The director gets up. Michka looks at me, waiting for my signal. I help her to her feet and pick up her stick.
Taking little steps, we leave the room.
She pulls the door of her apartment behind her, the door she’s closed hundreds of times before. But today she knows it’s the last time. She wants to lock the door herself. She knows she won’t be back. She’ll never again perform the routine she’s gone through hundreds of times before: turning on the television, smoothing down the bedspread, washing the saucepan, lowering the shutters because of the sun, hanging her dressing gown on the hook in the bathroom, plumping up the sofa cushions to try to restore the shape they lost long ago. She’s given away the furniture, the bed, the video player, the pans and the toaster. She’s kept a few books, the photo albums, about thirty letters and the official documents she’s obliged to retain. But in reality she knows she’s leaving everything behind.
Michka has just moved in to her new room. The furniture’s simple: a bed and bedside table, a chair, a desk, a cupboard. Formica, plastic and light wood. Soft pastel tones. Decent quality. She sits down in the only armchair while I finish putting her things away. She’s looking around at the clean, bare walls and the floral curtains. I can see she’s scowling. She’s in a gloomy mood.
‘Don’t worry, you can decorate. We’ll hang some pictures on the walls and put a nice pot plant on the table.’
‘What for?’
‘To make it more welcoming.’
‘We’re not going to pretend I’m at home, though.’
‘No, we’re not, Michk’, but that’s no reason for it to be sad. You’ll be staying here a good while, all the same.’
‘Yes, well, we’ll see.’
(I don’t know if she’s alluding to the impermanence of this home or a more definitive departure.) She got out of bed the wrong side. Suddenly, her expression brightens.
‘Did you find my bottle in the bag?’
‘Which bottle?’
‘My whisky.’
‘Yes, yes, it’s there. But maybe it’s not such a good idea, Michk’, after the falls you’ve had . . . Are you sure you want to keep it?’
‘Oh, listen, I have a little thumbleful in the evening from a tiny glass. That won’t kill me. Will you put it in the hanger for me? Not too high and not too low, behind the clothes, please, that would be great.’
‘Are you sure it’s allowed?’
‘Not so much as such. But that doesn’t worry me. This isn’t the army, after all.’
I take out the bottle I’d deliberately left in the bag and put it in the cupboard, following her instructions as closely as possible.
‘Not so high! There, just below. Behind the wool-overs . . . the pullovers. There, that’s it.’
Instantly she seems happy.
I sit down on the chair beside her while she leafs through the welcome booklet. I know her; she’s looking for something to grumble about.
‘Lunch, twelve o’clock. Afternoon tea, four. Dinner, half six. This is the high life, eh!’
I smile.
‘They look old, don’t you think? Did you see them, those women in the day room, in those chairs with . . . wheels. They’re well past the third age.’
‘I don’t know, Michk’. There are probably big differences between them. People are here for different reasons. You’re not one of the oldest.’
‘Really?’ (She seems reassured.) ‘You know, it feels odd all the same.’
‘I can imagine, Michk’.’
That’s not true. I can’t imagine any of it. Because it’s unimaginable. I put my hand on her arm. I try to think of something to say, something that will comfort her – ‘Those ladies are nice’ or ‘I’m sure you’ll make friends’ or ‘There are lots of activities’ – but each of these phrases would be an insult to the woman she used to be.
So I say nothing.
I simply remain by her side.
She lies down on the bed and nods off.
A few minutes later a woman comes into the room to offer her a snack. A nice little carton of apple juice with a nice little straw, and a nice little cake wrapped in a nice little sachet. Like in a day centre.
So this is what lies ahead for you, Michk’: little steps, little naps, little teas, little trips, little visits.
A shrunken, diminished life, but a perfectly ordered one.
I try to phone more often.
But it’s harder on the phone. She has trouble hearing and quickly becomes confused. So, try as I might, conversation dwindles, becomes formulaic, dries up. Her voice suddenly seems so far away. I try my best, but it’s no use. I always end up talking to her as if she were a child and that breaks my heart, because I know what kind of woman she was. I know she’s read Doris Lessing, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf, that she’s kept her subscription to Le Monde and still goes through the whole paper every day, though now she only scans the headlines.
But I say: Did you sleep well? Are you eating well? Is everything OK? Have you been able to read a bit? Have you been watching television? Have you made friends? Have you stayed in your room? Haven’t you been to the film club?
Instead of saying, give me some peace, why don’t you go out and drink my health and get up on the table and dance, she replies politely to every one of my questions. She makes an effort, searches for the right words.
When I hang up, I’m overwhelmed by a sense of my powerlessness and unable to speak.
JÉRÔME
I knocked several times, but she can’t have heard me.
She’s alone in her room.
She’s looking for something.
She opens the cupboard several times, then the desk drawers. She picks up the magazines on her bedside table. She seems disorientated. She keeps repeating the same sequence: cupboard, drawers, beside table. She looks around, trying to decide where to try next.
