1. Aisha's Coffee
The birds fought over the fallen apples, but none touched the berries of the hedge. Diane noticed it when she got off the van. She thought of an old spray, then Sacha asked her where to put the tools and she forgot to ask the question.
They had to clear the driveway from an abandoned orchard. Aisha, the new owner, planned to open a nursery there. She had spent weeks cleaning alone and showed them the place with the worried pride of someone who had already spent too much money to accept bad news.
— The hedge, if we can keep it...
Diane spread a branch. Behind the shiny leaves, the interior was black, so dense that the wall could no longer be seen.
— We’ll look at what’s underneath.
— I found a sink there. Two doors too. Don't ask me where the house was.
Ruben smiled as she took the coffee she offered him. He had been working with Diane for six years and could bear a shower without complaining, but this coffee made him look up. She waited for her usual remark; he swallowed a second sip while looking at the plants that Aisha had bought. Diane loved him a little for this silence.
Sacha, their apprentice, already stored the tools by size. He was nineteen years old, with long, fragile wrists, and used to double-check what was asked of him. Ruben called him the pharmacist since he had organized the tip case.
They left the van and its dumpster at the gate. The aisle ran along the hedge to an outcrop; on the other side, the meadow descended between the apple trees. Diane asked Sacha to remove the guards who were obstructing the passage to the grass. He carried them to the shelter as she examined a tennis ball found against the wall.
It was almost cut in two. Small regular triangles lined the tear.
— Do you have a dog?
Aisha shook her head.
— The neighbors, perhaps.
Diane put the ball down. A little transparent liquid had wet her glove; she rubbed it against her pants and took the branch cutter.
2. The leather that folds
They worked all morning under a overcast sky. After lunch, the sun appeared and the leaves drew a serrated shadow on the gravel. Diane turned to Aisha when she heard her pruning shears fall.
He was at the foot of the hedge. She crouched down to take it back, then stopped: the red handle was sinking into a narrow slit, at a place where the ground was flat a second before.
— Ruben?
He approached. They watched the gravel rise around the rubber together. A white tip appeared, followed by another. Diane stepped back on her heels and hit Aisha’s legs.
A cloud passed. The slit faded, leaving the pruning shears on the ground. A piece was missing from the handle.
Ruben held out his tool to bring him back. Before he could reach her, Diane held her arm. The sun was returning; where the shade of the leaves touched the gravel, something pale was beginning to swell.
She took off her glove and threw it into the aisle. He stayed for a few seconds in full light. Then the wind moved a branch and its shadow covered it.
The fingers of the glove folded together. The leather cracked, with the soft sound of a fruit being crushed. When the sun disappeared again, the glove lay flat, pierced by small holes. A white tip remained caught in a seam; Diane saw it curve, then slowly enter the fabric.
Aisha asked him what it was. She repeated the question louder, as if Diane had not heard.
— In the meadow. All three.
His own voice was not like him. Ruben had already put down his tool and grabbed Aisha by the elbow. Sacha, near the dumpster, saw their movement and left to join them by the passage he had cleared.
Diane raised her arm to show him the apple trees. The sky opened before she finished her gesture.
3. Two apples in the grass
Sacha’s shoe remained on the floor as he lifted his foot. He pulled harder, surprised, and the leather dug around his ankle. Diane saw her face empty before she opened her mouth.
Ruben had caught the long pole with branches. He handed it to her from the prairie.
— Both hands, Sasha. Look at me. Both.
Diane shot with him. The boy flipped over, the sole tore, and he fell into the grass screaming. Ruben, carried away by their effort, placed a knee at the edge of the aisle. His arm followed the movement.
A small shadow passed on his sleeve.
Diane grabbed him by the shoulders before understanding what was holding him back. The earth opened under his elbow, lined with pale spikes that closed in the fabric. The cry of Reuben caused him to withdraw his hands.
— Don’t shoot, he blows.
She knelt in front of him in the grass. He stared at his arm with terrifying attention, as if trying to fix something that only he could still see.
