A Fleeting Sorrow Read online

  A FLEETING SORROW

  Copyright © 1994, 2011 by Plon/Julliard

  Translation copyright © 1995, 2011 by Arcade Publishing, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Arcade Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Arcade Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or [email protected].

  Arcade Publishing® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Originally published in France under the title Un chagrin de passage

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-61145-653-0

  For Felix and Ingrid Mechoulam

  CONTENTS

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  I

  I TAKE IT YOU’VE BEEN SMOKING for a long time?”

  “I’m a smoker,” Paul corrected, refusing to disown by a miserable change of tense a habit that was as ingrained in him as it was pleasurable — even if it were to cost him his life. That this detestable little doctor had just had the gall to inform him that he had only a short time to live was already bad enough. He had no intention of adding insult to injury by demeaning his old friend, “tobacco.”

  Aside from his initial confusion, Paul had also had to overcome his irritation, that same irritation he always felt about those who were the bearers of bad tidings. But little by little his impending death struck him as completely plausible. . . . Something about the place itself, this tasteless, anonymous doctor’s office, the muffled sounds drifting up from the street below, something about both the normality and banality of this scene — perhaps even more than the word “cancer” that had just emerged from the doctor’s mouth — seemed to belie the catastrophe.

  “It goes without saying you should get a second opinion,” said the little doctor, who was his own doctor’s replacement. As he looked at him, Paul decided that one of his forebears had to be a hamster. “You should see some specialists, obviously,” the doctor went on. “This is the kind of news that clearly calls for confirmation. Although, in your case, I fear all the tests came back . . .” The doctor’s voice trailed off. And Paul cursed himself for being so stupid as to have his annual physical not with his own doctor but with this cretin of a replacement.

  The doctor picked up and held aloft the X-rays of Paul’s lungs — these missile photographs, this tarot pack of death — with a kind of careful consideration, even esteem, for the strength, the efficiency, the proof positive of “our” cancer, as he described it! No . . . it was just too goddamn much! The doctor’s gloomy admiration for the medical proof he was brandishing was something his patient could simply not appreciate or share. The man should have understood that, for God’s sake! How in the world could he, Paul, have managed to stumble on such a total fool to deliver the most important message he had ever received? “For the fact is, I’m going to die. In six months I’ll be dead, gone, no longer here,” he kept saying to himself over and over again. What surprised him most was that he didn’t feel anything, and he would repeat the sentences in his head, interjecting now and then a mixture of disbelief and fear, the way one gingerly touches the area around a newly opened wound to see if it hurts. “In six months, nothing! I won’t feel a thing! I won’t be here . . . me. . . Paul! . . .”

  And suddenly the reality of death struck him full force, as if he had been hit in the head, and he doubled over on his chair, his mind suddenly flooding with a very clear, precise memory. It was an afternoon two or three years ago at the Evry racetrack. He’d been down at the paddock, and so engrossed in his racing form that he was paying no attention to the horses parading past him either on their way to the starting gate or to be weighed in, when all of a sudden something terrifying had literally burst through the racing form and grazed his forehead. Instinctively he had jerked his head back. One of the passing horses had kicked up its heels, and one of its hooves had missed him by a fraction of an inch. He had seen the deadly object — iron and hoof and hair — zoom to eye level, then fall back. To his surprise and shame, it had taken Paul a full minute to recover, to stop trembling. And it was that experience that had enabled him to seize, to understand the full impact of, the doctor’s diagnosis: Paul wanted to pull back, jerk his head away, as if, once again, to parry the mortal blow. But this time he could not. This time he knew there was no way out. No second chance.

  He must have turned pale, because the hamster — yes, Paul decided, the man, with his tiny eyes and pouchy cheeks, did look just like a hamster — was leaning over him with what seemed to Paul an expression of sadistic satisfaction. Yet Paul’s heartbeat was back to normal; he found it possible to breathe again. The horror of the preceding second faded into the background, but he had brushed up against the terror, the full horror of the thing, the unbearable notion. And he was amazed by his reaction. For the first time he understood the lies, the refusals to accept the evidence, that he had so often witnessed among his friends and acquaintances. The dying who looked forward to the future with confidence . . . The people under sentence of death who filled their minds with projects down the road . . . The very “idea” was unbearable. Period. And tomorrow no doubt, the day after tomorrow, very soon in any event, he knew that he too would find a way to turn his back on reality, deny the evidence of his death, refuse to accept the death notice he had just been handed.

  “You’re not feeling well? Or is it that you find me too forthright, too plainspoken? I’m afraid I belong to the school of medicine that believes it’s best to tell patients the truth, the whole truth. . . . At least adults.”

