by Victoria Mas
She shakes her head to dispel these thoughts. She is not melancholic by nature, but these memories are enough to plunge her into a sadness from which she does not have the strength to break free.
On the next bed, Louise finally turns her pale, moon-like face to Thérèse.
‘He’ll never love me now, Thérèse.’
Surprised and relieved to hear the girl finally speak, the old woman raises an eyebrow and smiles.
‘Who’s that, dear?’
‘Jules.’
Thérèse is careful not to roll her eyes and continues to stroke Louise’s hair.
‘He already loves you. ’Twas you yourself told me that.’
‘Yes, but . . . not like this.’
‘They’ll make you better. I’ve seen Charcot cure hemiplegics.’
‘But what if they can’t make me better?’
Thérèse is silent for a moment. She has never seen Charcot treat patients suffering from hemiplegia. She feels ashamed of lying to Louise, but sometimes lies are necessary, they are a comfort.
A voice from the doorway makes all three women start.
‘Thérèse!’
They turn as one to see a nurse standing in the doorway. She is beckoning to Thérèse.
The old woman lays a hand on Louise’s shoulder. She is relieved by the interruption; she does not have the will to continue with her lies.
‘Got to have my medical, Louise, I’ll be straight back. Leastways I’m leaving you in good company.’
Thérèse flashes Eugénie a smile as she leaves the dormitory. As she sees Geneviève approaching, she stiffens. The two women stop in their tracks and Thérèse gives the ward matron a look of mingled bitterness and regret.
‘You didn’t keep her safe, Geneviève.’
Thérèse stalks off, leaving Geneviève still standing there. The nurse feels the guilt pinching at her chest. She looks over at Louise: Eugénie is standing at the foot of her bed, motionless, her head turned slightly to the right, as though she can hear something behind her, or someone. The other patients on the ward do not seem to have noticed, engrossed as they are in putting the finishing touches to their costumes. The other nurses are moving between the different groups, ensuring any lunacy does not get out of hand.
Geneviève quietly walks over to the two young women. Eugénie is still standing stock-still next to Louise. Her ebony hair is pulled into a chignon, revealing her long, graceful neck. Her face is still turned to one side. She appears to be listening. From time to time, she nods almost imperceptibly.
Eugénie now lays a hand on Louise’s left shoulder. Then she bends down and, in a low voice to avoid attracting the attention of the others, she sings the girl a nursery rhyme.
‘Oh, my darling child, my doe,
With your milk-white skin so fair,
Do you know how bright they glow,
Your sweet eyes, soft and rare?
Just to know that you are close
Makes my soul rejoice.’
Louise’s eyes grow wide and she stares at Eugénie.
‘That’s . . . that’s the song Mother used to sing to me.’
Her left hand reaches up and clasps the lifeless hand on her belly. Memories flicker in her eyes.
‘How do you know it?’
‘You sang it for me once.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t remember.’
‘I think it would make your mother happy if you went to the Lenten Ball.’
‘No, I couldn’t – if she saw me like this, Mother would think I looked ugly.’
‘Not at all, she would think you beautiful. She would want you to put on your costume and enjoy the music. You like music, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Louise’s fingers are still drumming nervously on her limp right hand. Her lips quiver. After a moment, she grabs the blanket and pulls it over her face so all that is visible is the mass of her dark curls against the white pillow.
Eugénie turns away. She stretches out a hand towards her own bed as though she is feeling faint, and then collapses on to the mattress. Her whole body seems to sag. She brings a hand up to her face and takes a deep breath.
Geneviève does not dare move. When she realized what was happening, her breathing stopped for several seconds, a fact she only registered afterwards. To have experienced this phenomenon was one thing; to witness it felt like a miracle.
She goes over to Eugénie, who is slumped on the bed. Hearing the soft footsteps, the girl looks up, her face ashen. When she sees Geneviève, she sits up.
‘I saw what you just did.’
The two women stare at each other for a moment. They have not spoken since the night when Eugénie told Geneviève that her father had had a fall. Eugénie had been a little alarmed by the way she had received the message. Having spent an hour waiting for an apparition that did not come, suddenly the whole room had felt heavy as an overwhelming tiredness had coursed through her body. Everything seemed charged with electricity – her body, the furniture, even the locked door that had resisted Geneviève’s attempts to open it. She did not see Blandine: this time, she saw the images that Blandine was describing to her. They were like tinted photographs, like the pages of an album being turned before her eyes, the images vivid and precise, down to the slightest detail. She saw the father’s house, the kitchen, the table at which he had had dinner, the body of the man lying prone on the tiles, the gash above his eyebrow; she had seen the cemetery, too, the graves of mother and daughter, the tulips that the widower had laid. Blandine’s voice had been insistent, urgent: Geneviève had to be convinced to go there, and in the end, she was. She had fled the room and, when she did, Blandine had faded, and Eugénie had lain down on the bed but had not slept a wink. She had found the whole episode disturbing. She had only just become accustomed to the idea that she could see and hear the dead, and now suddenly she found she could see other things too; images, scenes that were not the product of her imagination. She felt manipulated, stripped of her very being: the Spirits used her energy and her temperament to convey their messages, only to abandon her in a state of utter exhaustion when they had no further use for her. She had no control over what was happening. She wondered about the purpose of having to endure these trances that were physically and psychologically draining. Having such a gift imposed on her didn’t seem reasonable.
