Schrödinger's Dog

by Martin Dumont

  Pierre’s attitude is different. He’s “against,” opposed to the whole idea. He says you dive to enjoy the show, not to spoil everything. He gets excited and puts me in mind of Lucille. Which is always a strange sensation.

  He stood up to his grandfather. It even seemed to me he called him an “old jackass,” but I’m not sure. In any case, the old man chose to let it go.

  We left the house an hour later and drove to the port. There we got on a ferry bound for the Island. Loading the car had reminded me of the first time. Lucille was twenty-five years old and pregnant. We were going through a good patch; pregnancy suited her fine. I remember her face as she watched the old cars vanishing into the belly of the boat. Of course, she had taken a ferry before. But the old one, the one that used to carry her to the Island when she was little, was much smaller. It could take only two cars, which parked on the deck in the midst of the passengers.

  That was why the new ferry made such an impression on her. It was much larger and much faster. There was a parking garage inside it, capable of transporting up to fifteen vehicles per trip. The garage door, which opened on the side of the boat, was a big metal plate. When lowered down onto the landing stage, the door served as a loading ramp.

  “We’re not going to sink?”

  She’d asked me that question in an intimidated voice. I laughed gently, not making fun of her, and promised her we wouldn’t.

  * * *

  —

  Once we were on the Island, we headed for its southern coast. That’s where we always go diving. The cliffs are unrestrained, they just plunge into the water. The view above the surface is lovely by itself, but you have to look below too. The land falls away everywhere, dozens and dozens of meters down, and then the slope smashes into the sea floor. There are rocks covered with multicolored coral and crevices throwing enormous, soft-edged shadows. To dive there is to blend into the nuances of the world. All you have to do is hold your breath a little.

  They’ve built a hotel on the cliff. A modest little place, it offers no more than a few rooms. You’d think it was a private home. They don’t accept reservations, but they always have a vacancy, even in high season. That’s the way it is, I can’t figure it out either. Maybe people are afraid. When you look out over the sea, you notice a lot of things rising to the surface.

  We said we were going to go out for a dive before lunch and left our bags at the hotel desk. It wasn’t the best time of day for diving, but we wanted to warm up. We’d go back again, later in the afternoon. When the daylight starts to wane, the fish come out to hunt.

  Pierre led the way to the beach. I walked behind him, and it amused me to observe his gait, the way he stepped. With the passage of the years, he’d acquired a slight forward lean, as if refusing to grow too tall. Sometimes I point this out to him, and he grumbles and says, right, he knows, he doesn’t hold himself straight, so what?

  Down on the beach, we put on our suits and entered the water to get good and wet. Then you have to go back and lie on the sand for a little while. Ten minutes or so, just for stretching. It’s the neck that’s most important. And we always perform breathing exercises to slow our hearts.

  Pierre did all that with great diligence and closed eyes. We went back to the water and finished equipping ourselves. Flippers, masks, snorkel tubes. You always slip a knife into its sheath on your leg, and you always wear a lead belt; additional kilos are essential to good diving.

  Pierre went in first. He gave three kicks and then veered toward the rocks. I spat into my mask—to keep it from fogging up—and followed him.

  The first dive of the day is never very pleasant. You have to get used to it; your body takes a little while to acclimate. The pressure increases, the cubic meters of water weigh on you more and more. And then your heart’s beating too fast; you suck in some of your backup air supply, and the signals aren’t long in arriving. The deficiency, the physical distress you can’t bear much longer.

  Nevertheless, I needed only three fin strokes to reach the bottom. My system was getting up to speed. I slipped along a rock and spotted Pierre ten meters to my left.

  We stayed in the water for less than an hour. I didn’t want us to push ourselves too much, we had the whole day. We went back and lay on the sand, which was now much hotter, and then we took off our gear to let it dry on the rocks. I’d left a bag with sandwiches and bottled water in the shade. We sat down and devoured the mayonnaise-soaked bread without exchanging a word. It was often like that: at the end of long apnea sessions, you need a little time to come back to normal.

  * * *

  —

  After lunch, I lay down for a sunbath. Pierre was sitting cross-legged, bent over a little white book. I watched him for a moment. It was an amusing sight: he moved his lips as he read. Would I hear him murmuring if I crept closer to him?

  Finally, he raised his eyes. “Will it bother you if I work on my book a little this evening?”

  I shook my head, and he smiled. “I can’t wait to finish it. I’ve got the whole thing in my head. It’s an obsession!” I tried to remember when that had started. There had been so many things he was passionate about. That was the sort of kid he was, always getting carried away with everything. Well, all the same, it seemed to me he’d taken up writing while he was still very young. Maybe when he first got to middle school. True, he’d always written little texts here and there. One day he gave me a short story for my birthday; he must have been thirteen. It was about a diver who tries to recover a fabulous treasure. The chest is hidden in a sunken ship, so the guy has to dive really deep. In the end, he reaches the treasure by hanging on to a dolphin. I’d been happy to discover, back then, that the subject of diving interested him.

  “You talk about free diving in your book?” I asked.

  He smiled. “Not this time, Dad. Sorry.”

