Salim is sitting at the National Hospital of Niamey with Frida. Frida is crying in her hands and Salim looks like you can't imagine a man of his size. He looks straight ahead, and doesn't move. Near them, the emergency sign above the door is on, they have been there for 5 hours, but for Salim, neither time nor space exists anymore, he is in a fog thick.
When the doctor comes out, Salim doesn't even rush, he gets up slowly and is ready to hear the truth. Frida gets up from her tears and sees the doctor and Salim talking, the doctor looks dejected, he shakes his head in despair at Salim, puts his hand on his shoulder and leaves him there with his arms outstretched. Seeing Salim from behind like this, and knowing his story, no one would know what to do and imagine his condition. Frida doesn't know if she should join him or not, so she waits.
She doesn't know how much time passes when Salim turns around and approaches her. "There is nothing more we can do for her, she has three weeks maximum. " He goes off, who knows where. Frida collapses, Lisa who had just arrived heard what Salim said. She gapes and drops her phone. The space around her like Salim no longer holds; her only realm of existence is the shrill sound of her heartbeat in her temples.
*
In the emergency room, Reina is in a tank with all the cables in the world attached to her. On the other side of the window, Antoine looks at her. His look is impenetrable, he has both hands in his pockets; his look, is hard. His gaze intensifies in anger, then a light flashes from his eyes: he seems to have had an epiphany or is determined on something. He's leaving!
Lisa sitting outside the Hospital sees him leave, he passes by her but no one says anything to anyone. Lisa is still empty, she lies down on the bench and lets the hard life do with her what she wants.
*
Salim walks distraught in the streets of the city, he does not know how he managed to find himself in front of the Amaterasu. He looks at the sign reflected in his moist eyes. He remembers the question from the saleswoman: what he had received as a gift when he was sixteen. What he couldn't tell her was that it was a gun. He had used it to kill his second target. He thinks about it and immediately dispels this thought. He thinks of Reina's mother. They met before his incarceration, she was also a member of a fada of which she was more a hostage than a member. He saved her and took her to the hospital. They took a liking to each other and when he got out of prison, he went back to see her, put his knowledge to work for good and hurried to the bride.
Earlier, when Antoine was speaking, Salim thought that yes, it is enough to exist to be loved otherwise Reina and her mother would never have been. Their lives are inherently miserable from the point of view of the majority. Paper disease: this is what doctors call this mysterious disease.
A chronic disease that seems hereditary which has the following symptoms: leaving the patient with a skin that is either rough or sometimes looks like papier-mâché. Patients have a diminished sense of touch but still functional. The most critical happens inside. The organs begin one by one to disintegrate until they become a black mass. The organ becomes like charred paper that has not yet been touched; the patient miraculously survives, but it is when only the collapsing heart remains that the patient dies in excruciating pain.
Reina's mother also had it but was able to live to be 29. Reina she, from birth had more serious symptoms, at the age of 12, her life expectancy was estimated at 18 years.
She was supposed to have two years left, Salim thinks, but it was when she was sixteen that she collapsed. Salim has only loved four times in his whole life: a being from his past, Reina's mother, Reina, and he thinks Frida.
It is inconceivable for him to lose Reina, she has always been literally his reason for living. Reina was never a burden for him, on the contrary, it was his daily challenge. He can't imagine his life without his daughter, without the last thing he has left of his wife. Salim is shaking, he already feels in mourning, in full denial, he can't believe it, it's not possible, Reina can't die. Is the God he doesn't believe in, is so bad, so unfair to him? He feels sides of himself that he does not know and he calms down.
He realizes that he has almost derailed and resumes his walk. He arrives at home, he remains planted in the middle of the living room.
But this house does not suit him, it is a nest of memories. He can't stay there. So he leaves.
*
It's 2 a.m. Salim goes back to his office. The room is large, there are metal cabinets everywhere, a large desk filled with several piles of documents near an empty aquarium. A carpet barely larger than the office is surrounded by three visitor lounges. There are appetizers and a used ashtray on the glass table. Salim does not smoke but his colleagues do.
