When the last pages had come through, the line went dead and then the phone rang. It was Susan again.

“I thought that this information might be useful. I’m still really shocked by what you told me. I think you should be reassured that this doctor of yours is very good. He’s done some important research.”

“But things don’t look good, do they? There’s no one talking about a cure.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

It sounded like a death sentence, like the final confirmation of something which I had not been able to admit fully to myself. I began to cry again and she stayed on the phone and listened as I sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m crying now. I should have cried ages ago.”

“It’s okay, I’m here, you can call me any time.”

I WORE A suit and a collar and tie to my first appointment with Doctor Cawley, as if I were going for an interview. When his secretary smiled at me, I remembered what Jack had said about doctors smiling all the time at people who had AIDS. I smiled too, I was only too willing to collaborate. Doctor Cawley’s tie did not match his shirt, but everything about him was neat and shiny. I liked his eyes. He spoke in English, asking me if I understood the illness. I said that I did. He took a piece of paper from a rack of forms on his desk and began to draw a diagram on the back. He drew a large L and then put the pen at the top of the vertical line.

“This,” he said, “is the state of your health now.”

He then slowly drew a declining graph until it hit the edge of the bottom line.

“This,” he said, “is the way things are going to go. Do you understand?”

I was going to say that I was not a fool, that I did not need a graph to understand what AIDS did to the body. He was like a small boy who had mastered a new game. He now wanted to list for me the drugs I was on, or might need in the near future. He took another piece of paper from the rack and turned it around so that he could write on the back of it. But there was already a graph drawn showing the decline of the immune system on this piece of paper. He cast it aside and picked out the next piece of paper. It, too, had the drawing of a graph. Clearly, this was what he did for all his patients. It looked so innocent, so easy to draw. I wondered who the other poor victims were who had had their imminent deaths so casually illustrated.

“How are you?” he then asked me. “I mean how is your state of mind?”