Veronika Decides to Die. Пауло Коэльо

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      When she opened her eyes again for the first time, she realised that she had been moved; she was in what looked like a large ward. She still had a drip in her arm, but all the other wires and needles had been removed.

      A tall doctor, wearing the traditional white coat, in sharp contrast to the artificial black of his dyed hair and beard, was standing at the foot of her bed. Beside him, a young junior doctor holding a clipboard was taking notes.

      ‘How long have I been here?’ she asked, noticing that she spoke with some difficulty, slurring her words slightly.

      ‘You’ve been in this ward for two weeks, after five days spent in the Intensive Care Unit,’ replied the older man. ‘And just be grateful that you’re still here.’

      The younger man seemed surprised, as if that final remark did not quite fit the facts. Veronika noticed his reaction at once, and her instincts were alerted: had she been here longer? Was she still in some danger? She began to pay attention to each gesture, each movement the two men made; she knew it was pointless asking questions, they would never tell her the truth, but if she was clever, she could find out what was going on.

      ‘Tell me your name, address, marital status and date of birth,’ the older man said. Veronika knew her name, her marital status and her date of birth, but she realised there were blanks in her memory: she couldn’t quite remember her address.

      The doctor shone a light in her eyes and examined them for a long time, in silence. The young man did the same thing. They exchanged glances, which meant absolutely nothing.

      ‘Did you say to the night nurse that we couldn’t see into your soul?’ asked the younger man.

      Veronika couldn’t remember. She was having difficulty knowing who she was and what she was doing there.

      ‘You have been kept in an artificially induced sleep with tranquillisers, and that might affect your memory a bit, but please try to answer all our questions.’

      And the doctors began an absurd questionnaire, wanting to know the names of the principal Ljubljana newspapers, the name of the poet whose statue was in the main square (ah, that she would never forget, every Slovene has the image of Prešeren engraved on his or her soul), the colour of her mother’s hair, the names of her colleagues at work, the titles of the most popular books at the library.

      To begin with, Veronika considered not replying – her memory was still confused – but as the questionnaire continued, she began reconstructing what she’d forgotten. At one point, she remembered that she was now in a mental hospital, and that the mad were not obliged to be coherent; but, for her own good, and to keep the doctors by her side, in order to see if she could find out something more about her state, she began making a mental effort. As she recited the names and facts, she was recovering not only her memory, but also her personality, her desires, her way of seeing life. The idea of suicide, which, that morning, appeared buried beneath several layers of sedatives, resurfaced.

      ‘Fine,’ said the older man, at the end of the questionnaire.

      ‘How much longer must I stay here?’

      The younger man lowered his eyes, and she felt as if everything were hanging in the air, as if, once that question was answered, a new chapter of her life would be written, and no one would be able to change it.

      ‘You can tell her,’ said the older man. ‘A lot of other patients have already heard the rumours, and she’ll find out in the end anyway; it’s impossible to keep secrets round here.’

      ‘Well, you decided your own fate,’ sighed the young man, weighing each word. ‘So you had better know the consequence of your actions: during the coma brought on by the pills you took, your heart was irreversibly damaged. There was a necrosis of the ventricle…’

      ‘Put it in layman’s terms,’ said the older man. ‘Get straight to the point.’

      ‘Your heart was irreversibly damaged and soon it will stop beating altogether.’

      ‘What does that mean?’ she asked, frightened.

      ‘If your heart stops beating, that means only one thing, death. I don’t know what your religious beliefs are, but…’

      ‘When will my heart stop beating?’ СКАЧАТЬ