Aisha called for help. She gave the address, described the wounded, and then repeated that the aisle should not be taken. Diane heard him say “stuck on the ground” and understood that she did not yet dare to pronounce the word teeth.
Sasha had dragged herself to the wall. His sock was filled with blood. Aisha took the kit in the dumpster and followed the instructions given to her on the phone.
— "My closure," said Ruben. If you could...
Diane looked at the jacket. The fabric was stretched around the arm, taken well beyond the sleeve. To reach the pass, she should have crossed the shadow. Reuben followed his gaze and stopped asking.
Two apples touched near his cheek. Diane pulled them out of the way. This useless gesture seemed to him the only one she still knew how to make.
The cold came back on his neck. A thick cloud covered the sun.
The spikes softened; the gravel slowly repelled Ruben’s arm. She grabbed him by the back of the jacket and pulled, as he pushed with his legs. They had gained almost a meter when the light reappeared.
This time it was his right boot.
He took her wrist with his free hand and clenched it with all his might. Diane stopped. Another shadow, which she had not seen moving forward, touched her own knee; she recoiled with a feeling of cold under the trousers. Two tiny holes remained in the fabric.
She vomited in the grass, then wiped her mouth. Ruben looked at her. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t afraid of him.
— "The cloud," she ended by articulating. When he passes, it goes away.
He raised his eyes to the sky.
— - Is there any left?
She did not answer. On the gravel, the leaves again drew each tooth from their border.
4. A rectangle at night
Aisha ran to get the parasols under the tent. Diana stood before Reuben; she told him of the open gate and of Sasha, who answered, of the ambulance on the way, of all that she could be sure of.
— “You still owe me twenty euros,” he said.
— - Thirty.
— I give you a price.
His smile faded when the wind moved the branches. Diane looked at his valid hand: the nails had marked his palm.
The first parasol was yellow. Aisha opened it above the glove before approaching Ruben. Under the canvas, the shade of the leaves remained visible; the leather continued to bend.
— “No,” said Diane. Not enough.
She wanted to pull out this useless canvas. Sacha called them and showed the black lid of a toolbox. He had to do it again: Diane had looked at him without understanding.
They fixed the lid at the end of the pole. Its dark rectangle covered the glove and the leather flattened. Diane moved the pole slightly; the spikes reappeared at the edge, and then faded when she brought back the protection.
She carried the lid to Ruben. He was able to release his boot, but his ankle was no longer carrying him. To reach it, they would have had to take several steps of shadow that this small black square did not cover.
Aisha took the pole while Diane was looking for an opaque canvas under the tent. The first sheet let out a white glow. She rejected it and pulled out a heavier roller, whose eyelets clung to the wood of a pallet. She swore, walked back, pulled again. Behind her, Ruben called her. She replied without knowing if he could hear it.
When she returned, Aisha’s arms trembled.
— - Take it. I'll let go.
Diane slipped her hands under his. The weight of the pole crossed her shoulders; it was hard for her to believe that a few minutes earlier Aisha was still standing alone.
Sirens were coming up from the road.
— Go get them from the prairie.
Aisha hesitated. Diane stared at the rectangle around Ruben's feet, unable to turn her head to reassure her.
— - Go on.
5. Under the web
The first rescuer crouched down next to Diane. She listened to the story without interrupting it, but her gaze changed when a stone rose at the edge of the aisle. She asked her colleagues to stay in the meadow and spoke at length on her radio.
A man took over the pole. Diane had to take off her fingers one by one.
They prepared a roof with the opaque canvas and the supports brought in reinforcement. Meanwhile, they were taking care of Sacha, they were talking to Ruben. Diane didn’t know where to go. She found every movement too slow and every attempt to approach too fast.
— "My other foot," said Ruben.
The shadow was reclining. A leaf had just reached its left boot, out of the protective rectangle. He bent his leg, moaning, but could not hold it that long.
The large canvas passed over him. His shadow finally covered the road to the meadow; the gravel ceased to stir. Diane felt her lungs filling with air that she had not been able to take for minutes.
