by Paul Colize
Léna had been working at the clinic for a few weeks now. She brimmed with energy and enthusiasm. Her overtures to Dominique had been the object of endless corridor gossip and comment. The more so because he was strikingly good-looking, and far from impervious to her charms.
Dominique visited his first patient and gave a series of massages, to relieve the pains in her legs. Then he headed for Bernier’s room.
Unusually, Bernier wasn’t looking out for his arrival. His mouth was half open and he was staring at the ceiling.
Dominique approached the bed.
The man didn’t seem to notice his presence. He was sweating and his eyes darted left and right, as if watching a horror film projected above his head.
Dominique bathed his forehead.
‘Jacques, my friend, we need to talk.’
94: IN THE FLAMES
We found somewhere out of sight. We didn’t want them to know we knew one another – they would become suspicious, and we would be separated.
We arranged to meet near the laundry, along a path in the grounds, behind the chapel. Together, we felt stronger. We would spend long moments sitting on a bench in deafening silence, savouring our companionship, with only the water tower to watch over us.
Sometimes, Sonny spoke to me. He would lean over and speak in a low voice, articulating each syllable as if I was a complete moron.
I couldn’t understand what he said. I couldn’t answer. I formed the words in my head, but I was incapable of expressing myself. Thanks to them, I had unlearned the power of speech.
During one of our meetings, Sonny gave me a wink and showed me his clenched fist. Slowly, he opened his fingers. He held some pills in the palm of his hand. He took one, placed it on his tongue, shook his head and spat it out. I should stop taking them.
The men in white brought them morning and evening. They were set out, in order, in a small box. They would tip them into my hand, give me a glass of water and wait for me to swallow them. Before I was declared harmless, they would look down my throat with a small torch to make sure I had swallowed them down.
I stopped taking them from one day to the next, just as Sonny had advised. I waited until they had left the room, then made myself sick into the toilet bowl. I was careful not to be noticed. I was suspicious of the lunatics they had infiltrated into my cell, to spy on me.
Slowly, I began the journey back. I emerged from the fog. Colours and sounds returned. The men in white had faces now. I could tell them apart. Only the smell persisted.
I began to decipher Sonny’s messages, but I found it hard to communicate with him. I wanted to question him, find out what had happened to him. I wanted him to confess whatever sins had brought him to Stone House. I wanted to know how he had managed to make himself look like an old man.
Little by little, I began to mutter a few words. Early one morning, when the cleaners were going about their work, Sonny waited until they were looking the other way, and led me by the hand into a store room.
A sink with a mirror over it stood against the back wall of the room. Sonny positioned me in front of it. I stared at the reflection in the glass. Sonny looked the same as usual. Next to him stood an old man I had never seen before. He was taller and broader than Sonny. The old man was staring back at me in amazement.
Bit by bit, Sonny retraced his story. After his wild years, he had met a woman. They had married and had two children: two boys, Thomas and William. He had found a job with a car-hire company. His wife worked in a boutique, selling clothes.
They were an ordinary couple, like thousands of others in England. They paid their taxes, went on summer holidays and followed the football.
One morning, Sonny had left for work. His sons were already grown up; one had left home and got married. Sonny’s boss told him the firm had been sold, and there was no longer a job for him there.
The police had found him three days later. He had locked himself in a toilet in Liverpool Street station and was methodically tearing a magazine into tiny pieces. He had no recollection of what he had been doing.
That was the first time he went AWOL, the first hole in his memory. I thought the story was quite amusing, but he was not smiling.
Other walkabouts, other holes followed. He had been found huddled in a foetal position at the back of a wardrobe in a furniture store, and another time in a confessional. The police got to know him; he had quite a record.
He had spent two months in a psychiatric hospital – his first stay. A few days after returning home, he had taken some food and hidden under his own bed. For almost two days, he watched his wife come and go, heard her weeping and wailing, spied on her telephone conversations, listened to the diagnoses of the police and doctors.
He went back to the first hospital, until his family decided to have him permanently incarcerated. I was sorry.
I told him my story, in return. I told him about the deaths of the guys in Pearl Harbor, about Floriane’s death, Gab’s death, Stern’s death, my back-up gig in Berlin, the death of the disc-jockey in Ramstein, the ghost words and the infrasound that had killed innocent civilians in Vietnam.
I got everything mixed up, for sure. Sonny didn’t seem convinced.
One day, I plucked up all my courage and asked him if he had any news of Mary. His answer was evasive. He had come across her once or twice, but they hadn’t spoken, and he had no idea what had become of her.
I could tell he was hiding the truth. He knew something, but he didn’t want to be the one to tell me. He spoke of her the way people talk about someone who has died, lowering his eyes, in sad, resigned tones.
I didn’t insist. I wanted to picture Mary alive and happy.
It was several weeks, maybe over a month before I regained something approaching clear-headedness. I liked Sonny. We were united. We supported one another through moments of great doubt, but little by little, his presence and his concern were no longer enough. I wanted my freedom. And I wanted to see my mother.
