The Woman in the Fifth

Twenty

I SPENT THE next five days in hospital. My condition — I learned later — was initially listed as ‘serious, but stable’. No burns, but I had suffered severe smoke inhalation and there were worries about the lasting effect on my lungs. My eyes had also been badly singed by the toxic fumes. For the first forty-eight hours they were covered with saline compresses until the inflamation died down. I was also attached to a respirator until the pulmonary specialist ordered a further set of X-rays on me and then decided that, though they had received a scorching, the damage to my lungs would be repaired in time.

‘But don’t even think about getting on a plane for the next six months,’ he told me. ‘Any change in cabin pressure could seriously damage the entire pulmonary system, with fatal consequences. You will simply have to stay put for a while, and consider yourself fortunate to have survived such an incident.’

Everyone who attended me in hospital told me how fortunate I was. The police too. Even Coutard — who came by to see me once I was taken off the respirator. As became quickly apparent, his reasons for seeing me had little to do with enquiring after my health.

‘Providence was with you,’ he said, pulling up a chair next to my bed. ‘The fireman who rescued you told me that if he had arrived three minutes after he did, you would have definitely died.’

‘Lucky me, then.’

‘It’s not uncommon to feel depressed after such a close escape. But I’m certain the doctors here can give you something for that as well.’

‘I’m fine, under the circumstances.’

‘We’ve charged someone with the arson and attempted murder. I think you know him: a Monsieur Delik who works at the Internet cafe on the rue des Petites Ecuries?’

‘A guy with a beard and a less-than-sunny disposition?’

‘The very gentleman. We have reason to believe that he attempted to burn down the building on the order of Monsieur Sezer — who, as you may remember, is still in custody for ordering the murder of Monsieur Attani over a bad debt. Sezer was your landlord and your employer … though he never let on that he was the boss behind that charming establishment where you played night watchman. Delik ran the Internet cafe after his predecessor, Monsieur Kamal Fatel, was found murdered on the Peripherique. Monsieur Delik has confessed to killing Monsieur Fatel over a dispute about a kilo of heroin that seems to have gone astray while in Fatel’s possession. Delik was promised half-ownership of the cafe if he would eliminate Fatel, whom Sezer thought was also trying to muscle in on several of his enterprises.

‘Now Delik still refuses to admit responsibility for setting the fire that nearly ended your life. He also adamantly denies locking you in that room and turning on the heating fan full blast and pouring sulfur on to the fire that was started near the generator which runs the building’s ventilation system. But a bag of sulfur was found at the Internet cafe. He continues to deny knowledge of its existence. But who else would have put it there?’

I can tell you exactly who put it there.

‘The bag was three-quarters empty — and the sulfur used in the fire exactly matched that found at the cafe. So voila, we have definitive proof that he was the arsonist. You should consider yourself fortunate that some anonymous woman — a passer-by — phoned the pompiers after seeing smoke rise from the top floor of the building. That woman turned out to be your savior, monsieur.’

‘Did she say who she was?’

‘Not at all, monsieur. She simply reported the fire and hung up. Another of your phantom women, no doubt.’

No, just my one and only phantom woman.

‘We also believe that Delik was responsible for destroying your room. Quite a mess he left there.’

‘You were snooping around my room?’

‘We were alerted to the fact that your room was ripped apart—’

‘By whom?’

‘Monsieur, it was located next door to a crime scene. Our officers had to return to the place where Monsieur Omar died for assorted administrative reasons, and discovered your chambre de bonne in upheaval. Naturally we investigated … because we were curious as to why someone would want to so destroy the room of a rather poor writer. And by “poor” I am referring to your financial state, not your literary abilities … though we did commission a translation, en francais naturellement, of the first chapter of your novel, just to validate your claims that you are a novelist.’

‘Is that legal?’ I asked, my voice hoarse, barely audible.

‘You should be pleased, monsieur. You have become a translated writer. Many would kill for the chance … though that might be a wrong choice of words under the circumstances.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘Ah, this proves that you are a true writer. Always concerned about public reaction. Yes, I found it very … interesting.’

‘So you didn’t like it.’

‘How can you discern such a thing?’

‘Because, despite rumors to the contrary, Americans do understand irony.’

‘But your first chapter was … fascinating. Most fascinating. The day-to-day rhythms of American suburbia. The conservative father, the crazy mother, the sensitive son. Most original … and I do presume there are certain autobiographical elements that—’

‘You’ve made your point. Thanks.’

‘Monsieur, you take me the wrong way. I would have continued reading … but that would have meant hiring the translator to deal with the subsequent chapters and as the book is terribly long … over six hundred pages so far, and your hero is still not out of university. I presume it’s what the Germans call a Bildungsroman, ja? It certainly has the heft of a Bildungsroman—’

‘“Heft” is also a synonym for “ponderous”.’

