Only the eyes in the faces of the operating team show, everything else is covered by their face masks and caps. The surgeon wears horn-rimmed glasses. Their thick lenses make his eyes look unnaturally large. Hands protected by sterile single-use gloves, the surgeon introduces his forefinger and middle finger into the wounds of the stomach cavity. Concentrating entirely on his sense of touch. He isn’t even looking at the patient, he’s looking straight ahead, impassively, at the operating theatre. ‘The lower stab wound didn’t penetrate the peritoneum, you can stitch that afterwards, here. We only have to work on the upper wound.’

Without looking at his assistant, who is standing opposite him at the operating table, the surgeon makes these remarks to him in an undertone. He asks for a scalpel. Extends the wound by about two centimetres up and two centimetres down. The young doctor opposite him watches every move closely, nodding vigorously.

The sharp scalpel moves lightly over the skin, but an incision immediately appears. Light red blood comes out in three or four places, sometimes in a thin jet. It is quickly staunched with compresses, and the sites of the bleeding are cauterized with an electric burner. Little clouds of smoke rise, and there’s a smell of burning in the nostrils of the team standing around the patient. The bleeding stops.