Maylis de Kerangal - The Heart

* * *

An exceptional student, an extraordinary intern, Virgilio intrigued the hospital’s management but struggled to find a niche for himself among groups of fellow surgeons-to-be, professing with equal vehemence an orthodox anarchism and a hatred of “families,” those incestuous casts, those biological connivances — when, in truth, like so many others, he was fascinated by all the Harfangs in white coats, attracted by the heirs, mesmerized by their reign, their health, the power of their numbers, curious about their properties, their tastes, and their idioms, their sense of humor, their clay tennis courts, so much so that he became obsessed by the idea of being invited to their homes, sharing their culture, drinking their wine, complimenting their mother, sleeping with their sisters — a raw devouring — and he intrigued like crazy to make it happen, as concentrated as a snake-charmer, then hated himself when he woke up between their sheets, suddenly rude, unpleasantly insulting, a grumpy old bear kicking the bottle of Chivas under the bed, wrecking the Limoges porcelain and the chintz curtains, and he would always end up running away, a lost soul.

His acceptance into the cardiac surgery department of Pitié-Salpêtrière sent his emotions up a notch: aware of his value, he immediately despised the petty rivalries of the medical courtiers, ignored the docile heirs and heiresses apparent, and set to work on getting close to Harfang, getting so close to him that he could hear him think, doubt, tremble, so that he could sense his decision in the very instant it was made and see it in the movement of his gesture. From now on, he knows, he is going to learn with this man what he could never learn anywhere else.

* * *

Virgilio checks the Italian team’s roster on his cell phone — makes sure that Balotelli is playing, Motta too, yes, that’s good, and Pirlo, and we’ve got Buffon in goal — then exchanges predictions and insults with two other chief residents who will be eating dinner in front of a giant plasma screen tonight and drinking his good health, both of them French guys who hate the defensive Italian style and support a team that is physically underprepared. The taxi glides in parallel with the Seine, as flat and smooth as a runway, and as he approaches the entrance to the hospital opposite the Chevaleret metro station, he tries to calm himself down. Soon he is not responding to his colleagues’ messages, only smiling, dropping out of their gamblers’ stake-raising frenzy. Rose’s face reappears in his mind, and he is about to write her a gallant text — something along the lines of: the curve of your eyes encircles my heart — then changes his mind: that girl is a nutcase, a dangerous nutcase, and tonight, nothing must disturb his concentration, his control, nothing must deflect the success of his work.

The organ-removal teams begin arriving at 10:00 p.m. The Rouen team turns up in a car, only one hour on the roads separating them from the hospital in Le Havre, whereas the teams from Lyon, Strasbourg, and Paris are all arriving by airplane.

* * *

The teams have organized their transportation, calling an airline company that will accept this Sunday mission, and have verified the nocturnal opening of the little airport at Octeville-sur-Mer, formalizing all the logistical details. At the Pitié, Virgilio paced impatiently around the duty nurse who was frantically calling everyone, and did not even look at the young woman in a white overcoat who was also standing there, in silence, and who, when their eyes did finally meet, moved away from the wall and advanced toward him, hello, Alice Harfang, I’m the new intern in the department, I’ll be doing the removal with you. Virgilio eyeballed her: she didn’t have the giveaway white cowlick, but he could tell she was one of them — ugly, indeterminate age, yellow eyes and eagle-beak nose. He could almost see the strings that were pulled to get her here. His face darkened. He particularly disliked the beautiful white coat with the fur collar. Not exactly an appropriate outfit for traipsing around hospitals. She’s the kind of chick who just comes along for the ride and thinks money grows on trees, he thought irritably. Okay, I assume you’re not scared of flying, right? he questioned her curtly then turned away while she replied no, not at all. The duty nurse handed him a road map, hot off the printer: go ahead, the plane’s on the runway, you’ll be departing in forty minutes. Virgilio picked up his bag and headed toward the exit without even glancing at Alice, who was following him, then took the elevator, the taxi, the main roads to Bourget airport, where they passed jet-lagged businessmen in long cashmere overcoats, holding luxury briefcases, and soon the two of them were climbing into a Beechcraft 200 and fastening their seat belts, without having exchanged a single word.

The weather forecast is favorable: no snow yet, and not much wind. The pilot, a man in his late thirties with perfectly straight teeth, announces good flying conditions and an estimated journey time of forty-five minutes, then disappears into the cockpit. As soon as he’s sitting down, Virgilio has his nose in a financial magazine that someone had left on his seat, while Alice turns toward the window and watches Paris transformed into a sparkling tapestry as the little plane gains altitude — the almond shape, the river and its islands, the squares and the main roads, the bright zones full of exclusive stores, the dark zones full of tower blocks and forests, all of it shading into obscurity if you let your eyes move from the heart of the capital to its edges, beyond the luminous ring of the beltway; she follows the lines traced by those tiny red and yellow dots that run along invisible roads, the silent activity of the earth’s surface. After that, the Beechcraft climbs through the clouds and into the celestial night. And so, probably because they are disconnected from the ground in this way, propelled far beyond all social markers, Virgilio thinks differently about his companion — maybe he is beginning to find her less repugnant — asking her, is this your first removal? Surprised, the woman turns her face from the window and looks at him: Yes, first removal, and first transplant. Closing his magazine, Virgilio warns her: The first part of the night might be a little upsetting, it’s a multiorgan removal, the kid’s only nineteen, we’re probably going to take everything — organs, blood vessels, tissue — we’re just going to scrape everything out. His fist opens and closes very fast. Alice looks at him — her expression, enigmatic, might just as easily mean “I’m scared” as “So? I’m a Harfang, remember?”—then she sits up and reattaches her seat belt, while Virgilio, suddenly destabilized, does the same: they are making their descent toward Octeville.

The little airport has been opened specially for them: the runway is lined with lights, the top of the tower illuminated. The aircraft touches down, shaken by spasms. The door slides open and the gangway unfolds. Alice and Virgilio walk down to the runway, and from that moment on they are propelled in a single movement, as if they are standing on a moving walkway, a magically fluid and unbroken trajectory, crossing through a deserted exterior (that asphalt perimeter where they can hear the sea), a mobile, cozy interior (the taxi), a freezing cold exterior (the hospital parking lot), and an interior whose codes they recognize instantly (the surgery unit).

* * *

Thomas Rémige is waiting for them, like the master of the house. Handshakes, espressos, introductions made, connections created, and, as always, the Harfang name radiates its aura. He makes a head count: each team consists of two people, a senior surgeon and an intern, to which his own hospital has added the anesthesiologist and the nurse anesthetist, the OR nurse, the nurse’s aid, and himself — thirteen altogether. It will seem like a crowd in the operating theater, the impregnable citadel, the secret zone accessible only to holders of multiple entry codes. Christ, it’s going to be standing room only in there, Thomas thinks.