Maylis de Kerangal - The Heart

The ringing ended, and the call went through to voicemail. Marianne closed her eyes, and saw the warehouse in her mind’s eye. In particular, she saw Sean’s treasured taonga , shining golden-brown on the metal hanging rails that ran along the wall: the clinker-built skiffs from the Seine Valley, the sealskin kayak made by the Yupik in northwest Alaska, and all the wooden canoes he had made there — the biggest of them had a finely sculpted stern like those you find on waka , those outrigger canoes used by the Maoris in their ritual ceremonies; the smallest was light and supple, the hull made of birch bark and the interior covered with strips of pale wood, Moses’ basket when he was left on the Nile to save his life, a nest. It’s Marianne — call me back as soon as you get this message.

* * *

Marianne crosses the lobby. It seems to take her forever, each footstep weighed down by urgency and fear. Finally she reaches the huge elevator, which takes her belowground, to a wide landing, the floor paved with large white slabs. She sees no one, but hears women’s voices. The corridor turns sharply, and then she sees a crowd of people, walking in different directions, sitting, standing, lying in mobile beds parked against the walls. Something happens and there are murmurs, complaints, the voice of a man losing his patience, I’ve been waiting here for an hour, the moaning of an old woman in a black veil, the weeping of a child in his mother’s arms.

A door is opened. Inside she sees a glass desk. Behind it, another young woman, sitting in front of a computer screen: she looks up, her face round and very open. A student nurse, she cannot be more than twenty-five. Marianne says the words I am Simon Limbres’s mother, and the young woman frowns, disconcerted, then swivels on her chair and addresses someone behind her: Simon Limbres, young man, admitted this morning, know anything about it? The man turns around, shakes his head and, seeing Marianne, says to the nurse: Call the ICU. The woman picks up the phone, has a brief conversation, hangs up, nods, while the man comes out from behind the desk in a movement that sets off a surge of adrenaline somewhere in Marianne’s guts. Suddenly she feels hot. She loosens her scarf and unbuttons her coat, wipes the sweat from her forehead, it’s like a sauna in here. The man offers his hand. He is small and frail-looking, his neck thin and creased, like a small bird’s, inside the overlarge collar of a pale-pink shirt. His white coat is clean and buttoned to the top, with his name tag in its correct place on his chest. Marianne shakes his hand but can’t help wondering if this is how hospital staff greet all visitors or if this ordinary gesture somehow manifests an attitude on the man’s part — solicitude or something else — motivated by Simon’s condition. She doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear anything, not yet, that belies in any way the unspoken statement “Your son is alive.”

The doctor leads her through the corridor toward the elevator. Marianne chews her lip as she follows him: He’s not here, he was admitted directly to Intensive Care. His voice is nasal-sounding, the tone neutral. Marianne stops, staring at him, her voice broken: He’s in Intensive Care? Yes. The doctor moves soundlessly, his footsteps small in his rubber soles, his white coat seeming to hover above the ground, the waxy skin of his nose gleaming in the fluorescent light, and Marianne, who is a head taller than him, can see his scalp through the thin covering of hair. He crosses his hands behind his back: I can’t tell you anything, but come with me, they’ll explain everything, I assume his condition required admission to that department. Marianne closes her eyes and grits her teeth. Suddenly her whole being draws back. If he says anything else she will scream, or cover his big mouth with her hand to shut him up, please stop, I’m begging you, and then, as if by magic, he leaves his sentence unfinished, dumbfounded, he stands in front of her, frozen to the spot, his head wobbling above the pink shirt collar, and, stiffly, as if made of cardboard, his hand rises, palm up, toward the ceiling, in a vague gesture that somehow expresses the contingency of this world, the fragility of human existence, before falling back down to his side: They’re expecting you in ICU. As they arrive in front of the elevator doors, their conversation comes to an end; gesturing with his chin to the end of the corridor, the doctor concludes in a calm but firm voice, I have to go, it’s Sunday, the ER is always crazy on Sundays, people don’t know what to do with themselves. He presses the call button, the metal doors open slowly, and, suddenly, as they shake hands again, he smiles at Marianne, a bleak smile, goodbye, Madame, be brave, and turns back toward the sound of shouting.

