You Changed My Life

by Abdel Sellou

  “Monsieur Pozzo. I’ve been watching you for days now. This machine is a nightmare, and I think I’ve found a way to get around using it. Let me do it. I’ll go very slowly.”

  “Are you sure, Abdel?”

  “Listen, the worst thing is I hit a leg—you get a bedsore and that’s it, right?”

  “Well that’s nothing, I can handle—”

  “Okay, enough talk. Let’s go.”

  I slipped my arms under his and pulled his chest against me—the rest of his body followed. He was sitting in his shower chair in hardly ten seconds. I looked at the result, pleased with myself, and yelled to the door, “Laurence! Bring me the toolkit! We’re taking down the transfer machine!”

  The Pozzo said nothing; he was smiling, thrilled.

  “So, Monsieur Pozzo, who’s the best?”

  “You, Abdel, you!”

  He smiled blissfully, with all of his white teeth. The moment had come to ask for an explanation.

  “Monsieur Pozzo, tell me something, your teeth—are they real?”

  26

  I could have had business cards made. ABDEL SELLOU, SIMPLIFIER. Because in the whole we’re-not-going-to-let-pain-in-the-ass-machines-ruin-our-lives process, I also got rid of the cattle wagon, a so-called ideal vehicle for transporting the handicapped. It was ugly, impractical, and, like the transfer machine, it broke down constantly.

  The cattle wagon had a platform system that came out and lowered to allow the wheelchair to get in. It got stuck a lot. This was a problem when we needed to leave, because the Pozzo could miss his appointment, and on the way back, too, because the thing was too high for me to take the wheelchair—and the Pozzo in it—out by hand. Sometimes I had to get a plank and use it like a slide. In the cattle wagon, the Pozzo stayed seated in his usual spot, which was in the back on the right. The wheels weren’t locked onto the floorboard and even if you pushed on the brakes, the wheelchair shifted around on turns. That was dangerous enough, even more so when the driver was named Sellou and had learned to drive on stolen cars in suburban parking lots . . . Plus, the Pozzo only had a tiny window and the engine made ridiculous noise. When I was at the wheel, I practically had to turn around in my seat to talk to the boss. So I didn’t talk, I yelled.

  “Are you okay? Not too bumpy?”

  “Watch the road, Abdel!”

  “What’s that?”

  “The road!”

  I drove a Renault 25 GTS, thank you very much. Okay, these days it’s kind of cheesy, but back then it was first-class. A car driven by guys who’d made it big. I bought it at auction in 1993, just after getting my license. It had been repossessed from some poor guy who couldn’t keep up with the payments. As for me, the delinquent, the ex-con, I paid in cash. That’s class . . . it had excellent pickup and a sweet stereo system. Worlds away from the cattle wagon.

  I ended up going on strike. We were about to load up the Pozzo. I had my finger on the remote control for the platform, and I said no.

  “What do you mean no, Abdel?”

  “No, Monsieur Pozzo. No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, I’m not driving this thing anymore. You’re not a sheep, you know. You can get into a normal car.”

  “Unfortunately, Abdel, I can’t.”

  “And you also couldn’t do without the transfer machine, right? So. Don’t move, I’m going to get my car.”

  “Trust me, Abdel, I’m not moving!”

  I push the wheelchair to the handicapped spot where I’d parked my car equipped with a fake plate bearing a handicap symbol. That little sticker was great and definitely worth the botte prioritaire in the game Mille Bornes.

  “Where did you get that sticker, Abdel?”

  “It’s a photocopy of the one on the cattle wagon. A laser color copy—it cost me a fortune!”

  “Abdel, you can’t do that, it isn’t right . . .”

  “It’s so practical for parking in Paris. And it is right since I’m driving you in my car.”

  I open the passenger door, push the seat back as far as it will go, and park the wheelchair against the body of the car.

  “What, you’re not cheering for me? You cheer for Babette and not me?”

  “Go, Abdel! Lift the Pozzo!”

