The Heart

‘But what does it do to your heart?’ she asked. ‘Here, on the inside?’ This elaboration made it seem as if my heart – up until then – had actually been in the wrong place, just outside the confines of my chest, in a kind of vacuum, beating away in front of me.

While this realisation was still sinking in, and I was struggling to find the words to answer her question; to explain such an external experience to somebody who was not affected by it themselves, she pressed on with her question.

‘Here, inside!’ she repeated at a volume, as if I hadn’t heard her properly the first time.

Was it my imagination, or was there a punitive tone in those words, as if she had already known what was going on inside me, and was going to nip it in the bud?

She looked at me piercingly with her right eye. The left one glanced absent-mindedly at the door, as if it was bored stiff and hoping that someone from security would knock, announce a fire drill and summon us all to be downstairs on the pavement within five minutes.

‘Yessssssss...’ she said, slowly and spellbindingly, ‘What’s happening there?’

Meanwhile, she had placed her left hand on her chest and rubbed it in circular movements, clockwise, over her blouse, on which large faded flowers merged into each other, a bit as if someone had painted them with Indian ink and then someone else had knocked over a mug of water on top of them.

My glance lingered on the large plastic ring dangling from her middle finger, apparently made of epoxy, in which layers had been applied – here too – from deep orange to bright yellow at the top. The weight of the layers tilted to one side, as if it were seeking support from the ring finger.

Then I suddenly saw it, and it was out before I knew it.

‘There’s a hole!’ I cried. ‘A big black hole.’

‘A big black hole...,’ she affirmed piously, as if she had known all along.

‘That must be painful...’ She almost whispered it and tilted her head slightly.

‘No, on you,’ I clarified, ‘on your blouse.’

The right eye looked at the clock. Imperturbably it ticked away five seconds.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but it’s time. I’ll see you again next week.’