On the walls are posters of MJ and a framed Lebron James Lakers jersey. On one of the cupboards are the janitor's trophies. And on the desk in the pile of documents, Salim takes the photo of his wife and puts it in a drawer.
He takes off his jacket and goes to bed in one of the couch and tries to sleep even though he knows he won't be able to.
Salim did not see the note the janitor left thanking him. A post-it where he wrote "Thank you champion! " with a dying snake as a signature or it's just his handwriting.
*
For the next three weeks, Salim and the girls went to the hospital every day. Reina's condition was not improving, on the contrary, she was falling apart a little more each day. It almost looks like an unfinished sculpture. Halima only came once and Myriam is on her second time.
Lisa is there every day with Frida. Each time, Lisa watches her for 10 minutes and then she leaves to wait outside. Each time during those 10 minutes, she looks deeply absent.
During the two weeks too, all 64 people came to see her, and 60 cried. 4 were not inhuman but human in their own way.
Today the 10 minutes have just passed but Lisa is not going outside, Salim said the doctor wants to talk to them.
Salim, Frida, and Myriam are there. Halima still refuses to come, she is on the verge of a severe depression. None of the girls have been able to see her for the past two weeks.
Everyone is in the room and waiting - patiently? - the arrival of the doctor who arrives. He looks exhausted, he puts down his coffee and his documents. He looks deeply sorry. He sighs and with Salim they look at each other. He finally decides to speak
"Is the patient's whole family there?" asks the doctor
" Yes. " replies Salim
" Nope. " to Halima Lisa thinks
Myriam is exhausted and no longer lives. Frida listens.
" Very well. So here it is: we don't know! " He says it as if to resign himself and makes it obvious at the same time and he is silent as if they have to say something.
" You do not know? " Frida repeats
" We do not know! Doctors came from all over the continent and beyond. But nothing, absolutely nothing! This…" He was going to say illness but he knows that it is not "This mystery is beyond us completely. We don't even know how she still lives, or even if she still lives. "
Nobody's answering. He drinks a cup of coffee and wiggles his eyelids. He's really exhausted, he worked all this time and doesn't know when he last slept. He really did everything to save her but what to do when you don't know. He does not know what to add and decides to come to the point
"What's left now? " Frida asks. The doctor is surprised that she asks, it makes it easier for him
"Preparing for your grief. I wanted to tell you, I said she wouldn't last more than three weeks, but I'm giving at this train seven day and again, the 34 doctors on the case are unanimous: she must be disconnected! "
The shaking in everyone's heart is horrifying. Salim thought he was struck by lightning.
The doctor understands and explains, "I was saying we didn't know what it was, but she's not the first to have this paper syndrome. In total, in recent years, 430 people have been diagnosed with this syndrome and 430 have died from the same process. Death always occurs by the collapse of the heart, tests have proven that until the last moment patients feel the pain of their organs collapsing. Which means that as we speak, Reina feels her kidney, her lungs collapsing in spite of herself and the pain is like having your abdomen cut open and acid poured on your organs. The pain you imagine is excruciating. It is therefore in the opinion of my 33 colleagues that I recommend unplugged; and this at the latest tomorrow before the disintegration of the heart begins. Because indeed, in 78% of cases, the heart begins to collapse 7 days before death and it is at this time that the tests show the most violent pain. You are then warned. Mr. Salim, you have until tomorrow to decide, you will join me for the administration if you agree to unplug her. "
He leaves. No one after him speaks.
Frida is the first to get up and leaves without a word. Miriam is paralyzed. Lisa is leaning on her thighs, her gaze distant. Salim closes his eyes and trembles.
Nobody said it, they didn't talk about it but it was obvious to everyone what the best solution was. At that moment what was in them as thoughts, was not the question of unplugging her or not, but of knowing if Reina was already dead or not. Were they already in mourning or not.