Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker

Author:Patricia Duncker [Duncker, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-202854-9
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1996-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

ST JEAN

She unlocked this door carefully and looked around as we entered. Then she relocked the door. It was a large open space, sparsely furnished; a television muttered, high up on the wall. The windows were barred and blocked out with thick, opaque squares of reinforced glass. There was dirt on the floor, crumpled paper flung behind chairs, the smell was unmistakable, urine and excrement. Two men, with horribly distorted purple faces and vacant stares, shuffled endlessly in the space. They were white, thin, gaunt; one of them had an arm, twisted and stiff, held against his chest. They smelled unwashed, fusty and old.

Dr Vaury greeted both of them by name and shook hands as if they were rational, living beings. But she did not introduce me, she simply nodded and I followed her into an office that was also a kitchen. A woman working among her papers looked up.

“Pascale—bonjour …” They began discussing another patient.

I looked at the filing cabinets, the begonia. The office was human, warm; but the stench persisted. It was everywhere. I felt a great wave of nausea coming up from my stomach.

“Follow me, please.” We went on, deeper and deeper, into the body of Leviathan. Two more doors, unlocked and relocked. And then we were in a corridor with separate bedrooms. The smell was unbearable, a sharp acrid gust of recent human piss. I glanced through one of the open doors; the room was in chaos, with clothes flung on the floor, against the radiator, a broken plastic pot still spinning on the floor, the walls were smeared with fresh excrement.

A large blond man in impeccable starched white stepped out of the room and greeted us. He shook hands with me. He was cordial, cheerful, reassuring.

“So you’ve come to see Paul Michel? He doesn’t have many visitors.” He smiled warmly. “This is my service. I shouldn’t think you’ve seen a unit like this before. Don’t worry. I’ve told him you’re coming. Would you like to wait in the day room at the end of the corridor?”

There was no door. I went into another sparse, dark space with a chattering television, fixed to the wall, well out of reach. There were four heavy rubber chairs with metal tube frames. There was a large games table, bar football, screwed to the floor. And nothing else. There were no magazines, no pictures, no carpets. The walls were a dull green gloss paint. The single window was masked and barred. The sunlight was obscured. The smell of feces was overpowering.

“I’ll tell him you’re here,” said the immaculate white nurse, with a huge, glowing smile. “He’ll be right along. Dr Vaury and I are within earshot just up the corridor if you need us.”

I leaned against the wall, shaking. There was no ashtray, no ventilation. I didn’t ask for permission. I lit a cigarette. I didn’t hear him come in. At first the room was empty. Then there was a man standing terribly close to me, too close, looking straight into my face.

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