The cold floor pressed against her cheekbones. Hubert stood close beside her, she could only see his feet and legs.
Lie on your back.
When Gillian turned over, bits of grit were clinging to her belly, her breasts, her face. Chill from the floor crept into her, her breasts rose and fell. She covered her pudenda with her hand.
No, said Hubert.
She took her hand away. Slowly she calmed down. She lay there like a corpse. Hubert was still standing very close to her, looking down. She studied the ceiling, the electric wires that led to the ugly halogen lamps. Dirty gray shadows had formed around the lamps. She tried to look Hubert in the eye. After he finally returned her look, he walked away. She sat up and saw him standing at the window, staring out into the dark. Gillian stood up, and with her hands brushed the dirt off her face and body. Then she picked up the kimono off the floor and went over to Hubert.
I’m sorry.
It doesn’t matter.
She pressed herself against him, placed her hands on his chest. When he still didn’t react, she undid the belt of the kimono.
It’s all right, she said.
Her voice sounded false, she was speaking lines from a script. She started stroking his neck and shoulder, her breath came faster, she kept her mouth close to his ear. She wanted to be aroused, wanted him to. He broke away with a jerk and took a step to the side, without turning to face her.
Stop that!
For a long time neither spoke.
Don’t you fancy me?
Finally Hubert turned toward her and looked at her.
My girlfriend’s having a baby. The due date’s next month.
Gillian laughed and took a step toward him.
Who cares, we’re grown-ups.
She was playing a part in a bad film. Even so, her lust was genuine. She wanted him to grab her and push her onto the sofa. It would be like a punishment that would relieve her. Just then the egg timer went off. It seemed not to want to stop. Hubert went to the door and opened it.
Please go.
Gillian’s father stood by the window, even though there was nothing to be seen anymore besides the doctors’ parking spaces, a bit of lawn, and some small detached houses. In the past few days Gillian had often stood at that same window and asked herself who lived in those houses and what sort of lives were conducted in the rhythm of the lamps going on and off, behind the opening and closing curtains, whose shadows were flitting over the blinds. But her father wasn’t looking out, his head was lowered. He had hardly been there for fifteen minutes, and already he was restless. One of the nurses had taken off the bandage so that he could see his daughter’s face.
Gillian stepped behind him and stopped a couple of paces away. He had driven down from the mountains and interrupted his skiing holiday expressly for her sake. She was touched, but when she tried to say so, he gestured dismissively, it hadn’t even taken him three hours.
The doctors have done a good job, he said. It’s looking all right, almost like before.
Gillian looked nothing like before. Now that she could identify her features again, she saw even more clearly how she had changed. She would never look the way she had before the accident.
I had a word with the doctor, said her father, after the third operation there’ll be hardly any trace left.
That’s in five months, said Gillian. In summer.
She had called her boss after the operation. He had suggested expanding her editorial function, since she wasn’t able to appear in front of the camera for now. He had cautiously felt her out about the prognosis for her face. In five months it’s supposed to be fully restored, said Gillian, with the help of a bit of makeup. Let’s talk nearer the time, said her boss. When can you start work?
When can you start work? asked her father.
He had never liked her job, never even approved of drama lessons. She was surprised to see him at her graduation show. Nor was her father impressed with her journalistic training. For him, journalists were all lefties, out to wreck the private sector. As a student Gillian had started presenting a lifestyle show for a local television station. She had been so good at it that she was called in for a screen test when the national broadcaster was looking for a host for a new flagship arts program. But even after Gillian started getting more and more prominence, her father continued to criticize her profession. The thing that most got on his nerves was when a customer or acquaintance of his asked if he was related to her, and he had to undergo a detailed commentary on the program and what she was wearing and what the magazines had to say about it.
After the accident a tabloid newspaper published a blurred hospital picture of her. Her father had pulled the page from his briefcase and held it out to her. He said no one could account for the picture, presumably it had been taken by someone working here, who had sold it to the paper. Gillian was barely recognizable, it must have been taken by a cell phone camera and with poor light. Under the picture was a brief report: tragic accident and so forth. She didn’t feel like reading the piece. Instead she looked at the other picture, of her and Matthias, taken at some party or other, her smile appeared forced, and she looked older than she was.
What am I supposed to do? she asked. It could have been almost anyone.
She passed the paper back to her father, and he returned it to his briefcase. She thought he would say that’s your comeuppance, but all he said was that he had lodged a complaint with the hospital management and telephoned the paper. He had even talked to his lawyer, but the lawyer wasn’t interested. She was of public interest, it made it difficult to defend her privacy. If you shared your happiness with journalists, you shouldn’t be surprised if they were interested in your misfortune as well.
When are you starting again? asked her father.
That’s finished, said Gillian. You won’t have to be angry with them anymore now. I’m not going back into editorial to receive anyone’s sympathy.
She didn’t feel like writing scripts for Maia, who, thanks to her accident, was getting the chance to move from her desk to in front of the camera.
What will you do instead? asked her father.
She couldn’t tell from his tone if he was relieved or concerned.
I don’t know yet, she said, something will turn up.
Do you want the use of the holiday house for a while? he asked. We won’t be there past Sunday.
Neither of them mentioned that she and Matthias had been going to spend the next week in the mountains.
On the first floor was the maternity ward. In the elevator was a list of the babies born during the past few days. When Gillian went down to the kiosk in the entrance hall for cigarettes or a newspaper, she would see the young couples standing around with their new babies. They looked lost, as though they were waiting for someone to come by and say something complimentary. Behind their smiles Gillian saw panic in the face of the horrifying creature they had made, and for which they were now responsible, without really knowing what they were going to do. She felt them avoiding her eye.
It was a sunny day in February, the air was cool, and the wind chased the occasional cloud across the sky. Gillian stood on the balcony of her room, smoking. She had wrapped herself in a blanket and was looking down at the city and the lake. She felt chilly as she lit another cigarette. Smoking was banned everywhere in the hospital and a nurse passing by outside made an indignant face and wafted her hand in front of her face. Gillian ignored her. A young couple left the building. The man carried the baby awkwardly under his arm. The woman had linked arms with him, she walked a little uncertainly, and didn’t look particularly pleased. Suddenly the w-word made an appearance, I am a widow, and it was more shocking than her injury, than Matthias’s death, than anything.