Endnote 134: how Joelle got into Ennet House
like veiled Joelle van Dyne, who entered the House just today, 11/8, Interdependence Day, after the E.R. physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who last night had pumped her full of Inderal and nitro had looked upon her unveiled face and been deeply affected, and had taken a special interest
Context
Buried in a procedural endnote off the White Flag scene is the strongest under-the-veil witness the novel allows: a stranger who actually sees Joelle's face, post-overdose, unveiled. "[D]eeply affected" and "a special interest" are all we get — the reaction reads equally as awe at ruin or awe at beauty, so the deliberate undecidability survives even direct eyewitness. That the look happens only when she's unconscious, and promptly converts into her leapfrogging the whole waiting list, keeps the veil-economy intact: the face is only ever seen without her consent, and seeing it moves people to act.