He is also the main architect of the failed attack on the ward of hoodlums hoarding the food rations. He brings with him a portable transistor radio that allows the internees to listen to the news. The old man with the black eye patch is the last person to join the first ward. At the end of the story, she and the old man with the black eye patch become lovers. While inside, she also takes care of the boy with the squint, whose mother is nowhere to be found. When the car thief gropes her on the way to the lavatory, she kicks him – giving him a wound from which he will eventually die. Once inside, she joins the small group of people who were contaminated at the doctor's office.

She is unceremoniously removed from the hotel and taken to the quarantine. The girl with the dark glasses is a former part-time prostitute who is struck blind while with a customer. The doctor's wife is the de facto leader of their small group, although in the end she often serves their disabled needs. Once they escape the compound, she helps her group survive in the city. When one ward begins withholding food and demanding that the women of other wards sleep with them to be fed, she kills the leader of their ward. Once inside, she attempts to help the compound organize, but she is increasingly unable to hold back the animality of the compound.

At this point she is interned with the rest of the afflicted. Unable to leave her husband to be interned, she lies to the doctors and claims to be blind. This phenomenon remains unexplained in the novel. The doctor's wife is the only character in the entire novel who does not lose their sight. When they finally leave the quarantine, the group of blind internees travel to his house. Much of this authority, though, comes from the fact that his wife can see and gives him inside information into the goings ons of the quarantine. The doctor is an ophthalmologist who is stricken blind after treating a patient with 'the white sickness.' He is one of the first people to be quarantined and, due to his medical expertise and the fact that he and his wife were the first internees, he has a certain authority in the quarantine.

Blindness by josé saramago