  I shrugged and then closed my eyes for a brief nap. I felt the sun warming my skin. A little below us, the sea rolled lazily over the sand.

  * * *

  —

  The light started to fade around five in the afternoon. I’d had time for a siesta. Pierre was asleep a little farther off, just in the shadow of the cliff. I shook him.

  “Shall we go back in?”

  He looked a little foggy, but he got up. We put on our equipment again and started straight down from right in the middle of the rocks.

  It didn’t take me long to feel completely at ease. I was quickly able to descend to about fifteen meters. I knew it would all come back to me. I kept an eye on Pierre, and he on me; one of us was always above the other. Blackouts never really give you any warning.

  I was following a big grouper when I felt Pierre’s hand pulling on my leg. He signaled me to go back up, and I followed him.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked after we surfaced.

  “Can we stop?”

  “Already?”

  He made a face. “Yes. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My back hurts, and I’m tired out. I can’t dive down and stay down.”

  I was surprised, but I made no comment. I raised a thumb, and we swam back to shore. We changed clothes in silence and left the beach.

  I let him take his shower first and stretched out on the mattress. Actually, I was frustrated because I hadn’t had time to forget myself. After all, that moment of letting go, that’s what you’re looking for down there. The pressure’s finally off. The discomfort, the lack of oxygen: everything dissolves in the water. Then and only then, there’s nothing left, and you let yourself go.

  Pierre worried me. It was rare for his dives to be shorter than mine. Ordinarily, he descended without difficulty; he could go down as far as twenty meters, he could hold his breath for more than three minutes. Today, I hadn’t seen him stay on the bottom even once. I blamed him for going out so much; he must have picked up a virus or caught a cold. I had eagerly looked forward to this weeke
nd with him, and it annoyed me that he was sick.

  The hotel restaurant seemed more like a living room. A fireplace, a couple of wooden tables. In low season, the owner always waited on the tables herself. I had the impression that she recognized us, but I wasn’t sure.

  We ordered the plat du jour. Pierre got up to go to the men’s room, and I looked over my surroundings. There weren’t many diners. It was a calm place, and I liked being back there. Agitation exhausts me. I think that comes from spending so much of my life in a taxi; you stay alone long enough, you get used to peace.

  Our dinners were served, but Pierre still hadn’t come back from the toilets. I felt something in the pit of my stomach. Light, but disagreeable. I took the napkin off my lap, and that was when I saw him. He was moving toward me, looking stunned, his face transparently pale. No, more like strangely yellow.

  He came closer. His whole body was shaking.

  “Dad…”

  I didn’t recognize his voice. There were too many groans, too much fear inside it. I felt my heart racing in my chest.

  “What? What? What’s going on?!”

  The owner came up to us. I’d knocked my chair over when I stood up. Or maybe it was the table, I don’t remember anymore. I grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Pierre! What’s the matter?” I shouted.

  He kept staring at me wide-eyed.

  “In the men’s room…” He was mumbling, I had trouble understanding him.

  “What happened in the men’s room?”

  I felt him tense up.

  “It came out white.”

  8

  When the doctor arrived, I was surprised. I’d been prepared for a long wait, but we were in the room for only a few minutes, sitting rigid, side by side. He politely asked if I was coming, and I stammered. In fact, he was addressing Pierre. He’d spoken to him directly, without even looking at me. His manner was professional, maybe a bit ceremonious. Pierre said yes and got up, and I followed suit.

  We sat on iron chairs, facing a big desk. The doctor took a seat on the other side and put his notes in order. He seemed to hesitate; he was practically squinting, his eyes darting from Pierre to me as if he couldn’t decide. I started feeling uneasy. Maybe he was just getting warmed up.

  Finally, he lowered his eyes to his pages again. He read the figures in silence, nodding.

  I gazed at Pierre. There was nothing to read on his face, not the slightest expression. He was waiting, and I decided to imitate him. Through the window, a little courtyard was visible. A well of light, with four walls a few meters apart. Brilliant rays were falling into it. I wondered what the sky looked like.

  The doctor coughed, giving the signal: he was ready. Pierre started to make a movement but then changed his mind. He looked so nervous that I asked myself how long I’d been staring outside.

  “The results aren’t good.”

  That came too fast. I wasn’t expecting it, not even after the coughing. I mean, I didn’t think the announcement would come so directly. Pierre fidgeted. I saw his lips move, but I didn’t hear anything. I put my hand on his and signaled to the doctor to go on.

  There was something. A spot, a growth on the head of the pancreas. Further tests would be necessary; the doctor suspected complications. The white stools—they were the reason. There was also dark urine sometimes, but that wasn’t systematic. Pierre’s fatigue, his vomiting, his backaches: they all had the same explanation.

  “It’s a tumor. It’s too soon to say how far along it is, but we must react quickly.”

  The silence that followed was, I believe, deliberate. He was giving us time to absorb the information.

  Pierre’s hand began to tremble against mine.

  Tumor.

  I compensated for the trembling by squeezing harder.

  The doctor started to talk again, and his timing was perfect.

  “Whatever the level of seriousness may be, an operation is necessary. From the looks of it, it seems possible to remove the whole thing. That’s a good point.”

