Chapter 1

Her name is Jeanne. It is pinned to her green blouse. Dr. Jeanne Deblois. A compulsory name tag. As if she could forget her own name or couldn’t tell someone who asked her.

Every time she comes into the solarium, it is supposedly to take a break from the busy life of the hospital, but in reality she comes to see the woman who is wheeled in every morning, and every evening is wheeled back to her room around 7.

Jeanne Deblois doesn’t work in this unit. At first, she would come only occasionally after leaving the operating theatre or after her rounds on the fifth floor. Now, she comes almost every morning and sometimes several times a day.

Few people venture into the west wing on the top floor of the hospital. Unless they have no choice. And nobody would wish for that. Not only do people prefer to avoid this department but they act as if it doesn’t exist.

Those who work here also seem to be labouring under some kind of taboo. As if they were on the wrong side of things. A symbol of the powerlessness of medicine, of science and of the nursing staff. A concrete manifestation of defeat. Of failure.

Everywhere else in the hospital a ferocious battle to save life is being waged -– scalpel, infusions, blood transfusions, clever medications, antibiotics, powerful chemotherapy programs, ablations, amputations, transplants, heart stations, re-suscitators. All these procedures are assisted by highly sophisticated machines capable of tracking down Evil, of flushing it out, irradiating, eradicating.

Except in the west wing on the sixth floor where Evil is allowed to invade, to wreck until nothing is left, with no intervention. Where the rule is for patients to consent to this devastation, this annihilation.

Jeanne comes here because of the woman. Immobile and mute, incapable of speech, she is sequestered in this unit like inside a tomb; in this body like inside a sarcophagus.

When the day begins, she is wheeled into the room and her chair is parked with scant attention to the view that she might enjoy of the river or the treetops. Rather, her presence must in no way obstruct traffic. But there is more than her chair which disturbs. The sight of this woman, and her silence, are also deeply troubling.

One day, Jeanne moved the woman’s chair in front of a window so she could see the bridge and the river swirling under it. She didn’t dare look at the woman’s face. Or speak to her. She arrived behind the woman, pushed the chair and sat down at a distance.

She has been doing this now for three weeks, always the same way, sometimes giving her a view of the woods, or the bicycle path, or the busy city, sometimes of the river or the park.

She is about to do it again. She has just finished her coffee while observing the sun play in the autumn leaves. This morning, she decided to offer the trees to the woman sitting there, motionless, so she can follow the sun’s flaming trajectory through the bright yellow leaves during the day’s endless succession of hours.

Jeanne gets up and silently approaches the big blue chair. Her hands are about to reach for the handles when a muffled growl escapes from the seated woman, the kind of noise she makes when she chokes, but fiercer, more dense. Like a fractious beast.

Jeanne freezes. Could this woman, whom she thinks she is pleasing, be manifesting her displeasure in the only way she knows how?

Disconcerted, Jeanne decides to leave and heads for the door.

Another growl follows, short, massive, brutal, pushed out with great effort and determination.

Jeanne stops in her tracks. She hadn’t expected this reaction, this summons, this interaction. She thought only she was free to act. She was controlling the contact, convinced not only of the legitimacy of her gesture and the impossibility of acting otherwise, but also of her own benevolence.

Up until now, Jeanne had been spying on this woman, im-pudently, as she pleased, always placing herself where the other woman couldn’t see her, or return her look. Jeanne would move the blue chair without ever consulting the woman who sat in it, with no warning, not even a gesture, a smile, a word, and even less a look that might have engaged her attention in some way.

Jeanne finds herself incapable of continuing as if nothing has happened. She wants to slip away. The other cannot prevent her.

Instead of which, she slowly retraces her steps. And, for the first time, she stands in front of the woman.

The woman’s eyes are so charged with vehemence that Jeanne averts her head a few moments, suddenly feeling distraught, confused.

When visual contact is resumed, the woman, with a simple movement of the eyes, commands her to sit in the chair opposite her.

Jeanne sits down. And remains seated. Silent. And allows herself to be looked at.

She brushes away the tears that have started to well up despite herself. She sniffles. Looks for a handkerchief she does not have.

From time to time, she glances briefly at the woman who is observing her. Tries to read her enigmatic expression. She senses a furious determination on the woman’s part, but also other things, indecipherable.

Time has stopped. Jeanne cannot escape.

Sweat beads her forehead. She looks askance. She tries to breathe calmly, is unsuccessful. She tries to remain quiet, to relax, to think of something other than this insidious torment foisted upon her, this torment that she has been imposing for weeks now on the woman, without ever realizing it.

Jeanne is ashamed.

It is only after noticing that the woman has closed her eyes and is not opening them, that Jeanne feels authorized to leave.

She gets up and strides off without turning around.