Jean-Christophe Grangé - The Empire Of The Wolves

She saw the patients' heads, shaved, inserted in a square casing. A sort of metal cube that was screwed onto their temples. The frame was topped by a trepan-like a drill.

She followed the illustrations of each step of the operation: the bit piercing the bone, the scalpel entering the opening and in turn penetrating the dura mater that encircled the brain, the hollow-headed needle going inside the cerebrum. In one of the photographs, the pinkish color of the organ could even be seen while the surgeon was extracting the probe.

Anything but that.

Anna had made a resolution. She had to get a second opinion, find another specialist, and quickly, who would suggest a different treatment.

She rushed into a café on Boulevard Saint-Germain, ran downstairs to the phone and thumbed through the directory. After several fruitless requests to absent or overbooked doctors, she finally came across a certain Mathilde Wilcrau, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who was apparently available.

The woman's voice was deep, but her tone was light, almost mischievous. Anna briefly mentioned her memory problems and insisted on how urgent the situation was. The psychiatrist agreed to see her at once. Near the Panthéon, just five minutes away from Odéon.

Anna was now sitting alone in a small waiting room full of old, carved and varnished furniture that seemed to come straight from the Chateau de Versailles. She looked at the photographs on the walls. They depicted images of sporting exploits in the most extreme conditions.

In one of them, someone was taking wing from the side of a mountain, suspended on a hang glider. In the next, a hooded climber was ascending a wall of ice. In another, a sharpshooter dressed in a ski suit and watch cap was taking aim at an unseen target.

"My exploits of yesteryear."

Anna turned around toward the voice.

Mathilde Wilcrau was a large broad-shouldered woman with a radiant smile. Her arms burst out from her suit brutally and almost incongruously. Her long, slender legs were curvaceously muscular. Between forty and fifty, thought Anna as she noticed her wrinkled eyelids and crow's-feet. But this woman was to be evaluated in terms of energy, not age. It was more a question of mega wattage than years.

The psychiatrist moved aside. "Step this way."

The consulting room matched the antechamber: wood, marble and gold. Anna sensed that this woman's true nature lay more in the photographs of her exploits than in these rather precious furnishings.

They sat on either side of the flame-colored desk. The doctor picked up a fountain pen and jotted down the usual information on a ruled notepad: name, age, address… Anna was tempted to give a false identity, but she had sworn to herself to be completely open.

While answering, she observed the woman in front of her. She was struck by her brilliant, ostentatious, almost American manner. Her brown hair glistened on her shoulders. Her broad, regular features scintillated around her extremely red, sensual mouth, which drew one's eyes. She thought of crystallized fruit, full of sugar and energy. This woman inspired immediate trust.

"So what's the problem?" she asked merrily.

Anna tried to be brief. "I have memory gaps."

"What sort of gaps?"

"I don't recognize familiar faces."

"None of them?"

"Especially my husband."

"Be more precise. You don't recognize him at all? Never?"

"No. They come in short fits. Suddenly, his face means nothing to me. A complete stranger. Until recently, these attacks only lasted a second. But they seem to be getting longer."

Mathilde tapped the page with the nib of her pen: a black lacquered Montblanc. Anna noticed that she had discreetly taken off her shoes.

"Is that all?"

She hesitated. "The opposite also sometimes happens "

"The opposite?"

"I think I recognize strangers' faces."

"For example?"

“In particular, with one person. I've been working in the Maison du Chocolat, on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, for the last month. There's a regular customer. A man in his forties. Every time he comes into the shop, I get the feeling I know him. But I've never managed to locate a precise memory"

"And what does he say?"

"Nothing. Apparently he's never seen me anywhere but behind my counter."

Beneath the desk, the psychiatrist was wriggling her toes in her black tights. There was something wickedly sparkling about her entire being.

"So to sum up, you don't recognize the people you should recognize, but you do recognize the people you shouldn't, is that it?" She lengthened the final syllables in a strange way, like the vibrato of a cello.

"Well, yes, you could put it like that."

"Have you tried a good pair of glasses?"

Anna suddenly felt furious. A burning sensation rose up her face. How could she make fun of her illness? She got to her feet and grabbed her bag.

Mathilde Wilcrau grabbed her arm. "Sorry-I was only joking. It was silly of me. Please, do stay"

Anna froze. That red smile was enveloping her like a benevolent halo. Her resistance faded. She allowed herself to drop down onto the chair.

The psychiatrist went back to her place and her modulated tone returned. "So, shall we proceed? Do you sometimes feel uneasy in front of other faces? I mean, the ones you pass every day. in the street, in public places?"

"Yes. But that's a different sensation. I suffer from… some kind of hallucinations. On the bus, at a dinner party, anywhere. The faces mingle together, mixing and forming hideous masks. I no longer dare look at anyone. Soon I won't be able to go outdoors…"

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-one."

"And how long have you been suffering from these symptoms?”

“For about six weeks."

"Are they accompanied by a physical malaise?"

"No… Well, yes. Signs of anxiety, mostly Trembling. My body becomes heavy. My limbs freeze. Sometimes it feels as though I'm suffocating. Recently I got a nosebleed."

"But otherwise you're in good health?"

"Fine. Nothing wrong at all."

The psychiatrist paused. She was writing on her notepad. "Do you suffer from any other memory blocks? About your past life, for instance?"

Anna nodded rapidly and replied: "Yes. Some of my memories are losing their consistency. They seem to be drifting away, fading…”

“Which? Ones about your husband?"

She stiffened against the wooden back of the chair. "Why are you asking me that?"

"Apparently, it's mostly his face that sparks off the attacks. Your past life with him may be posing the problem."

Anna sighed. This woman was talking to her as if her state might have been provoked by her feelings or subconscious. As if she was willing away certain parts of her memory. This idea was totally different from how Ackermann saw the problem. But wasn't it just this that she had come to hear?

"That's true," she conceded. "My memories of being with Laurent are breaking up and vanishing." She paused for a moment, then continued more firmly: "But in a way, that's logical."

"Why?"

"Laurent's the center of my life and of my memory. Most of what I can remember involves him. Before the Maison du Chocolat, I was just a housewife. Our married life was my sole preoccupation."

"You've never worked?"

Anna adopted a bitter, self-disparaging tone. "I've got a law degree, but I've never set foot in a lawyer's office. I have no children. Laurent is my 'one and all,' if you like, my sole horizon…"

"How long have you been married?"

"Eight years."

"Do you have normal sexual relations?"

"What do you call 'normal'?"

"Dull. Tedious."

Anna did not understand.

The smile grew broader. "Another joke. All I want to know is if you have sex regularly"