Enough About Love (8 page)

“A busted artery,” Simon says, adding sardonically, “alas, ’tis all in vein!”

Stan is still looking at the screen, does not hear the pun.

“It explains the gap in the middle of your field of vision. The good news is it won’t spread, it’s starting to cauterize. It never really spreads.”

“Can it get better, heal up on its own?”

“It’s healed, Simon. The eye has repaired itself. Well, as much as it can. It did it by scarring, and now the light-sensitive cells—you know, the rods and cones—that were starved of a blood supply have necrotized.”

“But … Stan … Can you do laser treatment? Anna says you’re the best surgeon in France, you work miracles, you have patients from all over the world, New York, Buenos Aires …”

“Oh, and why not Shanghai? Your sister really is unbelievable … Listen, it’s true, you can treat it by injecting verteporfin and then using lasers, but that only works in the first few hours, maybe the first few days. But this has been going on for at least three weeks, the scarring is permanent … Anyway, Simon, I wouldn’t have risked laser treatment, the cure would have been worse than the complaint. Here, can you see that little fluorescent green zigzag? The vascular tear occurred two millimeters from the optic nerve. It’s so close that I’d have risked touching it with the beam.”

“What about retinal grafts? Can’t you …”

“Stem cells? Listen, Simon, I don’t like being pessimistic, but in my lab we follow new advances really closely: we won’t be able to rely on that for another ten or twenty years. I’ll be the first surgeon in France to know how to do it, I swear to you. What we can actually graft right now are retinal cells … in mice. But the stupid cells can’t work out how to adapt themselves to connect to the optic nerve. You could say it’s like having a new retina but the brain has no idea it’s there. You’ll have to learn to live with this. You’ll still have peripheral vision in your left eye, and even though it will be tough at first, with your right eye correcting, you’ll end up getting used to it. But Simon, the most important thing now is if you notice the slightest alteration in your field of vision, wavering, blind
spots, changes in color, flashes of light, you don’t fuck around, you don’t wait two weeks before coming to see me, you call me and come to whichever hospital I’m at. And if I’m not around, because you never know, you ask for Herzog and say I sent you, he’s very good. Actually, you know what? Go and see him. For a second opinion. I won’t be upset, I can just imagine what you’re going through right now.”

“No, Stan, I won’t disturb him, I have faith in you.”

“No, I want you to: go and see Herzog. I really don’t want you thinking I’m being all reassuring because you’re my wife’s brother and a friend.”

“Thanks. I understand. But I won’t go. And … isn’t there some diet I can follow? Or food supplements? To nourish the retina? What about lusein? I’ve heard that—”

“Lutein. Avoid all those parapharmaceuticals … If you really want some lutein, you can get it from spinach, kiwi fruit, pretty much anything green … you can always fill your boots with that. For night vision, eat plenty of blueberries, like airline pilots. It works.”

“Is there really no preventive treatment? Is there nothing I can do?”

“Nothing. Take a rain check on strenuous sport: soccer, squash, weight lifting, anything that rapidly increases pressure in the eye. Lose a bit of weight, do some cycling, some walking, that doesn’t do anyone any harm. Anyway, you’re only thirty-five, high blood pressure’s not a problem.”

Simon says nothing. He closes his right eye, looks in front of him, reaches out his arm and watches his hand disappear, swallowed up by the gray hole that the Fuch’s spot has carved out in the middle of his vision. He leans his head back, takes a deep breath … Stan takes him by the shoulders.

“Simon … everything’s fine.”

“I’ve got this heavy weight crushing my chest, it’s terrible, I can’t breathe properly … If this happens to my right eye now, I won’t be able to work anymore, or read, I won’t be able to see Nadine’s face, or the children’s, I—”

“Don’t worry, your right retina’s absolutely fine. I know you’re just as nearsighted on both sides, but it’s pointless worrying. The risk of bilateralization—”

“The risk of what?”

“Of the same thing happening in the other eye … is very low.”

“How low? I’m sorry to go on about this, Stan, but one in a hundred, in ten, in two?”

“I promise you, it’s very rare, no one has reliable statistics. I have hundreds of patients with a Fuch’s spot in one eye, and hardly any of them are affected in both.”

