I gestured to the chair.
He sat down and mopped his forehead. At first we said nothing, then, in two sentences, we tackled the circumstances of the accident (I was pretty vague on the details), and the length of my stay here (I didn’t really know yet).
So, to take my mind of things, he told me about his marital problems.
My brother and his wife Claudine don’t have much in common any more. Like a couple of knackered old dray horses, they’re pulling in different directions. He suffers from irritable bowel syndrome because she makes his life shit. She suffers from migraine because he does her head in. What’s more, she’s going deaf, which will deprive her of the spice of life: the daytime soaps. On the other hand, she won’t have to listen to him cough and kvetch. Always, in all things, look for the silver lining.
They remind me of what we were like, Annie and me, even though I did love her before she left me. I know the feeling, know it all too well, the burden of the everyday, the yoke that keeps a couple together, stops you from parting company and probably from falling flat on your face.
Hervé concluded with a sigh:
“You don’t know how lucky you are, you’ve got it cushy here.”
He looked at me on my sickbed, suddenly remembered I was widowed and realized what he had just said.
To create a diversion, he talked about his son, who is doing volunteering work with a humanitarian organization in Haiti—we all have our cross to bear—and about my niece and her husband, with whom I’ve been lucky enough to spend very little time. I’ve nothing against them, and that pains me. They’re polite, small-minded, unimaginative. Honest folk, just like him. I take after my great-grandfather, pépé Jean, I have a healthy aversion to family ties and their knotty acolytes. That said—is it age? Have I gone soft?—I have a lot of time for their son Jérémy, my great-nephew, who’s a smart, likeable guy. He showed me how to torrent pirated movies, and just for that I have a lot of respect for him.
At the end of the visit, I gave Hervé the keys to my apartment.
“Do you think you could pop round and pick up a couple of things from the house? Just my laptop, my toothbrush and things. And some clothes, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He’s an obliging kind of guy, he brought everything round that same evening.
Since he could not bring himself to leave straight away, he sat for a while, not knowing what to say or do, anxiously reviewing the tubes coming out of various parts of me, though he had made a detailed survey of them this morning.
“I know, I look like a gasworks,” I said.
He nodded but said nothing. He went over and stared out of the window at the passageway where patients in pyjamas were probably wheeling their IV stands and bags filled with mysterious fluids. He opened my wardrobe, moved a chair, considered the size of the room, “You’re lucky, it’s huge, but it’s hardly surprising, there are two beds.” He glanced at the cramped bathroom as he gave me the sales pitch, as though I were a prospective buyer.
“Pretty swish, isn’t it? Washbasin, shower, toilet…”
“As bathrooms go, it’s cutting-edge,” I said.
“Um, well, yeah. Actually while I’m here, and talking about toilets…”
Later, he pointed out that you could die of heatstroke in a hospital room. They’re designed to be warm, I told him, given that most people here—or the patients at least—are usually a little delicate. He nodded.
There was a silence.
He said:
“OK, right, well…”
Conversation between us has been on life support for a long time now.
To save him from floundering, I babbled:
“It’s a shame, I completely forgot to ask you to bring me some books!”
“Oh… right, well, I’ll pop by your place next week when Claudine and I come to visit. You can give me a list, if you know roughly what you want.”
“Whatever you find on the bedside table would be great, thanks.”
“Right, well…”
He was probably cursing himself that he did not have the courage to scarper as fast as his legs could carry him. I decided to put him out of his misery. I pretended to stifle a yawn, and said in a feeble voice:
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m feeling a bit peaky. I’m just going to get forty winks.”
He jumped at the chance.
“No, sure, of course, you’re bound to be tired, it’s only normal. Right well… I’ll be off then?”
We hugged.
When he got to the door, just before he left, he turned his mournful Saint Bernard eyes on me.
“All the same… You’re in a terrible state.”
“It looks a lot worse than it is, from what they tell me.”
“No chance, you’re going to need months of physio.”
“Well, maybe not months…”
“Are you kidding me? You don’t get over something like this in a couple of weeks, especially not at your age. Right, well, I’ll head off and let you get some sleep, you look awful.”
I said:
“Thank very much, good to see you.”
Deep down, I’m pretty fond of my kid brother really. He’s very sweet.
On the other hand, he’s very blunt.
EVERY TIME my brother leaves, he leaves me with a guilty conscience, and I hate myself for hating myself. I appreciate his efforts to help out. I’d do the same for him, and he knows that. Family obligations aren’t just there for decoration. The only problem is the four years between us meant we were never able to have a real bond. That’s life.
Aside from our parents, we have nothing in common.
I was in the big boys’ class in primary school by the time he started first year with his fat knees covered in scabs and bruises and his skinny legs in shorts that were miles too big for him. I was off to the lycée by the time he pushed open the gate to secondary school.
To me, he was always little.
Little bastard, little toerag, little snitch, little squirt.
Little brother.
The living evidence of my parents’ betrayal, since they had seen fit to spawn him without bothering to consult me, even though they already had me, and that should have been enough to make them happy.
