Other Lives But Mine

by Emmanuel Carrère

  Juliette was in the intensive care unit. Hélène and her parents entered the room; I hung back at the threshold, but Hélène motioned for me to come in and stand behind her, close by, while she took her sister’s hand, tethered to an intravenous needle. At her touch, Juliette, who’d been lying motionless with her head tilted back, turned slightly toward Hélène. Her lungs were failing; all the energy Juliette had left was devoted to the now horribly difficult task of breathing. She’d lost her hair and her face was waxen, emaciated. I’d seen my first dead people in Tangalla, a great many of them all at once, but I had never watched anyone die. Now, I was watching. Juliette’s parents and sister all spoke to her; she was unable to answer but looked at them and seemed to recognize them. I don’t remember what they said. Probably her name, who they were, that they were there. Juliette, it’s Papa. Juliette, it’s Mama. Juliette, it’s Hélène. And they squeezed her hands, touched her face. Suddenly, she sat up, arching her back. She grabbed roughly, clumsily, at the oxygen mask, trying to tear it off, as if it were impeding her breathing instead of helping her. Panicking, we thought it had stopped working, that Juliette would die for lack of air before our eyes. A nurse rushed in and told us no, the machine was working properly. Hélène, who was supporting Juliette in her arms, helped her lie back on the bed again, like a recumbent figure on a tomb. Juliette did not resist; starting up like that had exhausted her. She seemed not so much calm as distant, out of reach. The four of us stayed for a minute more at her bedside. The nurse then told us that during the afternoon, when she could still speak, Juliette had asked to see her daughters, but only after their school’s end-of-the-year celebration, a festive program that would take place the next morning. The doctors thought they could keep her alive until then and would see that she got some rest later that night. All this had been worked out by Juliette and her husband. She didn’t want to die stupefied by drugs, yet she was relying on them to keep terrible suffering from stealing her death. She wanted help in hanging on long enough to do what she had left to do, but nothing more. The nurse was impressed not only by her courage but even more by her lucidity and determination.

  That night, in the hotel, Hélène lay next to me, but she was walled off and, like her sister, out of reach. Every so often she would get up to smoke a cigarette near the half-open window, and I would get up to join her. It was a nonsmoking room, so we used a plastic cup from the bathroom as an ashtray, with a little water in it so it wouldn’t melt. The water became a disgusting brew. We both intended to stop smoking and had already racked up a few failed attempts to quit, so we’d agreed that instead of trying and failing and getting discouraged, we’d wait for a favorable—that is, less stressful—opportunity to stop for good. For me this meant after my film had come out, and for Hélène (I now realize, even if we never said so), after Juliette’s death, which she’d been anticipating for several months, paralyzed by anguish. We were getting up, smoking, going back to bed, getting up again—all in near silence. At one point Hélène said, It’s good that you’re here, and her saying that helped me. At the same time, I was thinking of Yokohama, telling myself that the odds of my taking the plane on Monday weren’t great and then trying to figure out how slim they really were. I was thinking about Sri Lanka, too, about the way Hélène and I had embraced in the shower at the Alliance Française and resolved never to part.

  Her parents’ room was three doors down from ours. Neither they nor my parents had ever been separated. Jacques and Marie-Aude were growing old together, and while we didn’t see them as role models, I thought that was something, growing old together. They must have been lying on their bed, in silence. Maybe they were lying close together. Maybe they were turned toward each other, crying. It was their child’s last night, or just about. She was thirty-three. They’d come here for her death. And the three little girls, a few kilometers away? Were they asleep? What was going through their heads? What does it mean, when you’re seven, to know your mother is dying? And when you’re four? One? People say a one-year-old doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, but even without words a child must sense that something serious is going on, that life is in upheaval and will never be truly safe again. Some-thing was bothering me, a question of language: I hate hearing the word mama used other than in private and in direct address. That even a sixty-year-old would address his or her mother as “Mama”—fine. But when anyone past kindergarten age says “So-and-so’s mama” or, like former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, talks about “the mamas,” I feel a disgust that goes beyond the snobbishness that makes me wince when someone says “No problem” or “The thing of it is, is that …” And yet even for me, the dying woman was not the mother of Amélie, Clara, and Diane but their mama, and this word that I dislike and that makes me sad, well, I won’t say it didn’t sadden me, but I had a longing to say it, softly, mama, and to cry and be, not consoled, no, but gently rocked, just rocked, and to fall asleep like that.

  7

  Rosier, where Juliette, Patrice, and their three daughters lived and where Patrice and the girls still do, is a tiny village without shops or a café, but it has a church and a school around which housing developments have sprung up. The church probably dates to the end of the nineteenth century, but nothing else around it does, so one wonders what Rosier once looked like. Perhaps it was a farming village before these young couples who work in Vienne or Lyon moved in, drawn there because it was a fine place to raise children and not too expensive. When we’d visited Juliette in February, Rosier had reminded me unpleasantly—both the place and the people—of where Jean-Claude Romand and his family had lived, not far from there, in the Pays de Gex.fn1 The village seemed more attractive in June, especially since the weather was pleasant. Patrice and Juliette’s yard, with its swing and plastic pool, looked out onto the church square. I imagined the girls leaving after breakfast with their backpacks, the snacks after they came home from school, the visits from one neighbor to another, the bicycles hanging in everyone’s garages over the workbench and the lawnmower. A little parochial, but still, it was a pretty picture.