‘Again, you misread me. But literary criticism is not the object of this conversation. Rather, it’s piecing together the narrative of your life on the rue de Paradis. So having ascertained that, yes, you were writing a book and had this very strange job — about which you initially lied to us — we were still curious as to why your room was torn apart. Given that several of your associates—’

‘They were never my associates.’

‘So you say. But given that many of the people with whom you associated — both personally and professionally — were also involved in the sale of illegal substances, we naturally wondered if you yourself were hoarding a kilo or so of—’

‘I never, never had anything to do with …’

I started to cough and sputter; the agitation causing me to suffer shortness of breath; my mouth tasting of burnt phlegm. Coutard stood up and handed me the glass of water on the table by my bed. I sipped it and struggled to keep the water down. Coutard watched me impassively. When the spluttering subsided he said, ‘There is also the question of the twenty-eight hundred euros we found in the pocket of your jacket. Wrapped up in several plastic bags. An intriguing way of carrying money.’

I tried to explain how I had saved all that money, how it was kept hidden in a hole beneath the sink in plastic bags, and how it was the only money I had in the world, so were he to ‘impound’ it …

‘You will be on the street?’ he asked.

‘I won’t be able to live. Because I have nothing. Nothing. You can run a credit check on me, search for bank accounts. You’ll find zilch. That twenty-eight hundred is my entire net worth.’

Silence. I noticed that he had a Zippo lighter in between his right finger and thumb and he was clicking it open and shut. The man was desperate for a cigarette.

‘You will get your money back … because it has no real bearing on our investigations. Your bags and clothes were clean. We found nothing in your room … though I am still intrigued as to why it was pulled apart.’

Because she’s a mad bitch, that’s why.

‘It’s a strange quartier …’ I said.

Coutard allowed himself a little smile.

‘Of this I have no doubt. Just as I also know that you are a man of remarkable naivete to have fallen into a job like that.’

‘It wasn’t naivete, Inspector. It was indifference to what happened to me.’

‘That’s another definition for “nihilism”. But in your case, the nihilism is mixed in with tendencies toward delusion.

Or have you finally accepted that Madame Kadar is dead?’

‘Yes, I know now that she is truly dead.’

‘Well, that is an improvement. Did your near-death experience somehow convince you that there is a considerable frontier between temporal life and the underworld?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘And all that extraordinary knowledge you had on Madame Kadar’s long-forgotten life? Can you now explain to me why you had amassed such detailed information?’

‘Does it matter anymore?’

Click, click, click as he opened and closed the Zippo again.

‘I suppose it doesn’t,’ he said.

A wave of tiredness hit me. I slumped against the pillows on the bed. Coutard took the hint and stood up.

‘The doctors say you will be discharged in a few days. What will you do then?’

‘Find a new place to live and try to finish my novel. That’s the only reason I was in the office that night, to retrieve the disk that I had left there …’

‘Yes, I had read that in the statement you gave Inspector Leclerc yesterday.’

‘Did he also tell you that if you had given me back my laptop, I wouldn’t have had to return there for the disk … ?’

Click. Click. Click.

‘The laptop was part of an ongoing investigation,’ he said. ‘Had you had a disk in your room …’

I did have a disk in my room. But she took it when she trashed the place. To panic me. To force me back to the office so she could lock me in and set fire to the place and leave me no option but to cry out for her help. Whereupon …

‘When can I get the laptop back?’ I asked.

‘In time.’

‘Might I, at least, get a copy of the novel transferred to a disk?’

‘In time.’

I shut my eyes. I said nothing.

‘We will, no doubt, be in touch,’ Coutard said. ‘We will naturally need your new address once you are discharged from here … so we will know where to contact you when the laptop is ready to be returned.’

And to know where to keep tabs on me.

‘Fine,’ I said.

‘You’re a free man now,’ Coutard said.

I am not free.

They kept me in hospital for a further five days. Leclerc came by on the final day with a copy of a statement for me to sign — a reiteration of my story of how I had been locked into the office as the fire started, and how I had been in the employ of Monsieur Sezer who had always kept the nature of the activities in the building a secret from me.

‘This will lend weight to the accusation that he ordered Delik to destroy the building and yourself at the same time.’

They were also buying my story about not knowing what went on downstairs, while framing a man for a crime he didn’t commit. But isn’t that how all narratives are framed? We apportion blame to some, excuse others, and hope that the tidy package will end the story in a satisfactory way. If I now started talking about how the fire was all down to ‘her’, that would complicate the way they wanted the story to work — and it might lead to me being transferred to the nearest rubber room. Anyway, Delik was guilty of other things. We all are.

