early! She’s early! How much is she dilated? Oh my God.”
“We won’t know until we’re there,” Rajiv says calmly. How can he be this contained? Where is his urgency?
“I’m not leaving the apartment until you call me back and say that you have a baby!”
“Of course. Of course we will call you.” He’s eerily calm. Then I realize maybe he’s play-acting for Sara—that she’s probably sitting next to him in the cab with her eyes closed. Maybe terrified. Except Sara doesn’t really get terrified.
I hang up the phone. She’s having a baby. I call Luke and he doesn’t answer. I’m frantic but it’s a good frantic. Euphoric even. A baby. I blast the Graceland album on the turntable and pack and repack the small pile of clothes in the backpack Macon surprised me with in May. Then I take on the books. Make preliminary piles of the ones I want to bring to India. Too many books. This will call for a whole other backpack. The music’s so loud and I keep dancing in circles next to the couch and jumping. I add books to the pile and jump up and down and check the clock by the bed.
Then I can’t stand it anymore, and I pick up the phone in the bedroom and call the legal center. He’s not there. I don’t leave a message.
People say love takes time. But I also think it can be something decisive at the start. A man walks into an asylum center. He has wet hair and wears dark green hiking boots. You don’t know that you’re going to end up sleeping on a beach with him. You just know you’re open to it. What do you call this? Not love. But something foundational maybe, before love. It all looks better, sweeter now that the baby’s coming. I feel reckless. Why haven’t I called him until now? What am I waiting for? It’s not going to get better by waiting. I need to tell him how much he’s meant to m
e. No matter what happens, I need to say it.
Another hour passes. No word from Rajiv. I call Macon at his house. Sara’s having her baby. How can he not know? He’s part of my family, even if I never see him again. Someone picks up on the second ring and I ask for Macon in French. “Willie?” Macon says. “It’s me.”
“Sara’s in labor, Macon!” I talk loudly and fast. “She’s having the baby! The baby’s coming! Can you believe it?” I don’t know if he’ll even listen to me.
“That’s great news,” he says slowly and quietly. Then his voice brightens. “Well, over here we’ve eaten the cake and the ice cream and had the pony ride in the yard behind the house.”
“You’re talking to me.” I try to make my voice sound loose. But my heart is in his hands. I don’t want to sound hopeful. “I didn’t know you were talking to me.” I don’t want my love to spill over and overwhelm him.
He ignores what I’ve said. “It’s Pablo’s birthday, and you must have known that. We’ve spent the week here in Chantilly with Delphine and Gabriel.”
My heart’s beating in my throat. “Happy birthday to Pablo.” I almost cry but don’t allow myself to because I’m afraid I’ll throw Macon off. Please let me in, I want to say. Don’t keep me out.
“My boy is five.”
“He is a sweet boy. Tell him I said that.” What I want to say is, When are you coming back? Are you ever coming back? “I screwed it up. I miss you, Macon. Can you forgive this? Can you let it go?”
“Merde,” he says. “I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to talk to you. I still think what you did was stupid. But I won’t waste my time on that right now. Because today is a good day.”
“I’m so sorry.” I say it again, and the words aren’t enough. This is the thing about words. They fail. But you still have to use them. “I’m sorry that I lied. That I ruined things at work for you.” I’m trying to tamp down my joy about the baby. Trying not to scare him.
“You did a good job of that. We’ve had so many damn meetings since you let your student fly away. How is your brother? I have been very concerned.”