  There were lots of people in the house when we arrived that Saturday morning: Patrice and his daughters, who were getting ready for their big event at school, but also parents and siblings from both sides of the family, as well as neighbors dropping in for a few minutes and a cup of coffee. That last was in continual preparation, so cups needed to be retrieved from the not-yet-started dishwasher and rinsed out in the sink. As the most recent arrival, I needed a task and sat down at the kitchen table to help Patrice’s mother prepare a large salad for lunch. We all knew why we were there, so there was no point in talking about it, but then what could we talk about? Patrice’s mother had read my book The Adversary (which Juliette had recommended to her, explaining that I was Hélène’s fiancé) and found it a hard story to read. I allowed as how yes, it was hard, and that it had been hard to write, too, and I felt vaguely ashamed of writing such hard things. In my circle, people have no problem with a dark book or a perverse subject; many even find special merit in such things, proof of the author’s audacity. Less sophisticated readers like Patrice’s mother are perturbed and perplexed. They don’t consider it wrong to write such things, but they still wonder why anyone would. They tell themselves that the affable, well-mannered guy helping slice cucumbers, who seems to be sincerely joining in the family mourning, must nevertheless be really twisted or really unhappy, because there’s something wrong with him, and the worst thing is, I have to admit they’re right.

  I was hiding out all the more willingly in the company of Patrice’s mother because I didn’t dare approach the girls, the two oldest, that is, Amélie and Clara. Being genial and polite wasn’t enough with them. I didn’t know what I ought to do, but I knew I couldn’t do it at the moment. The first time I’d visited I’d played the clown and made Amélie laugh. Antoine was currently doing that job. Antoine is Hélène and Juliette’s younger brother, one of the easiest people to love that I know. He’s c
heerful, friendly, there’s nothing constrained or defensive about him, and he puts everyone immediately at ease, particularly children. Later I discovered how deeply he felt sorrow and pain, but that day I envied him his simplicity, his straightforward attitude toward life, such a contrast with my own character—and Hélène’s, I thought at the time. Hélène, however, is able to give of herself to others. I’d discovered that watching her help the survivors of the tsunami, and I noticed it again seeing her with Clara. According to his mother, Patrice had spoken to his three girls the day before. And that meant he’d told them, Mama’s going to die, so tomorrow, after the school festival, all four of us will go see her, and it will be for the last time. He had said those words and probably repeated them. And Clara had understood them. She knew that at the age of four she was going to lose her mother’s irreplaceable love, and she was already seeking a substitute in her aunt. I watched Hélène caressing her, dealing with her wheedling and her tears, and I was deeply moved by her exquisite tact, just as I’d been impressed by her in Sri Lanka, in precisely the opposite situation, consoling the parents of a different Juliette.

  I have been and still am a scriptwriter; constructing dramatic situations is one of the things I do, and a cardinal rule of the profession is not to be afraid of audacious excess and melodrama. Still, I don’t think I would ever have dared, in making up a story, to stage as shameless a tearjerker as a scene of two little girls dancing and singing at their school festival as their mother lies dying in the hospital. While we waited for them to come on, about every ten minutes Hélène and I snuck away from the audience on the benches in the playground to have a cigarette. We’d then rejoin the rest of the family, and when first Clara appeared, in a kindergarten ballet of little fishies underwater, followed by Amélie in a tutu for a hula-hoop number, we waved exuberantly like everyone else to catch their eyes, to show them we were there. They were conscientious, industrious little girls, and their performances were important to them. A few days earlier, they’d believed their mother would be there to see them. When she’d gone to the hospital, Patrice had told them—doubtless still hoping it would be true—that she’d be back in time for the festival. Then, that maybe she wouldn’t be able to attend after all but would be home soon. And finally, as of last night, that she would not come home again. What made it all the more wrenching, if that were possible, was that the show was very well done. Really. My sons, Gabriel and Jean-Baptiste, are older now, but I’ve seen my fair share of kindergarten and elementary school extravaganzas with theatrics, singing, and pantomime, and of course they’re always sweet as can be, but they’re also tedious, chaotic, a bit of a mess, so that if there’s one thing parents appreciate it’s when the teachers manage to keep things short. The Rosier school festival was not short, but neither was it held together with baling wire. The little ballets and sketches had a precision reflecting much work and care, an unthinkable endeavor for the artsy yuppie schools my sons attended. These children looked happy, at ease. They were growing up in the countryside, in a protected family environment. People must have tormented and divorced one another in Rosier the way they do everywhere else, except that then they left Rosier, which was truly a place for families, where every child cavorting onstage could look out at the audience and find Mama and Papa sitting on a bench together. It was life as it appears in TV ads, average in all things, devoid not only of style but also of the sense that style might be something to strive for. I looked down on that life, I wouldn’t have wanted it, but on that day I watched the children, I watched their parents videotaping them, and I reflected that choosing life in Rosier meant choosing not only the safety of the herd but love as well.