I signed the statement. As I handed it back, Leclerc said, ‘You must feel vindicated after what happened to the gentleman who orchestrated your problems in the States.’

So they had continued to track the Robson story. Then again, they were cops. And cops tracked anything that had to do with tracking you.

‘I orchestrated my problems,’ I said. ‘Whatever I feel about that man, I still pity him.’

‘You are more magnanimous than I would be, under the circumstances.’

Magnanimous. That word again. I wasn’t magnanimous. I was just aware of a third party controlling everything.

‘You seem to be on the mend,’ he said as he was leaving.

Nothing’s mended.

But they did give me my walking papers the next day. Using the phone directory the day before I had come across a great find: an actual one-star hotel in the Sixth. The guy on the desk sounded pleasant. Yes, they had a room available — seventy euros a night. ‘But you say you need it for three or four weeks? Then I can reduce it to sixty euros per night.’

I did some fast math. Four-twenty a week and another one-fifty in living expenses. I had just enough to fund the next month and a half.

And then? And then? How will you survive?

No idea.

The hotel was on the rue du Dragon. As I got out of the taxi with my suitcase, I scanned the street. Shoe shops everywhere. Expensive women in expensive clothes. Tidy pavements. Tourists. Businessmen in suits. Good restaurants. Money.

The hotel was agreeable in a fusty old-fashioned way. But it was clean, and the bed was hard, and the floor-to-ceiling windows let in considerable light, and the two men who ran the front desk remained professionally polite. I was also within walking distance of fifteen cinemas. But venturing out was not something I was interested in doing right now. The effects of smoke inhalation were still very much with me. I tried a shortish walk to the Odeon and a secondhand English-language bookshop on rue Monsieur-le-Prince. But after buying four paperbacks, I found the walk home to the hotel a strain — and I collapsed in bed for the rest of the day. The hospital had provided me with three small canisters of oxygen — each with a plastic mouthpiece attached to the top. The nurse in charge of me told me to administer four or five blasts of oxygen whenever shortness of breath arrived. By the end of my first day at the hotel, one of the cans was nearly empty. I could hardly sleep that first night — not just because of my irregular, painful breathing … but also because at five the next afternoon, I was due back at rue Linne.

Because I was still attached to a ventilator I had missed our rendezvous three days ago. I figured she understood that — and would excuse it. But as she was following my every move, she also knew I was mobile enough to have checked into this hotel. So I would be expected to show up at her place tomorrow without fail.

I stayed in bed all that day, tiredness still overwhelming me. I left the hotel at four forty. I walked to the taxi rank on the boulevard Saint-Germain. There was — miraculously for rush hour — a single taxi in line. I took it. I arrived at the rue Linne ten minutes later. I crossed into the Jardin des Plantes. I walked slowly, conscious of my breathing. My lungs still felt as if I had been a three-pack-a-day smoker for the last thirty years, but the breathlessness seemed a little less ominous today. I noticed the verdancy around me, the deep blue sky, the hint of heat in the air. Early summer had arrived. In fact it had probably arrived weeks ago — but my head was elsewhere.

Four fifty-five. I approached the door. Five p.m. I punched in the code. Click. I stepped inside, entering that big silence I now recognized as not being normal. The concierge was immobile in his lodge. I headed up the stairs. Not a sound from a single apartment. Until I knocked on her door. She opened it and said, ‘You should have been here three days ago.’

‘A fire delayed me,’ I said, stepping by her into the apartment.

‘Really?’ she said, following me in.

I grabbed her arm and pulled it up behind her back.

‘Don’t bullshit me. You know exactly what happened.’

‘Trying to hurt me now, Harry?’ she said, struggling against the arm. ‘Because you can’t. Pain doesn’t have any effect on me.’

I pushed her away.

‘Well, it does on me — and I nearly died.’

‘But you made a rapid enough recovery if you’re now able to push me around.’

‘Push you around? You follow me everywhere—’

‘You have no proof of that—’

‘—you trap me in a burning building. And then, having told me that I would be in a situation where I’d have no choice but to cry out for you and demand your help, I do find myself in a situation where I have no choice but to cry out and demand your help. And what happens?’

She smiled and lit a cigarette.

‘You have no proof of that.’

‘The cops said a woman phoned them.’

‘Maybe she did. And maybe you should have made more copies of this.’

She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a black floppy disk.

‘You stole that from my room …’

‘It’s just a floppy disk. One of many millions. And it doesn’t have an identifying label on it. Who’s to say that it’s yours?’

‘You knew that the only reason I went back to that hellhole of an office was to retrieve the disk of my novel because—’

‘The cops impounded your computer after they raided that building?’

