The Woman In The Fifth

by Douglas Kennedy

  'Do whatever you want to do,' I said. And I left.

  Half an hour later I was back in the hotel, curled up on the bed, a blanket over me, the plastic wastebasket from the bathroom near me in case I had another phlegm attack. But I now expected to have the roof of my room collapse on me, or to be attacked by a platoon of poisonous bedbugs, or to start spitting up internal organs (surely she couldn't orchestrate something so invasive). I touched my neck and felt the still-moist wound she had made with her teeth. 'You've just fucked a dead woman who made you bleed.' I covered my head with a pillow. This can't be happening. I also thought of a lifetime of afternoon liaisons stretching out in front of me – all in service of some surreal notion that I had a permanent guardian angel lurking in my corner, as long as I screwed her twice a week. You have no proof. How she taunted me with that phrase. But my anguished attempts at disbelief were quickly superseded by a realization that had taken hold of me in hospital and had only been reinforced by my encounter with Margit that afternoon: This was all very real. And I did take seriously her threats to bring further harm to me if I didn't meet my 'obligations' to her. But I didn't care anymore. Let her take my life. It meant so little to me now.

  I holed up in the room until one the following afternoon, finally venturing out for something to eat. I stopped in an Internet café. There was only one email in my inbox: a long missive from Doug, telling me the details of Robson's suicide. He also said that Susan had gone to ground. She had been officially dismissed from the college, and was also now under FBI investigation to see if she was, in any way, involved in Robson's extracurricular 'business'.

  I did call her yesterday and she sounded rough. Word has it that she has been suffering from appalling depression – who can blame her – and that Megan is understandably traumatized by what has happened. If you could get back here for a few days, I think it might do Megan some good. If you broach this idea with Susan, I sense she will respond positively to it.

  After reading this, I used a search engine to find all the up-to-date press reports on Robson's suicide. There were plenty of them. Susan's dismissal from the college had also merited a few paragraphs in the news reports, crossreferenced with the scandal which had forced me out of my job. That was the thing about a media feeding frenzy – it engulfed everybody, and I could only begin to imagine the grief that my poor innocent daughter was taking at school for her parents' crimes and misdemeanors.

  Switching back to my Internet server, I wrote Susan:

  I am genuinely sorry to hear of your terrible problems. I just want you to know that I am here to help. As I mentioned in our last phone call, I would also very much like to reestablish contact with Megan, and would be most happy to come back and see her, if she is willing to see me. If you want to contact me by phone . . .

  And I supplied the number for the hotel and for my room there.

  I checked my email the following morning and night. No reply. Otherwise I spent most of the day in my room, reading and sleeping and having the occasional bout of hack coughing. The following day there was also no email from Susan. I went to the movies – Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot. I managed a fifteen-minute walk by the Seine. At 5 p.m. I returned to the hotel, missing my rendezvous with Margit.

  I waited for the sky to fall in. It happened late the following night. The phone in my room rang just before midnight. It was Susan. She could barely talk.

  'Megan was knocked down by a car on her way to school today. A hit-and-run driver. She's still unconscious with a broken leg and a fractured pelvis and they don't know if she's suffered any brain damage, but the fact that she doesn't respond to . . .'

  She started weeping uncontrollably. She managed to get out a few more words, saying that she'd been taken by ambulance that afternoon to University Hospital in Cleveland where they had the best neurology department in the state. 'I'm calling from there right now,' she said. 'It doesn't look good. It doesn't . . .'

  She broke off, unable to speak anymore. I told her I'd get the first plane out tomorrow morning. Then I hung up and staggered into the bathroom and fell down in front of the toilet and got violently ill. When I could heave no longer, I started to cry.

  'Don't make me force you back here.'

  'Do whatever you want to do.'

  And she had done just that.

  I didn't sleep. I wandered the streets all night. I found a twenty-four-hour Internet café near Les Halles and went online and discovered there was a 9 a.m. flight to Chicago that morning, with an onward connection to Cleveland at 2 p.m. local time. Had I been in possession of a functional credit card I would have booked the flights on the spot. Instead I returned to the hotel and asked the night man to book me a taxi leaving for the airport at 5 a.m. The guy on the desk – his name was Tadeuz, he was Polish – was fantastically kind when I told him why I had to rush back to the States. He said he would hold my room for me at no charge ('It's a quiet time for us'), and was a little surprised when I said I would definitely be back in Paris within forty-eight hours.

  'But do not worry, sir. If we need the room we can always pack up your things and store them. If your daughter's condition hasn't improved . . .'

  My daughter's condition will only improve if I present myself at 13 rue Linné at 5 p.m. in two days' time.

