The Rain Watcher

by Tatiana de Rosnay

  The Internet connection is lethargic, coming and going, like a flickering sunbeam. It is due to the flood. Linden heard about this eventuality on the news this morning. Little by little, Paris is becoming paralyzed. It is not happening in one go, like those sudden and spectacular devastations in the south of France, or Hurricane Sandy, in New York City back in October 2012, when the superstorm wreaked havoc with New York’s waterline, an event that Linden remembers well, although he was not directly affected by it, as he was living on the Upper West Side. What is happening now is an insidious occurrence, nondramatic in its unfolding, with no human lives immediately at stake. The enemy is the stagnating water, destroying everything it invades, unhurriedly. Stone may resist, but metal corrodes, plaster disintegrates, while paper and wood rot away. Linden now knows, as most Parisians do, that the water is here to stay. When it does recede, after a crowning level that has not yet been reached, it will do so with no rush at all. The aftermath will be lingering and painful. It will take weeks, months, to return to normal. He remembers one specialist stating that Paris will be brought down to her knees.

  Linden stands by a window, gazing out to a bleak, wet interior courtyard. He gets a message from Mistral, saying she is on her way. He gives her the name of the building and the floor. For some reason, the Internet connection is stronger near the glass pane. Why did he Google his father’s name? Now, he’s looking at all the images and links that very name pulls up. There is material he has already seen—conferences, forums, and conventions his father has attended in the past—but also new elements he is not familiar with. To his amusement, he reads that in Berkeley, California, a couple of years ago, protestors stripped naked to save eucalyptus trees about to be decimated for fire-hazard abatement. Paul was not part of that crusade, but the group claimed they did it for him, under his influence. The trees were saved. The pictures of nude, paunchy campaigners hugging trunks make Linden smile. He clicks on a recent video, duration ten minutes, titled Paul Malegarde at Vénozan, and plugs his earphones in. Someone following Paul around the domain shot this with a smartphone. The result is unsteady and amateurish, and the bad connection at times freezes the scene, but it is extraordinary to hear his father again. Cradled in his palm are the evocative images of his family home. It’s all there: the autumnal luminance, the chirrup of the birds, the large bulk of the house, and his father’s voice, low, unmistakable. “What do the trees tell me? Everything. They always have. Ever since I was a boy. I heard them whispering even before I heard my parents’ voices. I didn’t search for it; it just happened.” Paul smiles, the rare, powerful smile Linden loves. “They found me. They spoke to me. They still do. They tell me what lies under their roots, in the thickness of their leaves. That’s why we need trees to understand the world. Trees are living encyclopedias. They give us all the keys.” Paul is then filmed in the arboretum. His face is tanned, glowing, a contrast to what it is now. “My principal worry nowadays is insecticides. They are already a disaster for bees, as everyone knows, but also for trees, which is a lesser-known fact. Forestry management, chemicals, pesticides, heavy machinery have degraded trees terribly. If something is not done now, there will be no turning back. The tragedy is that people have lost interest in trees. They take them for granted. People don’t respect trees like they used to. They treat them like objects that automatically deliver oxygen and wood. They forget that scientists have made incredible discoveries. Trees have a memory. They know how to plan ahead. They know how to absorb information. They know how to send warning signals to other trees. We’ve known for a while that a forest is an intricate network that shares its data, a place where trees care for one another, where they watch out for one another. We now know trees connect to each other. They do that through their roots, and through their leaves. Scientists made all these significant discoveries quite a while ago. The problem is that people don’t attach importance to the secret lives of trees, of how trees can help us, how they can amend our climate, our ecosystems, but also how they can show us how to face the future. We need to learn from them. We need to protect them because they protect us. In this new, fast world where everything happens instantaneously, we aren’t used to waiting anymore. We have forgotten how to be patient. Everything about a tree is slow, how it thrives, how it develops. No one really understands how slowly trees grow and how old they become. Some trees are thousands of years old. In fact, a tree is the exact opposite of the crazy, fast times we live in.”