‘There! That’s my proof you’ve been following me—’

‘But you still have no actual proof … except that you think that I started the fire near the ventilation shaft on the second floor of the building, and added half a bag of sulfur which I later hid in the Internet cafe to make certain that the entire business was pinned on that bastard Delik—’

‘Stop playing with my head.’

She came toward me, opening her robe. She had nothing on underneath.

‘But I like playing with your head,’ she said, reaching for my pants. ‘It’s so easy.’

I tried to pull away, but she grabbed hold of my belt and forced my crotch against hers.

‘If you think I’m going to fuck you—’

‘I do think that,’ she said, popping the buttons on my fly.

‘I’m not interested,’ I said, trying again to push her away.

She reached in and took hold of my now erect penis.

‘Liar,’ she said. ‘And don’t give me any crap about your scorched lungs.’

She grabbed the back of my head and shoved her tongue down my throat, then pushed my pants down. I threw her on to the bed. I was inside her immediately. She became violent, pulling my hair, biting into my neck. But I didn’t resist, instead drilling into her with angry ferocity. I came fast. So did she. But as soon as it was over, I too felt something close to derangement. Standing up, I touched my neck and felt blood.

‘Just think,’ she said, reaching for her cigarettes. ‘You’ve just fucked a dead woman who made you bleed.’

I pulled on my jeans.

‘Going so soon?’ she asked.

‘What do you want from me?’

She laughed.

‘What do I want from you? Quel melodrame, Harry. You know what I want. Our little rendezvous every three days. Nothing more, nothing less. You come here at the specified time. We make love — or “fuck” if you prefer. We drink a little whisky. We talk a bit. You leave at eight, comme d’habitude. I don’t care who you see or what you do when you are not here. Go where you want, sleep with who you want … as long as you are here at the times agreed. And in exchange for your visits — your fidelity to our rendezvous — I can promise you—’

‘What? ‘ I asked. ‘Eternal life?’

‘Oh, you will die … like everyone. That’s something completely beyond my power. But one thing I can promise you is that, for the rest of your life, you will have someone watching your back at all times, smoothing the way for you. As I said last time, I cannot manipulate things to give you fame and fortune. Getting your novel published, for example …’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Well, I do have the disk …’

‘But no computer.’

‘I have access to any computer I want — as long as the person who owns it isn’t using it at the time. Anyway, I read it. It’s clear you have talent, Harry. Abundant talent. Your turn of phrase, your sense of place, your ability to describe a character’s attributes and complexities. All very admirable. The problem — for me, anyway — is that you cannot simply tell the story and let us discover your cleverness. You have to remind us all the time how clever — and faux-poetic — you are …’

‘Faux-poetic?’

‘Don’t take it so hard, Harry … but the narrative is swamped by this absurd lyricism, this need to over-explain, this terrible portentousness—’

‘Everyone’s a fucking critic, aren’t they?’

‘Are you talking about the inspector?’

‘So you were there in the hospital room when he told me—’

‘—that he had the first chapter of your novel translated? You have no proof that I was there, but—’

‘Can I have the disk back?’

‘By all means,’ she said, reaching into the pocket of her robe and tossing it on the front of the bed. ‘But honestly, you should either rework the entire narrative, cutting out all the posturing, the—’

‘I don’t want to hear anymore of this—’

‘As you like …’

I picked up the disk.

‘I’m never coming back here.’

A weary sigh as she sat up and closed her robe and reached for her cigarettes.

‘Harry, why make trouble for yourself when I ask so little and offer so much?’

‘Because you’re insisting I be indentured to you for—’

‘Three hours twice a week! You call that being “indentured”? Think of your current predicament. No job. No prospects. And what do you have saved from that awful night job? Twenty-eight hundred euros. All right, you’ll eke out a few weeks in that one-star hotel on the rue du Dragon. But then … ?’

I put my face in my hands, as again I heard that voice in my head: She is everywhere … she knows everything.

‘I’m not coming back … and that is final.’

‘Fool.’

‘I don’t care what you do to me.’

‘Yes, you do. And yes, you will …’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It will matter to you.’

‘Torture me, ruin me some more, even take my life …’

‘Harry, you don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘I know exactly—’

But I couldn’t finish that sentence, as I suddenly doubled over, coughing wildly. Phlegm filled my mouth and, for a few moments, I felt as if I was drowning. Margit stood up and guided me into the toilet where she held me as I coughed up black gunk into the sink. Then she led me into her kitchen area and opened a cabinet and handed me a canister of oxygen. Check that: the exact same make of oxygen which had been given me in hospital. I took it from her with relief and pried off the cap and clasped the mouthpiece in my teeth and took two deep blasts of the oxygen. It helped. After a third blast, my breathing eased.