Gradually, these fears had ceased to torment her. There was only one man who could give her an answer, and he was not here, but in a bookshop in the Rue Saint-Jacques.
Geneviève spots a group of nurses staring in their direction. Having recovered her usual strict demeanour, she jabs a finger at Eugénie.
‘Make your bed.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘We are being watched. We cannot simply chat as though we’re old friends. Make your bed, I said.’
Eugénie now notices the inquisitive looks of the nurses. Painfully, she gets up from the bed and shakes out her feather pillow. Geneviève continues to point as she makes up instructions.
‘I saw what you did with Louise. It was remarkable.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Tuck the sheet neatly between the mattress and the bedstead. Why do you say that?’
‘There is nothing remarkable about what I do – I hear voices, nothing more.’
‘The whole world would love to have such a gift.’
‘I would give them mine if I could. It serves me no purpose, beyond leaving me exhausted. I’ve finished making the bed. What should I do next?’
‘Make another.’
The two women move to the next bed, where Eugénie shakes out the pillows, folds and tucks the sheets and blankets. Geneviève continues to give instructions.
‘You are wrong to believe your gift serves no purpose.’
‘I do not know what more you want from me. You have the proof you asked for. Do you intend to help me or not?’
Eugénie angrily slams the pillow down
on the bed. The nurses’ attention is now entirely focused on the two women, particularly on Eugénie. They eye her warily, hands in the pockets of their uniforms lest they should need a bottle of ether.
The tense atmosphere does not last. Without warning, a strident voice breaks the silence.
‘Madame Geneviève!’
A nurse has just come on to the ward and is running towards the matron. There are bloodstains on her white uniform. The patients cease what they are doing and watch the panicked nurse dash between the rows of beds.
‘Madame, come quickly!’
‘What has happened?’
‘It’s Thérèse!’
Her face ashen, the young nurse stops in front of Geneviève.
‘The doctor told Thérèse that she was cured, and that she could leave the hospital.’
‘Well, then?’
‘She grabbed a pair of scissors and slit her wrists.’
Screams ring out around the dormitory. Some of the patients scramble to their feet, others collapse on to their beds. The nurses do their best to assuage this sudden assault on their troubled minds. In an instant, the atmosphere of general gaiety has soured. Louise throws off her blanket, her face full of dread.
‘Thérèse?’
Geneviève feels as if she is choking. The panic that is spreading from bed to bed confounds her senses. She is no longer in command. The delicate balance she has succeeded in creating on the ward is shattered – now, everything is slipping away from her.
‘Come, madame.’
Roused by the nurse’s voice, Geneviève hurries off. Eugénie, clutching a pillow to her breast, watches her go. Behind her, Louise is sobbing. She, too, feels as though she might dissolve into tears, but she holds back.
Geneviève knocks three times. She takes a breath, then clasps her hands behind her back, her fingers twitching nervously. Outside, it is dark. The hallways of the hospital are silent.
At length, a voice from within answers.
‘Enter.’
Geneviève turns the handle. Inside the office a man is hunched over the desk, and the scratching sound of a nib pen tells her he is making his final notes for the day.
The room is hushed, almost solemn. Oil lamps cast their warm light over the walls, the furniture and the thickset figure of the man who is recording his observations. The scent of stale cigar smoke drifts among the books and marble busts deposited around the room.
Timidly, Geneviève steps inside. The man is still bent over the desk, engrossed in his writing. He is dressed in a starched white shirt, a black tie, a dark waistcoat and a jacket. Whether alone or before an awestruck audience, he seems to maintain the same imposing presence, bringing a solemnity to any space he enters in a way that Geneviève has never seen equalled.
‘Dr Charcot?’
The man looks up at her. His drooping eyelids and downturned mouth give his face an aloof, preoccupied expression.
‘Geneviève. Take a seat.’
She sits facing the desk. She finds the presence of this man unsettling. She is not alone in this. She has witnessed patients faint at the touch of Charcot’s hand; seen others feign seizures in order to get his attention. On the rare occasions when he visits the ward, the atmosphere abruptly changes: from the moment he arrives the women simper, some show off, some fake a fever, others sob or plead, still others make the sign of the cross. The nurses giggle like startled schoolgirls. He is at once the man they desire, the father they wish they had had, the doctor they admire, the saviour of minds and souls. As for the doctors, assistants and students who trail behind him as he moves between the beds, they too form a faithful, deferential entourage that further reinforces the status of the man whose authority in the hospital is unchallenged.
It is not good to heap so much praise upon one man. Geneviève, though she does not show it, plays a significant part in this. In her eyes, the neurologist embodies everything that is great about science and medicine. Much more than any husband she might have had, Charcot is a master and she, his fortunate pupil.
In the quiet of the office, the man continues to make notes in his files.
