The Blind Eye Read Online Free PDF

to the moment when it was plucked; that was how the field appeared.
    He would look up at Greta there in front of him, her head bent over a box of letters from her sculptor’s tutor tohis lover, and as he stared at the part in her hair, a crooked white zigzag between the paleness of her plaits, he would wonder what the colours were that surrounded her.
    Dear Rudi
    Those two words. Crossed out for the twentieth time that morning.

     
4
    It took Silas six weeks to get his first appointment with me. Unfortunately, this is the way it is with most of us who practise in this field, the length of individual consultations making it impossible for any of us to take on many new patients.
    I am sorry
, the receptionist told him, as she tells most people who ring,
if it’s urgent
,
I can try and squeeze you in a little earlier, but it must be urgent
.
    Because he had been living with the way he was for such a long time, it was difficult now to describe his need as urgent. Silas told her it was okay, he would wait. But once the time was booked, the turnover of days began to slow and he wished he had said he was desperate.
    Each day that he saw Greta at the library, he wanted to talk to her, but the few attempts he made were awkward, and he did not know what to say to change what had happened. When he told her he had made the appointment but the waiting list was over a month, she said she was sorry there was nothing she could do to push it along.
    It’s just that I don’t really know him anymore
.
    He was about to walk away, but she stopped him, finding it hard to meet his eyes as she told him we had been in a relationship some time ago. We met before she went to art school, when we were both at the College of Healing, and as she spoke she realised that she had made this revelation in the hope of returning to the case with which she and Silas had originally conversed.
    I was never going to finish, I was never any good at it
, she said and smiled, embarrassed, but glad he had stopped.
    Later, when Silas told me that it was Greta who had referred him, I wondered for a moment whether I should find out more about his relationship with her, and whether I should, in fact, refer him to someone else. I glanced at my notes and saw that he had already been waiting six weeks. I looked across at him and saw the anxiety in his eyes, and I decided against it.
    I told him that the first appointment would be a little different to those that would follow. It would be longer, for one thing. It would involve a lot of questions, questions that might seem irrelevant, but that would help me in seeing the total picture.
    I asked him why he had come and he attempted to explain a burning sensation in his heart, a tightness that would wring the breath out of him, leaving him crippled with pain.
    Anything else?
    Silas shook his head. He could not speak of the wounds he inflicted upon himself, despite the fact that this was the real reason for the visit. This is the way it often is with patients; the process of bringing out the core of the problem is not a quick one. For Silas, the memory of Greta’s face the morning after she had stayed the night was still fresh and the shame he felt made him glance at the ground.
    The questions that I asked were fairly standard: Silas’s like or dislike of various weather conditions and whether he noted an aggravation of symptoms in wind, rain, damp, heat; whether they changed according to the time of day, morning, night; his appetite and whether he had any particular food cravings or aversions . . . Silas answered everything despite not being able to see the point.
    What about sex?
My gaze was direct and he did not attempt to meet it.
    What about it?
    Tell me a bit about your sex life, your desire, the frequency with which you have it
.
    He said he didn’t have sex often at the moment. Greta was, in fact, the only person he had slept with in a year, and as he told me this I could see he was uncertain as to whether he should