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You got the canister at the hospital where I was recovering from your pyrotechnics?’

‘Perhaps …’

I stood up, tucking the canister under my arm.

‘You should leave that here for the next time,’ Margit said.

‘There’s not going to be a next time.’

‘Yes, there will.’

‘Don’t count on it.’

‘You’ll be here — because you’ll have to be here. But Harry — think carefully before you decide to terminate your minor obligations—’

‘Obligations? I’m not indebted to you for anything.’

‘You called out for me when you were about to die … and then you didn’t die.’

‘You are not my savior, and you are not seeing me again.’

‘Don’t make me force you back here.’

‘Do whatever you want to do,’ I said. And I left.

Half an hour later I was back in the hotel, curled up on the bed, a blanket over me, the plastic wastebasket from the bathroom near me in case I had another phlegm attack. But I now expected to have the roof of my room collapse on me, or to be attacked by a platoon of poisonous bedbugs, or to start spitting up internal organs (surely she couldn’t orchestrate something so invasive). I touched my neck and felt the still-moist wound she had made with her teeth. ‘You’ve just fucked a dead woman who made you bleed.’ I covered my head with a pillow. This can’t be happening. I also thought of a lifetime of afternoon liaisons stretching out in front of me — all in service of some surreal notion that I had a permanent guardian angel lurking in my corner, as long as I screwed her twice a week. You have no proof. How she taunted me with that phrase. But my anguished attempts at disbelief were quickly superseded by a realization that had taken hold of me in hospital and had only been reinforced by my encounter with Margit that afternoon: This was all very real. And I did take seriously her threats to bring further harm to me if I didn’t meet my ‘obligations’ to her. But I didn’t care anymore. Let her take my life. It meant so little to me now.

I holed up in the room until one the following afternoon, finally venturing out for something to eat. I stopped in an Internet cafe. There was only one email in my inbox: a long missive from Doug, telling me the details of Robson’s suicide. He also said that Susan had gone to ground. She had been officially dismissed from the college, and was also now under FBI investigation to see if she was, in any way, involved in Robson’s extracurricular ‘business’.

I did call her yesterday and she sounded rough. Word has it that she has been suffering from appalling depression — who can blame her — and that Megan is understandably traumatized by what has happened. If you could get back here for a few days, I think it might do Megan some good. If you broach this idea with Susan, I sense she will respond positively to it.

After reading this, I used a search engine to find all the up-to-date press reports on Robson’s suicide. There were plenty of them. Susan’s dismissal from the college had also merited a few paragraphs in the news reports, crossreferenced with the scandal which had forced me out of my job. That was the thing about a media feeding frenzy — it engulfed everybody, and I could only begin to imagine the grief that my poor innocent daughter was taking at school for her parents’ crimes and misdemeanors.

Switching back to my Internet server, I wrote Susan:

I am genuinely sorry to hear of your terrible problems. I just want you to know that I am here to help. As I mentioned in our last phone call, I would also very much like to reestablish contact with Megan, and would be most happy to come back and see her, if she is willing to see me. If you want to contact me by phone …

And I supplied the number for the hotel and for my room there.

I checked my email the following morning and night. No reply. Otherwise I spent most of the day in my room, reading and sleeping and having the occasional bout of hack coughing. The following day there was also no email from Susan. I went to the movies — Hitchcock’s last film, Family Plot. I managed a fifteen-minute walk by the Seine. At 5 p.m. I returned to the hotel, missing my rendezvous with Margit.

I waited for the sky to fall in. It happened late the following night. The phone in my room rang just before midnight. It was Susan. She could barely talk.

‘Megan was knocked down by a car on her way to school today. A hit-and-run driver. She’s still unconscious with a broken leg and a fractured pelvis and they don’t know if she’s suffered any brain damage, but the fact that she doesn’t respond to …’

She started weeping uncontrollably. She managed to get out a few more words, saying that she’d been taken by ambulance that afternoon to University Hospital in Cleveland where they had the best neurology department in the state. ‘I’m calling from there right now,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t look good. It doesn’t …’

She broke off, unable to speak anymore. I told her I’d get the first plane out tomorrow morning. Then I hung up and staggered into the bathroom and fell down in front of the toilet and got violently ill. When I could heave no longer, I started to cry.

‘Don’t make me force you back here.’

‘Do whatever you want to do.’

And she had done just that.

