Death with Interruptions

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ONE CAN SAY ALMOST ANYTHING ABOUT THE FIRST MEETING of the interdisciplinary commission except that it went well. The blame, if such a weighty term can be applied here, rests on the dramatic memorandum sent to the government by the eventide homes, especially those final ominous words, Rather death, prime minister, than such a destiny. The philosophers, divided as always between frowning pessimists and smiling optimists, readied themselves to recommence for the thousandth time the ancient dispute over whether the glass was half full or half empty, a dispute which, when transferred to the matter they had been summoned there to discuss, would probably come down to a mere inventory of the advantages and disadvantages of being dead or of living forever, while the religious delegates, from the outset, presented a united front, hoping to set the debate on the only dialectical terrain that interested them, that is, the explicit acceptance that death was fundamental to the existence of the kingdom of god and that, therefore, any discussion about a future without death would be not only blasphemous but absurd, since it would, inevitably, presuppose an absent or, rather, vanished god. This was not a new attitude, the cardinal himself had already put his finger on the implications of this theological version of squaring the circle, when, in his phone conversation with the prime minister, he admitted, although not in so many words, that if there was no death, there could be no resurrection, and if there was no resurrection, then there would be no point in having a church. Now, since this was clearly the only agricultural implement god possessed with which to plough the roads that would lead to his kingdom, the obvious, irrefutable conclusion is that the entire holy story ends, inevitably, in a cul-de-sac. This bitter argument came from the mouth of the oldest of the pessimistic philosophers, who did not stop there, but went on, Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat. The religious delegates did not bother to protest. On the contrary, one of them, a highly regarded member of the catholic sector, said, You're absolutely right, my dear philosopher, that, of course, is why we exist, so that people will spend their entire life with fear hanging round their neck, and when their time comes, they will then welcome death as a liberation, You mean paradise, Paradise or hell, or nothing at all, what happens after death matters to us far less than is generally believed, religion, sir, is an earthly matter, and has nothing to do with heaven, That isn't what we're usually told, We had to say something to make the merchandise attractive, So does that mean you don't believe in eternal life, We pretend we do. For a minute no one spoke. The oldest of the pessimists allowed a wry smile to spread across his face and he adopted the air of someone who has just seen a particularly difficult laboratory experiment crowned with success. In that case, said a philosopher from the optimistic wing, why are you so alarmed by the fact that death has ended, We don't know that it has, we know only that it has ceased to kill, which is not the same thing, Agreed, but given that this doubt remains unresolved, I repeat my question, Because if human beings do not die then everything will be permissible, And would that be a bad thing, asked the old philosopher, As bad as nothing being permissible. There was another silence. The eight men seated round the table had been asked to reflect upon the consequences of a future without death and to construct from the present information a plausible forecast of what new problems a society would have to confront, quite apart, of course, from an inevitable exacerbation of the old problems. The trouble is that the future is already here, said one of the pessimists, before us we have, among others, statements drawn up by the so-called eventide homes, by hospitals, by funeral directors, by insurance companies, and apart from the latter, who will always find a way of profiting from any situation, one must admit that the prospects are not just gloomy, they're terrible, catastrophic, more dangerous by far than anything even the wildest imagination could dream up, Without wishing to be ironic, which, in the current circumstances, would be in appalling taste, remarked an equally highly regarded member of the protestant sector, it seems to me that this commission is dead before it's been born, The eventide homes are right, rather death than such a destiny, said the catholic spokesman, What do you propose we do then, asked the oldest of the pessimists, apart from the immediate dissolution of this commission, which is what you appear to want, We, the catholic apostolic roman church, will organize a national campaign of prayer, asking god to bring about the return of death as quickly as possible so as to save poor humanity from the worst horrors, Does god have authority over death, asked one of the optimists, They're two sides of the same coin, on one side the king and on the other the crown, In that case perhaps it was god who ordered death to withdraw, One day we will know why he set us this test, meanwhile we will put our rosaries to work, We will do the same, by which I mean that we, too, will pray, no rosaries for us, of course, smiled the protestant, And we will arrange processions throughout the country calling on death to return, just as we used to do ad petendam pluviam, to ask for rain, translated the catholic, We won't go that far, such processions have never been part of our customs, said the protestant, smiling again, And what about us, asked one of the optimistic philosophers in a tone that seemed to announce his imminent enlistment in the ranks of the opposition, what are we going to do now, when it seems that all doors are closed to us, To start with, replied the oldest philosopher, let's adjourn this session, And then what, We will continue to philosophize since that is what we were born to do, even if all we have to philosophize about is the void, What for, I don't know what for, All right, then, why, Because philosophy needs death as much as religions do, if we philosophize it's in order to know that we will die, as monsieur de montaigne said, to philosophize is to learn how to die.

