ELLYA, by Chris Toran
CHAPTER 1
Tania and I, major upheaval
When I was eleven, my life changed forever.
Although I had gone to bed at three a.m. the night before and it was only six o’clock, I was already awake and I would no more be able to fall asleep again, because of what I had seen the day before. I had a dream, that I had already forgotten, but which had caused me to wake up in a melancholic mindset. A few minutes later, still lying in my bed with a leg over my duvet, the other one under it as if I wanted to feel at the same time the heat of my bed and the freshness of the morning breeze coming through the open window, I started thinking a bit confusingly and inconsistently, in many directions indeed. Then everything suddenly froze. I remembered the previous day’s tragedy and I had only one thing in mind: that day, when my world was turned upside down in one second, for the first time in my life.
I was eleven and it was the third of April nineteen ninety-eight. It was unusually hot for the season, quite heavy. I was out, as usual at this time of the day, a little later than five p.m., playing with my friend, who was living just below me, despite the threatening storm.
I was far too excited by the brand-new cycle I had just received the day before, day of my birthday, to worry about the weather. I was thinking about one thing: look straight in front and drive, drive, drive.
I must admit that I had been feeling envious of my friend and her cycle for several weeks, but everything was all right now. I would be able to go out with her in the evening after school to join the park about eight hundred meters from home, on the right.
My friend Tania, who was one year older than I, was riding before me. We covered seven hundred meters on the main road that was leading to the park entrance. I was suddenly overcome by a deep feeling of happiness and freedom. It was as if I was leaving for a long trip. I suddenly felt older. I was feeling like an adult setting off, a mix of power and independence.
We got at twenty-five to six p.m. to the park, where tens of children of our age, and even younger, were already playing. Suddenly I heard a voice shouting: “Mind the ball …!” Then I heard my friend Tania crying out. I immediately looked around to find her and had only one second to brake and turn my handlebars to avoid her, because she, unfortunate, had just fallen off her cycle after a violent ball kick in the face.
I was cross with myself for not having seen the ball hitting my friend, but I had no more time to think about it for she was lying on the bottom, three meters from me. I rushed towards her and noticed that she wasn’t moving. I cried out her name, but no reaction, not the least answer.
At this very moment, I felt my heart beating in my breast, stronger and stronger. I got closer to her and had the impression that my heart was going to spring out of my breast. I stretched out my arms towards her to try to revive her, but suddenly I noticed some blood, just under her face, flowing around her head. A feeling of panic overwhelmed me. My ideas were jostling in my head. Should I move her or, on the contrary, definitely not move her? Should I do something, but what? I looked up to see if I could find an answer and check if somebody could give me a hand. At that very moment, I saw my friend’s mother coming, who was a nurse. I raised my hands skywards and begged her, actually for nothing, to help us; I said “for nothing” because it was obviously the reason why she was running towards us.
It was Annie Rappaz, my school friend’s mother, Alexandra. For a while, I felt relieved. I thought that a nurse would know what to do in such circumstances.
As the latter had seen what had happened, she rushed towards Tania to examine her and understood at once that it was serious. While dispensing first proper care to her, she asked me to call for an ambulance. A man, who was there, rushed into the park phone box and did the necessary.
In less than ten minutes, the ambulance men came and laid Tania in a stretcher; then, while the sirens were wailing, they took her to the area hospital emergency department.
In one second, I found myself alone in the park, near the blood still fresh spot. I was literally petrified.
So many feelings and thoughts were running through my mind at the same time. Why was Tania not moving? Was it serious? Would she have after-effects?
For me, who had had a peaceful, even happy life, until that day, experiencing this live accident was like seeing a part of my life deeply transformed. My almost perfect world, the world of my childhood, had collapsed to be replaced by … This is what, indeed, made me have a panic inside me: I didn’t know by what it would be replaced. There was one thing, about which I was sure: this feeling of stress, mixed with an inexpressible fear, was overwhelming me for the first time in my life.
I hated those thoughts, those mind-torturing impressions. I had no time to think too long about them, because my thoughts stayed focused on Tania. How was she?
Then the thunderstorm suddenly broke out and brought me back to reality. I was alone in the park, in the rain, and I thought that it would be wise to come back home as soon as possible.
As soon as I was back home, my mother noticed that something was wrong with me. I started sobbing and crying, and was unable to stop.
One or two minutes later, I explained to my mother what had happened at the park. She immediately gave me a hug. Then she began to dial Tania’s house phone number in order to get some news from her mother, but nobody answered. My conclusion was that she had gone to the hospital.