Sonny reckoned she would be about eighty-nine. If she was still alive.
One of Sonny’s sons came to visit from time to time. His name was Thomas, and he was the chief accountant for a building firm. He was a well-built, confident type, the opposite of his father. Sonny said he was a very capable boy. He suggested we ask him to see what he could find out.
I wanted to know. It had taken me a while to piece together the information scattered all around my head. I had forgotten who I was, my name and where I had lived.
Thomas came, and I spoke to him. He left with the information, promising his father he would make enquiries and tell no one what he was doing.
A few weeks later, I learned that my mother had died in the early 1990s, and that she was buried in the cemetery in Ixelles. I learned that my father had died, too. I wanted to disappear into nothingness that day, to die of shame and despair.
Day after day, hour after hour, I turned the news around and around like a dagger in a gaping wound. It was obvious to me now. I couldn’t stay where I was. I couldn’t end my life like this. I had a duty to fulfil before I could leave this world.
Day after day my conviction grew. I had to get out of this place. I had to make my peace with my father and beg my mother’s forgiveness.
I told Sonny what I had determined to do. He was quiet and thoughtful for several days.
One morning, he told me he was going to get me out of there. He had it all planned. The end of summer was approaching, it was the night before the full moon, the night when anything was possible.
I don’t know if the phases of the moon really do have an effect on the behaviour of lunatics, but when the full moon approached, things would get completely out of hand at Stone House. On those nights, the men in white delivered generous doses of tranquillisers, and the most notoriously agitated nutters were placed in solitary.
The night was busy with screams of distress and running feet in the corridors. Often, the sirens wailed. By dawn, the night staff were on their knees.
Sonny had told me to go out the next morning, at first light, and hang about in the grounds near the service entrance on Invicta Road.
I had no idea what he was planning, nor how he would get me out through the entrance. The double gates consisted of metal grilles about seven feet high, mostly kept locked shut. At the time appointed for deliveries, a guard occupied the sentry box between the outer and inner gates. When a supplier arrived, he would drive his van through the outer gate and wait until it had shut behind him. Then his papers would be examined in minute detail, and the second grille would open. When the van emerged again, the guard would search it from top to bottom.
Sonny replied that he knew all that, and asked me to trust him.
That evening, before we parted, he took me in his arms and thanked me for all I done for him. I had taught him the meaning of friendship, again. I had taught him patience and compassion. He was highly emotional. He spoke without thinking.
I didn’t want to leave without him. I asked him to come too. He sighed. He’d had enough of running away, he wanted to stay there. He was afraid of the outside world. He had done his time, he felt better at Stone House and would end his days there. But I had a mission, and I had to see it through.
I followed his instructions. As soon as the morning alarm rang, I headed out into the park. I wandered about for a good hour. Just as I was losing patience, the sirens wailed, but the sound was different this time. They were not signalling an escape.
I heard the cries. Thick smoke billowed from the administrative building, a kind of red-brick villa with white-painted wooden bay windows, and a clock topped with a little bell-tower on the roof.
I moved nearer to the building. Suddenly, flames burst from the first floor, behind the library windows, and I saw Sonny’s silhouette standing in the inferno. I didn’t understand what he was doing there, trapped by the fire.
People went wild, shouting and running in all directions: the men in white, the inmates and the administrative staff. In just a few minutes, the courtyard was filled with panic-stricken, helpless onlookers.
The firemen were on the scene in just ten minutes. Only the main gates were wide enough for the engines to pass through. One of the guards raced to open them, then ran back to the courtyard to watch the show.
The gates stayed open, and I walked out, feeling strangely calm and serene. I supposed Sonny had it all planned, that he knew how he would get out of there. It was just a ploy.
Only later did I make the connection between his last words to me, and his sacrifice.
On the outside, Thomas was waiting for me. I got into his car. A Mini Cooper. By coincidence, the last make of car I had seen at the airport before my arrest. I thought that after all this time, they would surely have stopped production.
Thomas pulled away at speed. He had left clothes for me on the back seat. He was nervous, and distant. He disapproved of what we were doing, but he owed his father a debt. He would drop me in the centre of London, and after that, they were quits; I would be on my own.
I asked no questions. Sonny had told me his story. Thomas had signed the papers committing his father to Stone House.
He took me to a busy London street. I looked around, but didn’t recognise the neighbourhood. I got out of the car. Thomas gave me a few bank notes, closed the door and drove off without a second glance.
I took a deep breath. I was in London. Nothing had changed, yet everything was different. I recognised the architecture, one or two monuments, a few façades, but the decor and atmosphere were not the same.
Everything had speeded up. Men were running. Women were running. Children were running. Everyone seemed tense, fevered, anxious, just like Thomas. They terrified me.
The cars, buses and walls were plastered with advertising posters singing the praises of unfamiliar products and devices whose purpose it was difficult to make out.
No one paid any attention to me. No one smiled or looked relaxed, the way we had when London belonged to us.
Drowning in the human tide, I thought of Sonny and his silhouette dancing in the flames.
