The First Hour

Hard to believe, but I’m alive.

In fact I’ve never been so present.

So clear.

I see everything.

Roger cursing and pacing back and forth, scolding the men one by one.

Body in the middle of the street, on the pavement, helmet lying near the head, a tool in between—the level, cracked. Liquid seeping out from it.

Martin running over, pushing aside Max and Vidal. He kneels on the glove, places his ear close to the lips, detects nothing. Looks for the pulse on the neck—no pulse. Opens the shirt, buttons flying in every direction. The red stain, on the chest, alarms him. Several ribs are soft, possibly broken. He hesitates. Makes a decision. He lifts the chin, feels the inside of the mouth, blows air into it twice, stands back, changes position, dares to press down, hands interlocked, elbows straight. By the book. His assurance is surprising, such a shy man.

He persists. Patiently, rhythmically.

In spite of everything, the lips, the blue nails, the white cheeks.

Roger paces up and down anxiously watching the far end of the street, the ambulance, the ambulance, the ambulance?

Finally.

Finally, Roger yells, raising his arms skyward.

Martin steps aside

mops his forehead

goes to sit down alone, in the shade, in a corner

the paramedics unpack their equipment

lift the eyelids

one blue eye, the other black, a bad sign

insert a tube in the trachea

open a vein in the arm

what are they injecting?

adrenalin

then

there’s nothing.

Nowhere.

Green room

too brightly lit.

Men, women, with gloves, masks

metal

stained sheets

murmurs.

Swollen face, shaved skull

neck in a harness

one arm in a splint.

Serum dripping drop by drop.

Each drop reflecting the neon lights, snail tracks.

Green garments, their folds like mountains, valleys

the weft and warp of the cotton, worn thin.

The body is young, robust, muscular, broken

familiar, but neutral

intimate, distant.

Nothing of this belongs to me.

Not the limbs, not the face, not the threads, not the seams.

Not the air in the tube,

not the lungs.

Just barely a point of transit.

I’m up here, at the ceiling, floating

suspended

between leaving and returning

held

within hazy boundaries

within a slack envelope

within a habit.

Early this morning I woke up, showered, shaved, ate three toasts with peanut butter.

The sun was shining, for once, and I remembered to put a brownie in my lunch box.

In top shape, just one filling, no eyeglasses.

It’s 11:43. That’s what it says there, on the clock.

These bones aren’t mine anymore, nor these tendons, these ligaments. This isn’t my skin anymore.

Just barely a possible location.

An alarm sounds.

It’s my turn to go fetch Bertrand at school this afternoon. I said we’d go play in the park.

Caroline always wears an ankle bracelet that tinkles like a little bell. Her cream has a scent of musk rose. She likes dark chocolate, she talks in her sleep.

The body, down there, is the only way I have of staying with them

two hundred and six bones six litres of blood seventy kilos

this intubated body is the only life I know.

The alarm never stops. The lines crawl, almost flat, across the black screens. He already looks like a corpse. The waxy skin. The immobility. The resemblance is perfect.

Yet seen from up here, it stays ready for use by a living man. You can tell from up here, it’s plain to see.

Plain to see, a possible life, and then nothing—black black.

It draws me upward, it buzzes, it goes fast, it goes without saying. I’m not afraid. It’s natural, after all, to die, why does it always bother us so much? It’s gentle.

The tunnel, yes, but no words to describe it.

I’m drawn by presences. I let myself glide. It’s good. It’s like giving in to a first love, on a perfect day of vacations, health, a wide-open future. I’m gliding at speed

slowly, though, s-l-o-w-l-y

until it strikes: the light

strong white unbearable

I explode without a sound.

I spread out, to the greatest length, to the greatest breadth, in all directions

my thoughts pure crystal

my heart swathed in cotton

I’ve just come back home after a long, harrowing journey

I evaporate like a puddle in August and it’s good

it’s so good

and true, so very true.

Threads that bind me to the living unravel

change into coloured beads

move off into unfathomable space

driven by what?

reconciliation.

For a long time: the void

In the void I hear:

You can still choose.

It snaps.

Whips. Guillotines.

I shrink.

Dark, once again, sticky.

Screwed, nailed, heavy,

little lights come on, thunder rumbles,

I don’t feel pain.

I feel the point of contact between my skull and the table, a point where

for a fraction of a second

the whole universe is gathered.

