Invisible Love (17 page)

Back in the city, just to assert her independence, she lingered over a creamy coffee in a bar that was open late, then at last made up her mind to go home. Had Thor and Magnus even noticed she was gone? Magnus probably, because he had had to make dinner, but Thor?

She was pulling open the heavy glass door leading into the lobby of her building when she heard a car door slam, followed by hurried foosteps and her name being called.

“Alba!”

Turning, she saw Katrin, her face streaked with tears, coming straight toward her, tottering slightly.

“Alba . . . Alba . . . ”

Katrin collapsed in her arms, unable to get the slightest word out.

Alba realized that something had happened to Jonas. Was he sick? Was he . . . dead? My God, as long as his heart hadn't given out!

She hugged her sister, already consoling her, and stammered, “Tell me . . . tell me . . . please . . . tell me . . . Katrin, my dear, I beg you . . . tell me.”

Katrin, who was usually so self-possessed, tried several times, but couldn't.

Preparing herself for the worst, Alba started to weep silently . . . Poor Jonas . . . He would never become an adult . . . Had he suffered? Had he been conscious? Oh, Jonas and his beautiful lips . . . Jonas and his loving attention to her . . . It was horrible.

Katrin broke free, caught her breath, looked hard at her younger sister, and, with a superhuman effort of will, murmured, “Thor's dead.”

Alba froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your son had an accident this morning,” Katrin went on. “As he was leaving your father-in-law's house, the wheel of his moped skidded on a patch of ice. He was thrown off and hit his head on a post. He wasn't wearing his helmet . . . He . . . he died instantly.”

Alba glared at her sister. Her eyes were saying,
You're wrong. If anyone was supposed to die, it was
Jonas, not Thor.

Then she opened the door, walked unsteadily across the lobby and, before she had even set foot on the bottom step of the staircase, fainted.

 

*

 

For three days, Alba wouldn't talk to anyone. She stayed in her room, sitting on the quilt of her bed, curtains drawn, asking Magnus to keep the door closed and not let any visitors in or put through any phone calls to her.

When, on several occasions, Magnus came in and tried to talk to her, she turned her head away.

The fifth time this happened, he protested, “Look, Alba, I've also just lost my son. Our son. I need to share my grief with you.”

At the word “grief,” Alba emerged from her torpor and stared hard at Magnus, his square shoulders, his vigorous torso, his heavily-veined, bull-like neck; instinctively, she pushed away the hands stroking her thighs, disapproved of her husband's red eyes—aesthetically speaking, tears didn't suit a red-blooded man with brown hair—then sighed desolately, “I don't have anything to share, Magnus.”

“You hate me.”

“For what?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don't hate you, Magnus. Just go.”

These four sentences having exhausted her, she closed her eyes.

No, she wouldn't share Magnus's grief because she didn't feel any grief. She was still in a state of shock. Surprise was still distilling its poison, paralyzing both her emotions and her thoughts.

All she could do was wait for Thor's funeral.

And so she waited.

To be present, to escort Thor to his final resting place: that was her one aim.

Apart from that task . . .

Several times during those three days, Katrin knocked timidly at the door of her sister's room and implored her to let her in.

Each time, Alba, with a sudden spurt of energy, leaped out of bed and turned the key. Especially not Katrin! Alba didn't know why, but not Katrin! What made it worse was that Katrin tried to argue with her through the door . . . Anyway, with those foam rubber plugs stuck in her ears, Alba couldn't even hear her . . .

Often, when she woke after having dozed off, the image of Jonas would come into her mind. She immediately dismissed it. No, she shouldn't be thinking about Jonas but about Thor.

It didn't work, though . . . It was as if her memories had been torn from her, as if she had never had a son. Strange, wasn't it?

In three days, nothing improved: she still couldn't think about Thor, but an unpleasant feeling swept through her every time her mind turned to Jonas.

