Suspecting his illness to be a by-product of syphilis contracted from an ex-lover in Bulgaria, the poet is haunted by his past and his future. He finds himself suspended between life and death, the hospital a claustrophobic, liminal space where he waits, alone with his regrets as well as his hopes for a peaceful life with his partner, L. He looks down at his beleaguered body: “I had hated it so much and been so ashamed,” he realises. “And I might have loved it instead.” He fantasises about the croquetas L will make for him when he gets back home – that is, of course, if he ever gets back home.
Love for L fortifies the poet through his horrifying, isolating weeks in hospital. He longs for him in the most primal way, even as he is forced to acknowledge “the little cruelties of intimate life” – his selfishness, and petty ingratitude towards the man he loves. We are almost 100 pages in before L is finally allowed into the hospital, and the scene is desperately moving. Their reunion is so utterly human, even in such alien circumstances, the poet hooked up to numberless machines, both lovers masked.
