I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) (3 page)

“Uh… no, that was… I did that,” says the stranger. “I looked at the papers to find out what she was called and I saw that it was her birthday today. I'm sorry if that was the wrong thing to do. I probably shouldn't have.”

“You're joking, right? That's so nice of you!”

“Really?”

“I think it's lovely that someone who doesn't even know Elsa would take the trouble to correct her age in her notes. OK, shall we get the present out now? I think Steve should open it, even though he knows exactly what's inside!”

Steve must have reached out for it and then turned to me. Rebecca puts the cake on the little table to one side. I imagine the smell of fruit, the light from the flames, and the sad smiles of my friends.

“Well… Happy birthday, my sweet,” says Rebecca before blowing out my thirty candles.

“Happy Birthday, Elsa,” says Alex.

“Happy Birthday, you,” says Steve.

From farther away, the murmur of my stranger reaches my ears. “Happy birthday.” He says it so quietly. I don't know if that's because he's embarrassed, or sad, or something else. But in any case, it's touching. Very touching.

“Here's your present,” says Steve, bringing me back to reality. “It's a ring. You always said that you'd never marry anyone, and that no one should bother giving you a ring because you'd be annoyed, so we've got you one. Perhaps you'll come back quicker if you're desperate to kick our asses.” I suppose Steve has put it on one of my fingers. I don't know which hand, let alone which finger.

“Aren't you going to tell her what it looks like?” My stranger's interruption seems to surprise everyone. “I mean, I don't know,” he continues. “But if you're going to speak to her, you might as well tell her everything, don't you think?”

The silence lasts for several moments.

“You can do the honors,” Steve mumbles, as though he wishes he had thought of it himself.

“Uh…”

“Go on. You're right!”

“Well… OK.”

My visitor comes closer. “Well, it's silver.”

“It's white gold,” Steve corrects him.

“Oh, sorry. I don't know the difference.”

“It's more durable.”

“OK. So, it's white gold. They chose it because it's more durable, so if you bash it with your… ice axe, it'll still be fine.”

I'd like to laugh, or at least smile at his little climbing reference.

“There are two intertwining strands, which go all the way around. Sort of like vines. Or maybe like the stalk of a flower. Ah! Or like a jasmine flower, because you seem to like the smell.”

I'm amazed. How on earth does he know that?

“How do you know that?”

Thanks, Steve.

“It smells of jasmine all over this room. And it comes from her.”

“Are you a perfume expert or something?”

“No, I'm an ecologist—no connection. Shall I carry on?”

“Sure.”

I realize that I'm impatient to hear what's coming next.

“It shines. And it looks very pretty. And it's on your right ring finger.”

I'm a bit disappointed. I almost want Steve to interrupt him again.

“Apart from that, the cake is pear,” he continues, “and Rebecca was lying, she put thirty-one candles on it, just to annoy you, and I can tell that you've got some true friends here, for coming to celebrate your birthday with you even after you've abandoned them for almost five months.”

At this, the silence turns heavy. For a minute I'm frightened that my hearing has gone. But the sound of the raindrops tapping on the window reassures me. I hear someone blow their nose. I think it's Rebecca. I imagine Alex putting his arms around her. Everyone is looking for something to do to dissipate the sadness which must have invaded the room. Pieces of cake circulate, spoons hit against the paper plates.

“Can you tell us more about you?” asks Rebecca after a moment.

“What do you want to know?” replies my visitor.

“You could start by introducing yourself, perhaps. We only know how you got here. I'm curious to know more about a person who can learn so much about someone they don't know in less than five minutes.”

“My name is Thibault. I'm thirty-four. And I'm supposed to be with my brother who's had a car accident.”

“Oh gosh, I hope it wasn't too serious,” says Rebecca.

“It was. He'll get better, but I'd prefer it if he didn't, to be honest. He killed two teenagers in the accident, because he was drunk. I don't really ever want to see him again.”

“Ah.”

The silence returns. I reflect on what I've just heard. I'm getting more of an idea about my stranger, but there are still some vital details missing. Unfortunately I doubt that any of my friends will ask him to describe himself to me.

Thibault. I must remember that name.

“How did she get here?” he asks suddenly. “Aside from the ‘glacial mountaineering,' I mean.”

Steve gets up. He paces up and down the room and tells the part of the story that I already know. I listen carefully to what follows, from the moment they found me. I learn an important new detail: I was helicoptered out. What a shame—I've always dreamed of a helicopter ride over that glacier and when my chance came I wasn't conscious to see it. My visitor asks questions, just as I hoped. I would love to have been able to reply to them myself…

“Why does she do it? I mean, why does she climb glaciers? It's pretty risky isn't it, all that stuff?”

