ONCE AGAIN, JULES was running in the park. It was sunny, the weather tranquil and bright. Convinced that the only thing left to him was physical strength, he attended to it. The day before, the music faculty had told him by email that his teaching load and his salary, such as they were, would be further reduced. And Cathérine had written that Luc had a persistent fever, slept most of the day, and cried often, not from pain but for help. Jules was trapped in New York because changing his ticket would cost several thousand Euros more than he had already paid, and as the hotel was irrevocably paid up as well he would stay on until his originally scheduled flight out, economizing by eating at supermarkets and from street vendors. That kind of saving hardly mattered. He’d kept a ledger of his expenses in a little notebook. With the recent change in exchange rates, by the time he walked in the door at home he would have spent nearly €40,000, not a single Euro of which would be reimbursed. Half his savings were gone. In addition to what was left he had some gold coins, Jacqueline’s jewelry, and a tiny Daubigny, which together and with luck might bring €50,000. The piano was worth quite a lot, although he didn’t know how much.
He could live solely on his pension, semi-impoverished like so many others, and give the rest to Cathérine for Luc, but that would be only a fraction of what was needed. He would stay in Saint-Germain-en-Laye even if not in the Shymanski house. Saint-Germain-en-Laye was his home. Jacqueline flowed through it like air, and to leave it would be to break a connection yet unbroken.
When the Shymanski house was sold, Jules would probably end up in a small room above a store, with loud neighbors, traffic sounds, no view, and persistent cooking smells. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Jacqueline had deserved to see her grandchild, and yet she had not. She had deserved to live, and yet she had not. She had deserved to go gently, and yet she had not. Luc deserved to have a childhood and not to suffer and die early. Jules had failed them and could think of nothing except to keep up his health and strength so that if an opportunity arose he might seize it.
But he ran too hard. He wasn’t as fast, and he no longer sailed effortlessly as he had after his prodigious sleep. By the time he reached the northern end of the park, having almost sprinted down the hill, it got easier, so he picked up his pace, all the while trying to think of what might arrest the downward trajectory of his life.
As the road turned south, it climbed what was known, if not to Jules, as Heartbreak Hill. Although he had run it on the first day in New York, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye he was used to level ground or, in the forest, rolling rises. This was different, a steep hill with sharp rock outcroppings. Though everyone tried not to, everyone slowed here. Three quarters of the way up, Jules began to feel lightheaded. It was pleasant, but as it intensified he grew alarmed. If only he could crest the hill, he thought, his lightheadedness might cease. Soon after, it became painful, and the world darkened as if in an eclipse. Apart from the strain of ascending, he felt all right. It wasn’t his heart. He was running automatically, and soon he could no longer hear either his steps or the wind. Then he was flying through total darkness as his feet left the ground and there was no gravity … until he hit the pavement without even extending his arms to break the fall. First his head struck, followed by his chest, as his body slid forward with continuing momentum. His left cheek burned as it scraped the asphalt, and what felt like warm water gushed around his face. This was not unpleasant, and he enjoyed it until he lost consciousness.
Half a dozen runners immediately came to his aid, and a woman called 911 on her pink cell phone. Someone took off a nylon jacket, folded it, and put it under Jules’ head after two other people had rolled him onto his back. “Is he dead?” another person asked, as someone else began to push Jules’ chest with the heels of his hands, singing, as he was taught in his CPR class, the song “Stayin’ Alive,” to time the pushes. The sound of an ambulance could be heard not even half a mile distant, near St. Luke’s. All the while, Jules’ heart was functioning perfectly well even as it was suffering violent and unnecessary ministrations. And all the while he was dreaming, although the dream was so real he would think upon remembering it that it was not a dream but a visit to another world.
In his dream, fur-clad, pre-medieval warriors met on a frozen strait, far from land. The battlefield was perfectly white and flat, with no horizon but only three hundred and sixty degrees of mist. And there they fought to the death. Hours passed, combinations formed and dissolved, but the battle continued to the last man on both sides, and the two who remained killed one another. Scattered over the reddened ice and its snow were whitened bodies. The corpses, and weapons of bone, wood, and iron were laid out as if by a receding flood, stacked and crosswise, hunched over, the men’s faces a gallery of frightened and agonized expressions. Nothing moved or changed. Neither crows nor jackals interrupted the quiet. Silence reigned until spring, when the ice melted and gave way, and in half an hour every evidence of life and struggle disappeared as if it had never existed, all the vanquished sinking into oblivion, their weapons, plans, hopes, and passions easily subsumed in the smooth, unconscious sea.
