The Shattered Sky Page 9

“In any case he can’t go very far” My legs are my leash. I’m afraid… I hate Saturday nights, when the servants have their night off, as though servants needed one… Pfft! Day off? To do what? Movies, a girlfriend, to go for a walk, go dancing see the parents; they work like dogs all week and to enjoy their day off, they dress up with incredible bad taste, the kind of bad taste only cleaning ladies can think of and they go out on Saturday nights...!

  And I’m scared….

  And my parents go out on Saturday nights, just like the maid, to play bridge; well I’d like to stick their bridge up somewhere!

  “Dad you’ll leave the light on in the doorway, right? Don’t forget!”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  I can’t even get up to check that he didn’t forget. I don’t even have the guts because I would have to walk through the long, long hallway. It’s so hard being a cripple, to be thirteen, to be alone and scared on a Saturday night in a big, a very big “beautiful house.” The hall must be more than one hundred and fifty feet long! It’ll take me over five minutes to get through it on my crutches…

  Five minutes of being scared stiff is too long! What do I do if the phone rings? Do I answer it or don’t I answer it? If I get up to answer I have to cross the entire living room because the phone is at the other end of the room, sitting on the table like a big white worm, so by the time I reach it, the ringing will have stopped.

  A white telephone! How stupid can they be to think it makes them look richer!…A bunch of jerks!

  If I don’t answer the thieves who are calling to see if anyone is home will conclude that the house is empty and will come around to rob us. What do I do then?

  I’ll try to fall asleep very quickly, as quickly as possible, to get to tomorrow morning in five minutes. I am more and more scared. I try to go to sleep but cries come out of my throat and the sound of my crying fills the room.

  I’m so fuckin’ tired of being a cripple!

  And my brother could at least stay home on Saturday nights. Instead he goes to the Hot Jazz Club to listen to jazz! How absurd! He thinks he’s Louis Armstrong. I hear noises in the kitchen. I’m sure there’s someone there! So what do I do? Do I cry out or keep quiet?

  If I yell he’ll come running over to kill me, but if I keep quiet he’ll also come to search every room. So?

  Yes, this time I’m sure there’s someone in the kitchen. I clearly hear the steps! How late can it be? Ten, nine, eleven o’clock…? I didn’t even think of asking for an alarm clock; they could have given it some thought after all!

  No I’m just imagining things, there’s nobody, it’s incredible what fear will do to you! You go on imagining silly things that can’t happen or only happen in movies.

  “Mommy, what if the doorbell rings?”

  “If it rings don’t you answer it!”

  Easier said than done—don’t answer—was she ever alone in a house?

  Did she ever hear the doorbell ring many times, nonstop, one night alone in the house! Does she know that every ring makes your blood curdle, crushes your bones, and your hair stand up?

  I’m afraid.

  I’m afraid of being afraid.

  I’m ashamed of being afraid of being afraid.

  I feel like peeing.

  Let’s cool it and think of happy, funny things, but… I have nothing, I find nothing.

  But why did I take a nap this afternoon? It’s obviously the reason I’m not sleepy now.

  “Come on, you have to take a nap.”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “But you must. It’ll give you strength.”

  Strength? What for?

  In any case I’m lying down. I’m always lying down.

  They don’t know what to do with me, so they tell me that I have to take a nap.

  The wall facing my bed is blue. I never did notice how cruel the color blue can be.

  There are spots on the wall that look like mean men. They look at me and laugh and make fun of me.

  I’m afraid.

  They’ll wind up coming out of the wall and surrounding my bed showing me big snakes. I must ignore them, otherwise they’ll get angry.

  OK, let me close my eyes... Yes but if I close my eyes I won’t see them getting closer and once they are near my bed they’ll strangle me or they’ll want to look at my fanny or even touch it.

  “If you think you’re scaring me, you’re nothing but spots on the wall.”

  I’m scared… But why did they leave me alone? And soon it will be next Saturday and I’ll be all alone again.