Stan is lying. Sufficient unto the day …

“I’m going to give you a prescription. For some sedatives. I want you to take them, I haven’t known a single patient who hasn’t been depressed for a while. I’d expect it. Losing an eye is a shocking loss, these drugs are there to be used. I can even recommend a psychiatrist.”

“No, come on.” Simon is indignant.

Stan smiles and does not press the point. “Listen, Simon, I’ve just had an appointment canceled, let’s have a closer look at the pressure in this right eye, because you’re worried about it, and afterward we can have lunch in the hospital cafeteria. They may have some kiwis …”

Kiwis they have. Simon eats three of them.

That evening, Stan is on duty at Quinze-Vingts Hospital. Anna is worried, she calls him.

“Professional secret, my darling,” Stan says, hoping he sounds casual. “It’s like I thought, vascular damage. He’s lost the central vision in his left eye.”

“Permanently?”

“Yes. There’s nothing I can try. But it’ll be okay. Simon’s very brave. I told him to go and see Herzog, but you know what your brother’s like, he refused. Mind you, Herzog wouldn’t have said or done anything more.”

Anna does not reply. Stan keeps his most cheerful voice, wanting to dispel her sadness: “Are you still going out this evening, darling? Are you going to Christiane’s?”

“Yes. My parents are here. They’re going to keep an eye on the children at home.”

“Are you going out on your own?”

“With Maureen. And another friend.”

“Who’s that?”

“Yves.”

“Beaudouin? You’re taking your manager to Christiane’s party?”

“No. Yves Janvier. Someone Maureen knows. You don’t know him. Bye.”

“See you in the morning.”

Anna hangs up.

She called Yves two days before, asking if he would like to join her for this party. Maureen served as an alibi, because Anna was not altogether lying: her cousin does know the writer, but hardly, having interviewed him a few years ago.

When Yves picked up the phone, she immediately forgot how to behave properly and her very first sentence burst out subconsciously: “Yves? On Friday, my husband’s on duty …” Later, while they talked, Anna slipped in: “Maureen’s single at
the moment.” She had a painful longing for him and Maureen to like each other so that Yves, having become Maureen’s lover, would stop being a possibility. Yves did not grasp this. He suspected her of playing matchmaker.

Outside, Anna hears the dull clunk of the door to the elevator. She hopes it is Yves.

Y
VES HAS NOT SEEN
A
NNA
again since their first meeting. The elevator drops him off at her floor. There is only one door, and the hallway acts as storage space for children’s bicycles, scooters, a little red Ferrari with pedals. So many warning signs: Anna’s life is as cluttered as her hallway.

He rings the bell. A little boy opens the door—Karl, Yves remembers—and stares at him.

“Mommy, there’s a man.”

The child runs off.

“Come in, Yves,” Anna’s voice calls out. “Did you say hello, Karl?”

Yves takes one step into the foyer, Anna is still invisible. Her voice comes to him along the corridor, from her bedroom, Yves presumes.

“I’m sorry, I’m not dressed yet. My parents will keep you company.”

Yves takes another step. It is a nice apartment with a mishmash of furniture, strongly biased toward the sixties. A woman wearing a lot of gold and pearls and with a Sephardic beauty is sitting in an armchair smoothing a little girl’s blond curls for the night. Yves recognizes Anna’s smile in hers.

“Hello … I’m Anna’s mother. Beatrice. You know her, always late. Well, aren’t you going to say hello, Lea?”

Lea, sulking, does not look up. Her grandmother does not push her.

“Laurent, my husband.”

Yves has not noticed the man with the long white hair and regal features standing by the bookshelves, leafing through a book.

“Good evening. Laurent Stein, the father of the woman who’s late.”

Yves shakes his hand: “Yves Janvier.”

“I know,” says Laurent Stein, turning over the book’s cover. Yves recognizes
The Two-Leaf Clover
. “It’s my reading for this evening,” Anna’s father explains. “It starts really well.”

“Thanks. But it ends badly. Luckily it’s very short.”

“It ends badly, it’s very short … That’s a definition of life.” Yves smiles. Anna’s father watches him, half opens the book. “Do you mind if I make a criticism? Or let’s call it just a comment.”

“Please do.”

