I HAVE LEFT THE HOSPITAL behind me, Adrien thinks, his gaze fixed on the horizon, but sure enough, like a little dog or a servant girl, a sheet of paper comes flying out from behind the hospital gates, as if trying to delay him. It catches against the back of his knees and, stuck there, rustles plaintively.
The photographer twists about, freeing the paper from behind his legs, and though it flutters in his grip, he manages to read its tall red letters. His face brightens. Oh yes! He squints at the trembling page. I knew there was something I had forgotten to do.
Show him the poster; persuade him to come.
He remembers her hot, small body next to his in the cot.
Her sticky hands. Her voice whispering. A poster. His name. The people in my town. What else had she said?
The two of you—
You wanted to be alone.
And the photographer's face goes suddenly smooth, with the same sharp swiftness that Mother snaps the bedcovers straight—all thoughts, all creases, banished. He crumples the paper into a ball and pushes it deep inside his pocket. He refastens his eyes on the road ahead.
I have left the hospital behind me, says Adrien to himself, again.