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"How much time have I got left?" said Veronika again, while the nurse gave her the injection.
"Twenty-four hours, perhaps less."
She looked down and bit her lip but managed to maintain her composure.
"I want to ask two favors. First, that you give me some medication, an injection or whatever, so that I can stay awake and enjoy every moment that remains of my life. I'm very tired, but I don't want to sleep. I've got a lot to do, things that I always postponed for some future date, in the days when I thought life would last forever. Things I'd lost interest in, when I started to believe that life wasn't worth living."
"And what's the second favor?"
"I want to leave here so that I can die outside. I need to visit Ljubljana castle. It's always been there, and I've never even had the curiosity to go and see it at close range. I need to talk to the woman who sells chestnuts in winter and flowers in the spring. We passed each other so often, and I never once asked her how she was. And I want to go out without a jacket and walk in the snow, I want to find out what extreme cold feels like, I, who was always so well wrapped up, so afraid of catching a cold.
"In short, Dr. Igor, I want to feel the rain on my face, to smile at any man I feel attracted to, to accept all the coffees men might buy for me. I want to kiss my mother, tell her I love her, weep in her lap, unashamed of showing my feelings, because they were always there even though I hid them.
"I might go into a church and look at those images that never meant anything to me and see if they say something to me now. If an interesting man invites me out to a club, I'll accept, and I'll dance all night until I drop. Then I'll go to bed with him, but not the way I used to go to bed with other men, trying to stay in control, pretending things I didn't feel. I want to give myself to one man, to the city, to life and, finally, to death."
When Veronika had finished speaking, there was a heavy silence. Doctor and patient looked each other in the eye, absorbed, perhaps distracted by all the many possibilities that a mere twenty-four hours could offer.
"I'm going to give you some stimulants, but I do
n't recommend you take them," Dr. Igor said at last. "They'll keep you awake, but they'll also take away the peace you need in order to experience everything you want to experience."
Veronika was starting to feel ill; whenever she was given that injection, something bad always happened inside her body.
"You're looking very pale. Perhaps you'd better go to bed, and we'll talk again tomorrow."
Once more she felt like crying, but she remained in control.
"There won't be a tomorrow, as you well know. I'm tired, Dr. Igor, very tired. That's why I asked for the tablets. I spent all night awake, half desperate, half resigned. I could succumb to another hysterical attack of fear, as happened yesterday, but what's the point? If I've still got twenty-four hours of life left, and there are so many experiences waiting for me, I decided it would be better to put aside despair.
"Please, Dr. Igor, let me live a little of the time remaining to me, because we both know that tomorrow will be too late."
"Go and sleep," said the doctor, "and come back here at midday. Then we'll speak again."
Veronika saw there was no way out.
"I'll go and sleep and then I'll come back, but could I just talk to you for a few more minutes?"
"It'll have to be a few. I'm very busy today."
"I'll come straight to the point. Last night, for the first time, I masturbated in a completely uninhibited way. I thought all the things I'd never dared to think, I took pleasure in things that before frightened or repelled me."
Dr. Igor assumed his most professional air. He didn't know where this conversation might lead, and he didn't want any problems with his superiors.
"I discovered that I'm a pervert, doctor. I want to know if that played some part in my attempted suicide. There are so many things I didn't know about myself."
I just have to give her an answer, he thought. There's no need to call in the nurse to witness the conversation, to avoid any future lawsuits for sexual abuse.
"We all want different things," he replied. "And our partners do too. What's wrong with that?"
"You tell me."
"There's everything wrong with it. Because when everyone dreams, but only a few realize their dreams, that makes cowards of us all."
"Even if those few are right?"
"The person who's right is just the person who's strongest. In this case, paradoxically, it's the cowards who are the brave ones, and they manage to impose their ideas on everyone else."
Dr. Igor didn't want to go any further.