I didn’t sleep. I wandered the streets all night. I found a twenty-four-hour Internet cafe near Les Halles and went online and discovered there was a 9 a.m. flight to Chicago that morning, with an onward connection to Cleveland at 2 p.m. local time. Had I been in possession of a functional credit card I would have booked the flights on the spot. Instead I returned to the hotel and asked the night man to book me a taxi leaving for the airport at 5 a.m. The guy on the desk — his name was Tadeuz, he was Polish — was fantastically kind when I told him why I had to rush back to the States. He said he would hold my room for me at no charge (‘It’s a quiet time for us’), and was a little surprised when I said I would definitely be back in Paris within forty-eight hours.

‘But do not worry, sir. If we need the room we can always pack up your things and store them. If your daughter’s condition hasn’t improved …’

My daughter’s condition will only improve if I present myself at 13 rue Linne at 5 p.m. in two days’ time.

I was at the airport by six. I paid cash for a round-trip ticket to Cleveland via Chicago, returning to Paris that evening. I phoned Susan on her cellphone from a kiosk inside the departure lounge. It was just after one in the morning in Ohio. She sounded exhausted and stressed beyond the limits of endurance. ‘She’s still unconscious,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper. ‘The MRI has shown some bruising to the brain, but the neurologist still cannot determine how damaged it is. The fact that she’s not responded to any stimuli is, he admitted, very worrying. The next twenty-four of hours will be critical.’

‘I’ll be there by two p.m. your time. Meanwhile, try to get some sleep.’

‘I don’t want to sleep. I just want my daughter back.’

I felt sick. And helpless. And crazed. Did Margit put Megan in the way of the car that hit her? Susan had yet to tell me the details of the accident … but in my more rational moments, I couldn’t help but think that Margit had set this up as a near-facsimile of the accident that had killed her daughter and husband. But say she hadn’t set it up? Say it was all just terrible happenstance? What then? And what if Megan died? ‘You never get over the loss of a child. Never.’

When the plane took off and I felt my diaphragm starting to contract, I could again hear the pulmonary specialist tell me I’d be risking death by flying. Ten minutes later, as we reached cruising altitude, I felt a crushing pain in my chest. The large woman seated next to me said to her friend, ‘Oh my God, he’s having a coronary!’ and rang for a hostess. Two of them arrived, looking very concerned.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

I explained it was just a little breathlessness after a lung injury (‘You were actually caught in a fire!’ one of them said), and asked them if they had any oxygen. One of them disappeared, returning moments later with a canister. I gripped the mouthpiece between my lips and blasted myself three times. Presto. The pain dissipated, but the anguished thought that Megan might die continued to clobber me.

‘I think we might be able to find you somewhere more comfortable for the remainder of the flight,’ one of the hostesses said.

I was escorted to the rarefied confines of Business Class and a seat that turned into a bed. I accepted pillows and a duvet. I went into the bathroom and changed into the sleeper suit they provided. I popped a Zopiclone. I returned to the seat. I hit myself with two more blasts of oxygen and passed out for six hours. It was the first proper sleep I had received in days — and when I awoke thirty minutes outside of Chicago, I felt that, at least, I would be able to function, no matter how terrible the next twenty-four hours might turn out to be.

The landing was tricky — the decompression causing my diaphragm to turn vise-like again. Two minutes before we hit the runway, the pressure was so bad I felt as if I was starting to strangle. The oxygen did little good … until we were on the ground and I could re-blast myself for a solid minute, emptying one of the canisters in the process.

I had similar problems in the air between Chicago and Cleveland, emptying another whole canister en route and feeling completely breathless by the time I reached University Hospital half an hour after landing.

The Neurological Unit was located on two floors in a new wing of the hospital. ICU was at the far end of a hallway. I was escorted inside by an attending nurse. She said my timing had been good, as the neurological resident was on the ward right now. ‘I must warn you that walking into the unit always unnerves people the first time, and you might find all the apparatus around Megan rather disturbing. If you find you can’t take it — and many people can’t — just let me know and we’ll get you out of there straight away.’

Her bed was at the end of the unit. That meant walking past patient after patient, all unconscious, all looking submerged by wiring, monitors, probes, drips and a spaghetti junction of tubes. When I reached Megan’s bed, I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. There was nothing different about all the apparatus engulfing her. It was simply the realization that this was my little girl, being kept alive by all this medical paraphernalia, including a ventilator that let out an ominous whish as it regulated her breathing. Her long blond hair had been hidden inside a white surgical cap — but her face, though bruised, was, as always, angelic. Susan was seated slumped in a chair, looking more tired than I had ever seen her. Her face was drawn, her shoulders hunched, her eyes sunken, her nails ravaged. A man in a white coat was talking to her in a calm voice. I approached Susan and put my arm around her shoulder. She reacted stiffly to this — no hello or greeting, and she quietly disengaged herself from my attempt at a supportive hug …

something the doctor noticed immediately.

‘This is Megan’s father,’ Susan said tonelessly.

