The Book of Wonders Page 5

  In the middle of the night, I woke with a jolt. I’d had a strange dream. I was sitting beside Louis, in his bedroom at home. Louis yawned and closed his eyes, but I wouldn’t let him fall asleep; I was reading to him and, whenever he was about to drop off, I called him to order. Then the room turned into a hospital room, and this time Louis was asleep. I was reading the same book to him, but he wasn’t moving any more, he wasn’t responding. I closed the book and acted out the scenes, but it had no effect on him. I carried on miming and I was growing older. When I reached sixty, Louis opened his eyes and let out a yell. I dropped the book and saw that it wasn’t a novel or a collection of short stories. It was the notebook. I woke up in a sweat.

  A little seed had been planted, a crazy idea was germinating in my mind. I had a fixed idea that was going round and round: Louis isn’t dead; he’s in a coma, but he’s alive. Thelma, anything is still possible, he’s got nearly a month to wake up, he’s going to wake up. The medical team kept repeating that he was probably completely unconscious. Were they sure? No, they couldn’t say so with certainty. So there was a chance that he could hear me, that he could feel me. I was going to hold on to that.

  I had to make my son want to come back, entice him by showing him all the things he was missing out on by remaining in a coma. Make him want to live. It was a crazy idea, but do-able. I was convinced of it.

  The players? A sportsman: Louis. A coach: me.

  The challenge? Emerging from a coma, freestyle.

  The prize? Everything that was written in the notebook. That notebook was a distillation of the future. That notebook was filled with things Louis dreamt of experiencing, promises of joy – of ‘cool stuff’, as he put it. That notebook was a promise of life.

  The how? I was going to fulfil my son’s dreams, experience them for him, make audio and video recordings and share them with him. I was going to take a solemn oath to do so. I couldn’t go back, and I couldn’t let him down. I didn’t know whether there was a set order, and I wanted everything to be spontaneous. So I would have to discover the programme, bit by bit.

  The goal? That my son would say, Shit, I can’t have my mum doing all that instead of me. And for him to open his eyes.

  I shuddered. I got up and looked out of the window, at the sky. Was I going mad? In the space of a few seconds, I had dispelled the dark clouds hanging over my son. But the blackness was dense, the outcome uncertain. Louis might never come back, I knew that. I began to cry silently, motionless. My determination was probably absurd, but I couldn’t resign myself to letting my son go, without having enabled him to fulfil all his childhood dreams.

  How much time did I have left? Less than a month, now. I’d already lost precious days. It was more than time to start this desperate race for life.

  I turned the first page and found out what lay in store for me.

  I was going to leave my comfort zone, I knew. I was ready.

  For Louis. But a little for myself too.

  8

  25 Days

  Tokyo’s a Very Long Way

  After a sleepless night, I packed my suitcase and booked a flight to Tokyo at an exorbitant price. The only seats available were in business class, but, given my lawyer’s latest update on the negotiations with Hégémonie, I could even have treated myself to first.

  I arrived at the hospital at dawn that day and, before I dropped in to say goodbye to Louis, I made a pact with Sophie Davant. She listened to me earnestly, staring at me as if I were an alien. Then she burst out laughing and told me that my idea was brilliant, and that of course she’d help me as much as she could. I hugged her, which surprised her, but she didn’t object. She asked if she could tell the other nurses, especially her friend who’s the spitting image of the TV presenter Catherine Laborde (you couldn’t make that up). I agreed, telling myself that this friendship between the two channels, TF1 and France Télévisions, augured well for my scheme, which relied heavily on audiovisual technology. I’d stuffed Louis’s mini action camera into my handbag, and I planned to study the instructions on the plane. Tokyo’s a very long way, and the twelve-hour flight would give me time to become a professional camerawoman. At least that’s what I told myself then, blithely unaware how totally useless I would be at film editing.

