Читать книгу Veronika Decides to Die - Пауло Коэльо - Страница 14

Veronika watched the woman, still smiling, being strapped to the bed.

‘Tell her what’s going on,’ said Zedka to the male nurse. ‘Otherwise she’ll be frightened.’

He turned and showed her the syringe. He seemed pleased to be treated like a doctor, explaining to a younger doctor the correct procedures and the proper treatments.

‘This syringe contains a dose of insulin,’ he said, speaking in a grave, technical tone of voice. ‘It’s used by diabetics to combat high blood glucose. However, when the dose is much larger than normal, the consequent drop in blood glucose provokes a state of coma.’

He tapped the needle lightly, to get rid of any air, and then stuck it in a vein in Zedka’s right foot.

‘That’s what’s going to happen now. She’s going to enter a state of induced coma. Don’t be frightened if her eyes go glazed, and don’t expect her to recognise you when she’s under the effects of the medication.’

‘That’s awful, inhuman. People struggle to get out of a coma not to go into one.’

‘People struggle to live, not to commit suicide,’ replied the nurse, but Veronika ignored the remark. ‘And a state of coma allows the organism to rest; its functions are all drastically reduced and any existing tension disappears.’

While he was talking, he was injecting the liquid, and Zedka’s eyes were growing dull.

‘Don’t worry,’ Veronika was saying to her. ‘You’re absolutely normal, the story you told me about the king…’

‘Don’t waste your time. She can’t hear you any more.’

The woman on the bed, who a few minutes before had seemed so lucid and full of life, now had her eyes fixed on some point in the distance, and there was liquid bubbling from one corner of her mouth.

‘What did you do?’ she shouted at the nurse.

‘Just my job.’

Veronika started calling to Zedka, shouting, threatening that she would go to the police, the press, the human rights organisations.

‘Calm down. You may be in a mental hospital, but you still have to abide by certain rules.’

She saw that the man was utterly serious and she was afraid. But since she had nothing to lose, she went on shouting.