I shook his hand and introduced myself. His name was Barry Clyde. A guy in his late thirties. Calm, considerate, if a little professionally distanced.

‘I was just telling Susan that Megan has suffered what could be described in layman’s terms as a deep concussion which has been coupled with a certain amount of brainstem trauma. The MRI showed considerable bruising on the brain stem. The good news is that such bruising does dissipate and can be followed by a gradual recovery. The more tentative, difficult news is that she continues to be unable to respond to stimuli. Frankly, this has us worried. It could be that the concussion is so pervasive she simply has to heal first before emerging from this comatose state. But — and I must be direct with you about this — it could also be that she has suffered far more profound neurological damage and might be in this absent state for … well, it’s hard to gauge how long this could go on for.’

‘Is there a chance she might die?’ I asked.

‘All her other vital signs are good, her heart is immensely strong and the brain is getting all the oxygen it needs. So, no, death is not an immediate worry. But — and again I must outline the worst for you, just so you can be prepared — a persistent vegetative state might continue indefinitely. That, I should add, is the worst-case scenario …’

I bowed my head and closed my eyes and felt tears sting them. The doctor touched my shoulder. ‘Please don’t give up hope. The brain is an extraordinarily mysterious organ and can frequently recover from serious trauma. Time will tell.’

He left us alone. We both stood there, in front of the daughter we made together, saying nothing. When Susan started to break down again and I tried to take her hand, she pushed it away, saying, ‘I don’t want — need — your comfort.’

‘OK,’ I said quietly. ‘How about a cup of coffee?’

‘You just got here and you immediately want to go out for a coffee? Spend some time with your daughter.’

‘I can’t bear to look at her like that.’

‘Well, get used to it. She’s not coming out of this. I called my brother Fred yesterday. He put me on to a friend of his — a leading neurologist out in the Bay Area. I was able to get everything about Megan’s case emailed to him in San Francisco. He was much more blunt about it than Dr Clyde. “In these sorts of brain-stem trauma cases, there is generally less than a fifteen percent chance that the person will make a full recovery, and more than a fifty percent chance that she will never emerge from that vegetative state.”

‘Fifteen percent isn’t zero—’

‘But it’s shit odds. And I keep telling myself, If only I had driven her to school yesterday. But I was rushing to see my fucking lawyer who’s doing his best to keep me out of jail as well.’

‘Surely the Feds don’t think you had anything to do with Robson’s porn business.’

‘You’ve evidently been kept well informed on my downfall. And it must give you enormous pleasure, under the circumstances.’

‘It gives me no pleasure at all. And let’s not fight in front of Megan.’

‘Why not? She can’t hear us. Even if she could, what would she think? How wonderful it is to have a pair of narcissistic fuck-ups as parents?’

‘I’m sure she’s been terribly torn apart by what’s happened over the last year. But that doesn’t mean she hates us. And if we can somehow make it all up to her—’

‘Listen to you, Mr Bromide, Mr Polly-Fucking-Anna. She’s not coming out of this, Harry. We’ve lost her. And she is the innocent victim in all this. Whereas we …’

Again she started to lose it, grabbing on to the metal railings on Megan’s bed and crying wildly. The attending nurse came marching down the corridor at speed. She put her arm around Susan’s shoulder and led her off back toward the doorway. I stood by the bed and gripped the railings as well, trying not to fall apart, trying to tell myself that I would make this better, that I would get her out of it, no matter what it took.

The nurse returned a few minutes later.

‘Your wife is about to be seen by a doctor. He will probably admit her for nervous exhaustion — and we’ll find her a bed. She’s at breaking point, the poor thing — and who can blame her. If you’d like to see her after the doctor …’

‘I think I’m about the last person she wants to see right now.’

The nurse thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘Is there anything I can get you?’

‘A glass of water, please. And I would like to stay here for a while …’

I sat in front of my daughter’s bed for the next five hours. I held her warm hand, I watched the undulating beeps of the heart monitor and was frequently lulled into nodding off by the metronomic whoosh of the respirator. I sat there, thinking, thinking, thinking. I put my head in my hands. I started to whisper. All right, Margit, I’ll be back with you tomorrow. I will never miss another of our rendezvous again. You’ll have me for as long as you want to have me. Just bring Megan back to us whole.

I nodded off around midday and woke with a start at three. Megan was still motionless, her eyes stock-still. At five I forced myself out of the stiff uncomfortable metal chair. I leaned over and kissed her goodbye. Then I found the nurse on duty and explained that I had to fly back to Paris now, but to tell my wife that I’d be in touch by phone within the next twenty-four hours.