  Linden goes back to the beginning of the video. He can’t get enough of his father’s voice; he wants to hear it all over again. Suddenly, there’s a tap on his shoulder, and he turns around. A man in his early sixties is standing there; he has astute blue eyes, a prominent nose, and an abundant patch of brown hair. He introduces himself as Professor Gilles Magerant. Linden is shown into a large, brightly lit office that gives on to the same shadowy courtyard. Professor Magerant goes straight to the point. The transfer went smoothly, but his father’s condition is still under supervision. It will be a prolonged procedure, and the professor is well aware of what an ordeal this is for the family. As Linden no doubt knows, his father’s ischemic stroke was a thrombotic one, caused by a blood clot in an artery of the brain. The clot blocked the blood flow, and the urgency of the treatment was to restore the flow as quickly as possible. That is called revascularization. However, the clot has not totally dissolved, and it may have to be removed by an operation. Linden nods; he read about all this online. He says he knows the chief danger for a person who has had a stroke is to have another, an even bigger and more fateful one, within a week of the initial attack. Professor Magerant explains that for that exact reason, his father has been receiving medical treatment to prevent a second stroke from happening; this includes anticoagulants and antiplatelet medicine. Linden asks if there is damage to his father’s brain, and, if so, will it be permanent? What can his family expect? What can the professor tell him? His father’s case was well handled at the Pompidou hospital is the reply. Early treatment and preventive measures are crucial, and his father got both. It is too early now to determine his father’s long-term outcome—if he will be able to speak properly, to move both sides of his body, to see normally. The professor’s voice is calming, pleasant, but as he listens, Linden wonders how many times the man has pronounced these very words to worried families. He looks at the doctor’s hands—square and capable, hands that unblock arteries, that save lives. As the professor goes on talking, Linden thinks about the patients in this hospital, those in the same situation as his father. How many of them are going to make it? And what about his father? Can he dare hope for the best? Utter sadness shrouds him as he leaves the professor’s office, thanking him and then heading for room 17, where he is told his father now is.