  I’m scared Daddy, I’m scared… Your breathing is almost peaceful. You’re asleep and I’m looking at the blue wall in the hospital room. You must help me overcome my fear, you must help me endure your suffering, even if you die, even if you die, help me Dad, help me. Only if you help me will I be able to get through this, you must, you must… Dad? Dad? You’re not saying anything, there’s nothing you can do for me anymore, I need you so much. You see I’m closing my eyes I’m going to doze off in my armchair while you’re in your white bed. I close my eyes, I don’t want to dream, and I slowly fade away …

  I hear screams that seem to come from a crib left in the middle of a field… It’s very hot, a stifling kind of heat, that grabs me by the throat, but strangely I also feel the drops of a cold sweat dripping down my back, my hips and between my legs… My legs, and my thighs especially hurt so much. I exercised too much yesterday, the muscles ache and are swollen as they bulge through my pants… I try to get closer to the crib, the field has turned into a sort of no man’s land of sand and bushes and a tiny stream of black water which emanates an awful smell of pestilence and putrefaction, flows down the middle. It becomes harder and harder to go forward; the black stream is really a sewer and all kinds of garbage and waste are floating on its surface, orange peels, date pits, empty cans, a bone, a clump of hair, a book with block letters saying “It is forbidden to come closer.”

  I attempt to open the book but I can’t, there’s a sort of hand pulling in the opposite direction to keep the book closed… I pull so hard with both my hands that it finally opens with the same noise as a huge door. Inside the book I see a woman lying down who is looking at me smiling; she is naked and very skinny, her empty breasts are dangling on her chest, she has no teeth, and she is licking her lips with a red and very pointed tongue like a viper. Suddenly she opens her legs and a huge black hole appears as if to devour me. I turn my head away so as not to look but I still see her face, her eyes roll out of their sockets and fall to the bottom of the book that closes up once again.

  The cries coming from the crib have turned into sobs and muffled moans and the crib seems to be still so far away. I must go down the slope into a gully and climb up slowly; my aching thighs tell me to catch my breath but I keep going forward, forward even more. At the bottom of the black hole I see the crib, the cries have stopped and lowering my face I can distinguish lying down on a multicolored blanket what looks like a tiny body hidden by a white sheet.

  There is nothing moving, not a sound is coming from the crib now, but the sounds of crickets all around and the sound of the sun. I hear the voices of both men and women mumbling at a distance, all speaking at once. I can’t make out what they are saying.

  There is a little musical ditty coming from the crib now, a rhyme that repeats the same sad notes over and over again. The voices are coming closer, a mixture of French, Arabic, and German; a few Italian words are thrown in at times… A crowd of people appears suddenly at the top of the hill, they are all running in every direction as if to escape an unknown threat; they run, fall and get back up; they’re dressed in black with yellow emblems on their clothes. But who are these people? Why are they running so fast, why are they falling? What are they afraid of? They all disappear at the bottom of the hill, swallowed by the earth that opens up. Everything is quiet once again, even the crickets and the sun are now silent… The body under the white sheet seems to have grown, and it’s very odd…
>
  I start walking again and the crib is following me. Actually it’s fastened to my feet with a rope and I’m having trouble pulling it; it’s heavier and heavier… But who is under that sheet?

  Three people are following me I can’t see their faces; they’re walking with their faces turned down and are chanting an incessant litany. But who are they? They overtake me and vanish into the blue sea.

  The sand makes it hard for me to go forward and the sand is getting hotter and hotter and I can feel it burning through the soles of my shoes. I stop at the little black water stream. But why is the water so black? The three shadows that have been following me are in front of me now, smiling. I can’t recognize who they are, they’re speaking words I can’t understand….they make gestures I can’t see, but who are they? What are they expecting from me?

  I try to go forward again but I can’t anymore, the sand is too hot, my legs hurt too much, the sky is too blue, the sun is too high. I sit on the ground not too far from the crib.