95: COME HOME
I hid in one of the parks. When night fell, I went down into the Underground. I was hungry and thirsty. I wandered through the passageways.
At the bottom of one staircase, a couple of musicians were giving their all. They were long-haired and gaunt, with a few sparse teeth between them. If not for the difference in their height, they might have passed for twins.
I stopped, and I listened. Their singing was off, and their playing was just as bad, but they made a likeable, energetic duo. Their style was in striking contrast to the world around them. Their broad grins showed off their meagre assortment of teeth, as if they were the happiest men alive.
The first was called Roger, a guy of about my age. He sang and played the banjo. The other was Jonathan. He sang the harmonies and accompanied them on the tambourine. They played a repertoire of country standards.
After a few songs, they packed up their stuff and moved on.
I followed them.
They headed off down another passage, and began playing again. Their set continued for a good part of the evening. After each new song, I handed over one of Thomas’s bank notes.
It didn’t take long to liquidate my capital. When I had given them my last pound, I turned on my heels and walked away. Roger caught up with me, and asked who I was, why I was following them, why I had given them the money?
I told him the first thing that came into my head. I had been a great drummer. I came from Paris, where I’d played with Clapton. I missed the music. I was harmless.
Jonathan joined us. They looked at one another and nodded, knowingly. They seemed to understand what I was saying.
Roger took me to one side. London wasn’t like Paris. In London, the Underground stations weren’t dormitories. People like us had to live on the margins, in dark side streets, or down by the Thames. People like us were told to move on, we couldn’t hang around in public places, and we had to watch out when we were begging for money, in case we were cautioned by the police, or forcibly moved on.
They could see I was at a loss, and invited me to go with them. They took me under their wing. I became one of them.
They were headquartered under Blackfriars Bridge.
A great many others lived there too, mostly solitary, but some were organised into clans. Roger said never a day went by without a fight breaking out, scores being settled. They were impressed by how tall and broad I was. We struck an agreement – they would show me how to survive, and I would serve as their bodyguard.
Day after day, they showed me the best soup runs in London, the most comfortable places to sleep and how to get drunk for next to nothing.
With them, I relived my time with Candy on the Paris boulevards. I was their escort. I kept an eye on the surrounding scene, and warned them when a police patrol was approaching. More than once, I sent a gang of kids running when they tried to take the guys’ money.
At the end of each evening, alcohol coursing through our veins, we snuggled into our sleeping bags and laughed fit to burst. Drink and laughter helped us bear the cold. Roger liked to string me along. He told me they’d dug a tunnel under the Channel, and a woman had been Prime Minister.
Life was tough, often desperate. There was no future, and no way back. But with hindsight, I treasure the weeks I spent with them. They marked a moment of freedom between two prisons.
Apart from the cold that left me frozen to the core, I was a free man, I took pleasure in life once more. The time I spent with Roger and Jonathan restored some of my humanity.
One December night, towards the end of my stay, a gang of tough-looking types burst onto the scene under the bridge. We thought they were racketeers, or plain-clothed cops. The heavies gave us all the eye and inspected the place thoroughly. A few moments later, a kid in jeans, sweatshirt and a knitted hat joined them.
Roger and Jonathan couldn’t believe their eyes. T
hey breathed in my ear that the kid was ‘Prince William’, the son of the Prince of Wales. Another of their jokes, I thought. Their future king was roughing it under the bridges of London. The kid didn’t sleep a wink all night, it was about minus four, and he was half-dead with cold.
After New Year, I told them my mother was ill and I wanted to go back to Brussels. They seemed surprised, but asked no questions. A few days later, they introduced me to Looping.
Looping was small, bald and tattooed from head to foot. He came from Aberdeen and knew the best ways to get across the Channel. He was surprised by my request. Generally, he was tasked with getting people from France to England. No one had ever asked to go the other way.
First, he told me I just had to hop on a train. Then he realised I had no papers.
I had a bit of money stashed away, but it was not enough. Roger negotiated with him. I don’t know what deal they struck, but Looping said he could help.
I waited a few weeks. One morning, Looping came to fetch me. We went to Victoria Station. From there, we took a coach, and got out in a small village. We went to a hangar where a man was waiting for us. He loaded me into the back of a lorry headed for Dover. The driver seemed to know what was going on, though he paid me no attention.
In Dover, I would have to be patient, and wait in the truck. I was not to get out. The journey took several hours, altogether. In Calais, I was handed over to a young guy on a motorbike, who rolled his shoulders. He took me to the station. He had a hard look about him, but he was more open and communicative than the truck driver.
I had kept back a few notes. I explained to him what I wanted to do. In the station, he helped me find the telephone number of the cemetery. He waited patiently as I made call after call, and didn’t seem annoyed by the difficulty I had making myself understood.
After nightfall, he took me to a freight wagon bound for Brussels. He had a pass key that opened the metal doors. Before leaving, he gave me a bottle of cheap spirits for company. I thanked him and hid behind a pile of packing cases.