  I explained to Louis the crazy project that had formed in my mind. My son remained beautiful, calm and still, but that morning something unusual happened. I knew my son inside out, and since he’d been in that hospital bed, nothing of his expression was new to me. I could describe his fine nose, his hairline, his delicate eyelids in perfect detail, and his eyebrows, which I smoothed each time the nurses washed his face. After telling him my plans for the coming weeks, my heart contracted and lurched at the same time. In the corner of Louis’s right eye, a tear welled up and then ran down his temple. Louis was crying, I was convinced. My heart began pounding, and I gave a shout, which brought two nurses rushing in. I wanted to share my excitement, have them bear witness: something had just happened on my son’s face! But the bubble burst. One of the nurses, one I didn’t like, and whose name and face I kept forgetting (each time, I would catch myself asking who she was, before recognizing her), snapped back that this sort of thing sometimes happened, that it was certainly not a tear, but perhaps a drop of water on his eyelid from when his face had been washed not long before, or a secretion, which meant nothing. ‘Your son’s readings are still unchanged, I’m very sorry, madame.’ I sat down and gazed fixedly at Louis. Waiting for more. Cry, please, my darling. Show them I’m not mad. Show them you’re fighting.

  I so longed for him to wake up. I was determined to fight, as long as there was breath in my lungs and in his. I’d made that irreversible decision the day after the pronouncement made by Dr Beaugrand. Actually, that decision had always been inside me, since the accident. But I’d had to be shaken up by my own mother, and especially by the ominous countdown, for it to appear as blindingly obvious to me. I had to stop wallowing in self-pity and blame, and grasp hope by the horns and not let go again.

  *

  At 20:35, a few metres from the plane, I was still wondering how to conduct myself. Of course, I was convinced that the mission I’d just signed up for was the right thing to do. Of course, I was excited at the thought of what lay in store, and the journey ahead, both physical and emotional. Of course, I also knew that my mother would be there for my son. But no longer being able to touch him or kiss him during the coming days felt like a cruel deprivation. I was terrified that his condition might deteriorate during my absence.

  My mother – who hadn’t let me out of her sight over the past few days – had sensed my twitchiness, but I’d managed to keep my discovery and my decision from her. Nothing horrified me more than the prospect of having a minder shadowing me.

  I waited for the last call for boarding and checked that I had the precious little notebook with me, opening my handbag and stroking the laminated cover celebrating Neymar, and I finally made my way towards the flight attendant.

  Deep breath, big smile, settle into seat 6A. I couldn’t believe the size of the seat, and didn’t understand how to turn it into a bed (this was the first time I’d travelled in business class). I marvelled at the little warm towel, friendly smiles from the cabin crew, the glass of champagne that I could enjoy without being reprimanded by my mother, who was subjecting me to a food hell, including total abstinence from alcohol, since she’d scraped me off the floor the night of Dr Beaugrand’s pronouncement. I relished the feeling of being pampered.

  I felt good, just good. I hadn’t felt like that for seventeen days. No, on second thoughts, for much longer.

  I raised my glass. To your dreams, my son.

  2

  The Book of Wonders

  9

  24 Days

  Jumping Into the Void

  Arigatou gozaimasu!

  ‘Ar-i-ga-too . . . gauze-eye-massu!’

  This language is hellishly difficult. Even with my pocket idiot’s guide to Japa
nese in my right hand, I couldn’t work out the sounds. On the plane, I’d tried to mug up on essential phrases like this polite ‘thank you’, which is used for just about everything, but I’d fallen asleep. Obviously, a night flight takes place during the night, as its name suggests. I should have realized that I’d set myself too many goals and that the combined effect of the champagne and exhaustion would mean that I’d sleep for half the flight. At least I was on form for the evening. With an eight-hour time difference, I was just waking up, but the sun was already setting over Tokyo.

  At the airport, all the signs were in English. After collecting my luggage and withdrawing several thousand yen from the A.T.M., I easily found a taxi. I showed the driver the address of my hotel on my smartphone; he nodded and we drove for around forty minutes. Already the taxi was a novel experience. I thought this first taxi was an exception, but I soon found out that it was the rule. The driver wore white gloves and was dressed as if for a wedding. There was a transparent partition with an intercom between him and the passenger compartment. He handed me a moist towel in a plastic sachet. The seats had lacy covers worthy of my grandmother. A bit outlandish, kitsch, aseptic – a real culture shock.