Suddenly she puts her stick on the bed and leans on the mattress to get down on her knees. She wants to look under the bed. This position seems painful, so she lies flat on her stomach with her head under the bed.
This is how I meet her for the first time.
‘Hello, Mrs Seld. I’m Jérôme, the speech therapist.’
She almost bumps her head on the underside of the bed. I go over to help her up.
‘Let me help.’
It’s not easy, given the challenging position she’s got herself into, half of her body under the bed and the other half out.
‘Stay on the floor, Mrs Seld. Yes, like that. Your arms too. And if I may, I’m going to pull you towards me a little bit so that you can get up. Don’t move . . . Careful, I’ll pull a little . . . There you are . . . Careful . . . Don’t raise your head . . . I’m pulling a bit more. There, that’s it!’
With difficulty, and still on the floor, she rolls on to her side so she can see me.
‘Ah, hello.’
She shakes my hand as though this were all perfectly normal: her, stretched out on the lino, unable to get up by herself, and me, crouching beside her. In a split second, eyes darting, she sizes me up.
I help her sit up and then get to her feet. This takes time. Her movements are careful, as are mine.
She motions to me to pass her stick, which I do.
Then she smiles with a hint of guilt.
‘Call me Michka.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘“Mrs Seld this and Mrs Seld that . . .” It’s sad living among people who don’t call you by your first name, you know.’
I’m surprised by her sparkiness.
‘I understand. I promise I’ll call you Michka. Were you looking for something?’
‘Yes, because . . . I lose a lot . . . It’s happening quickly. I feel nearly all the time that I’m losing, but I don’t know what and . . . that frightens me. I’d like to say more but . . . no can’t do, you understand?’
‘I saw from your file that you’re suffering from the onset of aphasia. The doctor will have explained that that means you have tr
ouble finding your words. Sometimes they don’t come at all and sometimes you replace them with others. It depends on the situation, how you’re feeling, whether you’re tired . . .’
‘I see. If you say so.’
‘Perhaps it was words you were looking for, Michka?’
‘Yes, fossibly.’
‘I’m a speech therapist. Do you know what that is?’
‘Oh, yes. I used to be a proofreader in a big . . . house. For years.’
‘Great. We’re going to work really well together, you’ll see. We’ll do exercises, puzzles, things like that.’
She’s observing me. Without embarrassment, she examines me from head to toe and back again, as though deciding then and there whether or not to add me to her schedule. And then she decides, in exactly the tone she’d use to say ‘Of course’:
‘Off course.’
I can’t help laughing, and then she laughs too. For a few seconds we laugh just for the pleasure of laughing.
Then the laughter stops.
‘Where does it happen?’
‘What’s that?’
‘The games.’
‘They happen in your room, Mrs . . . Michka. I’ll come a couple of times a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’
‘Ah, in my room, that’s fine.’
For a few seconds she’s thoughtful.
‘Have I told you I have nightmares?’
‘No, you haven’t told me that.’
‘Can I tell you about them when you come?’
‘Yes, of course. So I’ll see you tomorrow then? Tomorrow’s Tuesday.’
‘Yes, that’s fine.’
When I meet them for the first time, I’m always looking for the same thing, an image of the person they used to be. Behind the blurred vision and uncertain movements, the stooped or bent posture, as though trying to make out an original sketch beneath an ugly felt-pen drawing, I look for the young man or woman they once were. I look at them and think: he or she too once loved, shouted, enjoyed sex or plunging into water, ran until they were out of breath, climbed stairs four at a time, danced the night away. She or he too caught trains, took the metro, went on country walks or to the mountains, drank wine, slept in, talked nineteen to the dozen. These thoughts move me. I can’t stop myself hunting for that image, trying to bring it back to life.
I like seeing photos in which they’re looking into the lens with no inkling of the losses they’d suffer – or in which that idea was still purely theoretical – in which they stood up straight with no need of support. I like seeing them in the prime of life – but what age is the prime? Twenty? Thirty? Forty?
Sometimes it’s impossible to make the connection between the young man or woman in the photo and the person in front of me. Even with the greatest acuity, the greatest discernment, nothing seems to link those two bodies: the light, self-confident body of youth and the deformed, diminished body in the nursing home.
I look at the photos and say, ‘It looks just like you, Mrs Ermont!’ or, ‘What a handsome man you were, Mr Terdian!’
In the early days, a voice in my head would cry out, ‘But what happened then? How is it possible? Is this really what awaits us all, without exception? Is there no way around, no fork in the road, no alternative route that would make it possible to escape this calamity?’
In the early days, I worked with different groups: children, adults, the elderly. Then gradually the bulk of my time came to be focused on old people’s homes. I can’t claim it was a decision or a choice. It just happened. Opportunities. And a sort of inevitability. Now I split my time among several institutions. I have my sector.
I’m fine with it. It’s where I belong.
