Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal Page B

echo, the wait, drips checked, treatments dispensed, blood pressures taken, care administered – sponge baths, bedsores – rooms aired out, sheets changed, floors washed, and once again Revol and his lanky stride, once again the panels of his white coat that glide out behind him, the tiny office and the icy chairs, once again the swivel chair and the paperweight rolled in the hollow of a palm at the very instant when Thomas Remige knocks at the door and, without waiting, strides into the room, introduces himself to Simon Limbeau’s parents, states his profession – I’m a nurse, I work on the floor – then he pulls up a stool, sits at Revol’s side. So now they are four, seated in this cubbyhole, and Revol feels he has to speed things up because they’re suffocating in here. He takes care to look at each of them in turn, this man and this woman, Simon Limbeau’s parents – once again, the gaze as a commitment to speech – while he states: Simon’s brain registers no further activity, the thirty-minute electroencephalogram just taken shows a flat line – Simon is now in an irreversible coma.
    Pierre Revol has gathered up his body, hollowed out his back and stretched out his neck, a contraction of muscles as though he were shifting into high gear, as though he were urging himself on in this moment – okay, let’s cut the formalities, we have to keep moving, and it is probably this muscular focus that allows him to get past Marianne’s shudder and Sean’s exclamation, who recognize together the word “irreversible,” understanding that the conclusion is near, and the imminence of the announcement is completely unbearable. Sean closes his lids, leans his head forward, pinches the inner corner of his eyes between thumb and forefinger, murmuring I want to be sure that everything has been done and Revol, gentle, assures him: the impact of the accident was too violent, Simon’s condition was hopeless when he was admitted this morning, we transmitted the scan to expert neurosurgeons who, unfortunately, confirmed that a surgical intervention couldn’t fix anything, you have my word. He says “condition was hopeless” and the parents stare at the ground. Inside them, everything cracks and caves in, and suddenly, as though to delay the final word, Marianne says: yes, but people wake up from comas, it happens that they wake up, even years later, there are tons of cases like that, right? Her face is transfigured at this idea, a flash of light, and her eyes grow wide, yes, with a coma, nothing is ever sure, she knows it, stories abound of people who wake up after years, they fill up blogs, discussion forums, these miraculous stories. Revol stops her eyes with his own, and replies, firm: no – the syllable that kills. He starts again: the functions of relational life – in other words, your son’s consciousness, sensibility, and mobility – are non-existent, and even his vegetative functions, his breathing and blood circulation are only happening because of machines – Revol lays it out, lays it out, as though he were proceeding by accumulation of evidence, his words enumerate, pause after each piece of information, while the intonation lifts, a way of saying that bad news piles up, that it heaps up within Simon’s body, until his sentence wears itself out, finally stops, suddenly indicating the emptiness stretched out before it like a dissolution of space.
    – Simon is brain-dead. Deceased. He’s dead.
    One needs time, of course, to catch one’s breath after uttering such a thing, time to take a pause, stabilize the oscillations of the inner ear so as not to collapse in a heap on the ground. Gazes dissolve. Revol ignores the beep beep at his belt, opens his hand, studies the orangey paperweight growing warm against his palm. He’s sucked dry. He just told this man and this woman that their son is dead, didn’t clear his throat, didn’t lower his voice, said the words, the word “deceased,”