* * *

Be brave, he said. Marianne repeats this word to herself as the elevator takes her to the next floor up. How long it is taking her to get to Simon, the damn hospital is like a labyrinth. The walls of the elevator cabin are covered with medical advice and union announcements. Be brave, he said, be brave, her eyes are gluey, her hands damp, and the pores of her skin are dilating in the too-warm air, ruining her features. Screw bravery, screw this stupid heating system, she can hardly breathe in this place.

* * *

The Intensive Care Unit takes up the entire south wing of the ground floor. Access is strictly controlled — there are signs on all the doors forbidding entry to non-personnel — so Marianne waits in the hallway, eventually leaning against a wall and letting herself slide down until she is squatting, her head moving left and right, the back of her skull hard against the wall, lifting her gaze toward the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. Closing her eyes, she listens: still those voices busily teasing or informing each other from one end of the corridor to the other, still those rubber-soled feet, ballet slippers or ordinary sneakers, those metallic chimes, alarms going off, the wheels of carts rolling on the floor, the continual hum and buzz of the hospital. She checks her phone: Sean hasn’t called. She decides to move — she can’t just wait here — and, standing in front of the double fire doors edged with black rubber, stands on tiptoes to look through the window. All is calm. She pushes the door open, and enters.

He knew instantly that it was her — the stunned look, the staring eyes, the way she chewed her cheeks — so he did not even ask if she was Simon Limbres’s mother, simply offered her his hand with a nod: Pierre Révol, I’m the senior doctor here, I admitted your son this morning, please come with me. Instinctively she walks on the linoleum floor with her head lowered, not even glancing sideways in case she sees her child at the back of a dark room. They walk side by side for twenty yards in the lavender-blue corridor, and then there’s an ordinary door with a label the size and shape of a business card stuck to it. She doesn’t notice the name.

Today, Révol forsakes the Family Room, which he has never liked much, and receives Marianne in his office. She stands for a moment, then sits on the edge of the chair, while he walks around the desk and sits opposite her, in his swivel chair, chest thrust forward and elbows to the sides. The more Marianne looks at him, the more she forgets the people she has seen so far in her time at the hospital — the woman with the monobrow at reception, the student nurse in the ER, the doctor in the pink shirt — as if they were merely links in a chain leading her to this face, their features superimposed one upon the other to form a single face — that of the man sitting in front of her now, about to speak.

* * *

Would you like a coffee? Surprised, Marianne nods. Révol stands up and, turning the other way, picks up the pot from the coffee machine, which she hadn’t seen, and — silently, with broad, sweeping gestures — pours the coffee into two white plastic cups. Steam rises from them. He is playing for time, searching for the right words; she knows this but does not object, although she feels a paradoxical tension, because time is dripping away, like coffee into the pot, while she is fully aware of the urgency of the situation, its seriousness, its closeness. Now Marianne closes her eyes and drinks, concentrating on the burning liquid in her mouth, dreading the first word of the first sentence — the doctor’s jaw tensing, his lips opening, stretching, teeth appearing, the end of the tongue flickering into sight occasionally — that tragedy-soaked sentence that she knows is about to be spoken. Everything in her withdraws, stiffens, her spine pressing against the back of the (wobbly) chair, her head driven back: she would like to get out of here, run to the door and escape, or disappear through a trapdoor opening suddenly beneath her feet, so she can enter a black hole of forgetfulness, so no one in this building can find her, so she need never know anything other than the fact that Simon’s heart is still beating; she would like to flee this cramped room, this sordid light, and run away from the news. Because no, she is not brave. She is slippery as a snake, would do anything to make him reassure her, say her fears are unfounded, tell her a story — a suspenseful story, sure — but a story with a happy ending. She’s a disgusting coward, but she does not back down from her stance: each second that passes is a hard-won treasure; each second slows her approaching fate, and, observing her writhing hands, her legs knotted under the chair, those closed eyelids, swollen, darkened by the previous night’s makeup — a streak of kohl that she applies with her fingertip, in a single movement — seeing those murky-jade, watery irises, the trembling of those splayed lashes, Révol knows she has understood, that she knows, and so with infinite gentleness he allows the time before his first word to stretch out, picks up the Venetian paperweight and rolls it in the palm of his hand, the glass ball sparkling under the cold fluorescent light, flashing colors over the walls and the ceiling, lines of light like veins, moving across Marianne’s face, teasing her eyes open. And this, for Révol, is the signal that he can begin speaking.