  But who is in that crib anyway, under the white sheet?

  There is total silence now, not a sound, not a noise, not a whisper, nothing…nothing. The three shadows appear very close in front of me, I can almost touch them but I still don’t see their faces; they surround the crib and are holding hands tightly and peacefully… But who are they?

  I get up with great difficulty and fall to my knees and slowly I get closer to the crib…

  But who is it in the crib under that white sheet?

  I attempt to lift the sheet but it’s so heavy, very heavy, as heavy as lead. The three shadows put their arms forward and start lifting the sheet and now I am able to recognize who they are: my brother Fabien, my father, and my mother are smiling… But why is my brother older than my parents who appear to be in their twenties? My brother’s face has wrinkles on his face like an old man. How can this be possible?

  They keep on lifting the lead-heavy sheet and I see my face as a child appearing smiling. I look so happy and begin to laugh softly; everyone is smiling…the sheet is lifted some more and it uncovers me. My parents and my brother are no longer smiling; their faces are now covered with tears; my body is now that of a man.

  A man with a child’s face… But how can this be possible? The sheet is now black and as I lean over closer to my crib I discover to my horror that my body stops at the knees and two stumps… I turn toward my father, but he has disappeared, they have all disappeared, I am alone in the middle of the desert with my stumps and I am screaming with horror…a high pitched scream comes out of my throat…

  I’m startled out of my sleep. I open my eyes and sit on the edge of the armchair where I’ve been sleeping and I’m drenched in sweat and have even pissed all over myself. I must have been very scared during the night when I had my nightmare, this recurring nightmare that’s been haunting me. It’s always the same but it gets clearer and comes into greater focus, as if to tell me… It’s not over yet, but soon.

  Wednesday

  His face is like that of a skeleton, he has the hiccups, he has black and purple circles around the eyes eating away at his face, his limbs are lifeless, his jet black hair is covered with white spots, the bones in his face are incredibly visible; the hemorrhaging has stopped. At ten in the morning the nurses come in to place a catheter into his penis to avoid any danger of uremia; he emerges from his coma to ask me to get him a few Tchaikovsky records and then falls back to sleep under the effects of morphine.

  A second patient is placed in his room and he moans incessantly with the noises of an airplane taking off.

  My father is destroyed by the struggle and the nurses are sure that the end will take place during the night.

  I remain since I want to fulfill his final requests. One of the few things I could have done for him. The waiting is horrible, I am frightened, every noise inside the room takes on an incredible dimension, I feel cold, I hurt for him. The man dying next to him is screaming from the pain.

  Thursday

  He’s still hanging on; his breathing is hoarse and cavernous. “Congested lungs.” He has trouble breathing, says the doctor.

  The whole family arrives, accompanied by a very religious uncle, a true believer who enters the room like the messiah. His arrival prompts me into an uncontrollable nervous and happy laughter that is unstoppable; people look at each other, shocked at my hard and pitilessly dry heart; they whisper among themselves but I don’t hear what they’re saying; only my father looks and smiles at me, as if he’d finally understood me after all those years I stayed away.

  He gives me his hand that I squeeze eagerly as I go on laughing.

  “It’s horrible to see someone die,” says my mother.

  “We must pray,” says the messiah.

  “It’s the end,” says my uncle.

  The others take out their handkerchiefs.

  All we are missing are the professional criers to complete the spectacle. Every half hour my father regains consciousness for one or two minutes, only to whisper words such as “love” and “good health to all of you” or “I did what I could.” Not once during his agony with a terrible and admirable lucidity did he say my brother’s name and yet he revered him and his heart, that damn heart of his, kept on going.

  Thursday night.

  I’m alone with him once again and his eyes are now completely covered with a grey veil; his tongue, which is visible as he keeps his mouth open, is separating into bloody slices that are flaking away, his lips look like old parchment.

