- •Luke 10:19
- •Veronika didn’t know how long she had slept. She remembered waking up at one point—still with the life-preserving tubes in her mouth and nose—and hearing a voice say:
- •Veronika couldn’t remember. She was having difficulty knowing who she was and what she was doing there.
- •Veronika didn’t know what to say, but the madwoman’s words made sense to her. Who knows; perhaps she was the woman who had been seen half-naked walking the streets of Ljubljana?
- •Veronika laughed.
- •I must get hold of those pills as soon as possible.
- •Veronika didn’t know what to do and stood there paralyzed with fear. A burly, shifty-looking male nurse came over, wanting to know what was going on.
- •I can’t believe it, I never used to be like this. I never used to fight over stupid things.
- •Veronika went back in and walked over to the group gathered in one corner of the room. The people were talking animatedly but fell silent as soon as she approached.
- •Veronika, who was having breakfast with her, heard the request.
- •Veronika watched the woman, still smiling, being strapped to the bed.
- •Veronika started calling to Zedka, shouting, threatening that she would go to the police, the press, the human rights organizations.
- •Veronika laughed. The “neighborhood” were the wards full of crazy people, and those crazy people were, in turn, full of drugs to make them sleep.
- •Veronika was trembling without quite knowing why.
- •Veronika’s trembling changed into low, timid, suppressed sobs. She knelt down, laid her head on the woman’s lap, and cried and cried.
- •Veronika’s remorse over her attempted suicide resurfaced, and she firmly pushed it away again. Now she was feeling something she had never allowed herself to feel: hatred.
- •It would be more normal to eat only when we were hungry , thought the woman, but she said nothing, afraid that he might not let her speak to Veronika.
- •Veronika began to vomit copiously. Once the near-tragedy had passed, some of the crazy people there began to laugh, and she felt humiliated, lost, paralyzed.
- •Veronika opened her eyes. Someone had taken her clothes off. Who? Dr. Igor? Did that mean he had seen her naked? Her brain wasn’t working properly.
- •Veronika had known since childhood that her true vocation was to be a pianist.
- •Veronika stopped playing for a moment and looked out at Mari in the garden. She was wearing only a light jacket against the cold night air? Did she want to die?
- •I must stop thinking. I’ll pretend that everything’s all right and then everything will be.
- •I don’t believe in you, God, but please, help me.
- •Veronika decided she would have to go to bed, but Eduard was still standing by the piano.
- •It was so good that I can see love in everything, even in the eyes of a schizophrenic.
- •Veronika was starting to feel ill; whenever she was given that injection, something bad always happened inside her body.
- •Veronika saw there was no way out.
- •I just have to give her an answer , he thought. There’s no need to call in the nurse to witness the conversation, to avoid any future lawsuits for sexual abuse.
- •In the small and never-used library in Villete, Eduard didn’t find the Koran or Aristotle or any of the other philosophers Mari had mentioned. He found instead the words of a poet:
- •Veronika woke up with a start, in a cold sweat. There was a terrible noise outside, and she needed silence to go on sleeping. But the racket continued.
- •Veronika got up and went over to Eduard. Tenderly she smoothed his hair. She was glad to have someone to talk to.
- •I’ve had an accident.
- •Veronika gave him a long, lingering kiss.
I must get hold of those pills as soon as possible.
She reflected on her situation there; it was far from ideal Even if they allowed her to do all the crazy things she wanted to do, she wouldn’t know where to start.
She had never done anything crazy.
* * *
After some time in the garden, everyone went back to the refectory and had lunch. Immediately afterward, the nurses led both men and women to a huge living room divided into lots of different areas; there were tables, chairs, sofas, a piano, a television, and large windows through which you could see the gray sky and the low clouds. None of the windows had bars on them, because the room opened onto the garden. The doors were closed because of the cold, but all you had to do was turn the handle, and you could go outside again and walk once more among the trees.
Most people went and sat down in front of the television. Others stared into space, others talked in low voices to themselves, but who has not done the same at some moment in their lives? Veronika noticed that the older woman, Mari, was now with a larger group in one of the corners of the vast room. Some other patients were walking nearby, and Veronika tried to join them in order to eavesdrop on what the group members were saying.
She tried to disguise her intentions as best she could, but whenever she came close, they all fell silent and turned as one to look at her.
“What do you want?” said an elderly man, who seemed to be the leader of the Fraternity (if such a group really existed and Zedka was not actually crazier than she seemed).
“Nothing, I was just passing.”
They exchanged glances and made a few jerky gestures with their heads. One said to the other. “She was just passing.” The other repeated the remark more loudly this time, and soon they were all shouting the same words.
Veronika didn’t know what to do and stood there paralyzed with fear. A burly, shifty-looking male nurse came over, wanting to know what was going on.
“Nothing,” said one member of the group. “She was just passing. She’s standing right there, but she’s still just passing.”
The whole group burst into laughter. Veronika assumed an ironic air, smiled, turned and moved off, so that no one would notice that her eyes were filling with tears. She went straight out into the garden without bothering to put on a coat or jacket. A nurse tried to persuade her to come back inside, but another appeared soon after and whispered something in his ear. The two of them left her in peace, in the cold. There was no point taking care of someone who was condemned to die.
She was confused, tense, irritated with herself. She had never allowed herself to be provoked; she had learned early that whenever a new situation presented itself, you had to remain cool and distant. Those crazy people, however, had managed to make her feel shame, fear, rage, a desire to murder them all, to wound them with words she hadn’t dared to utter.
Perhaps the pills or the treatment they had administered to get her out of her coma had transformed her into a frail woman, incapable of fending for herself. She had confronted far worse situations in her adolescence, and yet for the first time, she had been unable to hold back her tears. She needed to get back to the person she used to be, someone able to respond with irony, to pretend that the insults didn’t bother her because she was better than all of them. Who in that group had had the courage to desire death? Who among them could teach her about life when they were all huddled behind the walls of Villete? She would never want to depend on their help for anything, even if she had to wait five or six days to die.
“One day’s already gone. There are only another four or five left.”
She walked a little, letting the freezing cold enter her body and calm her blood that was flowing too fast Her heart that was beating too hard.
Honestly, here I am, with my days literally numbered, giving importance to remarks made by people I’ve never even seen before, people who soon I’ll never see again. And yet I suffer and get upset; I want to attack and defend. Why waste my time?
But she was wasting the little time left to her, fighting for her tiny bit of space in that strange community where you had to put up a fight if you didn’t want others imposing their rules on you.