  As soon as he opens the door, Linden is greeted by the blaze of his father’s eyes, set full upon his face. Half-laughing, half-sobbing, Linden cries out, clutching his father’s wrist. “Papa! Papa!” is all he can utter, sounding like an unreasonable two-year-old, wiping his tears away. He knows his father can hear him. He feels it in the hand gripping his; he reads it in the irises gazing back at him. Mercifully, they are alone; there is no other bed, no other patient. Linden leans forward to stroke his father’s forehead, realizing he has never made these gestures before. They are new to him, but they don’t feel uncomfortable, nor do they embarrass him, and when he starts to talk to his father, he finds the effort is no longer there; the words come naturally. Paul is in a new hospital, with a new team. The relocation went well, and it was quite something leaving the swamped modern hospital that stank of sewers. He describes the glass casket, the boats, the people watching them from above. Does Paul remember anything? Paul’s head moves just a tiny bit. Was it a nod? His father clutches his fingers again. So his father did see some of it? They are going to have to learn to communicate, Paul and he. Perhaps they can start with this: One pressure means yes, two means no. How about that? Paul squeezes once. Wonderful! They can correspond now.
They have found a way. Linden describes the flood to his father, the astonishing images he saw on TV, like the ministers being rowed on crafts atop the creek enclosing the Assemblée nationale in order to be able to enter the building. This afternoon, he’s also going on a boat, with a friend from his old school, into the most immersed part of Paris, at Javel, where Candy used to live. He’s both eager and scared, not sure of what he will see, of how he will feel. Paris has become unfamiliar territory, and will be even more so, he points out, at sunset, when street lighting remains dark in practically half of the capital. There are stories of Parisians hiding in their apartments, refusing to leave, wishing to stay put until the water recedes, not realizing they are prisoners of the flood, enduring extreme and deteriorating conditions. Firefighters are on maximum alert, dealing with fire risks linked to ruptured gas pipes and the increasing amount of candles being lit. Linden tells Paul about the general alarm concerning prices soaring for fresh goods and groceries, how complicated it is for parts of the city to go on functioning ordinarily. The financial cost of this catastrophe will be colossal. On TV, a specialist said damages could go over twenty billion euros. Another thing Linden learned was how the flood of 1910 affected fewer people, because Paris was so much smaller in those days, only two million residents. Back then, suburbs were far less developed. Nowadays, ten million inhabitants live in the Parisian agglomeration. There is not only Paris floundering, he points out; the suburbs are also traumatized, like Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vanves, southwest of Paris, invaded by wave after wave of frothy mud. Linden hasn’t heard of any fatalities yet, thankfully, but thousands of citizens are suffering, with more to come as the river upsurges. Real estate investors are now being condemned for building housing lots along the river since 1970, knowing all along these were areas liable to flood. Brochures boasting of “tranquility along the quiet shores of the Seine” were shown on TV, creating an uproar among the thousands of people whose abodes had been swamped. Linden tells Paul about a furious man interviewed on the news, forced to abandon his new property, which was constructed a couple of years ago and now is entirely waterlogged. If he had known this area was dangerous, if someone had informed him, never would he have spent all his savings on this house. The man was appalled at the treachery and greed of mayors and others in power who have no respect for residents and who just care for finances reinforcing their personal and political agendas. All this is because of the rain, Linden explains, pointing to the window, where droplets bead along the grimy surface with steady regularity. The rain has not stopped since they got here, last Friday, and from what he hears, it’s not going to. He remembers how Paul used to wait for the rain at Vénozan. Paul could tell exactly when it was coming, how the wind shifted, how the temperature changed. Linden recalls his father telling him how essential it was, not only to the trees but also to all other plants, to nature itself. He wonders what his father would make of the indomitable Seine. As he begins to ask him, there is a knock on the door, and Mistral appears, her wet raincoat on her arm. Her face lights up when she sees that her grandfather has his eyes wide open. What a wonderful surprise! And she has another great one: Lauren is recovering; the doctor is satisfied with her improvement. She should be much better by the end of the week. Mistral hands Linden a small envelope. It’s from Madame Fanrouk, the hotel director. As tourists are now leaving the city, she has empty rooms to provide. A new and more comfortable one is ready for him.

  Linden pockets the envelope and watches his father and Mistral interact. It’s a poignant sight. He has become somewhat accustomed to his father’s distorted mouth, but what he misses the most is the sound of his voice. A touch of irony, as his father’s voice was not the one that was perceived the most. It was always his mother’s that reigned supreme as she shouted down the stairs or across the garden. It was Lauren he heard when he came back from school, on the telephone to her sister, her parents, or a friend. It was always his mother and Tilia who chortled the most, who jested, who sang clichéd love songs.

  Linden has been missing his father’s voice all his life.

  * * *

  Place Cambronne marks the frontier between the dry land of the fifteenth arrondissement and the floods. The overhead Métro line, number 6, is no longer running. Helicopters circle above. When he arrives on foot from Montparnasse, Linden sees police blockades preventing pedestrians and cars from turning into rue Cambronne, rue Frémicourt, and rue de la Croix-Nivert. The only people allowed through the barriers are those who can prove with ID cards that they live in the inundated areas. It is only two o’clock, but the dark gray sky dampened by rain feels like nightfall. Linden looks around for Oriel. She is standing near the police with a man in his early thirties. They are both wearing red bands around their right arms. Linden is introduced to Matthieu, who works at city hall. He is part of the team dealing with the Seine crisis.

  “We usually don’t let anyone in here,” he tells Linden, handing him a red armband and a badge; “however, Oriel explained who you were. I know nothing about photography, but you’ll want to see this. It’s unbelievable.”