I begged my mother to call the hospital and she finally accepted. I felt my legs shivering while she was speaking on the phone, then she hung up. She was very pale and finally told me:
– It’s serious. Her head hit a sharp stone that was on the bottom, she was quite deeply wounded very close to the eye and, added to that, she had a traumatic and violent shock. Her eye is safe. For the rest, we will have to wait until they are able to say whether there will be after-effects.
I went into my room. It seemed to me that nothing would be like before. I had just realised that life is fragile, that the world around me is not eternal, that everything can change in one second, and for a girl of eleven, it was quite a lot to digest in a single day.
That night, for the first time, I dreamt that I was flying from a place to another and, although I was not able to discern any precise shape, I felt a light, a very bright presence around me.
The next day, it was incredible. I had compassion for Tania, but paradoxically I felt confident, reassured and at ease with myself. I was feeling quite uncomfortable because of that, but I thought that it would be less difficult for me to help her recover if I kept a positive state of mind.
I often went to see her during her recovery, which was going quite well. We were playing, laughing together. Sometimes, I ate there, but I must say that, unlike her mother, who was a warm and charming person, her father was a cold and distant character. What bothered me the most was the way he was looking at me. It was so strange. It was as though he did not like the complicity that there was between Tania and me.
CHAPTER 2
A beautiful friendship suddenly aborted
We were in 2012. I was in my bed and I was feeling very sad, very unhappy. I must say that, the day before, Tania and I were preparing to move to the mountains for the weekend. I was willing to leave with another girl, with her indeed, and get to a small cottage we had rented for the weekend.
Since the time I had been helping her to recover, staying with her, keeping enthusiastic, we had become like sisters. We had kept seeing each other almost every day during our teenage, then, later on, at least once every week, to go out for dinner or to the cinema or whatever.
At that time, we had decided to allow ourselves some well deserved free time. I was spending most of my time, about seven days a week, having people visiting houses, apartments, businesses, as a real estate agent, and Tania, who was a nurse, had been cumulating overtime hours for a couple of months.
This first Saturday morning of October, everything had started well.
At half past seven, I heard the ring of my front door. Tania was there. We had decided to have breakfast together at home before leaving.
We would have a three-hour drive and wanted to have eaten something before leaving. We would drive straight to a restaurant in the mountains, which was located near a lake, next to the resort city, where we had decided to have lunch.
At half past eight a.m., we decided to move. We put our suitcases and bags into my car trunk. I sat quickly behind the wheel and, at the very moment when Tania had to sit down near me, she only had time to put one leg into the car when suddenly she fell down.
Worried, I rushed out of the car and went towards her asking loudly:
– But Tania, what’s going on?
When I saw her lying on the bottom, motionless, I understood that something serious had happened.
I bombarded her with questions to check her state, but not a single word came out of her mouth. I grasped her by the shoulders, but her head fell backwards.
I felt very bad and anxious. I suddenly felt dizzy. What was actually going on? As she was not able to speak, I supposed that she had fallen unconscious. I rushed home and dialed the emergency department number. In a few minutes, the ambulance was there, in front of my house.
The ambulance man, who had just examined her, looked at me and said:
– I’m sorry, Madam, nothing more can be done.
– How that, nothing more can be done? I asked.
He replied repeating once more and adding with empathy:
– I’m really sorry, Madam, there is nothing you can do… She is dead.
I felt my legs becoming weaker and weaker, they were not carrying me anymore. The second ambulance man, who was near me, gave me a hug, supported me so that I would not fall. He drove me home, made me sit down and gave me one of those pills, which help to calm down. After just a few minutes, I felt completely slouched.
However, I still wanted to know and asked a police officer:
– What happened to her?
– We don’t know yet, he answered, impossible to get the least clue. We are going to take her with us and will tell you as soon as we get more information about it.
At this very moment, we should have been driving towards the cottage and, instead of that, I found myself alone at home with my suitcase, after my friend had suddenly and unintentionally left me, without warning me, because she had been the victim of a fatal event.
That day ended without my actually knowing what I had really done. I was groggy from what the ambulance man had given to me. I went to bed early in the evening and fell asleep at once.
The next morning, while I was thinking again about the cycling adventure we had, Tania and I, when I was eleven, and the accident she had had just before my eyes, I realised that I would not see her anymore due to this tragedy, which had happened the day before just in front of my house. Thinking about this new reality, I stood up with one leap and decided that I should discover what had exactly happened to her.
I took my car and drove straight to the hospital. I was warmly welcome, but they told me that I would have to wait until approximately 3 p.m. to get the autopsy results.
As I did not want to go home and wanted to try to think about something else, I decided to go shopping, to have a bite although I was not very hungry and wait, wait for the results.
I had left my telephone number at the hospital so that they could reach me as soon as there was something new. The latter rang at half past 3 p.m. A doctor immediately informed me:
– We found nothing… I mean nothing unusual.
– Good grief, I said, she is dead, but then of what?
– We have no idea about it, I’m sorry.
The discussion ended there, for the doctor was obviously unable or did not want to say more about that.
Some minutes later, I called the hospital and asked to speak to the forensic scientist who had examined Tania. After a short conversation, he told me that, from the following day, he would examine the full medical file and that, in the future, he would prefer to speak directly to a family member. I suggested that he called her mother and that she called him back the following day, at the end of the day. He nodded and we left the matter this way. One day had passed since my friend’s death.
As soon as I got home, I called Tania’s mother, who was still in tears. I expressed my condolences to her and informed her about my discussion with the forensic scientist.
She invited me to come to her house the following day so that I could be there when she called the forensic scientist. It suited me, because I did not dare to ask her for that. I thus accepted at once her invitation.
All I wanted to do at this moment was to forget all that and take a rest. I ran a bath and, while listening to some classical music, I relaxed for more than an hour in a large quantity of hot and soapy water.
The beginning of the next day was hard. I hoped it would soon be four p.m., the time when Tania’s mother was to call the forensic scientist. I was working, but in a half-heartedly way, like a robot, in an automatic manner.
When Tania’s mother, who was usually a very lively woman, welcomed me at a quarter to four p.m., she was very pale. I guessed that she must not have slept much. She immediately offered me a cup of tea as if she wanted to keep busy before the four p.m. phone call. Neither I, nor she, were willing to speak much.
Finally, the clock of the living room rang four o’clock p.m. Tania’s mother stood up with some difficulty, took the receiver, dialed the forensic scientist’s telephone number and immediately sat down again. She let the telephone ring once, twice. Then, at the third ring, the secretary took the call. The latter immediately put her through to the forensic scientist.
The forensic scientist began to speak to Tania’s mother in those words:
– Listen, Madam, I was very surprised by what I noticed while reviewing your daughter’s medical record. Indeed, during the last fourteen months, your daughter has been consulting her doctor, private surgeries and even hospitals more than thirty-two times.
I thus decided to call some of the doctors who examined her, in order to investigate even further, but all of them told me the same thing, that’s to say what was written in her medical record. It was obvious that she was seriously ill, but what was she actually suffering from? No examination could really reveal it.
Tania consulted the doctors, saying she was suffering from joint pain and even nausea. The pain was growing from month to month.
In conclusion, the forensic scientist was quite puzzled because not only Tania’s death was incomprehensible, but also the months before her death, with this inexplicable pain and this terrible suffering she was trying to hide from the others, in particular from her family and her circle.
The forensic scientist was visibly confused about all that and unfortunately unable to tell me more about it. The discussion thus ended.
As soon as Tania’s mother had replaced the receiver, she immediately started telling me about what the forensic scientist had just said. I was completely astounded.
– And what’s going to happen now? she asked me.
– Nothing, I said, her file will be classified as a pending case, which means with undetermined cause of death.
Her mother looked at me and asked me if I knew how Tania was feeling in her last days, the problems she had. I replied:
– No, I don’t really know. I was actually suspecting nothing, for I had never seen her complaining and she had never told me anything about it.
– Either to me had she said nothing about it, her mother added, a bit upset by this fact.
While having another cup of tea, I asked her how Tania’s father, her ex-husband, was. She replied that he had been withdrawing into himself despite his position as a mathematics teacher, that he, who was already introverted, would not speak at all or barely say some words when he was at home. He would take everything and keep all that for himself. One did not change at the age of fifty-five, on the contrary.
I remained for twenty more minutes at her house and left her approximately at a quarter past five p.m.
We were both very sad. Added to that a feeling of upset, tinged with a touch of anger, because despite the discussion with the forensic scientist, not only the mystery of Tania’s death was not resolved yet, but, and it was even worse. It was becoming all the more inexplicable and it was likely to remain like that, due to the forensic scientist’s conclusion
CHAPTER 3
An encounter and the beginning of a beautiful friendship