Even among those who were not philosophers, at least not in the usual meaning of the term, some had managed to learn that path. Paradoxically, they had not themselves learned how to die, because their time had not yet come, but to ease the deaths of others, by helping death. The method used, as you will soon see, was yet another manifestation of the human race's inexhaustible capacity for inventiveness. In a village, a few miles from the frontier with one of the neighboring countries, there was a family of poor country people who, for their sins, had not one relative, but two, in that state of suspended life or, as they preferred to call it, arrested death. One of them was a grandfather of the old sort, a sturdy patriarch reduced by illness to a mere shadow, although it had not entirely robbed him of the power of speech. The other was a child of only a few months to whom they had not even had time to teach the words for life or death and to whom actual death had refused to show herself. They were neither dead nor alive, and the country doctor who visited them once a week said that there was nothing that could be done for or against them, not even by injecting each of them with a kindly lethal drug, which, not long ago, would have been the radical solution to such problems. At most, it might push them toward the place where death presumably was, but it would be pointless, futile, because at that precise moment, as unreachable as ever, she would take a step back and keep her distance. The family went to ask for help from the priest, who listened, raised his eyes to heaven and said that we are all in god's hands and that his divine mercy is infinite. Well, it might be infinite, but not infinite enough to help the poor little child who has done no wrong in this world. And that was how things stood, with no way forward, with no solution to the problem and no hope of finding one, when the old man spoke, Come over here someone, he said, Do you want a drink of water, asked one of his daughters, No, I don't want any water, I want to die, The doctor says that's not possible, papa, remember, no one dies anymore, The doctor doesn't know what he's talking about, ever since the world was the world, there has always been an hour and a place to die, Not anymore, That's not true, Calm down, papa, you'll make your fever worse, I haven't got a fever and even if I had, it wouldn't matter, now listen to me carefully, All right, I'm listening, Come closer, before my voice gives out, What is it. The old man whispered a few words into his daughter's ear. She shook her head, but he insisted and insisted. But that won't solve anything, papa, she stammered, astonished and pale with horror, It will, And if it doesn't, We lose nothing by trying, And if it doesn't work, That's simple enough, you just bring me back home, And the child, The child goes too, and if I stay there, he stays with me. The daughter tried to think, her warring emotions etched on her face, then she asked, Why can't we bring you back and bury you both here, You can imagine how that would look, two deaths in a country where no one, however hard they try, can die, how would you explain that, besides, given the way things stand now, I'm not sure death would allow us to return, It's madness, papa, Maybe, but I don't see any other way out of this situation, We want you alive, not dead, Yes, but not in my current state, alive but dead, dead but apparently alive, If that's what you want, we'll do as you ask, Give me a kiss. The daughter kissed him on the forehead and left the room, crying. With her face still bathed in tears, she went and told the rest of the family about her father's plan, that they should take him, that same night, across the border, where death was still functioning and where, or so he believed, death would have no alternative but to accept him. This announcement was received with a complicated mixture of pride and resignation, pride because it is not every day that one sees an old man, of his own volition, offering himself up to elusive death, and resignation because they had nothing to lose either way, what could they do, you can't fight fate. It is said that one cannot have everything in life, and the courageous old man will leave behind him only a poor, honest family who will certainly always honor his memory. The family wasn't just this daughter who had left the room in tears and the child who had done no wrong in this world, there was another daughter too and her husband, the parents of three children who were all, fortunately, in good health, plus a maiden aunt who was long past marrying age. The other son-in-law, the husband of the daughter who left the room in tears, is living in a distant land, where he emigrated to earn a living, and tomorrow, he will discover that he has lost the only child he had and the father-in-law he loved. That's how life is, what it gives with one