“It’s about the quote from Pascal that you use as an epigraph: ‘We never love a person, but only qualities.’ ”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, but I wonder whether it’s not the exact opposite: what attracts us about another person has more to do with what makes them fragile, the chink in their armor.
Love is kindled by the weakness we perceive, the flaw we get in through, wouldn’t you say?”

Yves is disoriented, wants to argue the point. “Perhaps. But I felt Pascal used the word ‘qualities’ to mean character traits in general …”

“I’m afraid his meaning was more prosaic. I have to admit I loathe Pascal. He’s a narrow-minded, third-rate philosopher pinioned by superstition. To be honest, I can’t think of anything more stupid than his challenge.”
³

“I’m with you on that,” Yves smiles.

Anna interrupts, her voice amused: “I’ll be quick, Yves, or my father will corner you and then we’ll be really late. And you, daddy, stop teasing Yves. Yves, if my father’s bothering you—”

“Not in the least, your father’s not bothering me …”

“Are you working on a novel at the moment, Mr. Janvier?”

“Yves. Please, Mr. Stein, call me Yves … Yes, I’ve started on something, about a relationship … Well, when I put it like that, it sounds terribly banal …”

“No it doesn’t. Do you have a title yet?”

“I’d like to call it
The Together Theory
, together as in ‘being together,’ not ‘get it together.’ Or maybe
Abkhazian Dominoes
, I’m not sure yet.”

“Abkhazian?”

“From Abkhazia. It’s a small state to the north of the Black Sea.”

“They’re both good titles. A bit intellectual, though, wouldn’t you say? My daughter’s right, I’m teasing you.”

“Um … Yes, what I wanted was—”

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Anna emerges from the bedroom, sheathed in a red satin dress with oriental patterns on it. Yves thinks she looks dazzling. She has bare feet, and is holding a pair of sandals in each hand.

“Mom, do you think these ones, the Cretan look, or these which are more Roman?”

Yves can see no difference at all. The mother can, though. She opts for the Cretan pair.

“We’re off, mom. Maureen’s just called. She can’t find anywhere to park and she’s waiting outside. Bye, daddy. Kids, are you going to give me a kiss?”

Lea and Karl hurtle out of their room and almost suffocate her with hugs, Lea acting abandoned, laughing as she pretends to snivel. Anna tears herself away from them gently in the hallway. She goes into the elevator and Yves follows her. He has one last look at the little red Ferrari. The door closes.

There are four inches separating Yves and Anna. She wears a fresh perfume, all woods and ivy, she says nothing, smiles, lowers her eyes. To resist the urge to take her in his arms, Yves concentrates on their surroundings: elevator branded ART, tinted mirror, coarse black carpeting on the walls. A copper plaque: M
AX
: 3 P
EOPLE
, 240
KG
. A control panel with six black buttons,
GROUND
, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one red button,
STOP
, one green button, 24
HR. CALL
. A cutout area covered with wire netting, a loudspeaker, and a microphone. I
N THE EVENT OF AN INCIDENT, PLEASE REFER TO
TL1034.

But there is no incident, and the trip down takes fifteen seconds. Yves succeeds in trying nothing. All through the
evening he will not have another opportunity, however slight, to kiss Anna. She and her cousin Maureen will go home early.

In the morning, when Stan comes home from night duty, she will tell him about Christiane’s party, at length, more than usual. About Jean, Maureen’s new boyfriend, “charming, but maybe a bit smug,” about Christiane’s illness, “stabilized,” about the famous and very talented filmmaker who was there, “of course you remember, Stan,
Thirty Years Without Seeing the Sea
, he directed that, we saw it together.”

“
Thirty Years Without Seeing the Sea,”
Stan says. “Yes.”

About Yves, Anna says nothing.

Paris, October 3, midnight
.

   Romain, it’s late, you’re still working at the lab and I’m writing this letter on the computer while I wait for you, which is
in fact
my way of not waiting for you. It’s nighttime, I’ve put
the
our children to bed, they’re asleep.
I haven’t written to you for a long time
I wish I didn’t have to write you this letter. Maybe I’m only writing it so that I’ve written it, and
I’m hesitating
I don’t know if I’ll give it to you. When you leave a man, what’s the point of explaining?