What shocked her was that the only thing she felt was annoyance. Her grief was behind a transparent wall, a thick pane of glass along which she walked; there were times when she wanted to break the glass so that she could really suffer; at other times, she simply gazed placidly at the grief she couldn't feel.

 

*

 

At the funeral, wrapped in a scarf and hidden behind huge dark glasses, she clung to Magnus's hand and mutely played her role. For just one moment, when the undertaker's men moved the coffin closer to the grave, that hole of black earth with its snow-lined edges struck her as obscene and she was afraid that Thor would be cold in there. Then she looked up and saw a gull flying across the sky, and her mind went blank again.

As she got back to her car, she stopped, suddenly distracted by an absence: Jonas hadn't attended the ceremony. How was it possible that he hadn't come to the funeral of Thor, the cousin he worshiped?

She went up to Katrin, who was standing by her car, her back erect.

“Where's Jonas?”

“My dear, there are so many things I have to tell you . . . ”

“Yes, yes. Where's Jonas?”

Katrin grabbed her sister by the shoulders, overjoyed at renewing contact with her. “You're speaking to me at last!”

“Where's Jonas?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“Well?”

“He's in the hospital. They operated on him. The transplant seems to be taking.”

Alba felt a warm sensation suffuse her: the delight she would have known if she had heard this weeks earlier. “I'm very glad, Katrin. Yes, I'm really glad he's saved.”

The word “saved” triggered something. All the feelings she had been suppressing re-emerged thanks to that single syllable.

“Saved” told her that Jonas was going to live . . .

“Saved” told her that Thor was dead.

Like an eruption of lava, joy and sadness rose inside her and joined, exploding violently into sobs. Alba was shaken with both happiness and sorrow.

Katrin hugged her, as did Magnus. They were both relieved to see that she was back in the land of the living.

 

*

 

That evening, Alba asked Katrin if she could see her nephew.

As they were approaching intensive care, a huge nurse with a mustache on her upper lip and teeth as small as whalebones blocked the entrance and asked them to wait for twenty minutes until the medical team had finished.

They went to the cafeteria on that floor, a room with orange walls that wouldn't have looked out of place in a kindergarten. Katrin told her sister the circumstances of the operation:

“They called us at five o'clock in the afternoon and told us to come straight to the hospital. Jonas and I only had the time it took us to get there to think about what was going to happen. What's there to think about anyway? They tell you you're getting a new organ, that they're going to open your chest, saw into your bones, take your heart out, sew in somebody else's—in other words, a risky procedure. They tell you that even if the operation goes well, there can be complications in the weeks that follow, when they determine if your body has accepted the new heart or not. Still, when you think about it, that hurry isn't so bad . . . It saves you hours of worrying.”

“How did Jonas behave?”

“He was terrified, but he hid it well. He tried to give me the impression he was going for a routine test. I respected his courage and I behaved the way he did. We laughed and joked up until the last moment.”

“Up until the last moment?”

“When they administered the anesthetic.”

Katrin clenched her jaws, preferring not to continue—while the surgeons were operating, she had found it so hard to overcome her anxiety that she had thrown up several times in the corridor and had had to be sedated.

“How is he?”

“Fine, apparently. For the moment, he's still intubated, and hooked up to all kinds of machines, but there's a gleam in his eyes and he's said a few words.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me when you were coming.”

Alba wiped her eyes. Jonas's pure affection moved her all the more now that he was all she had left.

Katrin understood that and squeezed her hand. “Drink your coffee, darling. I'll go see what they're up to and come back for you.”

Alba nodded then said slowly, “Don't worry, I'll be okay, I won't burst into tears.”

“Thanks, Alba.”

Katrin walked away. As she was about to leave the room, she turned and said, “Especially as Jonas doesn't know . . . ”

“Doesn't know what?”

“About Thor.”

Alba gave a start.

