“Please forgive me. I love you. I love you.” Her eyes seek mine, but the harder I try, the less success I have in drawing her gaze to mine. I say, “I love you, in this life and every other.”

Nothing. I can feel the crinkle of her fear working its way along invisible threads to me. She doesn’t notice me. She looks at me, and I look at her, but there’s no meeting of eyes, no recognition. I’d love to wipe away the tear that’s creeping down her face. Oh God, I don’t even know if I have a hand.

“Henri, just in case Dr. Saul hasn’t come by to read you the weather forecast and your biography, you should know that today is a fine day for open-air swimming. I’d love to go to the pool with you, but Liz is on holiday . . .”

Who’s Liz?

“. . . and so I’m going to take over her job. I hope you don’t mind my exercising your arms and legs?”

Oh thank you, my darling. I wasn’t aware that I still had arms and legs.

She’s here and she does things with me that I can’t feel, and yet it seems as if I’m lying in a warm bath of silk and scents, soft, sweet oil, and safety. She sings “Lullaby of Birdland,” interspersed with descriptions of what she’s doing. She washes my feet, she moves my ankles, works on my knees and legs, my hands and shoulders, and then she tells me that the hardest part is next. She rocks my head gently back and forth, using my nape as a fulcrum, singing as she does so. It is as if she were painting a wonderful garden with her voice. Dappled sunlight falls through the treetops; the weather is mild, and fragrances rise from the jasmine bushes and beds of wildflowers. She sings of all these things.

I am completely in her hands: it’s the safest place in the whole world.

“My darling,” I whisper again. Why are you here? I want to ask. Why haven’t you given up on me?

Her face is very close to mine, and quietly she says, “I must kiss you every time and hope that you consent.”

With a gargantuan effort I try to summon some sensation in my body and conjure up a twitch of my finger, toe, or eyelid. Something to tell her, I’m here and not only do I give my consent, but I need your kiss and you if I am to survive.

“Are you there, Henri?” she asks.

Yes! Her eyes seek mine, and I concentrate on boring through the glass to Eddie. Please, Eddie, can’t you see me?