Catherine Leroux - The Party Wall

“The earthquake is over, mother,” Carmen says. “It wasn’t very strong. Nothing is in danger of collapsing.”

“Liar!” Frannie shouts at her daughter.

Simon steps in.

“Look, we’re here with you. You know very well we wouldn’t stay here if it was dangerous.”

Frannie gives him a mollified look.

“If you say so, my boy.”

Reaching her hands out, she demands her sheets. Carmen covers her, and her body vanishes under the greenish cotton. The hospital colours clash with the patient’s feverish energy. Hard to believe she had a heart attack just earlier today. Simon thinks of his wife. When he suggested she come with them to the hospital, this was precisely the prediction that served to justify her refusal. “I bet you’ll find your mother in top shape. It’s not worth the trip.” Then she dove back into her countless urgent cases, and Simon slammed the door in a rage. Realizing she was right infuriates him even more.

He surfaces from his thoughts and notes that Frannie has been chattering on for several minutes. Nothing of her monologue has stayed with him; fortunately, Carmen is paying attention. She nods and punctuates the narrative with timely “uh-huhs,” summoning up the remarkable endurance that Simon has never been able to explain to himself. As a child he would enjoy challenging her to put this phenomenal aptitude to the test. He would ask her to stay balanced on her head or to keep a jalapeño in her mouth for as long as possible. If ever she cut short the experiment, it was always because of external factors — Frannie’s intervention, for instance. Usually, though, it was Simon himself, after what seemed to him an eternity, who would beg her to stop, cursing himself for having subjected his sister to such torture.

The nurse they’d met earlier comes back with a clean bedpan. Her brusque manner bespeaks her contempt for the patient, but she says nothing. As she is about to go out, Frannie calls out to her:

“Next time, don’t leave me marinating in my piss for an hour. That way, I won’t make a mess for you.”

Carmen rolls her eyes and wonders if there is some way to leave a tip for hospital workers. She notices out of the corner of her eye that Simon is rocking from one foot to the other. Something is bothering him. Carmen takes him into the corridor.

“What’s the matter?”

“The matter is I’d really like to see her medical report. She looks healthier than a quarterback at the start of the season. I don’t want to have her mouldering away here for no good reason.”

“You mean you don’t feel like mouldering here.”

Simon half smiles at her sheepishly.

“Okay, keep her company while I go find out how things stand.”

She sets off down the corridor, which is gradually returning to some semblance of order. The moaning has stopped and the shattered bottles of medicine have disappeared from the floor. The geriatric department has recovered its padded atmosphere punctuated by the beeps and buzzes that chart the path of the dying. The nurses’ station appears at the intersection of three long corridors; Carmen would have preferred to walk another kilometre to find it. She does a better job than her brother of putting up with their mother, but it must come in small doses. In fact, that is what motivated her to start running. As a teenager, she needed an excuse to leave the house, and acceptable excuses were rare as far as Frannie was concerned. Long-distance running naturally arose as the next step: to go farther away and for longer periods of time. The army cadets saved Simon; for Carmen it was marathons.

An overweight staff member makes a note of her request, assuring her that a doctor will soon come to see them. Carmen slowly returns to room 224. A few doors away, an old man calls out to her.

“ Hija! Hija mia! ”

Carmen stops in her tracks and stares at the haggard eyes, the tortured eyebrows, the twisted lower lip.

“I’m not your daughter, sir. Sorry.”

Back in the room, Simon is standing guard with his arms folded at the foot of the bed, while Frannie offers advice on what Alan and Jessica, Simon’s children, should choose as academic majors. Each day since they were born she has found something to say about their education, their nutrition, their leisure activities, and their clothes. Simon endures these interventions while inwardly railing against them. As for Carmen, she has been spared this litany ever since she informed her mother that her future included neither husband nor progeny.

When she catches sight of her daughter, Frannie waves for her to come closer and whispers: “The bag! The bag!” Underneath a table, Carmen fishes out a large plastic shopping bag. In a conspiratorial tone of voice, Frannie orders Simon to shut the door.

“What’s inside the bag?”

“Nothing. Just Bastard.”

Carmen and Simon look at each other in alarm. Bastard is the tabby cat Frannie adopted thirty years ago. Her love for him (which, in her case, involved shouting at him most of the time) was such that when he died she could not bring herself to part with him.

Frannie gently opens the bag, revealing the animal’s stiff carcass, stripes intact, ears pricked up for all eternity.

“Mother!” Simon exclaims. “Put that away immediately. Do you realize what would happen if someone were to see that?”

“That, that,… It’s not a ‘that’; it’s a cat. An adorable pussycat!” Frannie shoots back, tenderly stroking the creature’s dry fur.

Carmen can’t help smiling. In the past, the moments when her mother petted her cat were the only intervals of calm in the house, rare interludes that she hung on to to remind herself that Frannie had a heart. Because of allergies, Simon could never tolerate the animal, which, unfortunately for him, enjoyed an exceptionally long life. As luck would have it, however, the cat’s stuffed version is non-allergenic.

“Simon’s right, mother. You have to put it back in the bag. If they find it, they’ll confiscate it.”

Outraged, Frannie grabs Bastard by the neck and waves him high in the air.

“I’d like to see them try! No one is going to come between me and my pussycat!”

Brother and sister manage willy-nilly to take the animal and hide it just as someone knocks on the door.

The doctor is a man with dishevelled hair — not a good sign for Simon. Certain professions, including his own and the doctor’s, demand good grooming. A police officer or a doctor with shaggy hair give the people they are supposed to serve and protect a chaotic impression, a feeling of uncertainty just when everything is shifting.

Outside the door he summarizes an evidently voluminous medical report. Contrary to Simon’s suspicions their mother is indeed unwell. She suffered a serious heart attack that very morning. The tests indicate that her heart is working at a fraction of its normal capacity and that her blood is too thick, putting her at risk of a fatal stroke or thrombosis. On hearing this, Simon probes his own heart for sadness or fear. But it’s as if its volume has suddenly shrunk to the point where nothing is left but a grain of salt, a breadcrumb.

“We’re giving her anticoagulants and hope that her blood will thin. In a day or two she’ll be able to go home, provided a family member or close friend is there to look after her.”

Carmen fights back a sigh.

“And her heart — can it be fixed?” she inquires.

“At her age, no. All we can do is to help her live with what’s left of it.”

Having said this, the doctor goes quiet and stares at the sister and brother in turn, waiting for comments or questions. But there is nothing to be said. Living with what’s left of their mother’s heart is what they’ve been doing for years.