The Endless Week, page 9
Sometimes, the grandmother closed her eyes. The male nurse muted the sound. The female nurse raised her head. She inclined the bed. The male nurse held the pillow. He pulled back the sheets. He lifted the covers. He opened her shirt. The female nurse washed her neck. She washed her breasts and the grandmother would sweat. The female nurse rubbed the glove over her sides, into the folds, on the back of her neck. The male nurse pulled up her arms, he washed her stomach. He changed the diaper, he scrubbed her thighs. They spread cream on her legs and on her back. They turned her over. The female nurse bent her legs eight times while holding her knees. The male nurse bent her arms eight times while holding her elbows. They asked: Does that hurt? And the grandmother blinked twice. Then they put her shirt on, they said other words, they combed her hair. The male nurse would take her blood pressure, it wasn’t good, he’d say: That’s not good. The female nurse would listen to her heart, she’d say: That’s not good. It’s getting less and less good. And the female nurse listened to her own heart and said: I’m fine. She listened to the heart of the male nurse, she said: You’re fine. They covered the grandmother. Cars drove silently past the house. They caressed her hair. They sang things to her. Their voices overlapped and the grandmother fell asleep.
*
People who are almost dead are almost somewhere else, they’re almost alone, they make almost no noise, they almost never move, they take up almost no space, they almost don’t have a name. Sara was sitting near the grandmother, she took off her shoes so she wouldn’t get the sheets dirty. She pointed her toes, she grabbed the tip of her sock, she made a knot, she untied the knot, she put her shoe back on, she took it off, she looked at her phone, she locked her phone. She took her grandmother’s hand, like a handful of bees around a flower. She moved the grandmother’s fingers, she pulled them up, they fell back down, they didn’t have any direction. She looked at her grandmother’s fingers, they’d become weights. She talked about their hands, she said anything that came to mind. The grandmother’s eyes moved, Sara spoke, she said everything. She wasn’t really sure if she was speaking with her mouth or if the words never left her head, she said: Your hands are heavy. Look how soft they are, it’s like touching cake. They’re heavier than a baby rat, heavier than a baby tuna fish, you know, your hands are heavier than a maggot, Grandma. They’re heavier than mine, much heavier than a seed. Your hands are heavier than a roll of paper, but your hands are lighter than a house. They’re lighter than a cellar, they’re lighter than a church. You know, Grandma, things are always heavier or lighter. Not just hands, planets, buildings, things are always heavier or lighter, we’re always between the two, we always have a place in the world. Your hands are lighter than a head, lighter than a barrel. Look, the thumb and the little finger, they’re separated by three fingers, look at them. The little finger and the pointer finger are separated by two fingers. There aren’t any fingers between your pointer and middle fingers, but some people do have a finger between the pointer and middle fingers. An extra finger between the thumb and the pointer, between the pinkie and the ring finger, between the ring and middle finger. Each finger has a name, what do you call an extra finger? I don’t know, but it might have a name. My mother told me that, the day I was born, when you saw me for the first time, you didn’t look at my face, you counted my fingers, my fingers and my toes. You said I was normal, Grandma. Some people don’t have a pointer finger, other people don’t have fingers at all. We don’t know what’s real, but I could break your hand. Your hands are very heavy, but they’re yellow. They’re thicker than a screwdriver, but they’re thinner than a crate. Your hands don’t have any more strength, they’re not as delicate as a fly, but they are more delicate than a mattress. To have fingernails you have to have fingers, but your fingers are twisted. You have veins, lots of veins, old people are covered in veins on their hands, on their legs, on their noses, on their arms, on their chins, on everything. Veins multiply on old people. Maybe the word old comes from the word cold. We don’t know, Grandma, but if I pinch you, your skin lowers, it’s slow. If I pinch you, your skin stays up in the air for two seconds, then it goes down, and I can see it going down. You’re wearing a ring, but why, Grandma, for your husband? But he’s dead, Grandma. Are you engaged to a dead man? You’re going to get married in a black dress, Grandma, to a zombie, Grandma. You have crumbs under your nails, wet crumbs the way babies do, mashed potatoes under your nails, you store wet bread under your nails the way three-year-old children do, Grandma. Old people are like babies. Old people are like three-year-old children. I’m holding your hand, Grandma. I’m holding your hand, my four fingers under your hand, my thumb on top. You can do it all by yourself. You can hold your own hand. I’m putting your hand in your hand and I’m leaving. Try to believe I’m still here.
