I'm Gone by Jean Echenoz

Author:Jean Echenoz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620970010
Publisher: The New Press

19

Isn’t it about time Ferrer settled down? Will he forever accumulate these sorry affairs, whose outcome he knows in advance, about which he no longer even imagines, as he once did, that this time it’s for real? Now he seems to give up at the first obstacle: after that business with Extatics Elixir, he didn’t even think of looking up Bérangère’s new address, and after the Babyphone episode he never tried to see Sonia again. Can he really have grown so blasé?

Meanwhile, since he had some time to spare, he went back to see the cardiologist about his latest results. “We’re going to do that little ECG I told you about,” Feldman said. “Come with me.” The room was plunged in a light shadow pierced by three computer screens, though you could still see three awful reproductions on the walls, two angiology diplomas awarded to Feldman by foreign institutions, and a frame containing, under glass, photographs of his loved ones, including a dog. Ferrer undressed and lay down, naked except for his undershorts, on the examination bed covered with absorbent blue paper. He shivered a little despite the heat. “Relax your muscles, lie back,” Feldman said after programming his machines.

Then the cardiologist began applying the tip of a black oblong, a sort of electronic pencil coated in conductive gel, to various parts of Ferrer’s body, different places on his neck, underarms, thighs, ankles, and the corners of his eyes. Each time the pencil touched one of these areas, the noise of amplified arterial pounding sounded loudly in the computer’s baffles, frightening sounds that were at once part sonar murmur, part brief gust of violent wind, the barking of a stuttering bulldog, or the panting of a Martian. So Ferrer listened to his arteries while, synchronically, wave flashes delivering their image appeared as peaks parading across the screen.

The whole thing lasted for a good while, then: “Not so great,” Feldman observed, pulling Ferrer from the bed where he was reclining and tossing him another sheet of absorbent blue paper that he wiped over his body to mop up the smears of sticky gel. “Really not so great,” Feldman repeated. “Goes without saying you’ll have to be careful from now on. You’re going to pay a little more attention to that diet I put you on. And forgive me for being blunt, but you’re going to have to stop fucking around so much for a while.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be a problem,” said Ferrer.

“One more thing,” said Feldman. “Avoid exposure to extreme temperatures, not too cold or too hot. It can be disastrous for someone in your condition. Anyway,” he snickered, “I don’t suppose you get much opportunity for that in your line of work.”

“Right you are,” said Ferrer, not uttering a word about his trip to the extreme North.

Right now it’s a July morning. The city is relatively quiet; a climate of unexpressed mourning reigns over everything, and Ferrer is sitting alone at a sidewalk café in Place Saint-Sulpice with a beer.

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