Sabine (10 page)

Where is the pain when your pride is wounded? And why do we say that: wounded? There is no gash, no blood, not even a scratch. Which part of us hurts? The brain cells? The neurons? What, for goodness' sake, what? You see, Sabine, not everything
is there in your materialist picture of the world – whole chunks of the map are missing.

And how do I always know, a useless split second or so before a bad thing happens, that it is going to happen and will be as bad as bad can be? Answer me that one if you can. I read things into it after? No, I don't, I read them out of it before. His name passed me by on first hearing? OK, so it did, but that was because there was nothing yet in it to hear, no plot, no danger.

The music stopped, we all stopped dancing. The Marquis left me with an ironic little flip on my nose: he could see that my attention was elsewhere, but that didn't bother him – if anything the reverse: things were going according to plan. Sabine left Roland with no particular gesture that I recall and came straight over to me. Her eyes were the same, her smile was the same. Almost. Maybe a trifle wan. She hugged me and ran her finger over the brown on my face.
Incroyable,
she pronounced, it looked amazing and it didn't even come off. Let us go and get something to drink – she was thirsty all of a sudden though she couldn't face food – and then take it somewhere private where we could make plans for next week: how to see each other, where to meet, what to do. She was the same. We were the same. Roland's glitz didn't come off either, she was unsullied by it. Relief.

But short-lived relief. The glitz, no, but the blight, yes. It was already taking hold. It does that
sometimes; sometimes the mere nearness is enough, especially when the appetite is strong. Which was, of course, why
her
appetite had left her. I remember noticing the contrast between our skin tones as our arms untwined (for the last time? No, not the very last, but the last unshadowed time, the last time free of care): we could have been of different races, hers had turned so pale. Already, after just one dance. Oh, Sabine, if only I had known. I would have taken you home myself, pillion on a bike, or in my arms if need be, or on foot and dragging you all the way – anyhow, at any cost, to avoid contagion. But it was too soon for me even to suspect. That's the catch of this time-bound world: it's always too soon until it's too late.

They weren't going to run the risk of leaving us
à deux,
not even for the space of a sip of champagne. Before we had time to reach the table where it was being served, here was the Marquis muscling in between us, flanked by his icy Marquise, and here was Aimée, trailing a beaming and unwitting Ghislaine by the hand, and here was the dread Ophelia, wig in hand, his own hair surprisingly dark for a blue-eyed boy, gauze draperies floating. The drag could have been offensive but on him it was disarming. Not so much, ‘Look at me, I'm so male I can afford these fripperies,' more, ‘I set no great store by gender, you know, it's just the way the chromosomes crumble.'

Eh bien, les voilà,
my two little bluestockings.
Having a lovely time, no? Having a lovely time?
Ah, l'ivresse de la danse.
The lights, the music, ah. Aimée flapped round us like a vague old sugary hen, talking nonsense to everyone and no one. The thrill of three de Vibreys at once almost had her moonstruck. (Unless it was all part of the script for her to act like this, in her usual devious-dotty way. But I don't think so: they can't have foreseen how quickly the blight would take effect, they can't have scripted everything.) What a delightful evening,
chère Madame de Vibrey. Cher Monsieur,
so nice to see the ballroom in use again, why, I haven't seen it looking so beautiful since … (Oops, that's right, better not say.) Ghislaine, congratulations on your charming daughter.
Si intelligente,
such an inspired teacher for her age … such original reading choices … Baudelaire, I never even knew he kept a diary … Everyone so fond … We shall miss her so. And tonight so very
séduisante
in her – what is it, her outfit? Brigand? Corsair, ah, corsair. But did anyone ever see such a pale-looking … What's the matter?
Oh, ma petite! Oh, la pauvre!
Is something wrong? Get a chair for her, someone. Quick, a glass of cold water … Ice … Cognac … Anything … Quick …
Vite, vite, vite!

