Maylis de Kerangal - The Heart

Thomas starts again, trying a different tack: Was your son on the national organ donation refusal registry? Or do you know if he’s ever expressed his opposition to the idea, if he’s against it? A complicated question; their frowns deepen. Marianne shakes her head, I don’t know, I don’t think so, she stammers, while Sean suddenly moves, his dark squarish head turning slowly toward Thomas, and says, his voice muffled: Nineteen years old — he inclines forward and gathers together these poorly articulated words, spoken without really opening his mouth — are there any nineteen-year-olds who make the necessary arrangements regarding, for that sort of, does that even exist? “Necessary arrangements”—his voice is menacing, contained, the S ’s sinisterly snakelike. It can happen, Thomas replies softly, sometimes. Sean swallows a mouthful of water, bangs the glass back on the table: Maybe, but not Simon. And so, stealing in through what he identifies as a breach in the dialogue, Thomas asks, in a slightly louder voice, why “not Simon”? Sean chews silently: Because he loves life so much. Thomas nods, I understand, but does not give up: Loving life doesn’t mean he never thought about death; he might have talked about it to his friends or family. Filaments of silence are spliced together, and then Marianne reacts, foggily, the words tumbling fast: Friends, family, yeah, I don’t know, actually yes, his sister, yes he really loves his little sister, Lou, she’s seven, they’re like day and night but they’re really close, and his friends, well, there’s his surf buddies, Johan, Christophe, and his high school friends, but, I don’t know, we don’t see them very often, but friends and family, yeah, I don’t know, well there’s his grandmother, his cousin who lives in the United States, and there’s Juliette too, his first love, and there’s us.

* * *

They are talking about their son in the present tense; not a good sign. Thomas continues: I’m asking you these questions because if the deceased — in this case, your son, Simon — has not made known his refusal, if he has not expressed his opposition, we need to think about what he would have wanted: Would he have consented? “The deceased — in this case, your son, Simon.” Thomas had raised his voice and distinctly pronounced each word of this phrase, hammering in the final nails. Consented to what? It’s Marianne who asks the question, lifting her head, but in truth she already knows the answer; she wants to hear those final nails go in. Thomas replies: Consented to the removal of his organs, for transplant operations. He has to use these brutal phrases, unfolded like slogans on banners; he has to utilize their heavy impact, their blunt power; Thomas knows all too well how much suffering can be caused by ambiguity, misplaced subtlety, in these kinds of interviews.

* * *

The tension has very quickly risen at this point on the earth’s surface. The plant’s leaves seem to tremble, the water in the glasses to ripple; the light in the room seems to grow suddenly brighter, making them blink, and the air to vibrate as if the motor of a centrifuge was slowly turning above their heads. Thomas is the only one to remain completely immobile, to show no emotion. Keeping his gaze steady on their pain-creased faces, ignoring the tremors of their jaws, the shaking of their shoulders, he goes on unflinchingly: The purpose of this interview is to discover and formulate the expression of the dead person’s wishes — Simon’s wishes; we are not here to consider what you yourself would do in this situation, but to think about what your son would have wanted. Thomas holds his breath, assessing the stealthy violence of these words, words that force a radical distinction between their bodies and the body of their child, words that create a distance, but which also, at the same time, allow them to think clearly. In a weak drawl, Marianne asks: How can we know?

She is asking for a method. Sean watches her, and Thomas reacts unhesitatingly. In that moment he wonders if Marianne might be, in the words of an expression he learned at a seminar, the “resource person”; in other words, the person who might create a wake effect. We are here to think about Simon, he says, about the person he was; the removal process is always connected to a unique individual, to our reading of his existence; we have to think about this together; for example, we can ask whether Simon was religious, whether he was generous. Generous? Marianne repeats, stunned. Yes, generous, Thomas confirms, how he was in his relationships with other people, whether he was curious, whether he liked traveling; these are the kinds of questions we need to ask.

Marianne glances over at Sean; his face is haggard, muddy skin and black lips, his eyes focused slantingly on the green plant. She can’t see the link between the nurse’s questions and organ donation. Finally, she whispers: Sean, was Simon generous? They look away, unsure how to respond, the two of them breathing heavily. She puts an arm around the neck of this man with thick, black hair like her son’s, pulls him toward her, their heads touch, and he lowers his while a yes slides from his dry throat — a “yes” that, in all honesty, has little to do with their son’s generosity, because, when it came down to it, Simon was not especially generous: he was more catlike, lighthearted and selfish, grumbling with his head inside the fridge Jesus don’t you have any Coke in this house? rather than a young man of lavish gestures and kind thoughts. This “yes” is more a description of Simon as a whole, lifting him up to let him shine, a modest, direct boy who devoured the intensity of his youth.

Suddenly Marianne’s voice breaks through in a rush of breath, the words coming out in jolts: There is something — we’re Catholics — Simon was baptized. She stops dead. Thomas waits for her to continue, but the silence lengthens, so he asks her — a life buoy thrown in the sea — Was he a believer? Did he believe in the resurrection of the body? Marianne looks at Sean, though all she can see of him is his profile, leaning forward, then bites her lips, I don’t know, we don’t go to church very often. Thomas is tense — last year, a dead girl’s parents refused the removal of any organs from their daughter’s body on the basis that they believed in the resurrection of the flesh and considered this a mutilation that rendered any other form of existence impossible, and when Thomas gave them the Church’s official position — in favor of donation — they replied: No, we don’t want her to die a second time. Marianne rests her head on Sean’s shoulder, then starts to speak again: Last summer he read this book on a Polynesian shaman, the coral man or something, he was planning to go there to meet him, you remember? It was a book about reincarnation. Sean nods, eyes closed, and adds in a barely audible murmur: Simon had so much energy, he liked to exert himself, he was a physical being, that’s it, that’s how he was, living in his body, that’s how I see him, natural, living in nature, he wasn’t afraid. Marianne waits a few seconds and then asks, uncertain: Is that what it is, being generous? I don’t know, maybe. And now she is crying.

* * *

They are speaking in the past tense now, the father and the mother. They have begun the story. For Thomas, this is a tangible step forward, the signal that the idea of the death of their child is slowly crystallizing. He places the case file on the table, rests his hands flat on his thighs, and opens his mouth to continue speaking. But then, without warning, everything is up in the air again: Sean leaps to his feet and begins pacing around the room, agitated, abruptly declaring this is bullshit, all this crap about generosity, I don’t see why Simon being generous or liking to travel should give you the right to think he’d want to donate his organs, that’s too easy, and anyway, what if I said he was selfish, would that be the end of it? He stops pacing around, approaches Thomas, and whispers in his ear: Just tell us if we can say no, go on. Marianne, shocked, turns to him and cries out Sean! But he doesn’t hear her, he is striding around the room again, his pace increasing. Finally he leans against the window, his back to the glass, his silhouette black and huge against the daylight: Go ahead, just tell us the truth, are we allowed to refuse or not? He is snorting like a bull. Thomas doesn’t blink; his spine stays straight, his clammy hands remain glued to his jeans. Marianne stands up and walks toward Sean. She holds out her arms but he turns away, walks three paces along the wall, spins on his heels, and punches the wall with all his might: the window shudders above the Kandinsky poster, then he groans: Fucking hell, I don’t believe this! and, devastated, turns to face Thomas, who is now standing up, white as a sheet, frozen, immobile, and announces in a decisive tone: Simon’s body is not just a box of organs that you can help yourself to.