  They walk down rue Frémicourt, still dry, and virtually deserted. Matthieu explains the boat will be waiting for them on avenue Émile-Zola, just ten minutes away. The city hall crew patrols the marooned areas hourly, with the help of the army, making sure no elderly or sick people are in need. Matthieu talks breathlessly, gesturing with his hands. It’s been a grueling experience, and it’s far from over. He’s never been so tired in his life, but what he feels is nothing compared to what these poor residents are going through. He has a pointed, elflike face, with pale green eyes, ruffled sandy hair. Oriel asks Linden how the hospital transfer went, and he tells her. Matthieu raises his eyebrows, stating it must have been quite a sight. He knows there was a lot of disquiet about the relocation, and he’s glad to hear it went well for Linden’s father. Then he whispers, although there is no one around them to hear, how everything has been pandemonium since the river topped its banks in the early hours of Sunday. They can’t imagine the screaming matches between the mayor, the prefect, and the president. He shouldn’t be saying this, but it feels good to get it off his chest. It’s like no one gauged how calamitous the situation could get, like no one really wanted to see. Even in his workplace, at city hall, many of his colleagues were convinced the Seine was under control, that there was no danger, that due to modern technology, they could act in time. Until the last minute, they refused to accept the dreadful reality. And now, he says, still whispering, many of them feel culpable, just as others are convinced the administration is not making the right decisions, like the fiasco with the Pompidou hospital, for instance, evacuated much too late. And to make it worse, their own offices, situated in the bottom level of the Hôtel de Ville, will also be vacated today because of the rising water level. No one was expecting that, and to avoid the hassle, he prefers being here, in action, in the rain, trying to help.

  They reach the intersection of rue de Lourmel and avenue Émile-Zola, where long tongues of water lap up the paving and boats wait under the drizzle. Wooden walkways and planks rise above the water, spreading down rue de Lourmel on either side. In the rowboat, Linden greets two other people from the city hall crisis cell, Monique and Franck. He takes his Leica out of the inconspicuous canvas messenger-style bag in which he incorporated a smaller padded camera case. For a fleeting moment, he misses his Canon and its lenses; he feels unprotected without them, vulnerable, but then he reminds himself that his situation is unexpected, and that the Leica has never let him down. This is not a job like the usual assignments he gets; this is something else. He’ll almost have to go back to being the young, anonymous photographer, the one who wanted to let the emotion through, who wasn’t worried about lack of lighting or decisive angles. What he discovers as the boat moves along is different from the vintage shots of the 1910 flood, where Parisians donned elegant long clothing, riding coats, top hats, and bonnets. Those black-and-white photographs suggested an aesthetic
sense of drama, but there is nothing beautiful in what he sees today. The turbid water is sprinkled with garbage, and the files of people shuffling along gangplanks, carrying suitcases, bags, and bits of furniture look desperate and anything but stylish. The Seine reaches the middle of each entranceway, coming up to the waists of immersed soldiers wearing wet suits. It is an even greater jolt to Linden because this was his teenage Paris, and he knew it like the back of his hand. All businesses are closed, with iron shutters pulled down into the flood, while ladders creep up façades, and he sees bottled water being transferred through windows as morose faces peek out from higher levels. How many of them are there, trapped in their flats? Red Cross volunteers stride along the makeshift platforms with temerity, holding up baskets of groceries, calling up to the people stranded in their homes. Refuse collectors in green uniforms heap stacks of rubbish into long canoes. Another element the genteel black-and-white photographs do not express is the putrefying stench. Glazed with mounds of garbage and debris from exploded drains, the slimy yellowish liquid stinks. Linden struggles against the reek by tying his scarf around his mouth and nose. He takes each photo unhurriedly: a young girl clambering up a ladder, rucksack laden with food as her parents stare down, hands outstretched; an old woman standing on one of the gangplanks, sheltered by a flimsy umbrella, a tiny, terrified dog tucked under her stout arm. The cheerful café on the corner of rue de Lourmel and rue de Javel, which he remembers well, has not surrendered; the owners have created a large pontoon with planks and barrels and have even installed a welcoming array of tables, chairs, and sunshades. He shoots a couple of well-wrapped-up clients enjoying wine, waving as the boat drifts by.