“It's in her blood,” says Steve.

“That doesn't sound like enough of a reason to me,” replies Thibault.

“Do you know what happiness is?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“Elsa knows,” says Steve, ignoring him. “When she gets up there, she is herself completely. She glows. The mountain is her element. It's a vocation, as well as a passion.”

“So, she's a guide?”

“No, she'd never do that. She works for the organization that makes the hiking maps. She's a specialist in glacial areas.”

“I didn't know that existed. Even though I've probably used some of those maps.”

“Well, there you go. Elsa
is
the mountains. When you walk across a mountain with her it's like seeing her
and it
stripped bare. Open to possibilities. All her emotions are raw. She's wonderful.”

“Wow… are you in love?”

That was a sincere question. And after all that Steve has just said, I'm also waiting for his response.

“I was. Now I'm just a sort of big brother who's failed in his mission.”

“Don't say that,” Thibault says immediately. “There was nothing you could have done if her figurate knot wasn't tied properly.

“Figure
of
eight
,” corrects Steve. “But I should have checked it.”

Rebecca breaks the silence by collecting the plates and spoons.

It is the end of the little birthday party and my visitor is about to leave.

“Well, thank you for the cake, and for letting me stay.”

“Are you sure you won't stay a bit longer?” suggests Alex.

“No, I'm going to go and find my mother and my cousin. They're probably looking for me by now.”

“OK. It was good to meet you.”

“You, too. Say good-bye to her from me.”

“You can do it yourself,” says Rebecca.

He seems to hesitate, but then I hear him approach. He was more confident earlier, when we were alone together.

“We kiss her forehead,” explains Rebecca. “It's the only place where there aren't too many tubes.”

“Oh, right.”

I hear the noise of his lips on my skin but, as before, I don't feel anything. I hear him whisper in my ear, as discreetly as possible, before stepping back.

“Good-bye, Elsa.”

He moves away from my bed. The others carry on in the background.

“Thanks again; I'm off.”

“You can come and see her again, whenever you like, you know.” It is Alex who makes this suggestion, of course.

“Oh. That's kind. Thank you. I don't know whether…”

“You'd be very welcome,” adds Rebecca. “She'd be so pleased to have other people coming to visit her. I'm certain.”

“Great, OK. Bye then.”

The door closes. My visitor is gone. And my happiness is gone with him.

“Steve?” says Alex. “You haven't said anything for a while. Did it bother you that I suggested he come again?”

“No, it's fine.”

“So what's up?”

“It's just that it's started snowing and Elsa would have loved that.”

The sadness weighs down each of his words. I think I preferred it when it was just Thibault in here. There was less emotion. I listen to my friends getting their things together and putting their coats on. I hear them kiss me on the forehead one by one, with no hope of responding to them.

When the door closes gently, I am left in total silence again. Not even rain against the window now. No one's breathing but mine.

I'd like him to come back.

M
y mother is looking at my reflection in the car window and my cousin is playing with his phone in the back seat. I drive mechanically toward my mother's apartment. I know the route by heart, but I should be paying more attention to the road.

Impossible when my mind is elsewhere.

In that room. Room
52
. I checked the number on my way out. There was a photo of a mountain on the door, sublime-looking, covered in ice. It must have been the picture that lured me in there.

When I got to the ground floor of the hospital, my cousin was already there waiting for me. He tried to find out what I'd been doing. Of course I didn't say a word. When my mother came out a few minutes later her eyes were red. She's calmer now. That hospital is like an enormous magnet for everyone's tears.

I want to drop her off as quickly as possible. I find myself less and less able to cope with all her emotion. It's not that I blame her, not at all. She has every right to be upset. I'm sure I'd be in the same state if it was my child in a hospital bed, but compared to the situation in room
52
, my brother is almost like a placebo case in that ward.

This afternoon has been more eventful than expected. I just went for a nap and now suddenly there's a whole world of new information in my head. They were all right, those three. Even Steve, behind his over-protective big brother pose; he was just worried. And sad. A bit like my mother. That was what most got on my nerves about him: the tortured sadness thing. He seemed jealous, too, but I don't know what he could have been jealous of. If he's genuinely not in love with her, then I don't pose any threat. And even if he is in love, he still has nothing to worry about from me.

