chapter forty-seven
DR. Leonidze welcomes me on the threshold of the third-floor room. He pushes me gently out the door, but I still have time to see tubes in Gloria’s nose and her pale face on the pillow.
“Come,” Dr. Leonidze says, pressing me on. “Let’s talk first in the corridor. It won’t take long. Then I’ll leave you alone with her.”
The corridor is depressing in spite of the decorative prints and the pastel paint. The doctor puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Her condition took a turn for the worse,” he explains. “Last night we put her under respiratory assistance.”
“The tubes?”
“Yes, the tubes.”
He explains the seriousness of her condition, the terrible deterioration of her lungs. He tells me that she is conscious, that she can talk, but not for too long. He begs me to treat her gently. If need be, I can push the button by her bedside and a nurse will come.
He leaves me and I enter her room.
Her eyes are open. Her arms are resting alongside her body.
“Koumaïl.” She smiles. “I was afraid you would not come back.”
“Shhh,” I whisper as I sit close to her. “Try not to speak too much.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You can’t listen to doctors. We have very little time left.”
A knot tightens in my throat.
“Don’t say silly things, you’re going to get better,” I murmur.
To ease my anxiety, I show her the gifts I brought from France. First my passport and my French ID card.
“Official papers,” I say. “With holograms that can’t be falsified. Even Mr. Ha couldn’t fake these.”
Gloria smiles on her pillow.
“I’m so happy for you,” she says. “That’s what I always wanted—to be able to give you a future. Here it wasn’t possible. In France it is. It’s a good country.”
I put my papers aside. I sigh.
“Maybe, but it’s not my country.”
“It is now! It is your country.”
“I don’t know.”
I take out the second gift. It’s the plastic knickknack that I bought at Mont-Saint-Michel—a snow globe where you can see the mount with the abbey and the statue of the angel. When you shake it, snow swirls around. It’s pretty.
“I bought it the day I thought I would find my mother again. Take it,” I say.
Gloria takes the snow globe in her hands. She looks at the mini island inside, surrounded by the sea and sailboats.
“It’s a marvelous place to be born,” she says.
“Yes, but I wasn’t born there.”
“Is that so important?” Gloria asks. “When the story is nice, you feel like believing it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
I take out the third gift: the photo album that I prepared with Modeste’s and Mrs. Georges’ help. All the pictures that we could gather are glued in there. The first one dates back to my arrival at the shelter in Poitiers. As Mrs. Georges pointed out, I don’t look too happy. Then there are pictures of my class, taken year after year; my birthdays, where I smile a little more. From page to page you can see me grow up. In the last ones I’m with Prudence, and our pictures are taken in front of the Paris monuments—the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Cœur, the Louvre and its glass pyramid.…
“This is Prudence Wilson,” I say. “She comes from Liberia. We’ve been inseparable these last six years. Now we live together in a small studio. She wants to become a teacher. Do you like her?”
“Beautiful, really beautiful,” Gloria answers, unable to hold back her tears.
I close the album. Gloria takes my hand and squeezes it tight.
“I would have loved to come with you to France all those years ago,” she says. “I knew it would be difficult, but I thought I could do it. Then the worst happened and it tore my heart out.”
She squeezes my hand.
“When I told you to climb into the trailer of the Spanish driver’s truck, I was terrified by the idea of being separated from you. But it was the only way to give you a chance. A child who arrives alone in France, even with a false passport, can make it.”
“You mean that … that you knew what was going to happen?”
“No, I did not know! It was a gamble, Koumaïl! I was hoping with all my heart to be able to reach France with you. But I couldn’t lie to myself: an adult with false papers, someone hunted in her country of origin for terrorism, has very little chance of getting across all the borders. What was the best thing to do? Staying with you in the Caucasus would have put both our lives in danger. Do you understand?”
I look at her, scared, overwhelmed, lost.
“I don’t know,” I almost cry out.
“Look at me, Koumaïl. At that time I was already sick, you remember. I was constantly afraid of dying, even when I told you I wasn’t. I had to find shelter for you, far from the war, far from Zemzem, before anything happened to me.”
I rub my face with my hands, torn between revulsion and despair.
“The truck driver said that you left while he was making a pit stop in Germany,” I tell her.
“No. But what happened?”
“I think he became afraid of the checkpoints.” Gloria sighs. “When we reached Germany, he told me he had to get some gas. There was a line at the pump, and he gave me money to go and get some coffees. I trusted him. I left the cab. When I came back with the two cups, the truck was gone.”
Gloria’s face freezes in a grimace of pain. She begins to shake. I lie down next to her in spite of the catheter, in spite of her frailness, and she holds me tight.
“I thought I’d lose my mind from sorrow, Koumaïl,” she says. “I tried to make my way toward France on foot. But I was arrested and sent back to the Caucasus. The only thing that kept me alive all these years was the thought that you were free and safe in France. Your life is over there now! You’re French. The future is all yours.”
I don’t say anything.
“Remember what we used to say?” she goes on. “Walk—”
I put my finger on her lips. “Shhh. You have to keep quiet, to rest,” I tell her. “I have so much information to absorb that I think I’m about to explode. I’ll come back tonight, OK?”
She nods.
“I want to keep you as long as possible,” I say when I get up. “I still need you.”
I put the snow globe and the photo album close to her on the bedside table. I am about to leave but change my mind. I still have three important questions to ask.
“Is Zemzem the one who recognized you on TV?” I ask.
Gloria looks up toward the ceiling. She hesitates. Then she nods.
“Is he in Tbilisi?”
Again she nods.
My last question is not really a question, but I have to say it.
“Now can I call you Mother for real?”
Gloria nods three times—three times for “yes.”
I leave the room and shut the door in a hurry. I hardly take three steps in the corridor before I hear her sobs.