Do you really remember?
Every detail. The way you smiled, your earrings and that giant scarf you like. My heart was beating like an orchestra.
I feel my cheeks turning pink, embarrassed. I remember that night too.
It was so cold but the lights were so beautiful! Remember? I hid in your coat.
I remember,
Matthias says, his hand in my hair. Then:
When all this is over, we’ll go back to Paris and see the lights.
Silence,
but he does not notice, painting his picture in the air between us, on a Sunday night in an upstairs bedroom at an eating-disorder treatment center.
We’ll stroll through the Christmas markets, freezing, but I’ll keep you in my coat like last time. We’ll have mulled wine and buy chestnuts in newspaper cones. And I know you love the displays at Printemps, so we’ll go there, and to … what was the name of that shop? Repetto? For your ballet shoes?… and that pâtisserie by the Place des Vosges, with all the art galleries—
Pouchkine,
I interrupt flatly.
Pouchkine! Yes!
He carries on, along the streets of Paris in his head. But I am still at 17 Swann Street. I cannot leave the Van Gogh room. He eventually stops and looks at me, probably waiting for an answer. I have not been listening.
Anna? Are you listening?
Yes.
Well, what was the name of that song?
I do not know, because I have no idea what he had been saying.
Can we talk about something else?
He is disconcerted, but responds:
Of course. What do you want to talk about?
Anything but the future. Or the past. I had not thought the mention of either would cause such sharp pains in my chest. That Matthias remembers me on that first night, when we met on the Grands Boulevards, when I do not remember or recognize myself, those earrings, that scarf.
When all this is over. The sentence angered me. How does he know it will be? How can he see Christmas lights in May when I cannot see beyond evening snack? I cannot see tomorrow, or myself in the mirror. I cannot see myself at all. Matthias is still waiting for an answer. I still do not know what to say.
He pulls me closer:
Hey, I’m here. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. Did I make you sad?
Not sad, no. Just weary.
Sorry, I am just tired.
Do you want me to leave?
I do not know what I want, or rather, do not know how to want anymore.
Anorexia nervosa makes the brain shrink; it cannibalizes itself. It must; it is starved but it must keep working. Gray matter must be sacrificed. My brain must have eaten up the sections where my hope, ambition, dreams were. Thoughts like when, soon, tomorrow are fantasies I can no longer imagine.
We used to make plans. I used to make plans.
No, I do not want you to leave.
I want to want something. I need to want something. A baby, a job, a future, a reason to get out of here.
Matthias, I cannot remember. My brain is so foggy.
I try to conjure an image of Matthias and me in Paris, Matthias and me without anorexia. Matthias and me happy. But I only see the photograph on the whiteboard, and I am not even in it; Matthias is disheveled and sleepy, squinting at me, behind the lens.
I keep my voice steady when I speak again, but my chin gives me away:
What if this is not over by Christmas?
Then we’ll go to Paris the Christmas after that.
His voice is as shaky as my chin, but his face is adamant. I realize he is telling himself this just as much as he is telling me.
You will remember and get better, and after that, we’ll go to Paris.
What if I do not? What if this is it?
This is not it. It can’t be it!
We both want to believe him. He lowers his voice:
You don’t understand, Anna. That girl from the Grands Boulevards, she’s everything to me. You cannot forget her. I need her to exist.
I need her to exist too. I lean into Matthias, both of us still, in the present and in the Van Gogh room.
He smells of musk, my head in the nook of his neck. A freckle. He speaks very softly now:
I know you’re fighting hard and are exhausted. I know you can’t see the future. But I need to, Anna, or I’ll go insane. I’ll picture it for both of us, okay?
Okay, Matthias.
I need something to hold on to, and I think you do too. It doesn’t even have to be Christmas. How about just next month? Next week? Tomorrow?
After a while, I nod my head into his neck. He breathes out in relief.
Good.
We can hear Direct Care’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. Matthias glances at his watch. He turns me toward him and kisses me forcefully on the lips before she comes.
All right, Anna, we have a plan: Focus on your meals, and we’ll have a date tomorrow. How about a game of chess? I’ll bring the board.
I nod.
Chess sounds wonderful.
We both already know that tomorrow night, he will win and I will stink. There is comfort in that certainty.
I walk him down the stairs. He does not kiss me in front of the girls, but at the front door he turns to me:
I know you don’t want to hear it, but I need to say this for me: when all this is over and you leave this place, I will take you on a real date. We’ll go wherever you want: a movie, a concert, an art exhibit, dinner. Then we’ll come home and I’ll make love to you. Who knows, maybe we’ll make a baby. Then we’ll go to Paris for Christmas.
I nod.
I’d like that.
I miss you. I miss us.
Me too.
He goes home and I miss going home with him. I miss sleeping with him, wanting to.
My brain must have eaten my libido too, when it shut down my ovaries. A result of malnutrition, the doctor had said. But also that with weight gain, according to some studies, some gray matter might be restored.