hand one day, it takes away with the other. We are more aware than anyone how unimportant it must seem this account of the relationships in a family of country folk whom we will probably never see again, but it seemed to us wrong, even from a purely technical, narratorial point of view, to dismiss in two lines the very people who will be the protagonists of one of the most dramatic episodes in this true, yet untrue story about death and her vagaries. So there they stay. We forgot to say that the maiden aunt expressed one doubt, What will the neighbors say, she asked, when they notice the absence of these two people who were at death's door, but couldn't die. The maiden aunt does not usually speak in such a precious, roundabout way, but if she did so now it was in order not to break down in tears, which is what she would have done had she spoken the name of the child who had done no wrong in this world and the words, my brother. The father of the three other children said, We'll simply tell them what happened and await the consequences, we'll probably be accused of making secret burials, outside the cemetery and without the knowledge of the authorities, and, worse still, in another country, Well, let's just hope they don't start a war over it, said the aunt.

It was almost midnight when they set off for the frontier. The other villagers had taken longer than usual to retire to bed, as if they suspected that something strange was afoot. At last, silence reigned in the streets, and the lights in the houses gradually went out one by one. First, the mule was harnessed to the cart, then, with great difficulty even though he weighed so little, the grandfather was carried downstairs by his son-in-law and his two daughters, who reassured him when he asked faintly if they had the spade and the hoe with them, We do, don't worry, and then the mother went upstairs, took the child in her arms and said, Goodbye, my child, I'll never see you again, although this wasn't true, because she, too, would go in the cart with her sister and her brother-in-law, because they would need at least three people for the task ahead. The maiden aunt chose not to say goodbye to the travelers who would never return and, instead, shut herself up in the bedroom with her nephews. Since the metal rims of the cartwheels would make a terrible noise on the uneven surface of the road, with the grave risk of bringing curious householders to their windows to find out where their neighbors were going at that hour, they made a diversion along dirt tracks that finally brought them out onto the road beyond the village. They weren't very far from the frontier, but the trouble was that the road would not take them there, at a certain point they would have to leave it and continue along paths where the cart would barely fit, and the very last section would have to be made on foot, through the undergrowth, somehow or other carrying the grandfather. Fortunately, the son-in-law has a thorough knowledge of the area because, as well as having tramped these paths as a hunter, he had also made occasional use of them in his role as amateur smuggler. It took them almost two hours to reach the point where they would have to abandon the cart, and it was then that the son-in-law had the idea of putting the grandfather on the mule's back, trusting to the animal's sturdy legs. They unhitched the beast, removed any superfluous bits of harness, and then struggled to lift the old man up. The two women were crying, Oh, my poor father, Oh, my poor father, and their tears took from them what little strength they still had. The poor man was only semi-conscious, as if he were already crossing the first threshold of death. We can't do it, exclaimed the son-in-law in despair, then, suddenly, it occurred to him that the solution would be for him to get on the mule first and then pull the old man up afterward onto the withers of the mule, I'll have to ride with my arms around him, there's no other way, you can help from down there. The child's mother went over to the cart to make sure he was still covered by the blanket, she didn't want the poor little thing to catch cold, and then she went back to help her sister, One, two, three, they said, but nothing happened, the body seemed to weigh like lead now, they could barely lift him off the ground. Then something extraordinary happened, a kind of miracle, a prodigy, a marvel. As if for a moment the law of gravity had been suspended or had begun to work in reverse, pushing up not down, the grandfather glided gently from his daughters' hands and, of his own accord, levitated his way into his son-in-law's open arms. The sky, which, since the onset of night, had been covered by heavy, threatening clouds, cleared suddenly to reveal the moon. We can go on now, said the son-in-law, speaking to his wife, you lead the mule. The mother of the child drew back the blanket a little