  He’s had nothing to eat since Sunday night and the red blood from the white bottle keeps on dripping through the plastic tube going into his arm that has now become entirely blue and seems to be separated from the rest of his body.

  Julien…Julien…in the silence and the darkness of the night his whispers have awakened me… The hospital room is completely dark, his bed is barely illuminated by the outer darkness.

  Julien…Julien …he calls me quietly whispering… Julien…

  I get up from my armchair and come closer to his bed… I lean over toward him, his eyes are wide open and he is repeating in a whisper:

  “Julien… Julien …”

  “What is it, Dad? What?”

  “Listen, listen…”

  “What, Dad? What?”

  “You wanted to know how it was over there?”

  “Where, Dad, where?”

  “Over there, over there…a long, a very long time ago, look…you see? You see?”

  “Where, Dad?”

  His face no longer shows signs of pain, he looks younger…and different…yes different.

  There is terror on his face, unbearable terror, a green inescapable fear.

  “Over there... Come here, closer to me, closer, closer.”

  He wants to whisper into my ear.

  Over there it was...

  I can’t understand the words he’s saying and he begins to shake, his whole body is shaking everywhere, his entire soul trembles and with his hand he draws circles in the air… He continues to whisper and I also begin trembling just like him…my whole body is shaking in the silence of the night punctuated by his incomprehensible whispering…

  I can see on his face, in his lifeless eyes… I see in his fear…long barracks, electrified barbed wire fences, charnels, Germans, dogs, bodies cut to pieces, helmets, uniforms and shaved heads, bodies without bodies and he whispers and whispers without stopping… And on his face I can see clearly, distinctly… Bodies burning, contorting themselves, children saying nothing, looking sad, men who cry and piss in their pants, fall down and get up like automatons and moan and implore God and humanity… Death stinks and the odor is now unbearable, a stifling grey smell… The smell comes from him, he’s still in the process of dying with them, he’s dying for the hundredth time…and he whispers as he shakes and passes on to me the fear and the doubt and the strength and the hatred. I finally understand who he is. I understand this man at last whom I call my father, my father. He was 33 when he was put
in that camp, one more martyr… How many martyrs were 33 years old?… How many were crucified for the love of the new race?

  “Julien…that’s how it was, don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget…”

  The shaking has stopped, his face has recaptured its pain, silence has returned, the black night has once more imposed its will, and I am here in his room, without a sigh or a word, without a flutter.

  So I am here.

  The son of the unknown man, the son of a poor corpse thrown on that bed, the son of the martyr… The son of the man I can now call my father.

  “Don’t forget, don’t forget.”

  Friday morning

  His blood pressure has suddenly dropped, his pulse is beating 170; he’s nothing but an old rag in a bed that’s much too big for him. He’s breathing much faster with a whistling sound and more hoarsely than before.

  He coughs and spits and I go and take the spit out of his throat with a cotton swab. He has one last instant of awareness and tells me:

  “You were right, one shouldn’t be fearful of life, grab as much of it as you can. You see I’m dying a happy man because inadvertently and due to my own foolishness I managed to make you become a man way before your time.”

  But what’s he talking about? What foolishness?

  Me, a grown man?

  He asked me to kiss him and blessed me as he asked me to say “no” to the others because they had turned him away from me. He sank back into his coma with a smile on his face. The day goes by breathing with him, suffering with him, loving him with the others who are crying and the messiah who is praying.

  He has this grin on one side of his face where three front teeth have fallen out, and I had this strange and proud feeling overtake me, I was proud of the man who could fight that way, who could lay there with his sad look but who also appeared to be challenging everyone…

  Don’t forget, don’t forget… Now I know how it was over there, I see you and I understand, no rather, I know. Don’t be afraid, I will not forget, I am strong now thanks to you, I am complete. I am ready, I am ready.

  At that moment I love him the most, I am proud to be his son, proud of sharing that same blood that was being spilled, proud of being more than his son, a friend, a brother, a father, the same man he is: him.