The girl, Rebecca, was sweet—a bit naïve perhaps, but nice. And I thought her boyfriend Alex seemed like a good guy, too; friendly. It was almost worth wandering in there just to meet them. I hardly ever meet new people these days. But I realize that there's actually no way of making friends with them, apart from perhaps leaving a note in room
52
, saying: “Hi, it's Thibault, the guy who fell asleep in here the other day. If you'd like to hang out again, here's my number.” That would be nuts.

The only person I can see again, if I want, is the one who I can't speak to. Or at least who doesn't answer back.

Elsa, the jasmine flower covered in pipes and tubes. I didn't ask them why there were so many. I know absolutely nothing about medicine. Although I do work in “earth medicine,” as I've heard some people call it, when it comes to the human body, I've got no idea. When my brother's doctor tried to explain his injuries to me, I zoned out after a couple of seconds. My mother listened patiently, even though she didn't understand any of it either. My cousin, who's a PE teacher, gave us a rough translation afterward. But, to be honest, the sight of the policeman waiting behind the door had already made my blood run cold, so I couldn't really listen properly.

Thankfully there's no policeman anymore. My brother made a statement, confessing his guilt. His sentencing will be in four months. Technically, that's the length of time it should take him to recover from the accident. In the meantime, his apartment is sitting empty. My cousin and I went over to clear out the fridge and tidy up, so that it didn't get too disgusting while he was away. It wasn't exactly a palace to begin with, so it wouldn't have taken long for it to start to feel like a slum. While we were there we discovered that he had a girlfriend, or at least there was a girl's underwear strewn about all over the place. But this girl, whoever she is, hasn't been worried enough to contact us about him, so it can't be very serious.

I park in the space in front of my mom's building. The snow is starting to show on the parked cars. It hasn't settled on the tarmac, but there is a fine dusting of it on the grass, so I suppose if it continues the roads will be dangerous. I can't say that I either like or dislike snow. It's there. I take it for what it is. To me, it's just another way the planet breathes and carries out its functions.

My two passengers get out of the car. My cousin lives just next to my mom. He's the one who found the place for her when my father left. I feel the car lift a little, without the weight of them in it. My cousin puts his head back through the window.

“Are you coming in?”

“Not tonight.”

“I think she'd appreciate it, Thibault.”

“I can't face it tonight.”

“You're a selfish fucker, you know that.”

“Hey, I'll come tomorrow. I just… can't tonight.”

My cousin looks at me, almost in surprise that I have conceded to coming again tomorrow.

“OK. Drive carefully.”

My mother looks at me from outside and waves. I blow her a kiss and switch the engine back on. I start to feel better as soon as I've gone back through the entrance gate of the apartment block. I spend so much time with them, the misery weighs me down. It's like I'm a sponge, soaking it up.

I begin to drive automatically again until I realize that I'm going in the wrong direction, back toward town. Perhaps that's where I should go. I don't want to be alone tonight, but I don't really want company either. Tough one. Luckily, I know who to call.

“Jules? Hi—I'm driving so I shouldn't talk. But what are you doing tonight? Do you fancy a drink? That's fine, I can wait… See you a bit later then, thanks buddy.”

Julien, former work addict, and now addicted to his five-month-old daughter, has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. By coincidence, his wife Gaëlle was one of my best friends at college, so she'll understand him coming out to see me. As far as I could understand, he was still in the midst of the bath-time and bottle-feeding ritual. Wednesday is his day, I'd forgotten. They seem to live in perfect harmony, those two. I'm jealous, though I'm not looking for anyone at the moment. But if I did ever find someone, that's how I'd like it to be: balanced.

With Cindy there was no balance; it was a thunderstorm every single day. I used to excuse it by saying that what we had was a different sort of equilibrium. But that was just bullshit. When I see what those two have achieved, I wish I had it. But, coming from the relationship I just got out of, who knows if I'm even still capable of love.

So, in the meantime I love my work, I love my friends, I love my mom, even if she is constantly blubbering. But I don't love my brother anymore. That's where I always get stuck.

Oh, and I hate idiots who don't park properly in the free spaces. Because of their enormous gaps I'm obliged to go and pay for a space in the parking lot.

Though it's more expensive, I choose the place that's closest to the pub where Julien and I always go. I'll have about two hundred meters to walk, at the most, which is perfect because it's freezing outside now that it's dark. I position the car extremely carefully, so as not to be a parking hypocrite, and place the ticket methodically in my pocket so that I don't do the same thing I did last time, which was spend two hours hunting all over for the ticket because I'd left it on the dashboard. Then I run into the pub.

