Against the Wind by Madeleine Gagnon Page A

the treatment put an end to October, and when the unwelcome guest finally disappeared from Ben’s life, he would be returned to “normal life outside,” until the next “crisis.” What Joseph found unfortunate was that with each disappearance of October, Ben would lose his erudition and suddenly stop reading and reflecting. Joseph said to himself that there really should be a world where the two realities – that of October and knowledge and that of Ben living happily in his family, at work and with friends – could coexist in harmony.
    It was to Mitchell that Joseph bid the saddest goodbye on the last night, Mitchell, barely twenty years old, with whom he had developed a true friendship of equals. Mitchell, who came from a very wealthyWestmount family, who had dropped out of school at thirteen, getting into more and more serious trouble – all kinds of drugs, alcohol, theft, vandalism on a great many beautiful private properties, including that of his parents, always finishing with a violent attack on his own person, slashing his veins or throwing his body through glass doors or windows – until he was taken away each time in an ambulance, half-dead from loss of blood.
    And yet, in the hospital for minds, which he was always happy to come back to, Mitchell was the best-behaved of young men, as gentle as a lamb, as handsome as James Dean, making every heart beat faster. Everyone marvelled at his lively, loquacious intelligence. He read, discussed things with depth and subtlety, drew beautifully and won at all the games he organized with enthusiasm and charm – cards, Scrabble, chess.
    The team responsible for Mitchell – psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses, social worker, occupational therapist and others – had recently summoned him to a meeting and threatened to transfer him to a “long-term” psychiatric hospital, the Douglas, to be precise. He was so terrified by this prospect that he had attempted suicide that night in his bed, opening his veins once again. Just before the point of no return, he had howled like a wolf for several hellish minutes. Joseph had not known that a human being could actually howl like a wolf.
    On the last night, Joseph got permission to go through the huge old iron door of the psychiatric ward, which was locked from the outside, to visit his friend, who was convalescing in the emergency ward. He found Mitchell huddled in the white bed, looking like a wolf that had been hunted down, a frozen, shivering wolf with the face of an old man already visible underneath the terrified expression of the boy. Joseph took his hand. Like an animal, Mitchell jerked his arm back and buried it under his head, which he turned away and hid under the sheet. Leaving the young-old wolf that he no longer recognized, Joseph went back upstairs to his room. Alone.
    While he was mechanically packing his bags, Véronique quietly came in and tiptoed over to him. Joseph rushed to take her in his arms and said with a dry sob, “Véronique, sometimes we have to say goodbye to friendships.”

VII
    The next morning, Joseph learned, directly from Dr. Laporte, that he could not leave the hospital without one final test.This consisted, as Dr. Laporte had just been informed, of a meeting with the chief psychiatrist himself, who had “serious questions” about his leaving. The meeting was to take place at eleven o’clock in the director’s office, in the presence of Dr. Laporte and the other staff members who had cared for Joseph.
    Joseph was neither afraid nor worried, just angry. Outraged that his fate rested in the hands of a single man who did not even know him and whom he had never even set eyes on. But he had no choice, and that was exactly what made him fume.
    At ten to eleven, he went to the office of the director, Joseph Ibraïm (it irked him that they had the same first name), and waited in the corridor to be called in. It was Dr. Laporte who