Seeing her reaction, Katrin was forced to explain. “I . . . I didn't have the courage to inflict that on him when he woke up . . . I wanted to protect him . . . You know how sensitive he is—how would he have reacted? We'll tell him later, when we're certain he's recovered.” She hesitated, unsure of her sister's approval. “Don't you think?”

“Yes,” Alba replied in a neutral voice. “Of course.”

Katrin disappeared into the bowels of the intensive care unit with its green fluorescent lighting.

Once alone, Alba raised an eyebrow.
They think I'm going to say hello to my nephew and hide from him the fact that I'm in mourning for my son? I have to tell him straight away. Otherwise, it won't be me who's seeing Jonas, it'll be someone else. I won't lend myself to that farce.

In three minutes, she put her thoughts in order, so that she could be ready for when Katrin returned.

There was a sudden flurry of movement in the corridor. Four male nurses and an intern came racing along. Like a motorcycle escort, the first two nurses were clearing the way, the third held a steel box at the end of his arm, the last brought up the rear. At their side, the intern was running, eyes fixed on the box as if it was a priceless treasure.

They turned at the corner, beneath a sign reading
Operating Room.

The scene had unfolded as if in secret, but it intrigued Alba. She turned to a nurse's aide who was drinking a carrot juice in the cafeteria. “What was that?” she asked.

“They were bringing in an organ for transplant.”

“Where did it come from?”

“That's confidential, madam. The system is regulated like an Olympic race. The organ can be kept for a few hours in liquid nitrogen, but they still hurry, because every minute counts.”

Alba thanked her and let her thoughts wander. So a human being had to die for another to live! One tragedy, one comedy. Like the events she was living through, Thor dying, Jonas getting a transplant . . .

She sat up, her temples damp, shivers down her spine.

“Thor! Jonas!”

It was like a thunderbolt: they had given Jonas Thor's heart. Disconcerted, she turned that thought over and over, then made an effort to dismiss it. “No, that's rubbish!”

Katrin came back into the room. “They'll be finished in five minutes. I'll just have a word with the surgeon and I'll be back to fetch you.”

“Wait a minute! You never told me when they did the transplant.”

Upset by the question, Katrin stammered, “The transplant? Er . . . four days ago.”

“Wednesday?”

“Er . . . yes . . . Wednesday . . . ”

“The day . . . ”

“Yes?”

“The day Thor died?”

Katrin blinked, said, “Yes,” and walked out.

The cafeteria had lost its color and texture: the walls seemed vague, spattered with the red of blood. Alba grabbed her cell phone.

“Magnus, I—”

“Are you at the hospital? How's Jonas?”

“I haven't seen him yet. Magnus, I'm not calling you about that. Did . . . ”

She couldn't utter the words.

“Yes, Alba?”

If she came out with it, she foresaw that she would be plunged into a world where nothing would be as it had been before.

“Alba, I'm listening . . . ”

She had to say it. She had to be brave.

“Magnus, did they remove an organ from Thor?”

The image of a man opening her son's chest and rooting about inside hit her hard.

Silence fell, a silence that lasted. Then Magnus's cavernous voice resumed with forced gusto, “It's possible. You know, Thor had a donor's card after one of his teachers had talked to the class about these things. When I was asked, I told them they should do what he would have wanted.”

“Why didn't you consult me?”

“I tried to reach you all day, Alba, from morning to night! Don't forget you left your cell phone behind in the apartment.”

“All the same . . . a decision of that importance . . . ”

“I called you dozens of times, Alba!”

“Yes, but . . . ”

“What difference would it have made? You would have respected Thor's decision. You would have said the same, Alba, maybe even before I did. I know you, I know your beliefs.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they remove an organ from Thor?”

Magnus paused for a few seconds, then replied, “If you think about it, there's a good chance they did. Thor was brain dead because of the trauma to his skull. There were no lesions on the rest of his body.”

“So they used him . . . What did they take?”

“I don't know.”