  In the crowd of parents filling the playground and then gathering in front of the church after the show, everyone knew. People were not yet speaking of Juliette in the past tense, but no one could pretend to any hope. Neighbors and more or less close friends would come over and embrace Patrice, who was holding baby Diane, and squeeze his shoulder, offering to take care of the children or to put up family members who’d arrived for the passing of his wife, if they needed somewhere to stay. Patrice wore a pleasant, desolate smile that expressed real gratitude for even the most conventional displays of sympathy—which conventionality, of course, didn’t mean they weren’t sincere—and what struck me, what has always struck me about him, was his simplicity. He was there, in shorts and sandals, feeding his tiny daughter her bottle, and nothing about him said he’d given a thought to any public show of grief.

  The funfair part of the day began. There were stands for prize fishing and archery, pyramids of canned goods to knock down with a tennis ball, a coloring workshop, a raffle, and so on. Amélie had a booklet of raffle tickets to sell, so all her family and a few neighbors bought some but none of us won anything. Since I was with Amélie and Hélène during the drawing, I pretended to pay serious attention, feverishly checking my numbers and exaggerating my disappointment to make her laugh. She did laugh, but in her own way, solemnly, and I tried to imagine how she would remember this day when she was grown up. I try to imagine, as I write, how she’ll feel if she ever reads this book. After the fair, the family had lunch in the garden, beneath the big catalpa. It was quite hot; we could hear children behind the hedges, laughing and splashing in inflatable pools. Sitting quietly at a table, Clara and Amélie were making drawings for their mother. If the color went outside the lines, they would frown and start over. When Diane awoke from her nap, Patrice and Cécile, Juliette’s other sister, left for the hospital with the three girls. Just before Amélie got into the car, she turned toward the church, made a furtive sign of the cross, and murmured, quickly, Make it so Mama doesn’t die.

  Hélène’s and my turn came at the end of the afternoon. Anticipating that I would be driving, I’d been careful to memorize the directions from the day before and I made it a point of honor to confidently take the correct route. I couldn’t do much, but at least I could be a good chauffeur. We went through the same swinging doors, down the same deserted halls with their fluorescent lighting, and waited a long time by the intercom for permission to enter the ICU. When we walked into Juliette’s room, Patrice was lying on the bed next to her with his arm under her neck, his face bent over hers. She was unconscious, her breathing labored. To give Hélène a moment alone with her sister, Patrice stepped out into the hall. I watched Hélène sit down on the bed and take Juliette’s inert hand in her own, then stroke her face. Some time passed. When she came out of the room, she asked Patrice what the doctors had said. He told her they thought she would die that night, but no one could say how long it would take. They need to help her now, Hélène said. Patrice nodded and went back into the room.

  The doctor on call, a bald young man with gold-rimmed glasses and a wary expression, invited us to sit down. There was a blond nurse with him, as welcoming as he was chilly. You must suspect, Hélène said, what I’m here to ask you. His vague gesture meant not so much “yes” as “please go on” and Hélène, whose eyes began to glisten with tears, went on. She asked him how long the whole thing might last; the doctor repeated that it wasn’t possible to say but it was a question of hours, not days. Hélène was torn. It’s time now, you have to help her, she said again. He replied simply, We have begun to do so. Hélène left him her cell phone number and asked to be called when it was all over.

  In the car on the way back from the hospital, Hélène wasn’t sure that she’d been clear enough with the doctor or that his answer had been, either. I tried to reassure her: there had been no ambiguity on either side. She also distrusted the zeal of the friendly nurse, who’d spoken of a possible improvement: Juliette, she’d said in a hopeful tone, might last another twenty-four or even forty-eight hours. Hours like that, Hélène felt, would not be welcome. Juliette had said her farewells; Patrice was with her. The time had come. The only thing medicine could do now was make sure he was there when her time ran out.

  We stopped in Vienne to buy cigarettes and have a drink at a si
dewalk café on the main avenue. It was Saturday evening in a small provincial city; people were strolling outside in shirtsleeves or light dresses, and the smell of summer and the South was in the air. Besides the usual traffic, we saw and heard go by first some local boys on motorcycles, rearing up on their bikes and revving their engines as loud as possible, then a bridal convoy with white veils streaming from the car antennas and horns blowing full blast, and finally a publicity truck announcing a puppet show that evening. It was a contest of champions, the guy yelled over his megaphone, an event not to be missed: Mr. Punch and Winnie-the-Pooh! As at the school festival, the screenwriter in charge seemed to be laying it on a bit thick.