  Obviously, as I had just shown, you could get him into a normal car. We took off for Porte de la Chapelle. I knew that there we’d find some real gems on four wheels; this lover of beautiful things would find something he liked. I liked all cars.

  When we looked at the cars there, I didn’t say anything, just watched the Pozzo weaving around in his wheelchair between the Chrysler and the Rolls-Royce, the Rolls and the Porsche, the Porsche and the Lamborghini, the Lamborghini and the Ferrari . . .

  “This one’s not bad! The black is sober. What do you think, Abdel?”

  “Monsieur Pozzo, the Ferrari’s trunk might be a little too small.”

  “Did you plan on putting me in the trunk?”

  “Not you, but the chair?”

  “Oh shit! I forgot about that . . .”

  He finally decided on a Jaguar XJS 3.6 liter, square headlights, walnut dashboard, leather interior . . . It was due to be sold by auction.

  “Do you like it, Abdel?”

  “Yeah, it’ll do . . .”

  “Shall we buy it?”

  “We’ll have to be patient, Monsieur Pozzo. The auction is in three days.”

  “Okay, we’ll wait . . . but not a word to my wife, all right?”

  “I swear. I’ll be as quiet as a roach.”

  “As a mouse, Abdel, as a mouse.”

  “As a mouse, too, if you want!”

  27

  So now I drive the Pozzo or his wife, who just had a bone marrow transplant, to the hospital in a Jaguar. The operation’s a last chance: the doctors only give her four to six months to live. Everything went well in the OR and in post-op, but it isn’t over yet. Her immune system is shot. She has to stay in a bubble in a sterilized room.

  Every morning for weeks, I take the Pozzo in the Jaguar to go be next to her. As next to her as he can get: behind the isolation curtain. With a hospital bonnet on his head and plastic socks over his Westons, he rolls up to the barrier you’re not supposed to cross. He watches his wife for hours, lying in her bed, a little delirious. We leave her in the evening with the fear that we won’t find her in better condition the next morning. And then, the verdict comes from the doctors’ mouths.

  Madame Pozzo is going to die.

  I’m silent in the Jaguar.

  No more nurse’s assistants. No more nurses. I am now the last face Philippe Pozzo di Borgo sees at night and the first one he sees in the morning. Since that first time I carried him, we haven’t really needed anybody. Now that his wife is dead, he is sleeping alone. He watched her go, unbelieving, crazy with rage. He’d only ever known her while she was sick and he’d loved her despite that, despite the everyday discomfort, even though he was in such good health and went off to the countryside every weekend, even though he flew over mountains. He’d had that terrible paragliding accident on June 23, 1993, and, for two years, his wife’s illness had taken a backseat. Everyone thought it was a remission—that the treatments were finally working, that she’d live longer, why not? She’d found the strength to organize a new life for the whole family, built around her husband’s handicap. They’d left their house in Champagne to come to Paris and its hospitals. They’d created a comfortable place to live for everyone—obviously, it’s easier with money—and the kids seemed to adjust as much as possible to their new life in the capital, with a father in a wheelchair and a sick mother . . . And just when everything seemed to be in place, when all the obstacles to having an almost normal life had been removed, Béatrice Pozzo di Borgo had relapsed.

  I’d been living with them for about a year when it happened. Madame Pozzo hadn’t been consulted on the choice of life auxiliary, who wasn’t really one. She didn’t veto the choice when she saw this young, undereducated, and unpredictable A
rab show up at her house. She observed me without judgment and accepted me right away. She laughed at my jokes without joining in, from a certain distance, but always with kindness. I know she was a little afraid sometimes when she saw me take off with her husband without telling her before and without saying where we were going. I know that she didn’t approve of us buying a luxury car. It was her Protestant side: she never liked ostentatious signs of wealth. She was a simple woman, and I respected her. For the first time, I didn’t judge a rich lady for being just that.

  In one year, what had the Pozzo and I done? Just gotten to know each other. He’d tried to question me about my parents. I think he even wanted to meet them. I avoided the problem.

