“Doctor, as a matter of fact,” Hélène then answered after a pause, “but not exactly. And anyway, not anymore. I mean, I don’t practice anymore.” On top of which, she had never treated anyone, disdaining repetitive patients for basic research, which an inheritance then a pension had in any case allowed her to abandon two years ago. Her last position had been at the Salpêtrière, in immunology. “I looked for antibodies, checked to see if there were any, calculated their quality, tried to see what they looked like. I studied their activity, you see?”
“Of course, or at least I think so,” hesitated Ferrer, for whom, like Baumgartner, and in keeping with Sarradon’s instructions, it was time to change rooms two days later but two floors down.
This new room was fairly similar to the last, but one and a half times as large, since it was made for three beds. It was cluttered up with less medical machinery; the walls this time were pale yellow and the windows looked out not onto a tree but onto a mediocre brick building. Felix Ferrer’s neighbors were, to his left, a solid fellow from Ariège, built like a pillar, seemingly in tip-top shape, and about whom Ferrer would never understand what he was doing there; to his right, a skinny Breton who looked like a far-sighted atomic scientist, who kept his face buried in a magazine and was suffering from arrhythmia. It wasn’t often that anyone came to visit them: twice the mother of the arrhythmic (inaudible whispered colloquy, no information), once the brother of the Ariégois (very loud commentary on a great ballgame, very little information). The rest of the time, Ferrer’s dealings with them were limited to negotiations over the TV channel and volume level.
Though Hélène visited daily, Ferrer continued to act not especially welcoming toward her, didn’t show the slightest happiness when she opened the door to his room. Not that he had anything against her, but his thoughts were elsewhere. As of the young woman’s first appearance, on the other hand, the roommates had been visibly impressed. Then, in the days that followed, they looked at her each time more covetously, each in his own way—frontal and talkative in Ariège, allusively oblique in the Morbihan. But even his neighbors’ appetency did not act mimetically on him, as is sometimes the case. You know what I’m talking about: you don’t particularly desire a person, but then a second person, desiring her in your stead, gives you the idea, even the authorization, even the obligation to begin desiring her yourself. Such things happen at times, such things have been seen before; but no, not here; here they were not seen.
At the same time, it can be fairly handy to have someone who wants to take care of you, who can run a few errands, bring you the daily papers unbidden, which you then hand over to the Breton. If flowers had been permitted in the ward, perhaps she’d have brought some of those as well. On each of her visits, Hélène checked on Ferrer’s condition, examining the curves and diagrams hanging from the head of his bed with a professional eye, but the terrain of their conversation did not go beyond this clinical horizon. Apart from her former professional activities, she never let slip a single word about her past. The notions evoked earlier of an inheritance and pension, though potentially rich in biographical terms, were never subsequently developed. It never again happened, either, that Ferrer felt any desire to tell her about his life, which these days did not strike him as especially noteworthy or enviable.
At first, then, Hélène came every day as if it were her job, a charitable mission she’d been entrusted with, and when Ferrer began wondering what exactly it was she wanted, he naturally didn’t have the nerve to ask. She was neutral and almost cold, and although she seemed perfectly available, she left no openings for anything. All the more so in that availability isn’t everything; it doesn’t necessarily arouse desire. And in any case, Ferrer, tired, dreading his ruin above all, less afraid of his doctors than of his bankers, found himself in a floating anxiety that was not conducive to seduction. Of course he wasn’t blind, of course he saw that Hélène was a beautiful woman, but he always regarded her as if through a bullet-proof, impulse-proof window. Their exchanges were rather abstract or totally concrete, leaving no place for affect, locking down sentiment. It was a little frustrating, and at the same time fairly restful. Soon she must have admitted as much herself, for she began spacing out her visits, coming by only once every two or three days.
Still, at the end of three weeks, when the time came for Ferrer to go home, as promised Hélène offered to handle the formalities. That was on a Tuesday just before noon; Ferrer felt a little weak and unsteady on his legs, standing with his little bag in his hand. She arrived; they took a taxi. And here he was again, incorrigible, despite the silent company of Hélène in the backseat, already starting to look at girls on the street again through the taxi windows until he arrived home, or more precisely in front of his home. Hélène did not come in. But wasn’t it the least he could do to invite her for dinner tomorrow or the next day, later that week, I don’t know, it seemed the right thing to do. Ferrer thought so. So let’s say tomorrow, might as well get it over with as soon as possible, and then we have to think of a restaurant to meet in: after a few hesitations, Ferrer suggested one that had recently opened near Rue du Louvre, right next to Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, I don’t know if you know it. She knew it. So, tomorrow night, then?