Who can describe the pain of elder brothers and sisters, forced to share their Carambar, their father’s shoulders, their mother’s kisses, the back seat of the car, their scooter and their bicycle? Who can describe the frustration of being transformed pretty much overnight and against your will into the one who is supposed to set a good example?
But I took the role to heart, Hervé can attest to that. I did everything I could to teach him about life, real life, Chinese burns and back-stabbing and itching powder. Thanks to me, his childhood was one long hazing.
I was the insufferable older brother.
I am the impenetrable old brother.
Given how old we are, I’m afraid it will be that way for life.
I WAS IN THE PROCESS of replying to an email, uncomfortably settled the flat of my back, laptop on the bed tray, screen tilted at a precarious angle, glasses perched on the tip of my nose, looking like an elderly schoolmaster—ironic for someone who was always a dunce—when one of the cleaning operatives, who had been mopping the floor around the bed for at least fifteen minutes, finally said sarcastically:
“Writing your life story?”
I smiled.
I’ve always found it a strange idea, writing memoirs. There’s something pathetic about it. Like writing your own funeral eulogy, because you’re already bitching that if you want something doing properly, do it yourself. Before exiting the building you polish what you can, dust off everything and sweep the cat shit under the rug.
But, thinking about it, I realized that it was as good a way to pass the time as any.
After all, why not?
So I decided to make an inventory of everything I remember about my life. I’m a methodical guy. I’ll recap everything I know. And al
though the results may be of no interest to anyone—including me, since I’m not remotely sure that I’ll want to read what I’ve written—I set to work. I even start making notes on the laptop, a sort of intimate personal palaeontology on an Excel spreadsheet. Old habits die hard. A life spent working in logistics leaves its mark.
I’ve wheedled to be allowed to keep my laptop within easy reach, plugged in and perched on the bed tray I’ve transformed into a desk. I might bark and roar for someone to close the door, but I can be all sweetness and light if I need to, so I can have the computer close to me.
Necessity is the mother of diplomacy.
DIGGING DOWN through the deepest strata, here I am at the age of six and a bit, when I was obsessed with scaffles, the only thing anyone seemed to talk about round our house that year.
I spent a lot of time wondering what it was, this scaffle people were constantly banging on about. To be honest, at first, I thought it had something to do with trees. Huge, gnarly trees. The sort of trees where you would find monkeys or panthers.
Or maybe rocky mountaintops, why not?
But after mature reflection, I came to a firm conclusion: scaffles were seafaring boats. Not flat-bottomed boats or riverboats or miserable little dinghies. They were ships. Huge ships. The sort that laugh in the face of squalls and hurricanes, that sneer at the Atlantic, the Pacific and all the seas ending in –ic that we call oceans. That mystery being solved, the only thing on my mind was to find out which port they sailed from. And whether they would take me, whether they would want me. But that, in the end, was something I would make my business. I was always making everything my business.
I was six years old, I had all my baby teeth, I knew about life.
They’d take me on, I was sure of it.
Besides, they were probably warships, given the devastating effect the mere mention of them had in the living room. My mother would let out a wail and touch wood—it had to be round and unvarnished, so usually a chair leg. My father would turn purple and hiss in a demented voice from high in his throat:
“Bloody hell, I don’t believe it!”
It was always triggered by nothing at all, or nothing very much.
And it was always triggered by pépé Jean.
Pépé Jean, my great-grandfather, who spent his life sitting by the window in his leather armchair that stank of beer because of the shakes, and from here he could see half the clock, three-quarters of the street and the whole of my parents when they were sitting at the table. Pépé Jean, who listened in religious silence to Signé Furax every day, just after one o’clock, on the huge Pathé 507 radio.
My pépé, an iron fist in an abrasive glove.
I was by far his favourite subject. He liked to broach it mid-afternoon. He would clear his throat, give a little cough, huh-hem!—the meeting is now in session—then start mumbling to himself.
“What are you going on about, pépé?” my father would say after about five minutes, not bothering to look up from his crossword.
Pépé Jean would suck in a lungful of air, enough to make it to the end of his sentence, and answer fitfully because he often stalled mid-word.
“That youn-gster of yours is a little repr-robate!”
“Oh, give over, pépé…” my father would sigh.
“I kn-ow you don’t want to lis-sten, but that child is a little mo-onster!”
He would stare at me with black beady eyes that oozed like those of a dog with mange, and his tongue snaked out to slide his false teeth back into place. I would pull hideous faces at him, keeping my back to my parents, for whom respect for one’s elders was sacrosanct and a clip round the ear the surest way to ensure it was observed.
Waving his walking stick at me menacingly, Pépé would conclude:
“Ma-ark my wo-ords, you’ll wi- wind up climbing the sca-scaff-fold!”
My father would twist his napkin or toss it on the table.
Sometimes he would angrily snap one of the pencils with a rubber on the end.
My mother swore that this kind of talk would bring bad luck.
I could see why she was worried: the thought of watching me climb aboard one of these scaffles where real men like me enlisted to fight wars and kill enemies must have scared her. She feared for my life.