  “You know, Abdel, it’s important to be at peace with your family. Do you know your country, Algeria?”

  “My country is right here and I’m at peace with myself.”

  “I’m not sure about that, Abdel.”

  “Okay, that’s enough.”

  “That’s enough, Abdel. We won’t talk about it anymore . . .”

  The cattle wagon wasn’t cut out for rodeos on the beltway, but the Jaguar was. I was the one who stepped on the gas, but it was both of us who went over the limit. Just one word from him would have been enough to make me slow down. The Pozzo was watching his wife disappear, he didn’t express his pain, he was watching the movie of his life as a spectator. I pushed a little harder on the pedal. He turned his head slightly toward me, the motor rumbled, I burst out laughing, hard, as hard as possible, he turned his head the other way. He was giving up. We were racing ahead, together, come what may.

  One year was long enough for both of us to know, without saying it out loud, that I was going to stay. If I’d had to leave, I would have done it sooner. I wouldn’t have said yes to the trip to Martinique, a few weeks before the transplant.

  “This will be Béatrice’s last vacation for a long while; let’s all three go!” said the Pozzo to try to convince me.

  I’d never been farther than Marseille, so there was no need to convince me of anything. The “last vacation for long while” argument was baloney; we all knew it. The last vacation, period . . . We knew the risk involved in Béatrice’s bone marrow transplant. But it was her husband who got sick in Martinique. Pulmonary congestion: secretions accumulated in his bronchial tubes and he had a difficult time breathing. He was taken into intensive care and stayed there for the whole trip. I had one-on-one lunches with Béatrice at the beach. We didn’t say much to each other. It wasn’t necessary, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. I wasn’t the man she loved. I also wasn’t the one she’d have liked to see sitting there, with two working arms, one bringing a fork to his mouth and the other crossing the table to take her hand. That man didn’t exist anymore anyway; she had to give him up at the time of the paragliding accident, so she might as well be happy with this slightly heavy and poorly behaved, but not really dangerous guy.

  I like to think she thought me capable of taking care of her husband through the challenges to come. I like to think that she trusted me. But maybe she didn’t think any of that. Maybe she had also simply given up. When you’re no longer controlling anything, that’s got to be the only thing to do, right? Let go, at one hundred fifty miles an hour on the banks of the Seine or sitting comfortably in a paradisiacal setting, under the sun, facing the turquoise sea.

  I didn’t think he’d survive his wife’s death. He didn’t want to leave his bed for weeks. When family members visited, he barely looked at them. Céline took care of the kids—consoling and practical at the same time, she kept them at a distance, seeing they had enough on their plate with their own grief. I buzzed around the Pozzo constantly. But he didn’t let me distract him anymore. Dignified even in his depression, he only asked to be presentable for medical visits. We’d gotten by without nursing assistants and nurses for months because he’d wanted to, and because he got a wicked pleasure out of showing people that he did just fine using only Abdel’s arms and legs. We had to call them back, and they came immediately, competent and devoted. Monsieur Pozzo couldn’t stand the idea of so many people fussing over his body, three-quarters dead, when nobody could do anything for his wife’s.

  Luckily, I was young and impatient. Luckily, I didn’t understand anything. I said “enough.”

  IV

  Learning to Live Differently

  28

  “Monsieur Pozzo, that’s enough, it’s time to get up now!”

  “I want to be alone, Abdel. Leave now, please.”

  “You’ve been alone long enough. I’ve had it. You like it, you don’t like it, it doesn’t matter. We’re getting dressed and we’re going out . . . Plus, I know you’re going to like this.”

  “Whatever you say . . .”

  The Pozzo sighs. The Pozzo turns his head, looking for nothing, an empty space without hands moving in it, without any looks. He blocks out the moving mouths.

  I don’t want to call him the Pozzo anymore. He isn’t a thing, an animal, a toy, a doll. The man in front of me is suffering and doesn’t look anywhere except inside himself anymore, at his memories, at what isn’t any longer, probably. I try my best to dart around devilishly, dance the cucaracha, play pranks on Laurence that make her scream, but he doesn’t register any of it. What the hell am I doing here? He could ask me why I was still sticking around, because I wonder myself . . .