*
The father thought about it, he was sure of it: nobody runs in their sleep.
Everybody is like a dead person in their sleep. Sleep gives us a certain appearance, the form of death, but we don’t become this form. We fall asleep, we’re asleep, but we wake up, we’re still a person. When we sleep, we can no longer move, we remain stuck as if inside a snake that’s digesting us. But certain people don’t sleep. The father was one of these people. He watched his own outstretched palm, he watched documentaries on his phone, short or long videos about people who don’t sleep.
In Vietnam, for example, there is a man who hasn’t slept for forty-three years. Doctors are studying him, ten cameras have been placed around his house. His name is Thai Ngoc. The doctors put soporifics in his food, but he won’t sleep. They try to make him fall asleep by injecting liquid anesthetic intravenously, but he won’t sleep. He can’t sleep because his body has forgotten how to sleep. He’s a quiet man, he works, he goes into the fields. Because he works night and day, he receives two salaries, it’s as if he were living twice, but with only one life. In the video, Thai Ngoc says: I’m starting to feel like a plant without water. I lose pieces of skin that regrow, then I lose them again and they regrow, and then I lose them again. I’m comfortable, because fatigue has its heart in the right place, it has a lot of layers. If sleep overcame me, I’m sure it would kill me.
At night, Thai Ngoc’s children sleep, his children’s days are separated by nights that set them apart from each other. Every morning, their alarm clocks ring-in something new. The scenes of the new day push aside the scenes from the day before. Each day is separated from the previous one by a dark scene we call sleep.
In the video, Thai Ngoc says: Night disgusts me. When I think about it, it’s like I’m always eating the same food. You know, the night goes by fast, but it goes by non-fast. Night isn’t normal, it isn’t logical. When you stop sleeping, you watch time. Believe me, time isn’t really cut up, it has no measurements. Believe me, time can’t be cut up, it doesn’t think that way. For time, units don’t exist, time is not a line and days do not exist. This is a myth that comes from humans. We can’t single out a day, one day, a day doesn’t exist. A day is not the day after a day. A day is not the day before the following day. Days are linked together like a chain, but in a circle. There’s only one chain, there’s only this chain, and days do not exist. When you don’t sleep, the days lose their color, in the end, you can tell they don’t exist. The sequence of a person’s days is called their life, but hours don’t exist, I can tell, I don’t sleep. Unlike you, I never step outside of time.
Thai Ngoc’s eyes are black, he says: My eyes run and I eat my tears, the present has no length. When did time start to become time? I wonder about it, but you won’t have an answer for me. You won’t be able to tell me because there’s no separation between seconds. You can go mad, that’s for sure, but you can’t decide to go mad. You can wait for it to happen, but you can’t decide. You wait and when the night arrives, a great peace falls over the trees around the house, and I watch it. That’s it, I watch it.
Thai Ngoc takes short pauses to drink herbal tea. He pours water over herbs, and he says: A night changes a person, I see it in my children. It changes the edges of their faces. The present is a point, but what is the size of this point? A second, an hour, a minute? You can’t tell me.
The cameraman turns around Thai Ngoc’s face. His small sharp eyes look at the lens, he says: We change from year to year, we change from week to week, we change from day to day, we change from hour to hour, so we change from minute to minute, but minutes don’t exist. Have you ever seen a minute? You can’t hold a minute in your hand. You can’t see a minute around you or in front of you. You can’t describe it. Believe me, time is just one huge block and days don’t exist.
The father watched the video while vacuuming in front of his feet. He was eating sunflower seeds while sitting in a chair. He crunched the shells, he spit them out, then he vacuumed them up. He could no longer even try to sleep, he could no longer close his eyes.
When he closed his eyes, he saw a shadow through his eyelids, a hard shadow. Every time he closed his eyes, a bad, hard shadow approached his head, he could feel it. So the father opened his eyes, and his eyelids jumped as if from fear. And yet, his fear wasn’t tied to the world, it didn’t engage with the world. His fear was a string that left him and came back to him without touching the world at all.
