"You told me a love story. I honestly believe your parents wanted the best for you, but their love almost destroyed your life. If Our Lady, as she appeared in my grandmother's painting, was treading on a snake, that indicates that love has two faces."
"I see what you mean," said Eduard. "I provoked the nurses into giving me the electric shock treatment, because you get me all mixed up. I can't say for sure what I feel, and love has already destroyed me once."
"Don't be afraid. Today I asked Dr. Igor for permission to leave here and to choose a place where I can close my eyes forever. But when I saw you being held down by the nurses, I realized what it was I wanted to be looking at when I left this world: your face. And I decided not to leave.
"While you were sleeping off the effects of the electric shock treatment, I had another heart attack, and I thought my time had come. I looked at your face, and I tried to guess what your story was, and I prepared myself to die happy. But death didn't come, my heart survived yet again, perhaps because I'm still young."
He looked down.
"Don't be embarrassed about being loved. I'm not asking you for anything; just let me love you and play the piano again tonight, just once more, if I still have the strength to do it. In exchange I ask only one thing: If you hear anyone say that I'm dying, go straight to my ward. Let me have my wish."
Eduard remained silent for a long time, and Veronika thought he must have retreated once more into his separate world, from which he would not return for a long time.
Then he looked at the mountains beyond the walls of Villete and said: "If you want to leave, I can take you. Just give me time to grab a couple of jackets and some money. Then we'll go."
"It won't last long, Eduard. You do know that."
Eduard didn't reply. He went in and came back at once carrying two jackets.
"It will last an eternity, Veronika; longer than all the identical days and nights I've spent in here, constantly trying to forget those visions of paradise. And I almost did forget them, too, though it seems to me they're coming back.
"Come on, let's go. Crazy people do crazy things."
That night, when they were all gathered together for supper, the inmates noticed that four people were missing.
ZEDKA, WHO everyone knew had been released after a long period of treatment; Mari, who had probably gone to the movies, as she often did; and Eduard, who had perhaps not recovered from the electric shock treatment. When they thought this, all the inmates felt afraid, and they began their supper in silence.
Finally, the girl with green eyes and brown hair was missing. The one who they all knew would not see out the week.
No one spoke openly of death in Villete, but absences were noted, although everyone always tried to behave as if nothing had happened.
A rumor started to go from table to table. Some wept, because she had been so full of life and now she would be lying in the small mortuary behind the hospital. Only the most daring ever went there, even during daylight hours. It contained three marble tables, and there was generally a new body on one of them, covered with a sheet.
Everyone knew that tonight Veronika would be there. Those who were truly insane soon forgot the presence, during that week, of another guest, who sometimes disturbed everyone's sleep playing the piano. A few, when they heard the news, felt rather sad, especially the nurses who had been with Veronika during her time in the Intensive Care Unit, but the employees had been trained not to develop strong bonds with the patients, because some left, others died, and the great majority got steadily worse. Their sadness lasted a little longer, and then that too passed.
The vast majority of the inmates, however, heard the news, pretended to be shocked and sad, but actually felt relieved because once more the exterminating angel had passed over Villete, and they had been spared.
When the Fraternity got together after supper, one member of the group gave them a message: Mari had not gone to the movies, she had left, never to return, and had given him a note.
NO ONE seemed to attach much importance to the matter: She had always seemed different, rather too crazy, incapable of adapting to the ideal situation in which they all lived in Villete.
'Mari never understood how happy we are here,' said one of them. "We are friends with common interests, we have a routine, sometimes we go out on trips together, invite lecturers here to talk about important matters, then we discuss their ideas. Our life has reached a perfect equilibrium, something that many people outside would love to achieve."
'Not to mention the fact that in Villete we are protected from unemployment, the consequences of the war in Bosnia, from economic problems and violence," said another. "We have found harmony."
'Mari left me this note," said the one who had given them the news, holding up a sealed envelope. "She asked me to read it out loud, as if she were saying good-bye to us all."
The oldest member of the group opened the envelope and did as Mari had asked. He was tempted to stop halfway, but by then it was too late, and so he read to the end.
"When I was still a young lawyer, I read some poems by an English poet, and something he said impressed me greatly: 'Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains.' I always thought he was wrong. It was dangerous to overflow, because we might end up flooding areas occupied by our loved ones and drowning them with our love and enthusiasm. All my life I did my best to be a cistern, never going beyond the limits of my inner walls.
"Then, for some reason I will never understand, I began suffering from panic attacks. I became the kind of person I had fought so hard to avoid becoming: I became a fountain that overflowed and flooded everything around me. The result was my internment in Villete.
"After I was cured, I returned to the cistern and I met all of you. Thank you for your friendship, for your affection, and for many happy moments. We lived together like fish in an aquarium, contented because someone threw us food when we needed it, and we could, whenever we wanted to, see the world outside through the glass.
"But yesterday, because of a piano and a young woman who is probably dead by now, I learned something very important: Life inside is exactly the same as life outside. Both there and here, people gather together in groups; they build their walls and allow nothing strange to trouble their mediocre existences. They do things because they're used to doing them, they study useless subjects, they have fun because they're supposed to have fun, and the rest of the world can go hang--let them sort themselves out. At the very most, they watch the news on television--as we often did--as confirmation of their happiness in a world full of problems and injustices.
"What I'm saying is that the life of the Fraternity is exactly the same as the lives of almost everyone outside Villete, carefully avoiding all knowledge of what lies beyond the glass walls of the aquarium. For a long time it was comforting and useful, but people change, and now I'm off in search of adventure, even though I'm sixty-five and fully aware of all the limitations that age can bring. I'm going to Bosnia. There are people waiting for me there. Although they don't yet know me, and I don't know them. But I'm sure I can be useful, and the danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort."