Fighting the virus, gaining hope

chapter 2

Jean had seen the woman three times in two days, which proved to have been lucky; over the next week she was present at the right time only on about four mornings. (He was not keeping count well as the hard days blended together.) Each time she appeared she was still apparently blissful and apparently ignorant of any audience. Sometimes she’d have one or both hands gently on her abdomen, sometimes not. It all reinforced that image he’d burned in on the first day, so that he thought of her a little more at work, but there was no new information to be gleaned.

About a week after the first sighting (it was too one-sided to think of as an “encounter”) Jean got his first real glimpse of what was happening. The woman was leaning sideways against the window and using a smartphone with one hand. Her other arm was propped high on the window so her usual top was pulled up again, revealing a midriff which was almost unrecognisable. Again Jean suspected a trick of refraction, but no: her stomach was bulging outwards, far from the flat little thing he’d seen before. It was round and smooth, and he imagined very hard and tight, like a woman showing several months of a pregnancy.

As Jean walked on his doctor brain kicked in again unbidden with a hopelessly uninformed attempt at diagnosis. If she was pregnant it did not explain the sudden bulge, from her starting point that would of course have taken several months to develop. Water retention might explain a larger waistline, but to affect it that much she would be puffy all over. Simple bloating would cause such a localised effect, but that much wind would be very painful and she had still seemed quite cheerful.

No, the most straightforward explanation was simply that she had eaten, but that in itself begged questions. The amount had to be enormous, far more than would be comfortable for a woman of her size, and beyond the realm of imagination for what someone of her body type would typically want to eat - except, he considered unhappily, if it was a binge connected to an eating disorder. This didn’t seem to fit either though, based on what he had read about the psychology of binging and purging. The purge was what brought the rush of endorphins and let the disorder victim go about their day. It had to happen as soon as possible after the binge because every moment the food was allowed to sit and digest was a stab of guilt from possible weight gain. By contrast, this woman seemed in no hurry to relieve herself of her morning feast.

So in the end, the working hypothesis was simply that this extremely thin woman was eating like crazy, and enjoying it. That was consistent with the way Jean had sometimes seen her holding her stomach; perhaps he hadn’t noticed earlier bulges because she was standing front-on to sun herself. Why someone so thin would do this, or else why a woman doing this remained so thin, was a mystery. Perhaps, and this was a long shot, she had a metabolic or digestive issue that kept her body from fully utilising the calories she ate, and she had to overeat just to “break even”. This was as far as Jean’s train of thought reached before his feet carried him to the hospital entrance, and then he had more urgent matters to deal with.

The pandemic raged on, stretching the hospital and its staff regularly to the breaking point. Supplies ran low, especially the all-important ventilators. Not only the staff but the whole community pulled together to do whatever it could to ease the burden, from delivering food to those in need to 3D printing essential mechanical parts. People still died and some that didn’t still had harrowing experiences, but everyone knew that their town cared for them. Jean took great comfort in this and passed it on where he could.

As the weeks went by and the isolation-related orders from the government showed no signs of being lifted, Jean was sure the townspeople (including Charlotte) were finding their moments to collect groceries during the day, but his morning commute remained largely solitary. Because the majority of patients had much the same needs his work was becoming more automatic, and therefore a little easier. The woman in the window appeared to have settled into a routine too, because she was at her “post” most every day now.

Jean was able to see at last, over a long period of brief casual observations, what was really occurring with her. The bulge in the woman’s stomach did not subside with time, but only swelled more and more until it was plainly obvious from the front when her arms were lifted, and pushed her nightshirt out when they weren’t. Her capacity for food and/or drink, it seemed, was increasing still further and being used to its utmost.

Whatever was going in was having a rapid effect on the rest of her as well. Above her abdomen the rest of her torso was thickening, no longer a gaunt shadow drowned by the shirt. Her arms developed more width and even a little bit of hang as they moved, and her right-angled shoulders rounded out. From what little he could see of her hips from his low vantage point they did seem to be growing wider, or at least appearing as their own curve instead of blending into the former straight line of her body. If she wasn’t always wearing a loose pair of pyjama pants she might even manage a muffin top.

It fascinated Jean that he could see all this happening in a matter of days and weeks. He had no idea of her height so the total gain could not be well estimated, but it had to be a decent amount of kilos and they certainly stood out on her frame. There was no longer any question of bloating or purging; she had to be consuming many thousands of calories every day and keeping them all down. Neither was it a question of neglect, loss of control or “letting herself go”. She knew exactly what she was doing, she didn’t care who saw the belly she was growing for herself, and she loved every new inch of it.

One question did remain in Jean’s mind: not merely “why” as that was too broad to even approach, but “why now” and not before? What had suddenly triggered this extended hedonistic pursuit, or else what had been holding her back? Perhaps she had separated from a partner who had exerted undue control over her eating habits. Perhaps she was using this period of separation from her family to do something her parents would have harassed her about. Perhaps she had started a new relationship, either long-distance or waiting out the quarantine together in that little house, and the two were embarking on an ambitious project. Or perhaps she simply had a radical change of mind or perspective due to current events, and it didn’t need anyone else’s input or lack thereof driving it.

Jean had no illusions that he’d ever meet this woman properly, let alone be able to ask her about any of this. Although she’d never be a part of his life, she did highlight a very important part of his life through stark contrast: Charlotte. His wife had adjusted to life in isolation like everyone else, but the stresses of their circumstances had not gone away. She slaved away at her books and computer, she worried for her husband every day, and the world in general was not a source of cheer. Her fair skin was now very pale as she had far less reason to be out every day than Jean, and she had grown even thinner as she threw everything into her studies. When Jean thought about the woman in the window, indulging, beaming and blossoming, the juxtaposition with the woman he loved seemingly wilting away was almost too much to bear. Until one day it was too much.