A cappella

Chapter 20: At the Age of 15

"At the age of 15, I was a student at the school of Biarritz... I went every day by bike, along the seashore, and on stormy days, it took strong legs to advance despite gusts of wind ...Poor little girl..."

"I was one of the scouts. We went all day walking in the mountains, hiking in all kinds of weather. Actually, I never liked walking, it's too slow and monotonous. What I liked above all was playing, especially games that involved a ball..."

Sitting at the table under the lamp of green opaline, Max swallowed his vegetable soup as he listened to his grandparents talk about their youth.

 Everyone kept in mind the story of Delphine, with a sense of compassion. Sympathizing was to put oneself in the other's shoes and to imagine the horror of their situation: to be 15 years old and to be the victim of an accident so serious that it calls into question one's entire existence. 

Mary, at the age of 80, remembered as if it were yesterday, her fifteenth birthday, and the gusts of that time were blowing very bright and fresh to her now wrinkled face. Her husband, Pierre, still had the vibrating touch of the basketball he almost constantly had in his hands in his youth.

Even Max suddenly started sharing his experience as a 15-year-old when he was playing basketball on Manhattan's griddles, with African Americans or Chinese, guys who were there, and who accepted, for a match, a stranger in their gang.

 Occasionally, he would notice his grandparents staring at him in astonishment, for they often forgot that their grandson bore within him a whole different world.

It was only later in the evening, in the solitude of his room, that Max felt the need to telephone his father to tell him the terrible story: this little student who only thought of going out to dance, and who had found herself cruelly in the heart of the drama, punished forever. 

He told his father about Delphine's parents, how devastated they were, wandering in the hospital hall, not knowing whether to sit or stand, waiting for the probably bad news of their child; The students in the classroom, both frightened and eager for details, stunned to discover the misfortune that had fallen to someone so close to them ... and he, Max, how he had felt it in his body, ever since that accident.

"For the time being, they decided to place her in an artificial coma, so that she will suffer less... Dr. Allan, you know, our new English neighbor who bought the house of the neighbors at the end of the garden ... He had access as a hospital doctor. He's going to take care of her, and his wife, Kate, because she's a psychiatrist. She's going to help her too. She'll need help, of course..."

"The Syrian children don't have that chance," the father replied bitterly. At this very moment, there are some who are tortured by the regime, and others who are wounded in the bombings, those who lose their parents and continue on their own, at the mercy of everything. At this very moment, there are children who drown while trying to reach Europe in makeshift boats. No one is mobilizing to save them, neither Kate, nor Allan, nor anyone, and life around us goes on as if nothing is happening elsewhere."

Max felt bad, as if he was caught in the act of injustice. But it was the injustice of the world, a state of things which surpassed us all, and which gradually disentangled our illusions and our dreams of happiness. To realize this reality, injustice even in misfortune, made it crazy. To have a feeling of impotence and inability to change things around even if one might have all the energy and good will of the world...

Max replied with slight hesitation:

"Dad, you know ... comparing like that, ... it does not take away from the fact that this girl lives something terrible! We who are with her, we must help her... You know, I had a nightmare the other day. I dreamt we were both leaving on a boat to save the migrants in the Mediterranean. The sea was wild, it was I who was in command of the boat, and you climbed up the mast to look out the sea, using your lorgnette, to see if you would find survivors in the sea ... It was terrible!"

The father laughed bitterly.

'We're not heroes, unfortunately! Yes, you are right, Max, everyone must help his neighbor, to the extent of his means."

Max's father felt comforted that his son at least was not indifferent to the cause of the immigrants. If he had nightmares, it was because he felt concerned, even if he was far away, and even if he had chosen for the moment to live to the fullest his French side.

"Listen, he said, I have an Emirati friend, a Dubai work colleague, who contacted me the other day. I told him among other things that you worked in France with your grandparents, and he happens to have a property in Biarritz for the holidays. I wish you would visit him ... You know, Abu Saif, who had a camel and horse farm near the town of Ras-el-khaima ... Do you remember?"

Respecting the friends of his parents was one of the basic principles of the Arab culture that Max had learned from his father. He could not escape the visit to Abu Saif, even if he had for the time being, with his new work and his new friends, the spirit very far from those years of childhood spent in Dubai, in the extreme Heat of the desert.

"Of course," Max said, as his father expected him to say. "It was at his home that I rode for the first time on horseback ... Yes, it will be a pleasure to see him again..."

When Max hung up, curiously, for the first time of the day, he felt better. He had been able to comfort his father a little and soften his bitterness. And for once, he felt that the fact of belonging to several cultures did him good, and gave him the necessary distance not to despair or to be afraid. 

There were millions of people on Earth. Everyone had their story, each following their own paths, trying to do their best to give meaning to their lives. Helping others, doing good, was one way to make sense of it all. He, too, was able to do it and that was all that was expected of him.

Yet in his dream that night he walked a long time in the desert, advancing with difficulty into the sand, embarrassed by the heat and too much light. Suddenly, in the distance, like a mirage, he saw a body lying in green grass. He approached with anguish. It was Delphine who was lying there, eyes closed, and he saw a butterfly fluttering on the girl's still chest. It was a skeleton butterfly, and Max awoke

.....

Dear reader,

I'm having exams in less than two weeks! I apologise for making you wait... please be patient! in the meantime, please leave a vote or comment ❤❤❤❤