WHEN JULES AWOKE he had an extraordinarily strong, almost sensual feeling of delicacy and impermanence. Aware that he might die at any moment, he was like a traveler who, before taking a single step, has in spirit left his home, his city, and his country. He was reconciled and unafraid, sorrowful only because important matters remained unaddressed. Little things ballooned in his perception as if he were once again an infant. The painfully white, waffled, cotton blanket that covered him up to his chest, the almost smooth, slightly threadbare sheets, the top of a copper-clad steeple he saw through the window, murmurs from the hospital corridor, and the cooing of pigeons nearby and out of sight were as comforting as if he were embraced, held, and loved.
He had no pain, and breathed easily. Something had happened, he didn’t know what, but evidently he was not yet over the edge. A nurse came in and saw that the patient was conscious, his eyes open. She had strawberry-blonde hair, a big face, and prominent upper front teeth.
“I enjoy this hospital room,” Jules declared. It stopped her cold.
“I’ve never heard that before,” she said, “ever.”
“Oh yes I do,” Jules said.
“Sit tight,” she told him, an idiom with which he was not familiar. “I’ll get the attending.” She went out.
It took fifteen minutes for the attending to arrive, and when he did he announced himself as Doctor Beckerman. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“You were running. You experienced what appears to have been a transient neurological event, and you fell. Before anyone could stop it, you were given unnecessary CPR, which, surprisingly, didn’t break your sternum. It easily could have. You went down on Heartbreak Hill. An ambulance was near and got to you very fast. You were brought here in four minutes, which must be some sort of record. You’re not in acute danger.”
“What kind of danger am I in?”
The doctor was consummately professional but warm by nature. He could have been a rabbi or a priest. Some people are simply born that way. “You know what an aneurysm is?”
“Yes.”
“You have a basilar aneurysm. The basilar artery is located near the brainstem, and your aneurysm is unusually large. They tend to burst before they enlarge to the extent that yours has. Did you ever have a serious head injury? That’s a medical question, not a taunt.”
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“When I was four.”
“Did you suffer the impact in the back of your head?”
“Yes.”
“And did you lose consciousness?”
“I believe so.”
“I realize that it was a long time ago, but can you recollect what happened? How old are you?”
“Seventy-four. I was told it was a rifle butt.”
For a moment the doctor was shocked into silence, but then he calculated. “In nineteen forty-four,” he said, as if vaulted back to the war that was over before he himself was born. “Was whoever did this punished?”
“His nation was punished.”
“I think I understand. We don’t have the best news for you. We did an MRI ….”
“An NMRI?” Jules asked. “I know there’s no radiation in it.”
“That’s correct. Most people don’t know that, and there’s no point in scaring them. Unfortunately, the aneurysm has formed and expanded in such a way that it’s partially wrapped around the brainstem. Blood pressure to the brain is consistent and well-regulated, but, still, with the exertion of running up the hill, at your age, perhaps a change in position, the pressure of the aneurysm itself – without leakage, as far as we can tell – mimicked the effects of a hemorrhage.
“It would be very dangerous were you to strain. The aneurysm may not be operable, being so unusually large and because of the way it embraces the brainstem. We’re affiliated with Columbia P and S, and later this afternoon our team will consult. The surgeons can do extraordinary things. Meanwhile, you should know that your blood values are truly amazing, unheard of in someone your age. I’ve never seen every single measure of blood chemistry right where it should be. Do you know that you may have Gilbert’s disease? Actually, it’s a syndrome.”
“I do have it,” Jules told him. “Whenever my blood is taken, they tell me that.”
“So the bilirubin ….”
“Is always elevated. But in my case never to the extent of a negative effect.”
“That’s it,” the doctor said. “There’s a strong correlation between Gilbert’s syndrome and living past a hundred.”
“Does it cover aneurysms?” Jules asked.
“Not to my knowledge.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll come back early in the evening after studying your imagery. We’ll know more then. All you need do is rest and be calm.”
