Artopoulos froze, giving me a very serious look, as if deliberating on some thorny dilemma. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Most unfortunate. I—I was … I was trying to…” His voice trailed off, his mouth open as if about to speak, but unable to articulate the words intended to pass through it. He was perfectly conflicted between two equal and opposite desires: the desire to reveal himself and the desire to remain hidden. At last, I thought, the veil of civility is about to fall away. At last, he is going to tell me who he really is. He is going to tell me what he can do. He is going to tell me that in fact he wasn’t making advances on those men at all, that what he was actually doing to those men was holding their faces still so that he could look them in the eyes. He is going to tell me that it is impossible to force a man to look you in the eye, that an eyeball is a slippery and rubbery thing that cannot be controlled, that it is easier to pop it out of its socket than to keep it still, that it is simpler to blind a man than to make him look. Then finally he is going to tell me why he is here, and what he wants from me. He is going to tell me that he was responsible for the murders of Lucien, of Édmonde, for their eyeless bodies, for their lives cut short. And finally he is going to tell me that I am the one ultimately responsible for his crimes, that I started it all, all those generations ago, when I deprived him of his body, his friends, his world.

“There’s something you should know,” he said at last.

“What’s that?”

“I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that you know.”

“And what do I know?”

“Everything. Everything there is to know.”

“So why speak in circles, why not just say it?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to push you away. Because you’re the only friend I have. You’re the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“Nonsense. You have many friends. Many more than I have.”

“No. Without you, I have no one. You’re the only one who knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Everything.”

Evidently, that was all I was going to get out of him. I suppose it was a confession, of sorts, or as close to one as someone as secretive as Artopoulos could manage. I waited for him to say more, but by now he was just sitting on the couch opposite me, staring sadly into nothing.

“Well, your performance has earned you twelve weeks’ respite here at the hospital,” I said. “It’s a start.”

“What good will it have done if I have to go back? The war won’t end in three months.”

“But you’re not sick. So technically you’re on a holiday to which you’re not entitled.”