Catherine Leroux - The Party Wall

Gradually, the street comes alive. Old ladies sweep their porches with unexpected energy; kids throw basketballs through hoops with gaping nets. Passersby go in and out of nameless stores that have mysteriously survived the arrival of large malls on the outskirts of Savannah. The coins in Angie’s pocket jingle. Out of the corner of her eye, she recognizes a few girls from her school but pretends not the see them.

A ball rolls up to Monette’s feet, and she immediately bends down to pick it up but is checked at the very last moment by her sister, who senses a trap. Behind a hedge two boys are stifling their giggles. With the tip of her sole Angie kicks back the ball covered with dog shit and nudges her little sister toward the other side of the street. They’ll be there soon.

Half a dozen teenage boys are lolling on the grocery stairway; it’s an old building, which from a distance appears for all the world to be resting on piles — not such an absurd idea, given the climate along the Georgia coast. The youngsters chew on jujubes and peppered beef jerky and swap slaps in a furtive exchange of invisible objects, practising the covert moves that all too soon will be their bread and butter. When the two young girls arrive, the boys give them the sideways look that manages to stare without ever meeting the other’s gaze, the intent look whose weight Monette does not yet grasp and Angie has already learned to evade.

Intimidated by the group, who leave little room for them to climb the stairs, Monette stops, but Angie prods her, knowing how important it is not to slow down, not to leave an opening for the pack. The little girl is uneasy and stumbles as she makes her way up the stairs; the boys snicker. Seeing her sister’s tiny shoulders sag, Angie deftly lifts her up and sets her back on her feet. As she does when walking in the woods, Angie has the feeling snakes could slither out from any direction and coil themselves around her feet; she would like to run inside the store but holds back and straightens her angular body in order to appear strong and proud. Finally, Monette reaches the door, stretches her arm out to open it but doesn’t manage to turn the knob. Angie comes to her rescue and soon they hear the familiar tinkling of the rusted bell. The street disappears; the numbing tenderness of the air-conditioning takes hold of them.

The rainis so heavy that neither the bay nor the end of the bridge can be made out. Only the lights along the shore, the harbour lights and those on the poor boats steaming out to sea pierce the darkness. Yet it is still early. Carmen cranes her neck in an attempt to glimpse Alcatraz through the storm. She always looks for the island when crossing the bay. That she’s unable to see it now annoys her.

“Look straight ahead,” Simon grumbles in the passenger seat.

“If only they would keep the lighthouse working.”

She rummages through her handbag, pulls out her mobile phone, and reads a message while her brother sighs impatiently beside her.

“Do you know how many people die each year fiddling with their phones while driving?”

Carmen shrugs. Deep down she’s convinced of having more than two eyes. When she looks at the landscape she still manages to watch the road ahead. When she sends an SMS she has no trouble seeing Simon’s frown of exasperation. Running races has nurtured this ability. A sort of double vision or, rather, double consciousness. The ability to be simultaneously in one’s body and elsewhere. Though unaware of it, Simon shares this gift. He is too focused on the straight and narrow to let himself be diverted like this. Simon is yoked to his chosen course, and he follows it like a soldier on the march.

“Have you heard about this re-enactment business at Alcatraz? It happened a few months ago, in the fall, I believe. A bunch of youths took advantage of the island being closed on a holiday and landed there at night. They occupied the cells, the guardrooms, and recreated penitentiary life as it was in the fifties. They left a long rope made of sheets knotted together hanging from a window. Ring a bell? Surely you must have investigated.”

After muttering a few words that sound like “coast guard jurisdiction,” Simon leans forward to switch on the radio. Barack Obama’s voice rings out, broadcasting a message to the nation that the brother and sister only half listen to. The bridge makes landfall. To their right the dinosaurs of the port of Oakland keep on unloading cargo with sweeping elliptical movements, their rasping machinery not the least bit bothered by the rain. As they drive past the high-rise apartment buildings of Emeryville, Carmen tries to pick out her mother’s window. Just like Alcatraz Island, the apartment is empty, dark, and impossible to distinguish in the grey light. She turns onto a wide street washed by the downpour. In the distance the neon sign of the hospital shows the way. All the windows there are lit up.

The instant he sets foot outside the car Simon feels the tremor. Instinctively, he looks around him. It’s a vast parking lot and nothing can fall on them, except a lamppost. But that would require some bad luck. He waits, his hand pressed against the dripping roof of the car. On the opposite side of the car Carmen does the same, alive to the seismic waves rumbling beneath their feet. Residents of the area have a contradictory attitude toward earthquakes. On one hand they are so inured to them that nighttime tremors don’t even wake them up anymore. Yet they remain keenly aware that any quake could be “the big one,” the one that will plunge the coast into the Pacific Ocean, submerging centuries of history, and flood the rest of the region with an unprecedented tsunami. Simon checks his watch. Over a minute. Nothing collapses; the hospital looks completely undisturbed. At last, the rumbling subsides and recedes into the boiling entrails out of which it came, and the ground grows still. Carmen locks the doors and heads toward the visitors’ entrance.

“Francisca Lopez,” Simon asks the receptionist tersely.

“224,” she snaps right back.

The corridors are strewn with miscellaneous objects. Evidently the tremor did shake the hospital. Some of the staff are busy cleaning up while others go in and out of the rooms where terrified voices can be heard wailing. From the far end of the corridor a gravelly voice reaches them above the clamour. The call grows more distinct as they approach.

“Help! I need help!”

A red-faced nurse steps out of room 224 just when Carmen and Simon arrive.

“Are you her children? That’s good — you’ll be able to calm her down. She just tossed her bedpan against the wall.”

“Empty, I hope?”

“You figure?” the nurse replies, holding up a urine-soaked rag in her gloved hand.

Carmen goes in first. The lights are dimmed, the bedclothes in disarray. Under the sheets is a tiny woman, whose brittle bones seem to be enveloped not in flesh but fine, crumpled paper. She is howling at the top of her lungs.

“Help! Don’t leave me here!”

Carmen places her hand on her mother’s scrawny arm.

“We’re here, mother. Everything’s all right.”

Frannie turns toward her and opens her enormous black eyes, whose pupils can’t be distinguished from the rest.

“Simon? Carmen? God in heaven, you’re going to get me out of here. This shitty building is going to collapse, and these dickwad quacks are going to let me croak alone.”

Simon steps closer. He knows he ought to touch his mother to reassure her, kiss her on the forehead, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Years ago, the lukewarm disdain he had felt for Frannie’s body transformed into an aversion. He can’t bear her emaciation and her hollow gaze. He comes nearer and strokes the pillow a few centimetres from her cheek.