  I was at the airport by six. I paid cash for a round-trip ticket to Cleveland via Chicago, returning to Paris that evening. I phoned Susan on her cellphone from a kiosk inside the departure lounge. It was just after one in the morning in Ohio. She sounded exhausted and stressed beyond the limits of endurance. 'She's still unconscious,' she said, her voice barely a whisper. 'The MRI has shown some bruising to the brain, but the neurologist still cannot determine how damaged it is. The fact that she's not responded to any stimuli is, he admitted, very worrying. The next twenty-four of hours will be critical.'

  'I'll be there by two p.m. your time. Meanwhile, try to get some sleep.'

  'I don't want to sleep. I just want my daughter back.'

  I felt sick. And helpless. And crazed. Did Margit put Megan in the way of the car that hit her? Susan had yet to tell me the details of the accident . . . but in my more rational moments, I couldn't help but think that Margit had set this up as a near-facsimile of the accident that had killed her daughter and husband. But say she hadn't set it up? Say it was all just terrible happenstance? What then? And what if Megan died? 'You never get over the loss of a child. Never.'

  When the plane took off and I felt my diaphragm starting to contract, I could again hear the pulmonary specialist tell me I'd be risking death by flying. Ten minutes later, as we reached cruising altitude, I felt a crushing pain in my chest. The large woman seated next to me said to her friend, 'Oh my God, he's having a coronary!' and rang for a hostess. Two of them arrived, looking very concerned.

  'Are you all right, sir?'

  I explained it was just a little breathlessness after a lung injury ('You were actually caught in a fire!' one of them said), and asked them if they had any oxygen. One of them disappeared, returning moments later with a canister. I gripped the mouthpiece between my lips and blasted myself three times. Presto. The pain dissipated, but the anguished thought that Megan might die continued to clobber me.

  'I think we might be able to find you somewhere more comfortable for the remainder of the flight,' one of the hostesses said.

  I was escorted to the rarefied confines of Business Class and a seat that turned into a bed. I accepted pillows and a duvet. I went into the bathroom and changed into the sleeper suit they provided. I popped a Zopiclone. I returned to the seat. I hit myself with two more blasts of oxygen and passed out for six hours. It was the first proper sleep I had received in days – and when I awoke thirty minutes outside of Chicago, I felt that, at least, I would be able to function, no matter how terrible the next twenty-four hours might turn out to be.

  The landing was tricky – the decompression causing my diaphragm to turn vise-like again. Two minutes before we hit the runway, th
e pressure was so bad I felt as if I was starting to strangle. The oxygen did little good . . . until we were on the ground and I could re-blast myself for a solid minute, emptying one of the canisters in the process.

  I had similar problems in the air between Chicago and Cleveland, emptying another whole canister en route and feeling completely breathless by the time I reached University Hospital half an hour after landing.

  The Neurological Unit was located on two floors in a new wing of the hospital. ICU was at the far end of a hallway. I was escorted inside by an attending nurse. She said my timing had been good, as the neurological resident was on the ward right now. 'I must warn you that walking into the unit always unnerves people the first time, and you might find all the apparatus around Megan rather disturbing. If you find you can't take it – and many people can't – just let me know and we'll get you out of there straight away.'

  Her bed was at the end of the unit. That meant walking past patient after patient, all unconscious, all looking submerged by wiring, monitors, probes, drips and a spaghetti junction of tubes. When I reached Megan's bed, I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. There was nothing different about all the apparatus engulfing her. It was simply the realization that this was my little girl, being kept alive by all this medical paraphernalia, including a ventilator that let out an ominous whish as it regulated her breathing. Her long blond hair had been hidden inside a white surgical cap – but her face, though bruised, was, as always, angelic. Susan was seated slumped in a chair, looking more tired than I had ever seen her. Her face was drawn, her shoulders hunched, her eyes sunken, her nails ravaged. A man in a white coat was talking to her in a calm voice. I approached Susan and put my arm around her shoulder. She reacted stiffly to this – no hello or greeting, and she quietly disengaged herself from my attempt at a supportive hug . . .

  something the doctor noticed immediately.

  'This is Megan's father,' Susan said tonelessly.

  I shook his hand and introduced myself. His name was Barry Clyde. A guy in his late thirties. Calm, considerate, if a little professionally distanced.

  'I was just telling Susan that Megan has suffered what could be described in layman's terms as a deep concussion which has been coupled with a certain amount of brainstem trauma. The MRI showed considerable bruising on the brain stem. The good news is that such bruising does dissipate and can be followed by a gradual recovery. The more tentative, difficult news is that she continues to be unable to respond to stimuli. Frankly, this has us worried. It could be that the concussion is so pervasive she simply has to heal first before emerging from this comatose state. But – and I must be direct with you about this – it could also be that she has suffered far more profound neurological damage and might be in this absent state for . . . well, it's hard to gauge how long this could go on for.'

