this effect, and it was some time before I could rid myself of the illusion.
A doctor came with the nurse one morning. With hispince-nez and gray, pointed beard, he was the caricature of the aging physician—just as the nurse, too, seemed to be a caricature, with her brisk manner, matronly bust, hair severely pinned back. She undid my bandages and the doctor inspected my head, without addressing a word to me. He murmured something to the nurse, and then abruptly disappeared. The nurse carried on washing me as usual. At first I’d thought the doctor had simply gone to the corridor to grab something, as the examination had been so extremely brief. But once the nurse had finished washing me, she too left, and I was alone once more.
How long had I been here? I guessed at least a couple of weeks, but it might just as well have been a couple of months. Whenever I’d asked the nurse anything beyond the immediately practical, she’d quickly shut me up with one or another of her trite phrases: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later” or “You must rest up and not tire yourself out with all these questions.” After a few days of this I’d decided to be persistent about one thing at least. I wanted to see my face. And now every time the nurse came, I asked for a mirror. At first she smiled and shook her head. Later, she became annoyed, and in the end she simply ignored the request. But then, just when I’d given up hope, she appeared one morning and produced a compact mirror.
A queasy dread invaded me as the nurse unwound the bandage from the left side of my face. And yet with that first glance in the small mirror, the initial reaction was relief. It didn’t seem as bad as I’d feared. My left temple had been shaved and there was a line of staples across the side of my head. It looked gruesome, but once the staples were removed and my hair had grown back, there probably wouldn’t be anything to see. Worse, though, was the scar that split my cheek. It hadn’t healed well—the damaged skin hadn’tproperly knitted together. Why had they stapled my head, but not stitched up my cheek? The scar was surrounded by big red blotches. Perhaps the wound had become too infected to stitch. In time, the blotches would fade, the scar too. In a few months, my face probably wouldn’t look too awful. It wouldn’t be the same, either. It didn’t have the same balance as before. When I tried out various expressions, they came out different. Staring into the mirror, all I could feel was puzzlement. Not because my face now looked like somebody else’s, but because I felt strangely myself.
Memories came back slowly, in haphazard fashion, as one might blindly pull balls from a bag. The feelings returned first. One morning I awoke overwhelmed with sadness. Only hours later did Abby’s death come back to me. Long after I’d been struck by a horrified bewilderment, the image of the comatose man in my apartment flashed into my mind. When I finally recalled the push onto the subway tracks, my terror was mixed with a sense of liberation that I was at a loss to explain to myself.
My world had shrunk to this bare room. Strange to think that outside the door, the life of the hospital went on. And that beyond that, there was a city with its millions of people, whose fates were utterly unconnected to mine. A small window that looked onto a courtyard was my sole evidence of this outside world. Sometimes, even it felt as if it were not an opening but a screen onto which images were being projected. Sitting up I could see French windows opposite, leading onto a tiny balcony with an equally tiny washing line. Every morning, a woman in a housecoat would fling the windows open. She had a trim figure and dark hair in a bob; I imagined her to be in her early thirties, but actually she was too far away for me to tell. There’d be days on which she’d hang out washing. Other days, she’d simply stand on the balcony only largeenough for one
A doctor came with the nurse one morning. With hispince-nez and gray, pointed beard, he was the caricature of the aging physician—just as the nurse, too, seemed to be a caricature, with her brisk manner, matronly bust, hair severely pinned back. She undid my bandages and the doctor inspected my head, without addressing a word to me. He murmured something to the nurse, and then abruptly disappeared. The nurse carried on washing me as usual. At first I’d thought the doctor had simply gone to the corridor to grab something, as the examination had been so extremely brief. But once the nurse had finished washing me, she too left, and I was alone once more.
How long had I been here? I guessed at least a couple of weeks, but it might just as well have been a couple of months. Whenever I’d asked the nurse anything beyond the immediately practical, she’d quickly shut me up with one or another of her trite phrases: “There’ll be plenty of time for that later” or “You must rest up and not tire yourself out with all these questions.” After a few days of this I’d decided to be persistent about one thing at least. I wanted to see my face. And now every time the nurse came, I asked for a mirror. At first she smiled and shook her head. Later, she became annoyed, and in the end she simply ignored the request. But then, just when I’d given up hope, she appeared one morning and produced a compact mirror.
A queasy dread invaded me as the nurse unwound the bandage from the left side of my face. And yet with that first glance in the small mirror, the initial reaction was relief. It didn’t seem as bad as I’d feared. My left temple had been shaved and there was a line of staples across the side of my head. It looked gruesome, but once the staples were removed and my hair had grown back, there probably wouldn’t be anything to see. Worse, though, was the scar that split my cheek. It hadn’t healed well—the damaged skin hadn’tproperly knitted together. Why had they stapled my head, but not stitched up my cheek? The scar was surrounded by big red blotches. Perhaps the wound had become too infected to stitch. In time, the blotches would fade, the scar too. In a few months, my face probably wouldn’t look too awful. It wouldn’t be the same, either. It didn’t have the same balance as before. When I tried out various expressions, they came out different. Staring into the mirror, all I could feel was puzzlement. Not because my face now looked like somebody else’s, but because I felt strangely myself.
Memories came back slowly, in haphazard fashion, as one might blindly pull balls from a bag. The feelings returned first. One morning I awoke overwhelmed with sadness. Only hours later did Abby’s death come back to me. Long after I’d been struck by a horrified bewilderment, the image of the comatose man in my apartment flashed into my mind. When I finally recalled the push onto the subway tracks, my terror was mixed with a sense of liberation that I was at a loss to explain to myself.
My world had shrunk to this bare room. Strange to think that outside the door, the life of the hospital went on. And that beyond that, there was a city with its millions of people, whose fates were utterly unconnected to mine. A small window that looked onto a courtyard was my sole evidence of this outside world. Sometimes, even it felt as if it were not an opening but a screen onto which images were being projected. Sitting up I could see French windows opposite, leading onto a tiny balcony with an equally tiny washing line. Every morning, a woman in a housecoat would fling the windows open. She had a trim figure and dark hair in a bob; I imagined her to be in her early thirties, but actually she was too far away for me to tell. There’d be days on which she’d hang out washing. Other days, she’d simply stand on the balcony only largeenough for one
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