They were on the early train from Plouaret to Morlaix. Morning sun had already greened the little hedged-in fields; cows had been milked and shifted from the courtyards to the pasture; their muddy tracks were, unusually, dried hard. It will begin to feel normal, this weather, thought Le Coadic; soon it will begin to feel like a right, not a blessing. I hope it can last till the Saint Jean. He took out his notebook and began to jot down ideas.
Aubry was absorbed in an article his colleague had given him, but Z watched Le Coadic with interest.
‘You research as we do, among the poor and the sick,’ he observed.
‘Indeed.’
‘And this excursion will also be part of your research?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me. I find it all fascinating.’
Le Coadic closed his book. ‘I’m really interested,’ he said, ‘in popular beliefs about death, about the afterlife: ghosts and premonitions and what happens to souls after passing. I’ve been collecting them since I was at college, and one day they will go into a book, or several. But for these next few weeks I’m specifically employed by the Ministry of Culture to collect traditions about local saints. I have barely started. There’s a lot of ground to cover. Literally.’ He waved his hand expansively towards the peaceful world outside the carriage window. ‘There are hundreds of them. Hundreds. Tiny local saints, virtually unknown outside their parish, beyond the square mile around their well, their rock, their little chapel. We tend to have a name, a site, and not much more: occasionally there’s a bit of legend or a saying. That is what I’m after.’ He looked out of the window again, and added, ‘St John is different of course, but not a bad place to start.’
‘Different because he’s not local?’
Le Coadic smiled. ‘We make all our saints local, one way or the other. But you’re right. From a scientific point of view it is much richer, more complex; there’s more to compare it with, right across Europe. Beyond. I expect you know the sort of thing.’
They watched more cows and barns and fields slide past, and, for a while, followed a little river overhung with willows. Then Le Coadic added, almost to himself. ‘The poor and the sick do it better than the rest of us, I suppose.’ Then he looked at Z. ‘Are you never afraid of being infected, working with your lepers?’
‘Another myth,’ said the doctor calmly. ‘Not infectious. And, as for the rest, I use plenty of soap.’ He smiled again, with a trace of mischief, ‘And yourself?’
They had a late and luxurious breakfast in the Grand Café at Morlaix, under the soaring arches of the viaduct that had brought them in. Z was ebullient, elated by the viaduct and the shamelessly Parisian style of the café, which made him, he said, nostalgic for his student days. They watched the market in progress in the square, laughed at the English tourists buying baskets and cheap lace. After a while Le Coadic excused himself and went off to the Imprimerie Lédan to see what new pieces he was printing. ‘It’s mostly terrible stuff,’ he said, ‘all dismal cantiques and street ballads, but I have found the odd gem.’ They arranged to meet later, at the surgery of Dr Proulx.
Z and Aubry walked down to the port and contemplated the busy boats arriving and unloading alongside the tobacco factory.
‘I am a patriotic smoker,’ said Aubry. ‘Morlaix cigars are very fine. Do have one.’
Z was lazily eyeing up a small group of workers, mostly older women, waiting for their shift, chewing tobacco.
‘Leave it,’ said Aubry. ‘Come and walk up the river with me for half an hour. You’ll have enough to look at later on.’
They walked along the bank, past the bright sails of jostling boats, the sun warm on their dark tailored coats, their white shirts tight around the chest and neck. Not far up the water opened out, became bluer, saltier; there were gulls. A few tasteful large houses clung to the wooded slopes for effect. But the two men were back in Paris, swapping opinions of erstwhile colleagues. ‘I have convinced Villiers,’ said Z, ‘although he asked me to keep his revised opinion secret.’ He pulled a letter from his breast pocket: ‘Courage et succès, he says here. But they cling, mon ami. They are desperate not to believe me.’
‘I think that Morvan himself would be convinced, if the poor man were still alive. What more can you do?’
He laughed softly. ‘They want to isolate a bacillus; I have told them there is no point, it could never be conclusive, not with this one. It’s like a rainbow: a spectrum of symptoms. You know that.’
Swallows dived and flicked up again ahead of them. They turned back towards the town.
‘But there’d be no harm, I suppose, in sending a specimen if you found one? For them to try?’
‘None at all. I imagine they wouldn’t believe any more or any less.’
‘It’s a possibility, then. Do you want to try the morgue?’
‘Let’s see what Proulx has to offer first. Perhaps then, yes, later, if there’s time.’
Dr Proulx’s surgery was in the quartier Saint-Melaine, still known as the Madeleine, on the north slope of the town; it was all steps and alleys, houses and terraces packed in a picturesque jumble into tiny streets. Le Coadic found it tucked behind the tall spire of the church, a narrow house that opened up surprisingly once you were inside. In the waiting room he passed a bundled female figure in black, apparently asleep; he inclined his head and murmured a greeting, but she didn’t stir.