  To make matters worse, for God’s sake, this medical midget considers himself an adult! Did he think Paul was an adult as well? How could he be an adult when all he wanted was to be eleven years old again, to rush into the room of his parents — both dead, unfortunately — and beg for their help? They were the only ones who could tell him not to pay any attention to what the silly doctor had said, to reassure him that it was utter nonsense, that everything was going to be all right. They alone could have turned his world right side up again, sent him back to his bedroom completely reassured, that adolescent bedroom where nobody ever died. Later on, Paul would reproach himself for having first thought of his dear, departed parents rather than of the women in his life, who were alive and well. But when he thought about it, that instinctive choice did not really surprise him all that much. He had always known how strong his ties to childhood were, much stronger in fact than those he had forged as an adult.

  And once again he had seen the proof of that basic truth: only his parents would have found it scandalous, totally unacceptable, that their son should die of cancer at age forty. The rest of the world would find it normal. The way of the world. The luck of the draw. His friends and relations were going to find it sad, even very sad, a pity, most unfortunate, or stupid. But no o
ne would think about his death the way he and his parents would: unthinkable.

  “My colleagues may have other opinions about how long you have,” the doctor was going on. “I gave you six months. I could have said three months, or nine months, or a month. . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter —” Paul said mechanically.

  But the doctor cut him off. “Don’t say that! Today that may strike you as unimportant, since we’re not talking about something that’s going to happen tomorrow. But believe me, six months from now you’ll thank me for each extra day you live beyond that date! And by the same token, you’ll curse me if you fall short of those six months, even by a single day. Just wait. You’ll see. . . .”

  And, in fact, Paul envisioned that long line of men who had tried to put up a good front in the face of this medical cretin’s prognostications, and who, coming up to the end of their six months’ term, had begged whatever god was theirs to grant them just three days more, three days of unholy torture, no doubt, as the doctor had promised. There was something so smug about the doctor’s tone — spiced with disdain — that Paul suddenly stood up. How he hated the man! But then he sat back down. This man was the only one who knew the truth, the only person who all of a sudden was not an outsider, the only person who knew the real Paul as he was now: a survivor, yes, but relegated now to death row. Another man altogether, he would later describe it. To whom could he tell the truth? To whom did he have to lie? He didn’t know. All he knew was that in the presence of this man he despised he had to keep cool, remain calm, do or say nothing he would later regret. It was a simple matter of self-respect, a stupid, middle-class reaction that he wished he could eliminate . . . but at least it had the virtue of giving him courage, or the semblance of courage.

  Dr. Moron had seemed relieved when Paul had first gotten to his feet, then disappointed when he had sat back down. So Paul made up his mind to stay there, to saddle the doctor with his presence as long as possible, even force him to engage in small talk if he could.

  “Do you plan to travel?”

  “Excuse me? No, I don’t think so.”

  Paul was surprised. The very idea struck him as ridiculous. In the past — even as recently as this morning — he had thought about traveling to distant places, of seeing foreign landscapes and visiting cities he had till now only dreamed of. The Middle East, Asia, cities by the sea, and mountain vistas that had, in times past, filled his mind and fired his imagination. But henceforth they would be nothing more than sites he would never see or to which he would never return. He was painfully aware that from now on these would be for him nothing more than places he’d regret never having seen. No longer oceans to swim in but oceans he would never see or hear again. What till today he had thought of as future possible discoveries were, as of this moment, gone, finished, wiped out. All future projects, every attractive and charming possibility, now had to be thought of as separations, like toys you’d been given that — you were now told — would have to be returned to the store. . . . Too soon! Nothing on this good earth belonged to him anymore, this earth that was his, that he so obviously loved and enjoyed. There were so many people who did not love life, who did not appreciate being here. Why him, of all people, him who loved life to the hilt? Why had this happened to him? For God’s sake, he wasn’t even forty! He wouldn’t even be granted forty years to taste all the worldly pleasures he had dreamed of. . . . It was too unfair. (Now wait a minute, his mind cautioned: what about all the terrible catastrophes that occur every day on good old planet earth, all the indescribable atrocities, what about that injustice, especially when it involves women and children? Keep your sense of proportion.)

  “I’ll dictate a letter to Dr. Barondess,” the hamster was going on from somewhere very far away. “He’s the best in the business. Of course you may want to consult another expert of your choice. But I highly recommend Barondess. In my view there’s no one more qualified. I’ll have my nurse type up the letter immediately. Oh . . . I forgot, she’s not in today,” he said. “In any case, I’ll get the letter to you tomorrow.”

