‘Bonjour, monsieur! Douleur?’: My night in a French hospital

I regained consciousness on a trolley in a recovery ward. A masked porter wheeled me from there back to my two-bed room on the fifth floor. When I’d left the room earlier, the bed next to the window was vacant. Now it was occupied. Lying on his back under a blanket, his face half covered by a surgical mask, was an old man. On the floor under his bed was a pair of Adidas ‘Superstar’ tennis shoes. The word ‘Superstar’ was in gold lettering. The old man lay rigid, as if bearing pain or discomfort patiently. Through the window the sky above Marseille continued a resolute blue, as though cloud were a meteorological impossibility.

The porter lent me a hand with the treacherous transfer between wheeled trolley and bed, then hoarsely wished me a good day and departed. Enjoying the lingering effects of the sedative with which I had been knocked out, a fabulous chemical which I would be glad to know the name of, I hailed my new room mate genially.