Murder in the Bastille

“Nervous?”

“Me?” she said, hoping her voice didn’t crack with tension.

Chantal had taught her to endow someone with a face or a feature, to “give looks to voices.” She turned to the voice and nodded. The movement felt more natural, less odd than before.

“Ba wey,” said the young nurse for bien oui, with that hesitant Parisien drawl. Aimee felt her slowly expelled breath. “Can’t stand enclosed spaces myself, but Dr. Lambert will be staying with you. That’s quite unusual, you know.”

An eye surgeon and head of the department at the MRI? Didn’t they have technicians for that? But she was reassured. She wouldn’t mind having him explain what he saw or giving her the chance to ask questions.

A buzz of voices met them in the imaging department.

“Dr. Lambert, the cranial sac shows distension . . .”

“Here’s the case we’re going to study: female suffering severe blunt trauma to the head, partial asphyxiation, and subsequent vision blurring and loss.”

Great. She was to be his guinea pig for students. And he hadn’t even told her.

“You forgot the resulting concussion, Dr. Lambert,” she said.

Silence.

“So I did, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “Anything else slip my mind, or does that about cover it?”

A snicker came from somewhere in the shuffling group she felt standing ahead of her.

“You’re the doctor,” she said. “I hope you explain everything. And the real prognosis.”

“This is the type of patient, doctors, that will be your rare curse and luck to treat,” he said, his voice serious. “Strong-willed and a fighter.”

What about smart?

And despite the fear gnawing at her insides, she focused on his voice explaining the neurons, ganglia, arteries, veins, and whatnot causing the trouble. Or what seemed to.

“Notice the nice embolizing technique of Robards, the neurologist at hopital Saint Antoine,” Dr. Lambert said. “He redirected the bloodflow and supported the blood vessel at the weakened site. Not in a textbook, but it makes good sense. Remember that.”

Aimee concentrated on Dr. Lambert’s words, but even with a few years of pre-med, she felt lost. Nevertheless, she could appreciate Lambert’s observations, his way of injecting guidance, of teaching them to think. Maybe if she’d had a professor like that in the ecole des medicins she’d have stayed. But then the dissection of corpses had gotten to her.

She took a deep breath as the gurney wheeled ahead. They wrapped sheets over her and slipped her into something that echoed. Drafts of air shot across her. And from all around the noise of the giant machine, as it powered up, enveloped her. As if she’d been shoved inside a wind tunnel.

From outside came the muted clacking of equipment, moving of knobs and other adjustments.

“Try these earplugs; it gets noisy,” said a loud voice. “Small space bother you?”

“A little.” She was terrified.

“Try to remain still.”

The nurse had given her small sponges, telling her to let out her tension by squeezing them. At least they kept her fingernails from digging into her palms.

THE STUDENTS had gone and Dr. Lambert stood near her. Elevator bells pinged down the hallway. The smell of the hospital laundry soap clung to his lab coat. She managed to sit up, then to stand.

“Got a clearer idea of the problem, Doctor?”

“Right now I’ve got a clearer picture of what’s not the problem,” he said. “The brain stem’s a complicated highway. But, to tell you the truth, the doctor who reads the MRIs won’t analyze the films and report until tomorrow.”

Great. Her knowledge had increased by zero.

“Let me reexamine your eyes. I want to check something,” he said. “Tell me if anything changes.”

She felt his hand on her chin, lifting it up. He must be tall. His fingers lifted the edge of her eyelid. Gently. A metallic clicking sounded by her nose.

Desperately she wanted to see. Anything. A blur, something. She tried.

Only darkness.

He pushed her hair off her forehead. His hands were warm.

“You want it straight?”

“Will I need a drink to hear this?”

“Are you always so . . .?”

“Feisty?” she interrupted. “Only when I’m scared, only when my life’s collapsing. Otherwise I’m easy.”

“Your life will change, it has to,” he said. Something moved on the linoleum, as if his feet shuffled. “But it doesn’t have to fall apart. Shall we have that drink?”

Now she was really scared.

“Fine, let’s hit an Orangina machine in the lobby,” she said. “My treat.”

She thought back to books she’d read about Helen Keller, all unkempt and wild with rage before she learned Braille, and that movie, Wait Until Dark, with Audrey Hepburn, blind and gorgeous in Givenchy, defeating killers. But she wasn’t like either of them.

It hit her like a load of bricks. Her vision loss was permanent. She didn’t need him to spell it out. She needed to find somewhere to fall apart, but not in front of him. Then somehow she’d manage to call Rene.

She realized how nice Dr. Lambert was. He’d cared enough to find her a place to stay. He’d tried. Above and beyond his duty. The poor guy must have a heavy schedule, case overload, and a wife and kids dying to see him after a long workday.

“Look, let’s make it some other time. You’ve got a life, probably a big day of surgery and appointments tomorrow,” she said, giving him a way out. “We can talk when the detailed MRI report comes in. Unless, of course, I wake up to a halo of miraculous light and can finally do my nails. Then I’m out of here.”

“You know that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile,” he said.

Had she smiled? She felt warmth spreading over her hand. From his.

“Let’s go,” he said. He placed her hand on his bended arm. “Amaze me with all the tricks Chantal’s taught you.”

Perform like a circus animal?

“What do you mean?” Dumbfounded, she stood paralyzed.

“Relax. You’re pretty uptight. Show me how you walk on rue Charenton to the bar- tabac on the corner of rue Moreau, for a start,” he said. “Or do you have stage fright?”

She didn’t want to go to a lighted, noisy bar full of people. Or to pass by the passage where she had been attacked. She wanted to crawl into a hole, curl up, and cry.

“Scared?”

“Me? Where’s that bar?” She strode ahead, pulling him along with her and prayed to God she didn’t run into a pillar or stone wall.

BY SOME odd quirk of fate, she’d been to the bar-tabac on the corner of rue Moreau. It was on the rainy night she’d parked in the Opera parking lot and the attendant had showed her the shortcut through hopital Quinze-Vingts. She’d stopped for a quick espresso, knowing she was late for the impromptu Populax meeting but figuring she’d need to key up with caffeine to match Vincent’s nervous energy.

She remembered the fifties-style bar, but not its name. Comfortable and utterly Parisian, like the one around the corner from her apartment. They still existed. Timeworn, with a stumpy, rounded counter. The soccer calendars with team schedules on the nicotine-burnished walls. The smudged, beveled mirror with the specials written in white over the Lavazza coffee machine, crowned by rows of cups. Upside-down liquor bottles anchored to the wall with silver stop-cocks that gave metered doses. The brown mosaic tile floor littered with sugar cube wrapping and cigarette butts, where one bumped elbows with neighbors. Not chic but centime-conscious.

“Later on they sing,” Dr. Lambert said, taking her elbow and guiding her onto a leather banquette. “Clothilde shuts the place at midnight, the accordion player hands out sheet music, and people stay until dawn.”

Clothilde. Where had she heard that name?