A cab to the airport, an hour-long flight to Chicago, a two-hour stopover, seven and a half hours over the Atlantic: a sleepless night of coughing and sputtering, and I started to have that drowning sensation when the plane made its final approach. Once we were inside the terminal I staggered into a bathroom, bent over a toilet and heaved up clumps of reddish phlegm. Then I threw some water on my face and headed off to Immigration — an experience I was dreading, just in case the cops at the commissariat de police in the Tenth had informed the frontier boys that I was an American whom France could easily do without.

I approached the booth. The cop scanned my passport, glanced at his screen and said, ‘Back again with us?’

‘I like it here.’

‘Are you working?’

‘I’m a writer. I work for myself. So I’m not holding down a job here.’

‘And how long will you be with us this time?’

‘A few weeks,’ I lied. ‘No more.’

Stamp, stamp. I was back in … with a new three-month visa.

The clerk at the hotel on the rue du Dragon smiled and handed me the key as I came in.

‘Did your daughter recover?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Does it look good?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t know what to say but “sorry”.’

‘Thanks for that.’

‘If you want to sleep now, the room’s ready.’

‘Please call me at four, in case I don’t get up.’

I slept straight through the afternoon. I was out of the hotel by four thirty. I was outside Margit’s front door just at five. I stepped inside the parallel world. I climbed the stairs, she opened the door on the first knock. That’s when I slugged her, catching her with my fist right in the mouth. She fell backward on to the bed.

‘You fucking bitch … you punish me by trying to kill my daughter …’

She stood up, holding her cheek.

‘You have no proof.’

‘Don’t fucking say that again,’ I shouted and then caught her across the face with the back of my hand. She collapsed back on the bed again, but then turned up at me and smiled.

‘You forget, Harry — pain means nothing to me. But pain means everything to you. All you do is live in pain. And you know what you’ve just demonstrated? You’re like every man I’ve ever known. When you discover you’re powerless, you lash out … even though the act of punching a woman is nothing more than a testament to your complete pathetic impotency. But go on, Harry. Punch me again. Pull off my clothes and ravage me while you’re at it. Anything to make you feel better.’

‘The only thing that is going to make me feel better is if my daughter comes out of her coma and has a complete recovery with no lasting side effects.’

‘You ask a lot, Harry.’

‘You’ve got to help me—’

‘No, I’ve got to help her. But that can only happen if you play by the rules of the game. Here from five until eight every three days without fail. If you say yes now, and then don’t show up for our next rendezvous, your daughter will die. As soon as you are here—’

‘I promise I will be here.’

Silence. She sat up.

‘That’s settled then. You can go now. We will start again at our next rendezvous as if this never happened. But do know that if you ever hit me again …’

‘I will never hit you again.’

‘I’ll hold you to that, Harry. Now go.’

‘Before I do, I need to know something. Are these rendezvous of ours going to go on indefinitely?’

‘Yes, they are. A bientot …’

En route back to the hotel, I stopped in a kiosk and rang Susan’s cellphone. When I explained that I was back in Paris, her reaction was angry.

‘That’s so damn typical of you, running away in the middle of a crisis …’

‘I had no choice. I have a job interview today, and you will be needing money to keep going …’

‘Don’t guilt trip me here, Harry.’

‘Why, why, do you always think I’m having a go at you when all I’m doing is—?’

‘Reminding me I have lost my goddamn job and am just praying that Blue Cross will cover these hospital bills. Otherwise it’s bankruptcy and—’

‘Is there any change there? Any sign of improvement?’

‘Not so far.’

‘Did you get any rest?’

‘A bit, yeah.’

‘Please call me as soon as there’s any change.’

‘OK,’ she said and hung up.

A day went by. I ventured up to the hospital for a previously arranged appointment with the specialist. He ordered an X-ray and gave me a very hard time when he saw the state of my lungs.

‘You’ve been on a plane, haven’t you?’

‘My daughter is seriously unwell, and I had no choice but to—’

‘Try and kill yourself ? I warned you, monsieur, about the tremendous dangers that pressurized environments cause. By choosing to ignore me, you have retarded your recovery completely. The reason you have blood in your phlegm is evident. Take another journey in a pressurized cabin and you might do yourself fatal damage. You are grounded for at least six months. Understood?’

I returned to my room in the hotel. I counted out the cash I had left after paying for the ticket to the States. Around eighteen hundred dollars. Don’t think about it. Just take everything as it comes now. What else can you do?

I stayed in the room, trying to read, trying to think about everything but Megan. Eventually, around ten that evening, I climbed into bed. Three hours later I was jolted awake by the ringing phone.

‘A call for you, monsieur,’ said the night clerk. With a click he put it through. It was Susan. And the first words she said to me were, ‘She opened her eyes.’