‘I am not accustomed to receiving you in my office. Do you have a particular concern?’
‘I wished to speak to you about a patient. Eugénie Cléry.’
‘Do you have any idea how many patients we have here at the Salpêtrière?’
‘The girl who communicates with the dead.’
Charcot’s nib hovers over the page and he looks up at the matron. Then he sets his pen down in the inkwell and leans back in his chair.
‘Yes, Babinski has spoken to me about her. Is it true?’ Geneviève has been dreading this question. If she admits that Eugénie does communicate with the Spirits, she will be deemed a heretic. She will not be treated, but imprisoned, and will never again feel the warm breeze of the outside world. If, on the other hand, Geneviève says Eugénie is making it up, the girl will be considered a common mythomaniac.
‘I can only say that, while I have been observing her, she has never displayed any sign of abnormality. She has no place being here with the other women.’
Charcot knits his brows and thinks for a moment.
‘When was she admitted?’
‘On the fourth of March.’
‘It is too early to decide whether or not it would be right to release her.’
‘Perhaps, but it is also not right to keep a sane woman among hundreds of lunatics.’
The man studies Geneviève for a brief moment. The legs of his chair grate as he pushes himself back and gets to his feet. He goes to a box of cigars he keeps on top of a cabinet and opens it.
‘If this girl truly does hear voices, then there is a neurological issue to be investigated. If she is lying, then she is deranged. Like the patient who claims to be Napoleon’s consort, Joséphine de Beauharnais, or the other one who insists that she is the Virgin Mary.’
Geneviève feels a sudden spasm of frustration. She too gets to her feet. Behind the desk, Charcot lights his cigar.
‘Forgive me, doctor, but Eugénie Cléry has nothing in common with those women. I have been working on this ward for long enough to know.’
‘Since when did you start pleading the case of patients, Geneviève?’
‘Doctor, the Lenten Ball is in three days. The nurses are under particular stress during this period. Furthermore, the whole ward has been unsettled by the incidents involving Louise, and now Thérèse. This is no place for a young woman who hasn’t shown any symptoms—’
‘I was told you had placed her in isolation?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘After her medical examination, Babinski told me about her extraordinary outburst. You put her in isolation, did you not?’
Geneviève is taken aback. She struggles not to look away: that would be an admission of weakness. She is familiar with the acuity of a doctor’s eye; she has experienced it with her father all her life. By dint of their profession, they miss nothing: a wound, an anomaly, a confusion, a tic, a weakness. They can read you, whether you wish them to or not.
‘That is correct, I placed her in isolation. It is standard procedure.’
‘You cannot have failed to notice, then, that this young woman is troubled. Whether mythomaniac or medium, she is aggressive and dangerous. This is exactly the right place for her.’
Still holding his cigar, Charcot resumes his seat and returns to his notes.
‘In future, Geneviève, I would be grateful if you did not bother me with individual cases. Your role in this hospital is to care for the patients, not diagnose them. I’ll thank you not to overstep the bounds of your work here.’
The remark rumbles around the room like an explosion. Having returned to his notes, the man studiously ignores the woman he has just admonished. It is a calculated humiliation. Relegated to the status of a common nursing auxiliary by this man who came to the Salpêtrière after she did. In the eyes of this man she has placed above all others, her years of loyalty
and her devoted service have not earned her the right to have an opinion.
Geneviève stands for a moment, stunned. She is speechless. Just as she used to do when summoned to her father’s consulting room to be scolded, she bows her head and clenches her fists to stop herself from crying. She takes the reprimand without a word, then leaves the room so as not to further disturb the doctor who has returned to his work, completely oblivious to her presence.
11
17 March 1885
Coffee is poured into small porcelain cups. Around the table there is the clink of cutlery. The baguette bought fresh only this morning is still hot enough to burn fingertips when tearing into the crust. Outside, a heavy rain pummels the windowpanes.
Théophile mechanically stirs the dark, steaming liquid. He can no longer bear the silence of these family breakfasts – a silence utterly indifferent to the empty chair that now sits facing him. The name Eugénie is no longer mentioned in the house, as though his sister had never existed. Her absence over the past two weeks has not changed the family’s routine. The mute mornings are the same. The family butter their bread, dip biscuits into their cups, eat omelettes, blow on their coffee to cool it.
A voice wakes him from his brooding trance.
‘Not eating your breakfast, Théophile?’
The young man looks up. Next to him, his grandmother holds his gaze as she sips her tea. He finds the old woman’s smile unbearable. He balls his fists beneath the table.
‘I don’t have much appetite, Grandmother.’
‘You have been off your food lately.’
Théophile decides not to answer. He would still be eating his fill if this seemingly gentle old woman had not betrayed the trust her granddaughter had placed in her. Her careworn face is a lie: it makes her seem tender and compassionate; her gnarled hand is always reaching out to stroke a younger face, her blue eyes lingering lovingly. And yet, but for this grand master in the art of treachery, Eugénie would be sitting here at breakfast with them. This woman, who has grown neither wise nor senile with age, must have known all too well what would happen when she revealed the secret entrusted to her.