By Beth Arnold
I saw a man die today. I'd gone in the lounge to open a window and saw him sprawled on the sidewalk across the street. He was dressed in a navy suit, and on his splayed feet, he wore black lace-ups. I could see stripes of thin dress socks above them and disappearing under his trousers. His hair was jet-black though I couldn't see his face. Two firemen/paramedics hunched over him, one pumping his chest with a round accordion-like device and the other giving oxygen. To save his life, they'd ripped open his white shirt and slightly pulled his pants down. The men worked slowly and methodically while the man stretched below them didn't move. A crowd had gathered in a crescent moon around them, another watched across the street.
I live in Paris and have been staying at a friend's place while he was out of town. I was a visitor, a foreigner to this block. This was his neighborhood, not mine. I saw this man losing his life because my friend went away. I was glued to my spot.
My view was from the 4th floor directly across the street and above the stricken man, and I couldn't tell if he'd been drinking his morning coffee in one of the café chairs that were now empty beside him, or if he'd been walking by when he collapsed. A fireman waved his arms and told the group of onlookers to leave. An additional van of firemen and another with police men and women drove up. The new firemen -- there were eight now -- carried a bag with more equipment that they began setting up. They hooked up the man to an IV while the police moved new spectators along as they happened by and stopped to gawk.
An old Chinese woman timidly walked up with two younger women supporting her. Once she arrived, she banged her clinched fists in the air with short jerky movements. Her wrinkled face was distorted in pain. The women held on to each other, murmured and fretted. The firemen eventually moved them into some empty chairs along the side.
I could see his body, the outline of his life, and I moved to another window where I glimpsed his face. He was Chinese, middle-aged, and I decided he was the old woman's son. They must live in the neighborhood which is heavily Chinese, a spillover of the rag trade with shops of purses and belts and knick-knacks, Chinese butchers and groceries, good cheap restaurants with take-away.
Another woman hurried to the scene and tried to take the hand of the old one, but she snatched it away and snapped at her. An ex-wife? The growing group of women watched and waited, rocking back and forth whispering, rattling their fear and hope. The firemen continued their work on the still man. Four or five policemen managed the perimeter, cordoning off the area. More family members male and female, maybe some friends appeared one by one and began weeping and holding on to someone. The policemen moved them inside the restaurant. Some new interested party would hurry up, stand and stare, then go inside.
The paramedics must have worked on the man for an hour but finally slowed to a stop. One took the fallen man's pulse, listened to his chest with a stethoscope, felt his stomach. I could tell they'd given up. They couldn't save him. The man was dead. The firemen started packing up their equipment. One of them pulled out a soft paper sheet and spread it over the man's lower body.
I don't know who had broken the awful news, how they'd been told, but the family and friends stepped out and stood watching. They began to cry louder. Some wailed while others made calls on their cell phones. I cringed up above as their laments rose high from the street. Several more people showed up including a father and young son. The boy looked at this dead relative while his father stood behind him holding tight to his shoulders.
The paramedic finally covered the dead man's head, and the old woman and the rest gathered around him sitting down on the concrete. They uncovered his face and wept their lament. I stepped away from the window.
By the time I returned, everyone had left but the few finishing their job. The dead man was now zipped in a white bag and being lifted on a gurney into a van. Then, they drove away. He was gone.
Two hours later the chairs and tables were set back, and Parisians enjoyed the sunny day, chatting and drinking coffee in the spot where he died. Could they feel the man's spirit around them? Could they taste his family's sorrow?
One man dies, and we see him. A thousand die, and we don't. Oh, we read about them in the paper. We see controlled -- manipulated -- images on television of foreign people in an alien land. We take note. But they don't mean anything to us. It doesn't mean anything to us. Even if they're our countrymen, we don't know them, or their skins are another color, or they practice a different religion. We've seen too much violence and war on TV. We aren't shocked anymore. We're desensitized to the men, women, and children who are cut down by terrorists or armies or psychos, or lone men who die on the street.
Are they the ones who are lost, or is it us?
I saw one man die, and I cried with his family I didn't know. I cried for him.