  'Is there a chance she might die?' I asked.

  'All her other vital signs are good, her heart is immensely strong and the brain is getting all the oxygen it needs. So, no, death is not an immediate worry. But – and again I must outline the worst for you, just so you can be prepared – a persistent vegetative state might continue indefinitely. That, I should add, is the worst-case scenario . . .'

  I bowed my head and closed my eyes and felt tears sting them. The doctor touched my shoulder. 'Please don't give up hope. The brain is an extraordinarily mysterious organ and can frequently recover from serious trauma. Time will tell.'

  He left us alone. We both stood there, in front of the daughter we made together, saying nothing. When Susan started to break down again and I tried to take her hand, she pushed it away, saying, 'I don't want – need – your comfort.'

  'OK,' I said quietly. 'How about a cup of coffee?'

  'You just got here and you immediately want to go out for a coffee? Spend some time with your daughter.'

  'I can't bear to look at her like that.'

  'Well, get used to it. She's not coming out of this. I called my brother Fred yesterday. He put me on to a friend of his – a leading neurologist out in the Bay Area. I was able to get everything about Megan's case emailed to him in San Francisco. He was much more blunt about it than Dr Clyde. "In these sorts of brain-stem trauma cases, there is generally less than a fifteen percent chance that the person will make a full recovery, and more than a fifty percent chance that she will never emerge from that vegetative state."

  'Fifteen percent isn't zero—'

  'But it's shit odds. And I keep telling myself, If only I had driven her to school yesterday. But I was rushing to see my fucking lawyer who's doing his best to keep me out of jail as well.'

  'Surely the Feds don't think you had anything to do with Robson's porn business.'

  'You've evidently been kept well informed on my downfall. And it must give you enormous pleasure, under the circumstances.'

  'It gives me no pleasure at all. And let's not fight in front of Megan.'

  'Why not? She can't hear us. Even if she could, what would she think? How wonderful it is to have a pair of narcissistic fuck-ups as parents?'

  'I'm sure she's been terribly torn apart by what's happened over the last year. But that doesn't mean she hates us. And if we can somehow make it all up to her—'

  'Listen to you, Mr Bromide, Mr Polly-Fucking-Anna. She's not coming out of this, Harry. We've lost her. And she is the innocent victim in all this. Whereas we . . .'

  Again she started to lose it, grabbing on to the metal railings on Megan's bed and crying wildly. The attending nurse came marching down the corridor at speed. She put her arm around Susan's shoulder and led her off back toward the doorway. I stood by the bed and gripped the railings as well, trying not to fall apart, trying to tell myself that I would make this better, that I would get her out of it, no matter what it took.

  The nurse returned a few minutes later.

  'Your wife is about to be seen by a doctor. He will probably admit her for nervous exhaustion – and we'll find her a bed. She's at breaking point, the poor thing – and who can blame her. If you'd like to see her after the doctor . . .'

  'I think I'm about the last person she wants to see right now.'

  The nurse thought about that for a moment, then said, 'Is there anything I can get you?'

  'A glass of water, please. And I would like to stay here for a while . . .'

  I sat in front of my daughter's bed for the next five hours. I held her warm hand, I watched the undulating beeps of the heart monitor and was frequently lulled into nodding off by the metronomic whoosh of the respirator. I sat there, thinking, thinking, thinking. I put my head in my hands. I started to whisper. All right, Margit, I'll be back with you tomorrow. I will never miss another of our rendezvous again. You'll have me for as long as you want to have me. Just bring Megan back to us whole.

  I nodded off around midday and woke with a start at three. Megan was still motionless, her eyes stock-still. At five I forced myself out of the stiff uncomfortable metal chair. I leaned over and kissed her goodbye. Then I found the nurse on duty and explained that I had to fly back to Paris now, but to tell my wife that I'd be in touch by phone within the next twenty-four hours.

  A cab to the airport, an hour-long flight to Chicago, a two-hour stopover, seven and a half hours over the Atlantic: a sleepless night of coughing and sputtering, and I started to have that drowning sensation when the plane made its final approach. Once we were inside the terminal I staggered into a bathroom, bent over a toilet and heaved up clumps of reddish phlegm. Then I threw some water on my face and headed off to Immigration – an experience I was dreading, just in case the cops at the commissariat de police in the Tenth had informed the frontier boys that I was an American whom France could easily do without.

  I approached the booth. The cop scanned my passport, glanced at his screen and said, 'Back again with us?'

  'I like it here.'

  'Are you working?'

  'I'm a writer. I work for myself. So I'm not holding down a job here.'

  'And
how long will you be with us this time?'

  'A few weeks,' I lied. 'No more.'