Inside the consulting room he found the three medical men at a large table, facing a man of about fifty. He was small and thin and terrified. Both his hands were flat on the surface in front of him; his face was pocked and covered in boils.
‘I still say type B,’ said Aubry, defensively, looking to Z for support.
‘Syphilis,’ said the Morlaix doctor through his beard. ‘Syphilis.’
Z put the tips of his fingers together and raised his black eyebrows.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘This one is difficult. But I think Proulx is right this time. Syphilis. Which makes it, I think, one each?’ He dropped a coin in front of the frightened man, who grabbed it swiftly and fled the room. Aubry, to hide his embarrassment, greeted Le Coadic with gratuitous warmth.
‘Come on in, mon cher ami. We need a translator. We’ll get a better diagnosis with a proper translator to hand.’
‘Surely Doctor Proulx…’ replied Le Coadic tactfully. But Proulx, a man of few words in any language, merely shrugged, and waved him in.
‘La Madeleine not as productive as you’d hoped?’ said Le Coadic cheerily, finding himself a place. ‘And you, doctor, you have yet to be won over by our learned colleagues here?’
‘On the contrary, mon ami,’ put in Z swiftly. ‘Proulx is one of us; indeed, he was a most helpful correspondent in the months before I came over. And I do believe,’ the eyebrows arched again, ‘that he has saved the best till last.’
Proulx stood up and bowed stiffly, then went through to the waiting room. There was a minute or so of noise, of rustling and coughing, and then he reappeared, ushering before him a large woman in a worn and patched black dress.
A delicate white lace coiffe framed what was left of her face; one of her claws held a little wooden crucifix on a leather thong. She looked placidly at the three men seated at the huge table before her, and did not appear surprised when all three, as if hauled up suddenly on strings, stood and bowed. Dr Proulx pulled the previous patient’s chair out for her and went to join the others.
There was a brief silence as the men and the woman with the monstrous face looked at each other across the table, and then Z spoke.
‘Madame,’ he said, ‘it is an honour to meet you.’
The expression did not change, although the eyes looked at him thoughtfully.
‘My colleagues and I,’ he continued, ‘would be grateful for the opportunity to examine you more closely; to draw up a thorough description of your…’ he paused, ‘your affliction. We do not wish to frighten you or to harm you in any way, and what is more,’ he pulled three bright coins from a pocket and placed them in a row in front of him, ‘we are willing to pay you for your time.’
The eyes rested a moment on the coins; then turned back to Z.
‘Le Coadic,’ he said quietly. ‘Will you translate?’
In the exchange that followed, the woman’s expression altered very little, although her eyes brightened and she waved an arm. Her voice rasped like old wood. It became clear there was a problem.
‘She says,’ said Le Coadic, glancing at Proulx who must have understood but had shown no signs of following, ‘she says that she can’t stay long. She has to leave very soon to get to Sant Yann, to Saint Jean, by tomorrow afternoon. Walking, that is. She’s a beggar. She can’t afford to miss it, even for twice that much.’ He nodded at the coins. ‘I’ve told her we’re going too; I said we could take her. I’m confident that if you promise to get her there in good time for the procession she’ll stay.’
‘Madame,’ said Z, looking very earnest, ‘I promise, I give you my word, that you will not miss the Sant Yann.’
‘Bennos Doue,’ said the woman, and crossed herself with a claw.
Z came to life, and began effortlessly ordering events. ‘Proulx: equipment. I want clean needles, a candle, surgical spirit, cloth. Do you have ice? No? Who has ice? Fishsellers; restaurants: Aubry, find me a small box of ice, then you will come and take notes. Le Coadic, you find out where she’s from, where she’s been; when the disease began, whether it is in her family, while I do a preliminary sketch. Ask her to put her hands on the table.’
He took out a pad of white paper and began to sketch quickly, deftly, humming under his breath and throwing questions at Le Coadic. Aubry returned with the ice and fussed around for a minute; then he too pulled out clean white paper from his briefcase and sat down. He held his pen like a dog waiting to be taken for a walk.
‘We’ll begin at the top,’ said Z, nodding to Aubry. ‘Ready, Proulx? Keep her talking, Le Coadic, it will be easier for everyone; tell me anything useful as we go along.’
Le Coadic and the woman had in any case kept up a quiet undertow of Breton. Z moved closer. She did not blink.
‘She’s called Tilly, Marie-Josèphe Tilly; fifty or thereabouts, born and brought up here in the Madeleine. Father made barrels.’
‘Hair,’ said Z. ‘What I can see of it reasonably well preserved. Eyebrows, on the other hand, non-existent.’
