Veronica decided to die

Author: Paulo Coelho
Translator: Sun Chengao
Country: Brazil
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-01-01
Features: "It's nothing," one of the group replied, "She was just passing by. She stopped now, but she'll be on her way again soon!" All of them burst into laughter. Veronica showed a mocking expression, gave a wry smile, and turned away half a turn, avoiding being seen with tears in her eyes. She left the living room without a thermal coat and walked straight toward the garden. A male nurse wanted to persuade her to come back, but another male nurse whispered something to him, and then they let her go quietly into the cold outside. It was no longer necessary to concern oneself with the health of someone already sentenced to death by the doctor. Veronica felt flustered, nervous, and angry with herself. She had never been led around by the nose before; she had learned early on to remain calm and indifferent when faced with a new situation. But these madmen made her feel humiliated, scared, and angry, and she felt the urge to kill them, to hurt them with the harsh words she had never had the courage to speak. Perhaps the sleeping pills—or the treatment to help her out of a coma—had turned her into a fragile woman, one who could no longer fight back against provocation. She had faced more difficult situations in her youth, yet now she had failed to control her tears! She needed to become her old self again, to learn to fight back with sarcasm, to pretend that no offense had hurt her, because she was above everyone else. Who among this group had ever dared to attempt suicide? If all of them hid behind the walls of Villeter, who among them could teach her how to live? She would never rely on their help, even though she had to wait another five or six days to die.
Veronica was taken to Dr. Igor's office and laid on a white bed, covered with a fresh sheet. Dr. Igor listened to her heart. Veronica pretended to be sleeping, but something had changed within her deep down, because Dr. Igor, when he spoke, concluded that she could hear him.
"Don't worry," he said, "With your health condition, you could live to be a hundred." Veronica opened her eyes. Someone had changed her clothes. Was it Dr. Igor? Had he seen her naked body? Her mind was still not fully clear.
"What did you say just now, sir?" she asked.
"I said don't worry."
"No, sir, you said I could live to be a hundred," Veronica insisted.
"In medicine, everything is uncertain," Dr. Igor said insincerely, "Anything is possible."
"How is my heart?"
"It hasn't changed."
There was no need to ask any more. With a gravely ill patient, a doctor might say, "You could live to be a hundred," or "It's not serious at all," or "Your heart and blood pressure are as good as a young man's," or else, "We need to do another examination," as if they feared the patient would tear the entire clinic apart.
Veronica tried to stand up but failed; the room began to spin.
"Lie down for a while longer until you feel better," Dr. Igor said. "You're not bothering me."
"Very well," Veronica thought. "But what if I am?"
As an experienced doctor, Dr. Igor paused for a moment, feigning interest in the newspaper on the table. When faced with someone who refuses to speak, the situation becomes awkward, tense, and unbearable. Dr. Igor expected Veronica to break the silence first, so he could gather more evidence for his paper on insanity and the treatment he was researching. But Veronica remained silent.
"Perhaps she was too deeply poisoned by Viterio," Dr. Igor thought. Meanwhile, he decided to break the tense silence.
"You seem to like playing the piano," he said, as if it had slipped out accidentally. "The madmen enjoy it. One was drawn in yesterday to listen."
"Edward. He once told people he loved music. Who knows if he might start eating normally again like a normal person?"
"However, none of that is possible now, you understand? Similarly, you can't spend all day waiting for night to come, waiting for a female patient in the hospital to play the piano for you. The world of both you and I has come to an end."
Veronica stood up and gently touched the young man's face, then hurried to the dining room. When she pushed open the door, she saw an extraordinary scene: all the tables and chairs had been pushed to the walls, leaving a large space in the center. The members of the Fraternity were sitting on the floor, listening to a man in a suit and tie.
"So we invited the Sufi master Nasrudin to give a lecture," the man said.
When the door opened, everyone in the dining room turned their attention to Veronica. The man in the suit said, "Sit down."
Veronica sat on the floor, next to Mrs. Marie, whose hair was completely white—their first meeting had been so confrontational. To Veronica's surprise, Mrs. Marie smiled faintly and greeted her warmly.
The man continued, "Nasrudin scheduled the lecture for 2 p.m., and the response was overwhelming. One thousand tickets sold out instantly, and over seven hundred more were lined up outside to watch the closed-circuit TV broadcast. It was freezing."
Mrs. Marie returned to her room, took a thermal coat, and came out. Outside, where no one could see her, she lit a cigarette. She smoked it without a hint of guilt, her thoughts drifting to Veronica, the piano music she was hearing, and the life outside the Villeter walls—unbearable for everyone.
In Mrs. Marie's view, what made life unbearable wasn't its chaos but its excessive order. There were so many rules in society, and the laws often contradicted them, while new rules fought against the laws. As a result, people lived in constant fear, afraid to step beyond the invisible rules that governed their lives. Mrs. Marie knew all about this; her forty years as a lawyer had prepared her for it. When she first became a lawyer, she quickly abandoned her naive fantasies about the judicial system, realizing that laws were not made to solve problems but to prolong disputes indefinitely.
Unfortunately, God, Jehovah, or whatever name people call Him, had not lived in the modern world, because if He had, we would all still be living in paradise. Meanwhile, He would have to respond to appeals, pleas, requests, and commissions, and explain His decision to ban Adam and Eve from Eden Mountain at countless hearings. Adam and Eve had merely violated an arbitrary ban with no legal basis: not eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.
Veronica was startled awake, sweating profusely. The noise outside was loud; she had to stay quiet to continue sleeping. Yet the noise continued. Dazed, she got up and walked toward the living room, just in time to see Edward being dragged forward by two male nurses, while other nurses rushed in with prepared syringes.
"What are you doing?" she shouted.
"Veronica!" the psychiatrist addressed her! He said her name! She moved closer to him, shy and surprised, but one of the male nurses stopped her.
"What's going on? I came here because I'm not crazy! You can't treat me like this!" Finally, she pushed the nurse away. At that moment, the other patients began shouting and making a commotion, terrifying her. Should she go to Dr. Igor and leave immediately?
"Veronica!" he called her name again, and with extraordinary strength, he broke free from the two male nurses. But he didn't run away. Instead, he stood motionless, just as he had the previous night.
As if a magician had cast a spell, everyone froze, waiting for the next move. One of the male nurses moved closer, but Edward used all his strength to stare at him intently.
"I'll go with you. I know where you're taking me, and I understand you want everyone to know. Just wait one minute."
The male nurse took a risk. After all, everything seemed to be returning to normal.
"I think you... I think you're very important to me," Edward said to Veronica.
"You can't say that. You're not living in this world. You don't know my name is Veronica. You weren't with me last night. Please, say you weren't with me."
"I was with you." Veronica took Edward's hand.
The madmen began shouting, clapping, and making vulgar remarks.
"Where are they taking you?"
"To get treatment."
"I'm going with you."
"Not necessary. Even if I promise it won't hurt, you'll be surprised. It's better than an injection of sedatives, because you'll wake up faster."
Veronica didn't understand what he was saying. She regretted taking his hand earlier and wanted to leave quickly to hide her shyness, never wanting to see this man who had witnessed her most private moments yet continued to treat her gently.
At that moment, she remembered what Mrs. Marie had said: "You don't need to explain your way of life to anyone, not even the boy in front of you."
"I'll go with you," the nurses thought. Perhaps it would be better this way. There was no longer a need to force the mentally ill young man; he would go voluntarily.