  I immediately thought of Louis, of his passion for Japanese cartoons. It was perfectly logical for his list of wonders to begin with Tokyo. He’d asked me several times to take him there, but I hadn’t found a moment to do so. Too much work, holidays reduced to the bare minimum. There, in that Tokyo taxi smelling strongly of cheap perfume, I promised myself I’d take him to Japan. For real.

  I’d chosen a luxury hotel which a rapid online search told me was an absolute must. If Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation had been shot in 2017, it would have been in this establishment, without any doubt, an influential blogger had written. A compelling argument, which had convinced me. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but from the minute I set foot inside, I had no regrets. The hotel was in a quiet neighbourhood – Toranomon Hills – between the fortieth and sixtieth floors of a skyscraper that overlooked the city, and had an extraordinary view of Tokyo Tower, the red and white copy of the Eiffel Tower. The designer lobby was sophisticated and refined, highly original. Grandiose. I was beginning to feel feverish with excitement, telling myself I was going to love Tokyo.

  My room was stunning. One entire wall was a floor-to-ceiling window. I was on the forty-seventh floor and I had the sensation of being immersed in the city. No buildings in my sight line, just a dizzying panorama. I turned off the lights in the room so as not to have the view spoilt by any reflections. Night had fallen, the city’s lights twinkled some dozens of metres below me. I had never experienced anything like it. Of course, I’d already been to the top of the Tour Montparnasse in Paris, but then I’d been in a throng of tourists, with cameras flashing and hysterical shrieks. Here, I was alone, in the pitch dark, in utter silence. I pressed myself up against the glass and gazed out avidly.

  I thought about Amélie Nothomb. In her novel Fear and Trembling, she describes so well that incredible sensation of throwing oneself into the view, the giddy appeal of the endless space. She talks about ‘mental defenestration’ – that intoxicating feeling of jumping into the void. I was experiencing it, I could feel the heartbeat of this unknown city.

  I switched on Louis’s camera and filmed for several minutes, describing as much as I could aloud. ‘You have to come and see this, darling. Thank you for bringing me here.’

  How long did I stay like that? Long enough, in any case, to be able to tick off one of the wonders that Louis had listed:

  Admire the lights of Tokyo from the top of a skyscraper.

  I was so entranced by the beauty of the place that, in the end, I decided to spend my evening at the hotel. The top floor was given over to a swimming pool, which was also completely crazy. All the walls were glass and I was able to ‘mentally defenestrate’ at leisure, my feet dangling in the water, sipping a hot tea. For a moment, I felt as if I had touched paradise on Earth with my finger. Only for a moment.

  Later, I dined in the restaurant, three floors below, which afforded the same breathtaking view. Since my arrival a few hours earlier, I’d kept telling myself that it was actually nice to be alone, that I could organize my time as I pleased. I don’t know if I really thought that or whether I was trying to convince myself. Because, having dinner on the top of the city, in the company of my Tokyo guidebooks, surrounded by couples enjoying a romantic dinner, I suddenly felt uncomfortable. I gazed around the room to check whether mine was the only table for one. There was another, at the other end of the restaurant. My pride was saved. A man, apparently, from the look of his clothes and his shape. But, from so far away and with the subdued lighting, it was hard to tell.

  I got up and went to the toilet. Japanese toilets: another experience on Louis’s list, which I’d already ticked off in my room. Louis had written:

  Press all the buttons on a Japanese toilet.

  To be honest, I wasn’t mad about the warm seat or the little jet aimed at my bottom. I’ve always been afraid of toilets with any kind of electronic component. I suspect they rarely malfunction, but, even so, I’m always afraid that something will go wrong, that the jet is angled badly and will hit my face – horror of horrors – or drench my blouse. In other words, I far prefer my old Parisian loo.