“In regard to a possible operation,” Jules asked, “could there be side effects?”
“Of course.”
“Grave side effects?”
“Yes.”
“Such as?”
“Death.”
“And with no operation?”
“You could die tomorrow or you could live to a hundred. We can’t even guess about the probabilities until we have observations over time, to see if there’s degeneration and/or expansion. That is, the thinning of the artery wall, and/or the expansion of the aneurysm. Unfortunately, they usually go together. It’s a difficult decision. You don’t have to make it now.”
“It’s been made for me.”
“By whom, or what?”
“By my plants.”
“Again?”
“My plants. Every Fall I have to decide whether or not to bring in some of the annuals or leave them out on the terrace. If I bring them in and put them under lights, they weaken, grow pale, and stay deathly still. If I leave them out, they get full sun, full air, and they move in the wind. Sometimes they last even to December, but in the dangerous time of frosts and rain, and what you call Indian Summer, even though they die they may be better off than if they spend the winter paralyzed under lamps.”
“What I call Indian Summer?”
“English is not my native language.”
“Yes, of course. You’re French?”
“I am,” Jules answered, and an idea began to form, so he said, “I was born there.”
“But you live here and are an American citizen?”
“For decades.”
This seemed strange to the doctor because Jules’ pronunciation was extremely French for someone who had lived for so long in America. But he wasn’t about to open the question. “Good. That makes it less complicated. We need to know who you are. Did you have identification while you are running, a license, credit cards? From what was described it seems unlikely that anything was stolen, although it does happen.”
“No, I had nothing.”
“Not a problem. The nurse will come in to get what she needs for properly admitting you and contacting your family. She’ll take care of the paperwork. Right away, we’ll need your Medicare and supplemental plan numbers. There are a lot of forms, which you’re certainly able enough to fill out, but you can do it verbally – she’ll have a computer. All you have to do is review and sign. When we return, we’ll do a neurological workup, and if necessary load you back into the MRI once again just to make sure that we’re not overlooking anything and to see if in this short time there’s been a change. Sometimes these procedures take a while to assimilate, especially when you find yourself suddenly in a new environment. Don’t fault yourself for not being quick.”
Jules smiled, because he was already quicker than he would have thought possible.
A LONG TIME BEFORE, he and François had ridden almost the whole length of the Boul-Miche. Missing their stops, they engaged in discussion on the open platform at the back of one of the green-and-creme-colored buses that no longer ran beneath overarching trees as once, to the delight of many Parisians, they had. It was June, they were young, unknown, and full of energy. The diesel fumes on the Boul-Miche were actually sweet and so good for the trees that the canopy of thick, glossy leaves dappled the light as if the crowded avenue were under agitated water.
They were discussing the nature of paradox. François told Jules that he had lately discovered that the last person to leave the ship is also the last person not to leave the ship. François would ask his professors, point-blank, “What is paradox?” They knew, but were not quite able to define it, at least not easily, and they resorted to the dictionary, repeating that a paradox was, “an absurd proposition true on its face, or vice a versa.”
But for François and Jules this was insufficient, even inaccurate, and they had agreed that a paradox was more the statement of two contradictory propositions, both of which, nevertheless, were true. That two contending propositions could be correct was for Jules rather easy to accept in that it was an almost ordinary facet of music, and part of what gave music its escape from worldly friction in its ability to embrace even the starkest contradictions.
So now, in a New York hospital bed, Jules understood. Paradox, the reconciliation of opposites within a theater greater than the world, within infinite time and infinite space, was the solution to his dilemma. He understood now that he could never leave Paris, and he would not. But he had to leave Paris, and he would. He had it. It was all locked up, and he was happy. But it was complicated, painful, and would take some doing.
He could die at any moment or he could live to a hundred, which was as it had always been of course, and was for most people. But now, for him, this common condition was as intensified as if he were dreaming or in a movie in which he was strapped to explosives and had to choose to cut either the red or the blue wire. How much easier it would be for heroes if all such contraptions followed a convention similar to the laws of traffic signals worldwide. The red light always means stop. But was it stop the bomb from going off, or stop, don’t cut the red wire?