I feel my heart beginning to beat

haphazardly

like a horse shaking its head with a snort

Good boy, says a tired voice.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Day 1

Caroline has just come in with the groceries when they call her on her mobile from David’s phone.

“Hi there, Golden Muscle,” she answers.

At the other end, the response is slow.

They offer to pick her up to take her to the hospital. They refuse to provide details; the fact is, they don’t have any. Roger Pitt, the foreman, comes to get her himself. He had to stop everything anyway, send the guys home, and have the scaffolding inspected. What’s more, he feels guilty; there’s nothing like a work accident to spoil his week. He drives the pick-up without saying a word. Caroline looks straight ahead.

At the hospital, a receptionist at the front desk guides them toward the intensive care unit. She gestures for them to take a seat in the waiting room. They sit down as far as possible from two nuns consoling each other in a barely audible whisper. Judging from the thermos bottle and the pile of cushions at their feet, and especially from the dark rings around their eyes, Caroline infers that they spent the night here.

“You really should go get some rest! Otherwise you’re going to end up on the other side,” the receptionist urges, pointing at the large swinging doors bearing a “No Entry” sign, behind which she then disappears herself.

She returns with a curvaceous nurse, who walks straight toward Caroline and plumps down in the adjacent chair. Her name is Sue, and this is the first time she has sat down since her shift began. Getting right down to brass tacks, she fires off a series of questions about David’s general health. No diabetes, no heart condition. No alcohol problem either. She promises to come back shortly and is swallowed up by the swinging doors.

The interval is filled with a hypnotic rosary that irritates and reassures Caroline at the same time. After three Sprites and a bag of ketchup-flavoured potato chips, Roger Pitt looks in vain for an excuse to leave.

“I have to get going, Mrs. Novak. Take a cab home, ask for a receipt, the company will pay.”

These are the first words he’s spoken since they got out of the pick-up.

A half-hour later, Sue comes back and sits down next to Caroline. She explains the situation in simple terms: David has suffered internal bleeding, a cardiac arrest, chest and head injuries. Also, a broken arm and collar bone, which, under the circumstances, are hardly worth mentioning. The attending doctor will be able to tell her more in a moment. See him? Of course. But not right away. Later.

Later.

Caroline thinks about nothing. The shock has completely emptied her mental space. She concentrates on the large beige wall tiles; the slightest crack turns into a living human or animal form, a hallucination.

They’re torturing me, that’s it! This is a torture room. I’ve got razor blades under my skin. Where? Somewhere under my skin. This is my body—get out! They’re flaying me alive. Long shreds of throat. A train rolls by, close, too close, it scrapes the rails, the cars screech, the cars reek. Is it day or night? I hear my heart, machines, orders, a saw. Dogs. A tank? Must be Nazis. Am I going to die again? They’re going to kill me. A dirty, long, painful death. They want me to talk to confess to own up to snitch—I won’t tell them anything. I have nothing to tell—what exactly do they want? This is a mistake. I have to defend myself. I have to stand up, to open my eyes.

Caroline decides to walk in order to set her brain in motion again. She ambles down the corridors, goes up and down stairways, and stops at random in front of the pediatric department. She keys her in-laws’ number on her cell phone. Karine answers with her sandy voice. They exchange a few brief sentences that poorly convey the magnitude of the situation. The love of their life has fallen from a scaffold. He fell just a few metres, five or six seconds, that’s all; whatever the outcome, it will take them months, years to get over it.

Caroline is overwhelmed by a wave of loneliness as soon as she hangs up. She suspects that a similar wave came over Karine at the very same moment. She doesn’t know her very well, but she intuits her. Underneath the prominent cheekbones, the delicately arched eyebrows, the porcelain skin, under the still striking beauty and unstinting kindness, Karine is a self-sufficient island with a fragile ecosystem. Everyone knows glaciers are melting in the north and oceans rising in the south. Islands will be the first places to get wiped off the map.

I should have been more cautious, too. I should have paid my electricity bill. But, then, it just arrived. They’ve slit open my guts with a kitchen knife. They want me to talk—I’ve got nothing to spill. They’re beating my head with a rifle butt, my head, my head. They’ve hung me from the ceiling by the wrists and are waiting for my shoulders to pop. They shout, they laugh, they bang on pots and pans. The leather around my wrists, the metal. The leather, the metal, my head.

The train.