  Ah, yes, his nurse, the lovely creature who had been the recent object of Paul’s persistent pursuit, was indeed not in today. Paul had noticed her absence as soon as he had set foot in the waiting room. He had launched an all-out assault on the beautiful but doubtless shallow and hopefully shameless young thing, to whom Paul suspected the hamster owed a fair portion of his patients. Paul for one. They had a date for tea next Tuesday, and the intentions of the “tea” were unequivocal. The doctor seemed embarrassed to announce that his nurse wasn’t in today, and suddenly everything became clear to Paul. Of course, there was a correlation between her absence and his “sickness.” He wasn’t contagious, but he might just as well have been. It wasn’t all that simple. Desire, even the basest kind, required the notion of futurity if it was ever to come off. A man without a future, a dying man, was no longer desirable. And however stupid such a reaction might have seemed, Paul knew that if the situation was ever reversed, he would feel the same way about the woman. Desire would have turned into compassion. Which is tantamount to saying that desire would vanish into thin air. He would have to hide the truth of his situation as long as possible from the women he might want to seduce. There was no way he would be able to bear that look of pity he was certain he’d detect in their eyes, as he’d be incapable of dealing with the inevitable questions they’d ask in place of the simple yeses and nos of a normal relationship.

  But six months? What did six months really mean? A brief moment in time or an eternity? The very notion that this strong body, this blood coursing with desire, this healthy physical specimen was going to desert him, was without warning and the slightest sign of betrayal going to turn into his enemy — or rather the lair of his enemy — this notion struck him as even more depressing than anything else. He glanced quickly at his hand, and imagined it an object of disgust or pity, which it may already have become to the buxom nurse. And suddenly he felt sick to his stomach. What bothered him most was the banality of the whole thing. He had always known that he was going to die someday. He also knew that every year a certain percentage — he couldn’t remember the number exactly — of men in his age group died of cancer. All right, as of today I’ve become a statistic, part of that statistic. As simple as that. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing very surprising or remarkable. Happens every day. And he, Paul, who would have been more than willing to die behind the wheel, to become part of the equally bad — and probably worse — statistic of automobile accidents, had no say in the matter. Except for the fact that the “matter” of which he was now a vital statistic was simply unbearable to him. His death would come as a shock to him and him alone, he kept thinking. People would be surprised by it, those who loved him would surely grieve. But his death would not shock anyone the way today’s news had shocked him. He felt rejected, ridiculed, debased. Yes, debased; that was the word.

  For the moment that was all he was asking: that the experience of the flashing metal horseshoe that had appeared out of nowhere and shattered his racing form not repeat itself. He could not go through another near death and then return to life as if nothing had happened. The next few weeks were going to be a nightmare. “Actually,” he said to himself, “I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want to dwell on it. I don’t want to be like all those people I’ve known through the years who, knowing they’re about to die, go into complete denial. That has always amazed me. And disappointed me.” For Paul, who considered himself to be among the most tolerant of men — or at least among the most indulgent — had often been upset and, yes, disappointed by how poorly his friends had dealt with death. And yet within a week he, Paul, would doubtless find a way to circumvent the truth, since the truth was untenable. He’d tell people he had tuberculosis, God knows what, some disease that might be curable. That’s what everyone else did, to avoid facing the truth. And Paul would end up doing the same thing everyone else did.

  The hamster had closed the door
behind him without Paul’s ever having laid eyes on the beautiful nurse. All he had seen was her red scarf hanging on the coat-rack, perhaps forgotten in her haste to leave the previous evening. It was dark on the landing outside the doctor’s office, and Paul stood there for a moment without moving, his hand gripping the railing. Then he started downstairs with the same sprightly step he’d picked up in high school, skipping rather than walking: one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three . . . Noisily, angrily. Here the noise was muffled by the stairway carpet, with its red and black and gray floral patterns typical of the period when the building was built. A short while ago he had climbed these same stairs, walked on this same carpet. Now he descended the stairs as if nothing had happened. The same man as before. But under his arm he was carrying the set of X-rays that announced his death or, to be more exact, dated it with certainty. Unconsciously, he began to run down the stairs, a fox pursued by hounds. Might as well take advantage of the time he had left; in three months he’d have to “take it easy,” not overdo it, be reduced to taking the elevator up and down, the way the sick and elderly were forced to do.

  When he came to the second-story landing, he sat down on the top step. He gazed at his hand, at the pulsating veins, the muscles and tendons. . . . A pale light filtered through the round windows of the elevator shaft, typical of the apartment houses constructed in the 1930s, a light Paul found as lugubrious as the stingy lights in the stairway. Paul turned his hand over and looked suspiciously at his lifeline: it was considerably longer than the hamster’s predictions. So the lifeline had lied. He took a cigarette out of his pocket, hesitated a moment before lighting it, then took a long and deliberate drag. Not that he was trying to defy fate or challenge the quacks, but he felt his throat constricting, felt something invading his eyes and nose, deforming his mouth. He had not cried in eight years, not since his mother’s funeral, in fact. And as he burst into tears for the first time in eight years, he had a fleeting, furtive moment of shame at the thought that the tears he was shedding were for himself.