A few years earlier, the father had consulted an eye specialist to take care of this problem. The doctor had said: If you aren’t sleeping, it’s because you aren’t closing your eyes. And the father had responded: My eyes don’t close. And when the doctor asked him to close his eyes, the father said that he couldn’t.
The doctor yelled: I saw you blink. You can close your eyes. Close them now. Close your eyes, sir!
My eyes blink, but they don’t close.
If you blink them, you’re closing them, it’s unavoidable!
No, I can’t.
So the doctor took the father’s chin between his fingers and he said: Eyelids blink twenty times per minute. 28,800 times per day, 10,512 million times per year. You spend ten percent of your life with your eyes closed, that’s thirty-six days per year. You can’t tell me: My eyes don’t close. I don’t want to hear this type of talk in my office! Is that understood?
The father didn’t move.
Do you understand? Your brain rests when you blink, it’s a vital and instantaneous movement! If you didn’t close your eyes, you’d be crazy, sir. You’d be delirious. We’d have to tie you up.
Then the father had explained that his body felt like a hotel, and the doctor said: That’s an entirely different story. That’s not my area of expertise.
The father put his vacuum to the side without turning it off, and in the noise of the machine he saw something like images. He saw his son outside, searching for his mother. He lay down under the table, he crossed his arms behind his head, the table calmed the father. It covered him. Things were written under the table, measurements, initials, it was an old table. His eyes landed on a red letter, he stared at it for a long time, and it started to swarm. It became blue, then he saw the sea and black dots in the sea, two small black dots, his two children, his son, his daughter, Salim, Sara. The father was on a beach in swimming trunks, his hands on his hips, and he yelled: Don’t go too far out. Be careful, it’s dangerous! And the children swam, they didn’t listen to him, they were laughing, the father yelled: I told you to be careful. Don’t go too far, Sara, Salim, this is serious, listen to me. You can die at any time. But the children dove, they came to the surface, they held their noses, they spit water toward the sky, they swam, they sank, the father yelled: You’re not listening to me. Salim, you’re not listening to me. Salim, I don’t like to wash my hands of people, but if I’m giving you advice, and you’re not listening to me, my hands are going to wash themselves, do you hear me? The children swam farther and farther out, faster and faster, they swam backwards. They looked at the father, they sank into the sea, always straight, like arrows. The father pointed at them, he intercepted an old, tan woman, almost nude, on the beach, he said: Look, those are my children. The old woman replied: I understand the feeling, I have a child myself, I like it when people look at him. He was born with wrinkles on his face, not baby wrinkles, but old-person wrinkles. And the father said: Really? He said: Really? Really?
Sara came into the kitchen, she turned off the vacuum. She asked the father what he was doing under the table. He said: I’m resting. She told him not to worry, because Salim was fine.
Later on, while the father was watching his son’s latest video, the phone rang. It was the social worker. The father needed to come to her office the next day to discuss his son, his problems, his absences, his situation, his documentations, his dysfunction, to discuss the house, the past, the future, and Sara. The social worker no longer had an office because of budget cuts. She would send an email to tell him where to meet.
*
Everyone was always lying down in this house because everyone lies down in every house. Everyone lies down eventually, because that’s the natural tendency in every home. Rooms are designed for bodies lying down, like the body of the grandmother, always horizontal. It would make sense if water formed a puddle in our backs every time we lay down, that would be logical. We drink water, we’re made of water. Water should form a pond in our backs, in our bodies, when we lie down, but water descends, and even when we’re lying down, water moves toward our feet. Substances go down, that’s their way, their natural direction. If you put a piece of wood in your mouth, it will go down. A piece of iron, a piece of cement, both would go down. You could even put human body parts in your mouth and they would eventually go down. In truth, food should stay stuck in our throats, but our bodies force it down. When we lie down, liquids don’t follow the laws of physics, they follow the laws of the body: descend, descend. The sun makes heat and humans make things go down inside themselves. A spoon goes in. A spoon goes out. The row of top teeth works with the row of bottom teeth, just as the top lip works with the bottom lip, just as the left eye works with the right eye, and the lungs between themselves, like ovaries do and ears do, as if we were two. Two people who don’t look at each other, who don’t know each other, who never meet. Every person contains multiple people, at least two people, at least two eyes, at least two legs. When two people meet, it’s really a group of people meeting. The left eye doesn’t look at the right eye. The right eye doesn’t know the left. If they don’t see each other, they can’t look at each other, it’s not because of their position, it’s because the brain has made a choice. The grandmother had heard on the radio: We always see our noses, but we aren’t aware of it. Our brains cancel out the image of our noses. Our brains make a choice. Our brains hide things from us that are in plain sight.