Jules threw aside the thin blanket, swung his legs out, and left the bed, thinking that this or any movement might be the end – even opening the closet door or reaching to take his running clothes from the shelf, or bending to grasp his running shoes in his left hand. After he shed the hospital gown, he sat down and put on his shorts and shirt. He was afraid to lean forward to lace up his shoes, but he had no choice. Then he stood up and walked out of the room and down the hall. Fit people in running clothes do not excite the same suspicion in a hospital corridor as, say, a limping, drooping, slowly moving and unshaven old man whose behind is visible from the back of his gown as he pushes the IV stand to which he is tethered.
As Jules walked south on Amsterdam Avenue he was tempted to run but didn’t. He had no money, so he walked the three or four miles to the hotel. He was perfectly okay when he got to his room. Contrary to his recent practice of strict economy, he ordered from room service, and his dinner that night – as he watched a million lights blink on in the great palisades of buildings, both close by and at a distance – was consommé, a salad, and grapefruit juice. They even had Badoit. Although he didn’t know why, he thought it would be good to drink water in excess of his thirst.
Alone in his room, he had lost or was losing everything at a faster and faster clip. But he was unafraid, excited by the lights, the form of the room, even the form of the bottle of Badoit, and by masses of lights corruscating through the dusk, like stars. From his tower he looked out at dozens of spires lit in many colors as if they were the jeweled tops of Empire obelisks. Most comforting was the silence. You could hear neither the street below nor even the air that even on a calm day was undoubtedly whistling past the windows.
It was strange to have a bedroom higher up than the top of the Eiffel Tower, and to see great distances across which were scattered buildings lit in white like Christmas trees, the catenaries of bridges like necklaces of blue lights, and immense ships moving silently across the harbor, slow skaters bearing torches across black ice. But there was no breeze and there was no ground, and he ached for home. The value of all the great construction was nothing when weighed against ordinary things that were modest and humane. He thought not of the magnificent towers so terribly out of scale but of people: of Jacqueline, Élodi, Cathérine when she was a child and as she was now, and Luc.
Firmly in the camp of the elephants, Luc thought of them as protection against crocodiles. He loved Babar, who was as real to him, or perhaps more real than anything in the world. When he was still able to visit, Cathérine had dropped him off with Jules while she left her car and took the RER into Paris to have lunch with David and to shop. Jules forgot everything as he willingly entered Luc’s world. They sailed a model boat in Shymanski’s pool. They released helium balloons and watched them with binoculars. Luc affirmed that he could see them, but he was pointing the binoculars more or less downward at the Seine. They watched cartoons, and ate the blandest, tiniest lunch Jules had eaten since Cathérine was three.
As Luc and Jules were building with Legos, Luc fell asleep. Jules carried him to the sofa, arranged pillows so he wouldn’t roll off, and then brought out the grand éléphant d’activités Les Papoum, a wonderful, velveteen elephant with cloth ears and rattles in its feet. He set it next to Luc, and sat in a chair from which he could see the child’s expression when he awoke.
Jules was reading an essay about the Roman quest for a quiet life – the monuments, coliseums, insulae, and legions had perhaps created the Romans’ desire for life as nature laid it out at its simplest – when he heard a little yawn. Still holding the book, he let it drop to his lap. Luc opened his eyes. There was the elephant, from Luc’s perspective, towering above him. At first he froze. Then he smiled broadly and his eyes opened wider. Then he laughed, and lunged into his new friend, embracing it. All the great things that man has engineered, the vast cities, the dams, bridges, rockets, and trains, even the breathtaking forest of lights in Manhattan, could not hold a candle to that.
No one in the world but Jules Lacour knew that he had an aneurysm that would carry him away if, for example, he chose to outrun a pretty young girl on the long terrace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He could end his life at will, and it would never be taken as suicide. Other than the aneurysm, as far as he knew, he was in good health. He had kept up his strength because he had been sure since childhood that at some point he would need it to save himself or those he loved. Although he had not been able to save his mother, his father, or Jacqueline, he had always dreamed and prayed for the power and courage to do so. He had understood that never would he be able to come to their aid, and yet all his life he had dreamed that he would. And although he had never lacked courage, and had nurtured and come to the aid of others, never had he fulfilled his deepest desire, which was to save a faltering life by giving his own.