Then a gust lifted a corner.
A band of sun crossed the aisle. Ruben stiffened and the rescuer brought the lid back into the breach. Diane grasped the edge of the tarp with Aisha; the cloth burned their fingers before descending.
— “Stabilize first,” said the manager. No one comes in as long as it moves.
Diane had already advanced one foot. She brought him back to the grass, ashamed and furious at the same time, and then weighed again on the canvas.
The van was moved to serve as a support, away from the shadows. The engine stalled; Diane closed her eyes, opened them when he resumed. She saw Aisha coming out of the door wide open and wanted to tell her to close it. This absurd thought followed her as the ties were strengthened.
Under the roof finally stable, the driveway looked like an alley. A shoe lay in the gravel. Two speakers reached Ruben and leaned on him while talking low.
Diane was holding a line of the tarp. She would have wanted to let go to join him, but she had been given something to do and she clung to it.
— Diane?
— I'm here.
— You can look elsewhere.
He saw that she was staring at his arm. She looked up at a seam of the roof and followed it to the edge as it was being prepared for the move.
Further on, in an uncovered area, his glove began to move again. The fingers straightened one after the other. This empty leather received the same attention as her colleague; she clung to the idea that the hedge didn’t want anything, didn’t recognize anyone. A place to condemn, then we could go home.
The web pulled abruptly.
— Rafale!
The team stopped. Diane kept her hands closed, her feet in the grass. When the wind fell, the support carrying Ruben took the last steps. He passed in front of her with his eyes open, moved two fingers; she only dropped the line once all the others came out.
Then his legs gave up. Aisha caught up with her and sat her down against her, without even looking for a dry place. Diane asked where Sacha was. He was told that he was being cared for, conscious. She asked the question again before she understood the answer.
On the stretcher, Ruben turned his head towards her. She finally raised her hand.
6. What they had carried away
The hedge was isolated. Barriers closed the access to the orchard, and the protections remained in place. Diane did not participate in the next operation. She learned that several people had seen the ground warp in the strips of sun that had been discovered. None of those who had worked in the prairie asked her if she had dreamed.
Diane received photographs of the construction site: the canvases, the packed branches, then the bare wall behind the stripped earth. Aisha had kept all the documents. She explained on the phone that the materials had been destroyed in a covered facility. Her voice broke only when she added that she would not open the nursery in the spring.
No one gave Diane an explanation that resembled what she had seen. The accounts described injuries, deformed objects, observed phenomena. She read them once, then put them away. A man asked him over the phone if he could use the term “direct radiation reaction.” She replied that he could use the one he wanted, as long as he did not ask anyone to go and check with his hand.
Sacha kept a suitable shoe for several weeks. He returned to the company before resuming work outside. He wanted to continue his learning, but asked to work with someone. Diane changed the teams. She also didn’t want to be alone on a job.
Ruben needed two operations. At the beginning of his rehabilitation, he could not hold a cup with his right hand. When Diane visited him, he demanded the thirty euros. She put them on the table. He counted them slowly, with the left, and then gave him ten.
— I had proposed a reduction.
She's laughing. The laughter hurt in her chest and she continued.
The skin of his forearm closed, leaving a crown of small scars. A white fragment came up close to the wrist. Ruben asked if a tooth had remained in it. It was removed and sent with the other samples. Diane had watched the pliers drop this tiny dot into a container, and then she had turned her eyes away. She remembered something in the stitching of her glove, but didn’t want to see the glove again.
His own knee healed quickly. Two pale marks, barely in relief. She changed work pants and started driving the van again. For a long time, she chose her parking spaces by looking at the shadows first.
The following summer, Aisha called him. The land had gone through months of sun without incident. She was installing an openwork fence along the wall and wanted an opinion on the maintenance of future trees.
Diane agreed to come. She remained on the prairie during their conversation. The driveway had been redone. At the spot where Ruben had fallen, a handful of clear gravels resisted raking.
Aisha showed him the first young trees in pots. He had only bought what was necessary. His list stood on a crumpled page, with prices crossed out.