to look at her son. His closed eyelids were like two small, pale smudges, his face a blur. Then she let out a scream that pierced the air all around and made the beasts in their lairs tremble, I won't be the one to take my child to the other side, I didn't bring him into this world in order to hand him over to death, you take papa, I'll stay here. Her sister came over to her and asked, Would you rather watch him dying year by year, That's easy enough for you to say, you have three healthy children, But I care for your son as if he were my own, In that case, you take him, because I can't, And I shouldn't, because that would be like killing him, What's the difference, Taking someone to their death and killing them are two different things, you're the child's mother, not me, Would you be capable of taking one of your own children, or all of them, Yes, I think so, but I couldn't swear to it, Then I'm in the right, If that's what you want, then wait for us here, we're going to take papa. The sister went over to the mule, grasped the bridle and said, Shall we go, and her husband answered, Yes, but very slowly, I don't want him to slip off. The full moon was shining. Somewhere up ahead lay the frontier, that line which is visible only on maps. How will we know when we get there, asked the woman, Papa will know. She understood and asked no further questions. They continued on, another hundred yards, another ten steps, and suddenly the man said, We've arrived, Is it over, Yes. Behind them a voice repeated, It's over. The child's mother was for the last time clasping her dead son to her with her left arm, for resting on her right shoulder were the spade and hoe that the others had forgotten. Let's go a little further, as far as that ash tree, said the brother-in-law. Far off, on a hill, they could make out the lights of a village. From the way the mule was placing its feet, they could tell that the earth there was soft and would be easy to dig. This looks like a good place, said the man, the tree will serve as a marker when we come here to bring them flowers. The child's mother dropped the spade and hoe and tenderly laid her son on the ground. Then the two sisters, taking every care not to slip, received the body of their father and, without waiting for any help from the man who was now getting off the mule, they took the body and placed it beside that of his grandson. The child's mother was sobbing and repeating over and over, My son, my father, and her sister came and embraced her, weeping and saying, It's better like this, it's better like this, the life these poor unfortunates were living was no life at all. They both knelt down on the ground to mourn the dead who had come there to deceive death. The man was already working with the hoe, then he shifted the loosened earth with the spade and started digging again. The earth underneath was harder, more compacted, rather stony, and it took half an hour of solid work before the grave was deep enough. There was no coffin and no shroud, the bodies would rest on the bare earth, just with the clothes they had on. The man and the two women joined forces, with him standing in the grave and them above, and they managed, by degrees, to lower the old man's body into the hole, the women holding him by his outstretched arms, the man taking the weight until the body touched bottom. The women wept constantly, and although the man's eyes were dry, he was trembling all over, as if in the grip of a fever. The worst was yet to come. Amid tears and sobs, the child was handed down and placed beside his grandfather, but he looked wrong there, a small, insignificant bundle, an unimportant life, left to one side as if he didn't belong to the family. Then the man bent over, picked up the child, lay him face down on his grandfather's chest, and arranged the grandfather's arms so that they were holding the tiny body, now they're comfortable, ready for their rest, we can start covering them with earth, careful now, just a little at a time, that way they can say their goodbyes to us, listen to what they're saying, goodbye my daughters, goodbye my son-in-law, goodbye my aunts and uncles, goodbye my mother. When the grave was filled, the man trod the earth down and smoothed it to make sure that no chance passer-by would notice that anyone was buried there. He placed a stone at the head and a smaller stone at the foot, then with the hoe he scattered over the grave the weeds he removed earlier, other living plants would soon take the place of those withered, dry, dead weeds, which would gradually enter the food cycle of the same earth from which they had sprung. The man paced out the distance between tree and grave, twelve paces, then he put the spade and hoe on his shoulder and said, Let's go. The moon had disappeared, the sky had once more clouded over. Just as they had finished hitching the mule to the cart, it started to rain.