Illness and metaphor
Tuberculosis
CMAJ 1999;160:1194
© Fonds Gabrielle Roy
The child had a delicate little face, very wasted, with the serious expression I had seen on the faces of most of the children here, as if the cares of the adults had crushed them all too early. She might have been ten or eleven years old. If she had lived a little longer, I reminded myself, she would have been one of my pupils. She would have learned something from me. I would have given her something to keep. A bond would have been formed between me and this little stranger — who knows, perhaps even for life.
As I contemplated the dead child, those words "for life" — as if they implied a long existence — seemed to me the most rash and foolish of all the expressions we use so lightly.
In death the child looked as if she were regretting some poor little joy she had never known. I continued at least to prevent the flies from settling upon her. The children were watching me. I realized that they now expected everything from me, though I didn't know much more than they and was just as confused. Still I had a sort of inspiration.
"Don't you think Yolande would like to have someone with her always till the time comes to commit her to the ground?"
The faces of the children told me I had struck the right note.
"We'll take turns then, four or five around her every two hours, until the funeral."
They agreed with a glow in their dark eyes.
"We must be careful not to let the flies touch Yolande's face."
They nodded to show they were in agreement. Standing around me, they now felt a trust in me so complete it terrified me.
In a clearing among the spruce trees a short distance away, I noticed a bright pink stain on the ground whose source I didn't yet know. The sun slanted upon it, making it flame, the one moment in this day that had been touched by a certain grace.
"What sort of girl was she?" I asked.
At first the children didn't understand. Then a boy of about the same age said with tender seriousness, "She was smart, Yolande."
The other children looked as if they agreed.
"And did she do well in school?"
"She didn't come very often this year. She was always being absent."
"Our teacher before last this year said Yolande could have done well."
"How many teachers have you had this year?"
"You're the third, mamzelle. I guess the teachers find it too lonesome here."
"What did Yolande die of?"
"T.B., mamzelle," they replied with a single voice, as if this was the customary way for children to die around here.
Reprinted by permission from Gabrielle Roy, "The Dead Child," in Enchanted Summer, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart; 1976. Translated from the French by Joyce Marshall.
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