It's heartrending. Had it not been for the jealousy I might still have done something, though I'm not quite sure what. Pushed myself forward, for example, stuck by her, gone with her, refused to be supplanted. But jealousy was there, a minor evil
among the bigger ones, doing its sneaky work. I saw Sabine turn from grey-pale to green-pale and sway a little and put out her hand, and Roland step forward like an attentive swain and clasp it, and instead of feeling sorry for her something inside me gave a tiny snap, like a little phial, releasing bitter fluid. Not that I thought she was shamming; I didn't. But I had the impression that she didn't shrink from him either; on the contrary let herself kind of droop in his direction, definitely not in mine.

In a trice they were all over her, the vultures. All four of them, and on a sensitive recipient at such close quarters, four can create quite a toxin. I can see them now, acting in concert, giving one another their cues.
Mais ce n'est rien.
She's coming round already. Just a little fainting spell, that's all. Too much
émotion
– smile, smile and slithery innuendo from the Marquis. Nothing to worry about. No, no, Ghislaine, you must stay. Just a little bit longer, stay. Let Roland take care of her, let him drive her home. You can follow afterwards. Sometimes it is good to leave the young ones to themselves. They make such a handsome pair, no? We thought so ourselves when we saw them on the dance floor.
Tellement beaux, tellement bien assortis.

Poor Ghislaine, the flattery is too much for her: both de Vibrey parents practically throwing their son into her daughter's arms, or the other way round. And now Roland himself comes forward with that panzer-troop smile that flattens all resistance,
canvassing on his own behalf. No, really, he would love to take Sabine home, he'll drive carefully, he promises. Look, he is taking his shoes off right now: safer that way, these once belonged to his grandmother and he's not that accustomed to heels. And Sabine, not showing any enthusiasm exactly, still too dazed for that, but not protesting either, which is a weirdness in itself. Poor trusting Ghislaine, it's the sort of scenario she must have dreamt about since Sabine's birth pretty well, but never dared hope for while awake. What a coup it would be: her daughter, with her funny boyish ways, landing the only really good catch in the region. Silly to entertain the thought at this early stage, it was only a dance and a drive, but sillier still to stand in the way and lose maybe the chance of a lifetime. On what grounds, too? Sabine was basically so strong and healthy. The others were right: it was simply the heat and the excitement. She was looking better already, although still worryingly pale. Very well, then, she would give in to the general pressure, let the two young ones go on ahead, and then follow on in her own car in about ten minutes. Say a quarter of an hour. Or say half, because … the night, the stars, the moonlight, and that fetching pirate moustache – odd how pretty it looks …
on ne sait jamais.

Yes, Ghislaine is neutralised by flattery and hope, and I by jealousy and despair. Leaving them an open field.

Oh, I know it's stupid to try and pin down causes in a situation like this. Nothing more poignant and nothing more pointless than dissecting the event into little snippets and saying: There, that was the one I screwed up over, that was where I should have acted differently, that was where it all went wrong, all dogwards from there on. All the same, I can't help it. I have the scene in front of me, chopped up like film footage into so many tiny stills, each one slightly further ahead in time than the last. Closer and closer to the disaster point, which I can never see but can imagine all too well. Ghislaine stepping hesitantly forward with her hand bent at the wrist, as if she's having second thoughts and wants to check Sabine's forehead for fever. Aimée catching the hand and drawing her back, chattering her head off to distract her. The Marquise fiddling around in a little beaded sachet of a handbag for the keys to the car, and then holding them up and twiddling them. The darts of light from the overhead chandelier bouncing off the keys and playing over Sabine's face, picking out little beads of sweat.
Émotion
or just exertion? Curse her for either, curse her for both, for feeling
émotion
on Roland's account, and for dancing with him in the first place. I danced with other partners too but it was different; I was waiting for her. She was not waiting for me, anything but. Look at her, the traitress, she has put her hand in his without
sparing me a glance and is drifting away from me like a sleepwalker. All that talk about power and self-reliance, and the first presentable man who shows any interest in her: Oh la la, a fainting fit and the vapours. Let her go, let her go and neck in the car with the pantomime dame, because that, now I see him in close-up, is what he looks like. The principal boy and the dame, that is what they both look like and good luck to them.