Pretty standard, for a mother.
Unfortunately, my father would always give a loud, cruel laugh and say:
“Don’t you worry your pretty head, love. Your son’s not going to wind up on the scaffold! Of course he won’t. No danger.”
He had no faith in me.
And that, now that is really tough for a kid.
THE INSPECTOR always knocks politely, even when the door is open, which is most of the time. He comes in, says hello and asks:
“Not disturbing you, am I?”
If I tell him I was just about to pop out, he laughs.
I don’t think he is making much headway in his investigation. Or at least, he doesn’t talk about it.
He talks about the weather, about what I’m reading. About me writing my memoirs. He’s fascinated that I’m constantly tapping on my laptop.
But why he comes, I don’t know.
His name is Maxime. He mentioned his surname only to immediately dismiss it:
“Call me Maxime.”
“You could call me Chateaubriand—seeing as I’m hard at work on my Memoirs from Beyond the Grave,” I said, “Otherwise I’ll settle for Jean-Pierre.”
He laughs. He knows his memoirists. But he elects to call me Monsieur Fabre. I don’t complain.
A little deference does no harm in relations, whether personal or police-related.
I suspect he feels sorry for me and is only visiting the train wreck in Room 28 out of pity when he’s got a spare moment, or has a case to deal with nearby.
Either that or he’s bored.
Or he’s trying to pick up one of the nurses in white coats. Rumour has it they wear nothing underneath.
I’ve craned my neck so hard I have nearly given myself a herniated disc, but I haven’t seen anything to substantiate this rumour.
Patience.
I’ve noticed that his presence at my bedside has brought colour to the cheeks of the nursing aides. I’m hoping to get some small benefit from it, maybe their fondness for him will rub off on me. They seem to think he’s cute, this weirdo with his brooding good looks. No sooner does he arrive than they start coming and going outside my door pretending to act natural. When he leaves, they probably follow him down the corridor like a shoal of cod.
I’m well aware that the old codger swaddled in bandages like a silkworm’s cocoon doesn’t set their pulses racing like that.
It doesn’t matter, if his visits to my room get me an extra ration of plonk at mealtimes, it’s better than nothing. I’m not expecting any incidental pleasures, I’m a realist.
Hope is fine for dreamers and adolescents. Me, I’ve got memories.
At my age, it’s a better bet than having ambitions.
This morning, he’s got a glint in his eye.
“Monsieur Fabre, I’ve got news for you!”
“I’m listening, my young friend.”
I like calling him that. At first he found it disconcerting, but now, bizarrely, I think it makes him feel at ease.
He pulls a chair up to the bed, sits down, leans over me and looks deeply into my eyes. It seems he’s about to drop a bombshell and is trying to use his huge dark eyes to send a subliminal message to warn me in advance.
I’m polite, I show an interest.
“Come on then, tell me all.”
“The investigation has concluded it was an accident.”
He draws back to gauge the effect.
When it seems clear that I suspected as much, he looks disappointed and continues:
“Caused by a motorist.”
“…”
“A hit-and-run driver!”
I can see he’s doing his best to please the customer. I feel sorry for him, so I raise
an eyebrow.
“Do you have any details?”
His face lights up and he enthusiastically launches into an explanation.
“Well, now you come to mention it, we do: the evidence suggests you were rammed by a car whose driver lost control of the vehicle.”
I was fairly sure it wasn’t a Mafia hit: the only Mafiosi I see regularly are those in The Godfather and Donnie Brasco.
He takes out his Star Wars-style tablet and sketches something quickly, biting his lower lip as he mutters a running commentary.
“OK, so here… here’s the bridge… You must have been standing on the pavement… I’d say… ummmm… somewhere about here. You see?”
It’s obvious that he enjoys this, drawing maps, cutaway diagrams, perspectives with vanishing points with little arrows and crosses. He probably dreamt of being an architect, but his father was a civil servant. The sort of tragedy you come across every day.
“So, what we think—well, our hypothesis—is that you were thrown over the parapet, at, let’s say, this sort of angle… there… like thaaat… see?”
“Gosh.”
“Yep. It must have been a violent collision, given the fractures you suffered.”
“Let me get this right, you’re saying it’s a miracle that I’m still here…”
He nods.
“Too right. And given the time—this time of year at five in the morning there’s not much traffic, right? Were you coming home from a night out with friends?”
“I doubt it. I don’t have any.”
He shoots me a sympathetic look, coughs, gives an embarrassed smile and changes the subject.
“Well, whatever the situation, the fact remains that were it not for the person standing under the bridge, you wouldn’t be here now…”
The “person” in question was the young rent boy who pulled me out of the river. He witnessed the dive. He didn’t know how to swim, but seeing as I did a belly-flop and landed near the bank, he managed to snag me with a boat hook and pull me to the edge. Alerted by his shouts, the bin men on the opposite bank called the emergency services. The young guy kept my head out of water until the paramedics arrived.
Get Well Soon Page 2