‘She isn’t exactly a beggar; more a pilgrim.’
‘Face largely paralysed; gashed with scars, most healed over but two or three open; tubercles in the thicker folds of skin.’
‘A pilgrim-by-proxy. She does penitential journeys on behalf of other people.’
‘Left cheek: an ulcer about two centimetres long and half a centimetre wide; part of the nose – pardon me, Madame – destroyed from within by another ulcer.’
‘Which is why she has to go to the Sant Yann; she has business there. Travels a lot, obviously, mostly Tregor, northern Cornouaille; occasionally Leon.’
‘The nose is seriously deformed in any case, flattened. Nodules, some quite large, between the eyebrows and on earlobes. Chin appears puffed and swollen. Voice very husky; considerable damage to the voicebox.’
‘Her mother still lives in the Madeleine; father died ten years ago in a cart accident.’
‘Arms. Could you ask her to roll up the sleeves a little? Ah, thank you.’
‘The disease began about twenty-five years ago. It is God’s punishment for vanity.’
‘Upper arm: pigmented areas alternating with ulcerated patches. Please note especially large ulcer on the right arm almost circular in shape, depressed, as if branded by a disc.’
‘She was beautiful. But God and the blessed Virgin saw her soul was in mortal danger.’
‘And another, approximately four centimetres by three centimetres on the back of the wrist – sorry, that’s still the right wrist – suppurating.’
‘She found a small lump on her forehead. She tried everything to get rid of it. And then one day she washed her face in holy water from the church, and the lumps began to spread.’
‘Wrist area on left hand full of nodules. Both hands clawlike, almost rigid. The index of the right hand appears severely damaged; possibly infected.’
He lingered, and caught Aubry’s glance, and said it again, slowly. ‘Possibly infected.’
Then he stood back from her a moment and nodded to Proulx. ‘Vision first, then sensation.’ Proulx slipped white gloves on and moved behind her. He blocked each eye in turn as Z held up fingers, a lighted candle, a pencil.
‘Left eye almost blind, I’d say. You can see the discoloration to the cornea. More vision in the right. Now for the needles. Le Coadic, do explain to her how necessary all this is; it shouldn’t hurt much. Can you make her say yes each time she feels anything at all? Good. Aubry, are you ready?’
He held the long needle expertly in his slim hands, and focused only on each patch of skin. Aubry drew a rough doll’s head divided into six sections, and then two flat hands, and began to map the woman’s yelps with neat little crosses. When they were done whole patches of the doll’s face were still blank, and the hands were almost completely clear. He shook his head in wonder and held the paper up for Z to see.
‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘It is amazing.’
‘But I, my friend, am not amazed.’ He held his hand out for the paper with a look so tender Aubry almost blushed.
Marie-Job sat with her hands on the table, her lips moving, her eyes closed, apparently praying. Le Coadic left her to it and went to join the others.
‘That’s all now, isn’t it?’
Z put a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Ah, mon ami, I think we will still need your help.’
They helped her back into the waiting room and Proulx found a servant from his own house to bring her coffee and bread and tobacco. They shut the door and sat back around the table. Z cleared his throat and gestured towards the pile of notes and sketches: ‘Proof,’ he said. ‘Proof to convince the most sceptical. I’m grateful, more than I can say, to all of you, my colleagues, for making this happen. With this I could go back to Paris tomorrow, fully armed, and vanquish every last unbeliever.’
He sat for a moment, but they knew there would be more.
‘But that, I think, would be wrong. My Hippocratic oath, after all, requires that I do everything in my power to help our patients wherever they are, and wherever I find myself, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Is that not so?’
No one denied it. He turned to Le Coadic.
‘What my colleagues here have realised, and you perhaps have yet to do, is that our patient has a serious infection in the index finger of her right hand. It is not unusual in these cases; because they cannot feel pain, cuts, even serious wounds, may go unnoticed, they can become infected. I know that I do not need to convince my colleagues here that immediate removal of the finger will prevent the infection from spreading and almost certainly save her life. The disease, of course, will kill her eventually in other ways, but there is no reason why she should die in the next few months. As, I believe, she most certainly will if we do not operate as soon as possible. To minimise her distress, I think we should do it at once.’
Le Coadic raised his head as if to speak but Z was in full flow.
‘I have done this before. I did it a few weeks ago in Constantinople. And the most miraculous thing is that our patient will feel no pain.’
Le Coadic briefly raised both hands, but did not say anything.
‘If you, mon ami, can talk to her while we operate, keep her thoughts distracted, keep her calm, it will all go so quickly she will not know it has happened. Remember, we are saving her life, and she will feel no pain. Do we all agree?’
They all agreed.