  On the way back to my table, I glanced at the lone man I’d spotted from a distance, and froze. It wasn’t a man. I drew closer and let out a strangled cry, which echoed in that hushed atmosphere.

  ‘Mum? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hello, darling. What an amazing place, isn’t it?’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question. What the fuck are you doing here, Mum? How did you know I was here?’

  ‘You underestimate me, my little pussycat. I have my methods, you know. You should be more discreet when you tell the nurses about your plans, and also more creative in making up email passwords. Excellent choice of hotel, in any case.’

  My mother is a geek. An I.T. junkie. She’s sixty, but she’s way better at it than I am. That’s one of the reasons why Louis has always adored her. A geeky granny – that’s so cool, he’s forever saying. I think it’s the pits.

  ‘Mum, you can’t afford a hotel like this, or such a trip; what are you playing at?’

  ‘I have to say that the twelve-hour flight in economy gave me such a stiff neck . . . I envied you in business class!’

  ‘You mean you were on the same flight?’

  ‘Of course, pussycat. I checked in at the last minute; luckily, there were a few no-shows, so I managed to get a seat. I told you I wouldn’t let you out of my sight, and now I’ve promised Louis too. But you’re right, I can’t afford this hotel . . . Luckily, I’m your guest.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The nice young man at reception took my luggage up to your room and gave me a key. Don’t forget we have the same surname. I simply mentioned that I was a little late, that my darling daughter had already gone up to the room we’re sharing. I gave him my passport and that did the trick. I said all that in English, with my dreadful accent – you’d have been proud of me. Don’t worry, I’ll keep out of your way.’

  That was how I found myself sharing my queen-size bed and my dream room with my mother, her eccentricities and her loud snores.

  Mum Rocks

  I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it.

  I still find it hard to believe, but I totally love my mother’s idea.

  When she came to tell me about it, I must say I went through a whole bunch of conflicting feelings. At first, I felt all weird. She told me she wouldn’t judge what I’d written in the notebook, that, if it was there, she’d do it. That she was going to inspire me to surpass myself, so I could join her and live all my dreams. If I hadn’t been in this condition, I’d have said no, for sure. My notebook is a private thing. But, seeing as I couldn’t protest, I listened to her. And, in the end, I told myself that she must love me to bits
to do that. It did me good to feel her emotion and hear her talk the way she did. She’s never spoken to me like that before. But I felt bad for her, too. I told myself that she must be suffering terribly. I understood that she’d made a big scene and quit Hégémonie and was going to get a load of dosh, but I know how much her career means to her, so I pictured her moping, alone, in the living room, and I felt bad. Immediately after, I could hear Grandma saying, ‘Pull yourself together, for pity’s sake, don’t let yourself go. Have you finished feeling sorry for yourself?’ (yes, Granny Odette says, ‘for pity’s sake’, ‘poppycock’ and ‘shhh . . . sugar’, and a whole load of expressions from two hundred years ago), and that made me smile again, and I kept on smiling because I started to imagine Mum living my dreams.

  The things I’d written in the notebook slowly started coming back to me, and just picturing her in some of those situations made me laugh myself silly. Inwardly, of course. Outwardly, still poker-faced. Well, not as poker-faced as all that. I kept bursting out in silent laughter, and, at one point, Mum interrupted my laughing fit by letting out a shriek. Apparently, I’d shed a tear. For me, too, that was insane. Were the nurses right – had Mum imagined it? Or had my manic inner laughter triggered a visible reaction? I felt a sort of rush of hope and joy. It lasted all day, and has stayed with me ever since.

  I heard Mum explain her idea to Charlotte, her favourite nurse, who she always calls Sophie Davant – so that I can visualize her, she says, even though I’ve never heard of Sophie Davant. Charlotte was helpless with laughter too, and Mum has given her an iPad so she can send me videos from Japan, since she’s starting with my first challenge, the one in Tokyo. I say ‘challenge’ because I know that my dreams can easily turn into Mum’s Ultimate Survival ordeal. And that’s what’s so brilliant.