They sat the grandmother up to feed her oil and sugar. When she finished a yogurt, they said: Bravo. They applauded close to her face. The children, the father, they put food in her mouth, apple, broccoli, tomato, milk, and carrots.
They clean the edges of my plate with Camembert, they put it in my mouth with spinach, with mashed potatoes, I eat it. She bathed her mouth in food, she coated her mouth, she swallowed her own mouth. She no longer felt like she was biting down so much as falling. She let her mouth fall into substances. They give me broth with lettuce, they give me peas, beans, zucchini, dead fish. When you eat a lot, the food all tastes the same, the food becomes a ball, the eating ball, a ball called eating. They give me rice with bread and butter, banana, breadcrumbs, almonds, hazelnuts, and dead baby cow. They give me cinnamon with a dead quail. They put it in coriander for me, with pickle and squash, a dead crab. They give me cream and watercress, turmeric, and curry with a dead turkey. They ram me full of shallots and endives and spelt, tarragon and ginger, redcurrants, a dead herring. What if every animal appeared. If all the animals gathered around me. If they looked at me. All the animals I’ve put in my mouth. What if all the animals formed a circle around my bed and looked at me. If all the animals that fly, lay eggs, swim, run, all the hard animals with a shell, with pincers, with hair, with feathers, with scales, with spikes, with fleece. All the animals I gave to my children. The animals I gave myself. All the animals I was given. All the dead animals. What if all the animals looked at me in silence. And all the other animals, all the animals I’ve known, the ones I’ve pet, the animals that have licked my hand. I’ve seen animals on tv, they put them in a cylinder, they came out sausages. And I tell myself: You eat, you eat, but if you eat, someone else gets eaten. That’s the order in the world. When you get fatter, someone else gets thinner. Every time you go to sleep, someone else wakes up. Maybe a pheasant, maybe a baby. Every time you wake up, someone falls asleep. Every time you stay silent, someone else in the world speaks. They talk and talk, that’s nature. Each time you lose weight, someone takes on that weight because weight is displaced, it never disappears. When someone dies, the weight from their body makes algae and nails grow, it contributes to nests and rivers. Oil sits above water. Water sits under oil. Weight places us somewhere. Every time you get angry, someone else calms down in the world. You can’t destroy anything. You can’t change anything. Every time someone insults you, someone else in the world says they’re sorry on their knees, they ask for forgiveness. Someone cuts their arm while someone else is getting stitches. You can’t inhale and exhale at once, but while you’re inhaling, someone else is exhaling. Everything that happens to us is within the order of the world. Everyone works for the order of the world and even people who are sleeping or even people who reject the world order work for the order of this world. You can’t change anything, you can’t produce anything. You can’t produce a substance. We use things the way they exist, they transform, they proceed to other forms. Accidents, torture, illness, explosions, meals, legs, a muscle, someone taking a bath, mist, a puppy coming out of its mother’s stomach, the smell of heat and horses, all these things occur. We participate, it can’t be helped. When we empty our trash, someone in the world fills theirs. Our gestures are linked. Every time someone takes a piss, someone drinks in the world. Every time we eat, someone dies of hunger. When I throw up, someone fills their stomach, and when I’m hungry someone else in the world eats. When I open my eyes, someone closes them. When I close them, someone opens them. The whole universe is ordered, and everyone participates. Any gesture is part of any other gesture. All acts, all thoughts are part of the history of the world. And the history of the world is part of the history of the universe. The history of the universe is part of the history of all the universes. When I move my tongue, my gesture is part of the history of all universes. Every crumb of bread from all the bread from every era is part of the history of all universes. Every insect, speck, and every bone of every creature. There are directions inside my head, I move. I go into my knees, I put my mind inside my knees, I wait, I go everywhere. I go out, I fly over the house, over the town, I go inside a lock of hair on the head of my grandson, Salim, Salim, he’s walking in the town, then inside the cheek of my granddaughter, Sara, Sara, she’s singing, she’s singing on the steps, I go into a rag, I wait, I wait, I stay.