It all flashes by so quickly – frame after frame. Their backs now are what I see, growing smaller and less distinct as they cross the ballroom, hand in clasping hand, and fuse with the other guests. Their costumes fuse too, until I'm no longer sure it's them my tear-blurred eyes are following or a shepherdess and a cossack, a ghost and a musketeer …

Gone now. Gone Sabine, and gone the last chance of saving her. The real Cleopatra would never have let herself be filched of a lover in this way, you can bet your eyeballs. She would have rolled herself into the foot-mat of the car and stowed herself away in the back seat and leaped out at the crucial moment to reclaim her own. She had southern passion, she was a hair-tearer. The fake one, which is me, just has stuffy wounded Nordic pride. I toss my hair instead of tearing it, to show the world at large, and Aimée and company in particular, how little I care, and spin round in search of another partner. Four can play at this game.

The last image, as I am whisked away by God-knows-who,
is that of Roland's two discarded satin shoes, lying on the parquet floor. Still life with pumps. What whopping feet his grandmother must have had.

Post-haemorrhagic Anaemias – 3: Chlorosis

Post-haemorrhagic anaemias, as we have seen above, can conveniently be divided into two basic categories: acute and chronic.
Chlorosis
, also called the chlorotic syndrome, or chlorotic anaemia, is generally regarded as belonging to the latter category. However, rare cases have been described of such severity that some recent authors (
see
Sharnack, Horwath and Thibault) have preferred to place them in the former, under the differential name of
acute chlorosis
, or acute chlorotic syndrome, or acute chlorotic anaemia.

Stuff Sharnack, Horwath and Thibault, says Sabine with all the force she can muster – not a great deal nowadays – and bids me go on reading.

Definition:
The term chlorosis (from the Greek χλωρóζ, meaning green) indicates a particular dystropho-regulatory syndrome, composed of disorders in the psychic, neurovegetative and endocrinological systems, combined with haematic and vascular alterations, exclusively affecting young women at or around the age of puberty.

Snort.

The anaemia which the syndrome typically presents is hypochromic, normochilic, non-haemolitic and hyporegenerative, and is characterised by a pallid greenish skin colouring, particularly evident in the face. It is this last to which the syndrome owes its name.
(For further description, see
Van Boorden, Markovich, Robeck, etc.)

She looks in the little mirror she keeps by her bedside and drops it limply on the floor: the green is there OK. Stuff Van Boorden, Markovich and Robeck too.

Symptoms:
Besides the anaemia and the greenish pallor, which are the prime symptoms of the disease, the most commonly observed flanking symptoms are: asthenia, anorexia, irregularity in the menstrual cycle, irascibility of temper, virilism …

Virilism?
Virilism?
(This really rouses her.) Stuff the lot of them, Dr la Forge first on the list. They can take their virilism and their latinism and their total, total, absolute, irredeemable cretinism and shove them up their rectums. Recti. Recta. Rectis, rectorum, or wherever. They haven't found the cause of the blood loss, they haven't fucking found where I'm fucking bleeding
from.
And until they find out that and put a stop to it, all these iron pills and tonics and things are worse than useless. It's written there, I think, a little further on. Under ‘Therapy'. Look, try page 1151. The one with the sexy photographs.

Like her hand, the joke is limp, but at least she
can still make one. I locate the spot she is seeking and read on:

As is the case with all anaemias of this type, the first therapeutic steps must be directed at: 1) locating and arresting the haemorrhage; 2) repairing blood volume; 3) treating the patient for shock and/or collapse; 4) restoring globular volume by means of …

Yeah, yeah, I thought so. It's one, see. It's step fucking one. Not two or three or fifty
foutu
five, but one, and they still haven't got round to taking it.

This is the fighting stage, Sabine is in the fighting stage. She is fighting the disease and the diagnosis and the doctors all on the same front, her medical books piled round the bed like a barricade. Dr la Forge has advised Ghislaine to remove them, stealthily, overnight, a volume at a time – there is no patient more tricky, he says, than a first-year medical student – but so far she hasn't had the heart. The books, weighty as they are, seem to be the only thing that is keeping Sabine anchored to the earth. Much of the time she is floating around Lord knows where, light-headed, slow-pulsed, swoony, with her eyes rolling back in her head like marbles; it is agonising to watch her, agonising. But the books with the long complicated words inside them that I barely understand and Ghislaine not at all still have the power to bring her back to us now and again, reeling her in from the clouds like a wayward kite.