  I’d give him a stupid answer.

  I’d answer that I’m staying for the comfortable Louis-Philippe sofa in his room that I haven’t left since Béatrice died. I’d sublet the top-floor apartment to a girlfriend. Nobody here knows about it. I’m being honest and I really like this girl, so I’m not asking much for rent. What? A thousand francs per month. That’s way below market price.

  I’d answer that I’m staying for the Jaguar. That I’d like him to pull himself together, a little, so that I could leave him at night and start up my nighttime drives again. That car is a magnet for women. Well, certain kinds of women . . . I know: I’m not going to find my Béatrice among the ones who get in for a ride. The ones who get in are the ones who are only interested in money. We don’t know each other; we’re not going to know each other. I let them know when it’s over, always a bastard and proud of it.

  “This car belongs to my boss. You want me to drop you off at the next metro station?”

  I’d answer that I’m staying because I love going to eat the little samples of food they give you in expensive gourmet restaurants and then indulge in a Greek sandwich on my way out.

  I’d answer that I’m staying because I still haven’t seen La Traviata live and I’m counting on him to take me to the opera (he made me listen to some of it one day, explained the story to me, it bored me to death . . . I seriously thought I was going to die).

  I’d answer that I’m staying because I want to have fun, because I’m alive, because life is for having fun and you can do that more easily when you have money to spend. It just so happens that he has some and he’s alive, too, so that works out well!

  I’d answer that I’m staying for his money. By the way, that’s what most of his friends think: they don’t all keep quiet. I hate disappointing overly confident people. They dig their feet into their certainties; it’s quite a show.

  He’d keep asking:

  “Why are you staying, Abdel?”

  I wouldn’t answer that I’m staying for him, because we aren’t all dogs, for God’s sake.

  I dress him in his light gray Cerruti suit, a blue shirt, gold cufflinks, and a tie with blood-red stripes. A drop of Eau Sauvage, his cologne for the last thirty years—the same as his father. I brush his hair and smooth his mustache.

  “Where are you taking me Abdel?

  “To get oysters? Would you like to eat some oysters? I’m craving oysters, personally . . .”

  I lick my lips and rub my belly. He smiles. He knows I hate oysters, especially during summer, when they’re all milky. But he loves them with a little lemon juice or some shallot s
auce. We’re going to Normandy.

  “Shall we take a CD in the car? What do you want to listen to, Monsieur Pozzo?”

  “Gustav Mahler.”

  I put two fingers sideways under my nose like a Hitler mustache, put on a German accent, and get angry.

  “Goustaf Mahluh? Ach nein, Meestah Pozzo! Zatz enough now! Enough!”

  He hints at a smile. That’s a start . . .

  The Jaguar is a beautiful but dangerous car. You can’t feel the speed. It flies, we levitate, we don’t feel anything. On the way to Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Garches, I hadn’t noticed that it rears like a horse about to gallop.

  We are all set, Monsieur Pozzo and me, listening to France Musique, a nice little symphony like the one you get on the phone when you call the social security office. Two motorcycle cops catch up to us on the Saint-Cloud bridge. I see them in the rearview mirror and glance at the speedometer: eighty miles per hour . . . Monsieur Pozzo’s in good shape today, so I give it a try.

  “There’s two cops there, going to stop us soon.”

  “Oh . . . Abdel! We’re going to be late.”

  “Well, yes, we definitely will be, Monsieur Pozzo. Don’t you want to try using your bad-day face?”

  The police are getting dangerously close.

  “What’s my bad-day face?”

  I make a face like I’m horribly constipated, and he bursts out laughing.

  “No, now, Monsieur Pozzo, you can’t laugh right now, you have to suffer! Come on, I’m counting on you!”

  I slow down significantly, put my signal on, and start to pull over to the shoulder. I lower the window.

  “Abdel!”

  “Three, two, one . . . Suffer!”