I like watching them, seeing how they fight it every step of the way.
I like their voices, which feel their way, tremulous and hesitant.
I admit that I record them. Not all of them, just some. From the first session. I have a tiny digital recorder with dozens of files arranged in folders.
I record them for study purposes, to improve my approach, my practice. But not just that.
I value the quiver in their voices. That fragility. That gentleness. I cherish their mangled, approximate, confused words, and their silences.
And I save all the recordings, even after they’re dead.
I started making recordings of Mrs Seld in our fifth or sixth session. I’ve kept them all.
I go into her room. She looks tired. I can tell immediately she isn’t in a very cooperative mood. But she sits up and furtively pats her hair into place. She tries to give me a smile. I’m always really struck by old ladies’ coquettishness.
I take out my equipment and put it on her desk: pen, notebook, picture book.
‘How are you, Michka?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘That’s a “fine but not great” – am I right?’
‘I’m having a bit of trouble adopting . . . adepting.’
‘Adapting?’
‘Yes, that’s it.’
‘That’s understandable. It takes a few weeks to find your feet. You haven’t been here that long. I’ve brought some things for us to work on together today. Is that OK?’
She looks at me distrustfully.
‘What’s that?’
‘They’re exercises specially designed for older people.’
‘Why do you call them “older people”? You should say “the old”. “The old” is fine. It’s best to call a staid a staid. You’d say “the young”, wouldn’t you? You don’t say “younger people”.’
‘You’re right. Words matter to you, Michka; I like that. Would you like to do a little exercise?’
‘Wouldn’t you rather have a little cigarette?’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘No, no, not at all. I stopped . . . long ago, but honestly, in the circumstantials, a little cigarette wouldn’t be too such.’
‘It’s forbidden throughout the building, Mrs Seld. And in any case, it wouldn’t be very sensible. I don’t smoke, anyway.’
She seems disappointed.
She sits quietly, watching me. Silence doesn’t make her feel awkward. She studies every detail of my appearance: my watch, my socks, my hair.
‘OK, right, Michka. I’ll ask you a question, then show you four pictures and you have to pick the right answer. Then you have to try to give the right name for the object.’
She’s listening carefully. I’m gesticulating as I speak.
‘Try this one as an example. What tool is used to spread cement?’
I put four pictures in front of her – a trowel, a spade, secateurs and a rake – which she looks at with an air of mock puzzlement.
‘This isn’t a bungle of laughs.’
‘It’s not the funniest example, I grant you.’
‘I’d rather just chat.’
‘OK, we’ll talk for a bit and then we can do some exercises.’
‘There’s a lady who comes into my room.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes, she’s come several times in the evening. Comes in, just like that, with no warming and says she’s looking for the little boy. She scares me.’
‘Is she a resident?’
‘Yes, but yesterday, something happened, you know. Yesterday she came in after dinner, the same time as before, and asked me where the little boy was and I . . . I said . . . all . . . no-nonsince, so that she understood, “I don’t know where the little boy is, but I must warm you that you’re making a mistake.” I’d put the television on, even though I don’t really watch it, but it’s because there’s . . . this presenter I like, who’s got really bright teeth, rather neatly turned out, you know? The one who says the news. So imagine, when this woman heard his voice, the stake she got herself into! She suddenly started arguing with me and shouting, “But he’s there, the little boy!” as though I’d stolen her little boy for my television. So I can tell you, I immediately switched it off with the . . . TV- . . . demote – boom! – so she’d go away. And it worked. B
ut now I can’t turn it on again. I’m scared she’ll come back, you see . . .’
‘You need to talk to the care assistants. They’ll go and see the woman, who’s maybe losing the plot a bit, and make sure she doesn’t come back into your room uninvited.’
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then she looks me in the eye.
‘It’s not going to work out, is it?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Everything. Everything that’s stripping away, just like that, so quickly. It’s not going to work out.’
‘We’re going to work together, if you’re up for it, Michka, so that it does work out.’
‘In . . . all honestly?’
I hesitate for a second before answering.
‘We can slow things down, but we can’t stop them.’
The furniture in the room in the nursing home has been rearranged so that the back wall is completely bare.
Michka’s in the middle of the room, frozen in a strange posture, as though halted in her tracks.
A little girl’s voice breaks the silence:
‘One . . .’
Michka at once begins advancing towards the bare wall.
‘Two . . . three . . . Statues!’
Michka suddenly stops mid-movement, in a position she has trouble maintaining. Then the little girl’s voice again: ‘One . . .’
She takes a few more steps forward.
‘Two . . . three . . . Statues!’
Michka stops. This time she’s in an awkward position. She sways and can’t stay still.
The child’s voice is delighted.
‘You moved! You moved! Back to the start!’
Michka goes back. She drags her feet a bit. She leans against the other wall.
But the child’s voice won’t let her have a break.
‘Ready! One . . . two . . . three . . . Statues!’
Gratitude Page 2