— “I won’t give up a hedge,” she said.
Diane looked at the wall. A blackbird landed on it, jumped, flew away. She waited for him to disappear before answering.
— Leave the passage for the lawn mower.
It was the first time she could talk about this land as a place to work.
Her phone vibrated as she closed the door. Ruben.
“Can you pass? Not with Sasha. I want to show you something first.”
She called him. He dropped right away, but spoke low enough for her to turn up the sound.
— Is that your arm?
— - Yeah.
— Did you call the hospital?
— I left a message at the service. Come on, please.
At home, the shutters of the living room were closed. The light of the ceiling light gave the furniture a cellar color. On the coffee table were an empty glass, a pair of scissors and three open envelopes.
Ruben had put on his old gray jacket. Diane stopped at the threshold. The right sleeve had been cut during the rescue; a piece of black fabric replaced it up to the wrist.
— Why are you wearing this?
— Sit away from the window.
She didn't move. He gently lifted his sleeve with his left hand.
The scars were higher than on his last visit. Small ivory spikes crossed the skin. They were not bleeding. All around, the flesh had a slightly green pallor, so discreet that Diane thought at first of the reflection of the walls.
— How long?
— - The spikes, three days. The rest, since yesterday.
He lowered the handle and took one of the papers on the table. A printer sheet, started on one edge by a series of tiny triangles.
Diane did not touch her.
— “I was filling a file near the window,” he said. I thought I had let the scissors hang out again. Then I saw the leaf move.
She looked at the shutters. A bar of light passed between two blades, too high to reach the table.
— “Show me what you saw,” she said.
Ruben shook his head.
— - Not here.
He had prepared a place in the kitchen: a corner of unobstructed tile, the shutter closed except for a blade, an opaque plate placed close to his left hand. Diane understood that he had spent the night retrieving the gestures of the alley. She took the plate before he could move forward.
— "I have it.
He only found his wrist. He placed it in the narrow strip of sun above the tiles.
His shadow did not draw an arm.
A line of tiny leaves appeared on the tiles. They trembled while Reuben did not move. At the end of one of them, the white joint splits. Diane saw the tip coming out, then a second next to it. Between the two, a clear humidity shone.
She lowered the plate.
The tiles become smooth again.
Ruben folds down his sleeve with a torn breathing noise. Diane squatted, holding the plate with both hands. The sun had not changed. Outside, someone was shaking a carpet against a balcony.
— "They burned it," said Ruben. You told me they burned everything.
She saw the piles of covered branches, the wall washed, the earth replaced. Then the white tip that had sunk into his glove. The one that was removed from the wrist. The news, stowed around wounds with a regularity of planting.
She looked at the scars again. Around each one, the skin was raised according to the same drawing as the roots she had seen in the photographs.
Diane stood up. She asked Ruben to keep her sleeves closed and returned to the living room to recall the service with him. This time, she described exactly what she had just seen. She refused the word pain. She refused the word tingling. She talked about the open joint, the drawing of the sheets and the plate that had stopped the movement. His number was already on the orchard file. The interviewer ends up telling her to stay online.
While waiting, Diane called Sacha with Ruben’s phone.
— Where are you?
— - At home. Why not?
— Your foot. Has he changed?
He did not answer immediately.
— I wanted to show it to you tomorrow. There are like little pebbles coming out. I thought it was normal.
Diane closed her eyes. She asked him to stay inside, away from the direct sun, and told him that she would call back with news as soon as she got one. He asked if it was the hedge. She couldn't lie to him.
— I think so.
Ruben was sitting in front of her. He pulled up his collar, as if he was cold. On her own phone, a voice asked Diane how many people were affected.
She would answer two.
His pants were pulling against the knee. She noticed this discomfort in the morning, getting into the van. It was a trick, she thought. A bad stitch.
She slowly rolled up the fabric, in the light of the ceiling light.
The two small scars each had a white tip in their center. One was longer than the other. Diane watched her bow to the closed window.
— Three, she said.
End