Inside it's warm. There are people talking, laughing, music playing, and I find a free table. It's a relief to be in a place where no one is crying. I sit down and put two beer mats on the table opposite me, to show that I'm waiting for someone. These unwritten rules reassure me. And this way no one needs to ask if the seat is free or not.

I ask for a pineapple juice. The barman looks at me, perplexed. I tell him that I'm driving and that seems to satisfy him. He almost congratulates me, even. I expect Julien will order a beer when he arrives. I have a few drinks now and again, but never when I'm driving. If only my brother were the same.

I haven't had my pineapple juice in my hand for more than five minutes when a girl comes and sits down opposite me.

“Is this chair free?”

I indicate the beer mats, exasperated.

“Oh sorry, I didn't see. Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yes. A friend.”

I want to say “my girlfriend,” or even “my boyfriend,” because this girl's flirtatious manner is so shameless I'd like to scare her off. But I don't. This is normally a relaxed pub, not a pick-up joint. I smile, thinking of what my mother says about my appearance. Obviously someone likes my messy hair. Although she might just be after a free drink. I'm always so uncomfortable with this type of encounter.

“How would you like it if I kept you company until he arrives?”

I'm bound to say the wrong thing, so I have a sort of playbook in my head, which I turn to when I need advice. I call it, snappily,
The Book in Which I Am the Hero
. It opens now: If you want to fight the dragon, go to page
62
. If you'd rather hide, go to page
33
. Without warning, it flicks to the last option, page
0
.

“Look, I can see you're pretty out of it, but I'm still amazed that you can't tell whether someone is inviting you to sit down or not. I know these things can be quite subtle, and I'm not sure that subtlety is your thing—but either way, just to be clear, I definitely don't want you to keep me company until my friend arrives, thanks all the same.”

The girl is outraged, and I actually wonder whether she still quite understood what I said. Looking at her, she doesn't seem used to being knocked back, but I'm not in the mood to mess around.

Presumably she goes off and tells everyone in the bar what an asshole I am, either that or the beer mats on the table do work, because no one else bothers me until Julien arrives. It's almost eight. He's got snow in his hair when he comes in.

“Phew! What a day!” he exclaims and sits down opposite me.

“It's just snow,” I say.

“But it's freezing,” he says, taking off his gloves.

“Tell me about it…”

He takes off his jacket and signals that he'd like a beer. I lift my empty pineapple juice glass and the guy behind the counter nods his head.

“So, what's going on?” Julien asks in a serious voice.

“Oh you know, it's Wednesday.”

“Your day to visit your brother, right? But you do go on other days as well, don't you?”

“Just to take my mother.”

“So you still don't want to see him?”

“No.”

“What's wrong?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Thibault, it's written all over your face. And you'd never have called me at six on a Wednesday, which you know is my day to put Clara to bed, if it wasn't important.”

“How is Clara? I hope I haven't got you into trouble with Gaëlle…”

“Don't worry, Gaëlle took over, no problem, and Clara's good. Healthy—the pediatrician said she's doing really well. It's still OK for you to be her godfather, isn't it?”

“Yes, of course it's still OK. She's an angel, that baby. How could I possibly change my mind? If she carries on like this I might even have to marry her!”

“Pff,” laughs Julien. “So it's a girl thing, then.”

“No. Well… maybe. But it's not what you think.”

“So what's this all about?”

I put my glass down and sink back into my chair.

“It's about a girl, some of her friends, my brother, the police, lots of tubes, jasmine and our car journeys to and from the hospital.”

“Wow! I didn't understand any of that.”

The waiter comes over with Julien's beer and my pineapple juice. We thank him. I fill my glass again, spill some on the table and wipe it up clumsily.

“Could you elaborate, please?” he asks.

“Yup, hang on.” My hands are sticky, so I get a tissue out of my backpack. I always have tissues with me these days, since I've been taking my mother to the hospital—someone's bound to be crying somewhere. “It's a thing that happened to me earlier today.”

I tell him about my afternoon. He is quiet all the way through, listening patiently. When I've finished he just looks at me.

“You're not going to say anything?”

“Well, what do you want me to say?” he says at last. “It's pretty funny.”

“Funny? That's not exactly the word I would have chosen.”

“Well, puzzling, bizarre, weird then, is that better? The thing that interests me is why this has had such an effect on you. You went into the wrong room, that's all!”

He waits for me to explain. As an answer, he's going to get the question that I've had in my head for the last three hours.

“Why do I wish I could swap this girl's situation with my brother's?”

Julien is getting worried. I can see it in his eyes.

“You mean you'd like her to wake up and your brother to be in a coma?”

“Exactly.”

“You know why that is.”