“Thanks. I understand. But I won’t go. And … isn’t there some diet I can follow? Or food supplements? To nourish the retina? What about lusein? I’ve heard that—”
“Lutein. Avoid all those parapharmaceuticals … If you really want some lutein, you can get it from spinach, kiwi fruit, pretty much anything green … you can always fill your boots with that. For night vision, eat plenty of blueberries, like airline pilots. It works.”
“Is there really no preventive treatment? Is there nothing I can do?”
“Nothing. Take a rain check on strenuous sport: soccer, squash, weight lifting, anything that rapidly increases pressure in the eye. Lose a bit of weight, do some cycling, some walking, that doesn’t do anyone any harm. Anyway, you’re only thirty-five, high blood pressure’s not a problem.”
Simon says nothing. He closes his right eye, looks in front of him, reaches out his arm and watches his hand disappear, swallowed up by the gray hole that the Fuch’s spot has carved out in the middle of his vision. He leans his head back, takes a deep breath … Stan takes him by the shoulders.
“Simon … everything’s fine.”
“I’ve got this heavy weight crushing my chest, it’s terrible, I can’t breathe properly … If this happens to my right eye now, I won’t be able to work anymore, or read, I won’t be able to see Nadine’s face, or the children’s, I—”
“Don’t worry, your right retina’s absolutely fine. I know you’re just as nearsighted on both sides, but it’s pointless worrying. The risk of bilateralization—”
“The risk of what?”
“Of the same thing happening in the other eye … is very low.”
“How low? I’m sorry to go on about this, Stan, but one in a hundred, in ten, in two?”
“I promise you, it’s very rare, no one has reliable statistics. I have hundreds of patients with a Fuch’s spot in one eye, and hardly any of them are affected in both.”
Stan is lying. Sufficient unto the day …
“I’m going to give you a prescription. For some sedatives. I want you to take them, I haven’t known a single patient who hasn’t been depressed for a while. I’d expect it. Losing an eye is a shocking loss, these drugs are there to be used. I can even recommend a psychiatrist.”
“No, come on.” Simon is indignant.
Stan smiles and does not press the point. “Listen, Simon, I’ve just had an appointment canceled, let’s have a closer look at the pressure in this right eye, because you’re worried about it, and afterward we can have lunch in the hospital cafeteria. They may have some kiwis …”
Kiwis they have. Simon eats three of them.
That evening, Stan is on duty at Quinze-Vingts Hospital. Anna is worried, she calls him.
“Professional secret, my darling,” Stan says, hoping he sounds casual. “It’s like I thought, vascular damage. He’s lost the central vision in his left eye.”
“Permanently?”
“Yes. There’s nothing I can try. But it’ll be okay. Simon’s very brave. I told him to go and see Herzog, but you know what your brother’s like, he refused. Mind you, Herzog wouldn’t have said or done anything more.”
Anna does not reply. Stan keeps his most cheerful voice, wanting to dispel her sadness: “Are you still going out this evening, darling? Are you going to Christiane’s?”
“Yes. My parents are here. They’re going to keep an eye on the children at home.”
“Are you going out on your own?”
“With Maureen. And another friend.”
“Who’s that?”
“Yves.”
“Beaudouin? You’re taking your manager to Christiane’s party?”
“No. Yves Janvier. Someone Maureen knows. You don’t know him. Bye.”
“See you in the morning.”
Anna hangs up.
She called Yves two days before, asking if he would like to join her for this party. Maureen served as an alibi, because Anna was not altogether lying: her cousin does know the writer, but hardly, having interviewed him a few years ago.
When Yves picked up the phone, she immediately forgot how to behave properly and her very first sentence burst out subconsciously: “Yves? On Friday, my husband’s on duty …” Later, while they talked, Anna slipped in: “Maureen’s single at the moment.” She had a painful longing for him and Maureen to like each other so that Yves, having become Maureen’s lover, would stop being a possibility. Yves did not grasp this. He suspected her of playing matchmaker.
Outside, Anna hears the dull clunk of the door to the elevator. She hopes it is Yves.
YVES AND ANNA
• •
YVES HAS NOT SEEN ANNA again since their first meeting. The elevator drops him off at her floor. There is only one door, and the hallway acts as storage space for children’s bicycles, scooters, a little red Ferrari with pedals. So many warning signs: Anna’s life is as cluttered as her hallway.
He rings the bell. A little boy opens the door — Karl, Yves remembers — and stares at him.
“Mommy, there’s a man.”
The child runs off.
“Come in, Yves,” Anna’s voice calls out. “Did you say hello, Karl?”
Yves takes one step into the foyer, Anna is still invisible. Her voice comes to him along the corridor, from her bedroom, Yves presumes.
“I’m sorry, I’m not dressed yet. My parents will keep you company.”
Yves takes another step. It is a nice apartment with a mishmash of furniture, strongly biased toward the sixties. A woman wearing a lot of gold and pearls and with a Sephardic beauty is sitting in an armchair smoothing a little girl’s blond curls for the night. Yves recognizes Anna’s smile in hers.
“Hello … I’m Anna’s mother. Beatrice. You know her, always late. Well, aren’t you going to say hello, Lea?”
Lea, sulking, does not look up. Her grandmother does not push her.
“Laurent, my husband.”
Yves has not noticed the man with the long white hair and regal features standing by the bookshelves, leafing through a book.
“Good evening. Laurent Stein, the father of the woman who’s late.”
Yves shakes his hand: “Yves Janvier.”
“I know,” says Laurent Stein, turning over the book’s cover. Yves recognizes The Two-Leaf Clover. “It’s my reading for this evening,” Anna’s father explains. “It starts really well.”
“Thanks. But it ends badly. Luckily it’s very short.”
“It ends badly, it’s very short … That’s a definition of life.” Yves smiles. Anna’s father watches him, half opens the book. “Do you mind if I make a criticism? Or let’s call it just a comment.”
“Please do.”
“It’s about the quote from Pascal that you use as an epigraph: ‘We never love a person, but only qualities.’ ”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, but I wonder whether it’s not the exact opposite: what attracts us about another person has more to do with what makes them fragile, the chink in their armor. Love is kindled by the weakness we perceive, the flaw we get in through, wouldn’t you say?”
Yves is disoriented, wants to argue the point. “Perhaps. But I felt Pascal used the word ‘qualities’ to mean character traits in general …”
“I’m afraid his meaning was more prosaic. I have to admit I loathe Pascal. He’s a narrow-minded, third-rate philosopher pinioned by superstition. To be honest, I can’t think of anything more stupid than his challenge.”3
“I’m with you on that,” Yves smiles.
Anna interrupts, her voice amused: “I’ll be quick, Yves, or my father will corner you and then we’ll be really late. And you, daddy, stop teasing Yves. Yves, if my father’s bothering you—”