  I gave Pierre a smile, a tense smile. He wasn’t looking at me.

  The doctor talked about the operation: “Major surgery, but the techniques are well understood.” He spelled out the risks: 80 percent success rate. He asked us what we thought. I say “us,” but he was gazing at my son. There was no more hesitation, neither in his voice nor in his eyes. Pierre, on the other hand, turned to me. I could see the fear spread across his face.

  “I…I agree…If it’s necessary…Right, Dad?”

  I averted my eyes. I was ashamed. I couldn’t bear to meet his. I said yes, of course, we agree. The sooner the better. The doctor nodded, looking grave, and then he smiled. “I’m going to perform the operation myself. Everything will be fine.”

  There were some more complicated details. Date, anesthetic, allergies. Pierre answered the questions, and I tried to concentrate. That made my forehead hot, and I had trouble breathing. I looked into the courtyard, but a cloud was obstructing the sun. Not a bright spot to be seen.

  “Dad?”

  Pierre shook my arm, and the doctor repeated himself: “Is it all right with you if your son comes back to the hospital tomorrow morning?”

  Tomorrow. The word resounded inside my skull. I murmured in agreement. After that, I sighed a long, slow sigh. I felt panic coming on, and I didn’t want it to show.

  “Perfect, we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

  He stood up and gave us his hand. A smile was fixed to his lips. It was comforting to see how self-assured he was. He accompanied us to the door of his office. I stepped ahead and didn’t see Pierre’s face. The sounds of our footsteps echoed on the staircase. We were suddenly alone, and I had to speak. I was terrified. I settled for going down the stairs and turning around from time to time.

  The air outside was like a slap on the nose. We took a few steps, and I put my arm around his shoulders.

  “It’ll be all right, my Pierrot. I…”

  I didn’t finish my sentence. Pierre had raised his eyes—they were filled with tears.

  I pulled him close, and he slumped against my shoulder.

  * * *

  —

  Back home, I regained my calm. I tried to reassure him and then cooked us something to eat, talking about the progress of medicine as I did so. I don’t think he was listening to me. He wanted to know. What did it all mean? Because, after all, the doctor hadn’t said a whole lot. A tumor, yes, that sure sounded bad, but he hadn’t said “cancer.” Was there a difference?

  There we were, too alone and too ignorant not to torment ourselves. We were going to have to get used to it. Nobody would say anything—at least, not right away. There would be other tests and careful, rigorous diagnoses. But all the same: they were going to lay him on a table and open his belly. The doctor had been confident, which counted for a lot. But how about afterward? Would that be the end of it?

  Surely not. So why hadn’t he clarified anything?

  When Pierre became insistent, I told him to calm down. I didn’t know any more than he did, and it was eating away at me just as much.

  I clowned around for him, and it made me think about Lucille. It was strange. I often did that for her. Maybe that’s all I’ve got. An outdated weapon, a glass wall.

  It was pathetic, but I kept it up all the same. Pierre smiled once or twice, so I scored a few points. When the meal was over, he went out to see some friends. To my surprise, that made me feel good.

  I got after the dishes, humming a familiar tune. My hands shook in the stream of water from the faucet. I felt the walls closing in, and so I sang louder. Blood rushed to my skull, my heart raced in my chest. I thought that I’d suffered with Lucille, and how, but I’d never been afraid. It took Pierre to scare me to death. Whenever he came home too late, whenever he was gone too long. After a while, I learned to recognize
it. That anxiety, that terrible frustration: as if all things were determined to slip away from me.

  My son. Only he could put me in such a state. My brain raving, my imagination shooting off in a thousand directions at once. You find yourself making up all kinds of nonsense. He always wound up coming home in the end, and I’d get annoyed at myself for having worried so much.

  A dish slipped out of my hand and broke in the sink. I watched the water running over the broken pieces of crockery.

  Maybe this time was different.

  9

  Pierre entered the hospital at eleven in the morning. Operation tomorrow. I stayed with him the whole day. They served him a light midday meal. He wasn’t hungry. We talked, the two of us, mostly me. Nobody came in to tell us anything; I had no idea how much time he would spend here. I offered to bring him some books to read, but he declined. “I’ll be too tired.” I insisted, and in the end he gave me a list of novels.

  The surgeon came to see Pierre in the afternoon. He explained the operation to us. He went through the whole thing, every step. He spoke well, but there was too much distance. I mean, the words he used, they were no doubt the right words. And the details too, they were helpful in reassuring us. He knew what he was doing. And yet, I’d been expecting something more personal. Why didn’t he touch my son? He could have sat down beside him, could have made a gesture; that would have been warmer. But he remained standing at the foot of the bed, and his voice resounded too far away from us.

  A few moments later, he left the room. I felt like following him into the corridor. There were so many questions. I restrained myself so as not to upset Pierre. I stayed at his side, and—finally—he fell asleep. Seeing him so tired made me feel guilty. I hadn’t seen anything coming. The weeks when he’d been so exhausted, the backaches he’d complained about, the vomiting. He was my son, I spent my time looking at him. But I had missed the only thing that really counted.