The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  ‘That’s my baby, Ma.’

  ‘I know, darling. What did I tell you? He… she’s beautiful.’

  As the radiographer took measurements, clicking buttons that sent dotted lines across the grainy, ghostly image, Marta stared at the giant head which, however much other organs might challenge it in the future, was asserting a primal precedence. She felt a deep surge of love for Shoana, who barely registered the radiographer’s commentary as she contemplated the living, breathing being in her womb.

  At the end of the scan they returned to the waiting room while Jan assessed the results, a procedure Marta had come to regard as a formality. As Shoana sat in a daze, she worked on a smile that would penetrate her neighbour’s niqab. After half an hour, Jan called them into the consulting room, where she explained with a bluntness more suited to her clash with a policeman outside South Africa House that, given Shoana’s age and symptoms, they had done a test to measure the Nuchal Fold Thickness: in laywoman’s terms, the thickness of the skin at the back of a baby’s neck. ‘I’ve found an abnormality which might – and I stress might – be indicative of Down’s syndrome.’

  As she strove to take in the news, Marta longed to tear away the euphemism and be left with the savagery of Mongol, to create a world where the ugliness of language matched the bleakness of reality. For the first time since receiving the call about Mark, she found herself wishing that there were a God so that she could justify her despair. She wanted to comfort Shoana, who sat motionless beside her, but she was afraid to look her in the face. So she squeezed her hand while fixing her eyes on the pens in Jan’s pocket.

  ‘You’re lucky to be at one of the few centres in the country where the test is routinely carried out,’ Jan said, stripping the words of their meaning. ‘You’ve got two choices. The first is to wait another four or five weeks for an amniocentesis.’

  ‘No!’ Shoana cried, sounding more alarmed by the procedure than by its possible result. ‘My husband would never allow it. Nor would I. It’s against our beliefs.’

  ‘Which leaves the second choice.’ To Marta’s relief, Jan made no comment on the marital veto. ‘A Chorionic Villus Sampling, which you can have at eleven weeks. In fact, I’d strongly recommend you have one this afternoon. We pass a tube through the vagina and cervix into the womb. It sucks off a small amount of foetal tissue in the placenta. There are no needles. It’s no more invasive than a smear test.’

  ‘I don’t know. I need… I really need to talk it over with Zvi, my husband. But I can’t call him. Not now.’

  ‘Of course not. It isn’t something you can discuss on the phone,’ Marta said, worried that Zvi would object.

  ‘No, what I meant is that his will be off. He’s spending the day at the Chabad House.’

  ‘It has to be your decision,’ Jan said. ‘But my advice is to take the test for your own peace of mind. If it makes you any easier, I’ve personally carried it out on several Orthodox Jews.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘And did you find any… any Down’s?’

  ‘In some cases. By no means all.’

  ‘And what did they do? No, I don’t want to know!’

  ‘Everyone’s different. But I don’t have to tell you that. What I can say is that, whatever they decided, they were in possession of the full facts. They could weigh up their options without being rushed.’

  ‘So when would I get the results? Later this afternoon?’

  ‘It takes a few days, I’m afraid. But I promise I’ll do everything in my power to push things along.’

  For all her scruples, Shoana agreed to take the test. Jan led her into the consulting room while Marta waited in the office, where the secretary’s newfound solicitude heightened her fears. Dismissing the statutory cup of tea, she sat in silence, alert to every echo, until Shoana emerged, her face drained of emotion. Sensing her eagerness to return home, Marta said a quick goodbye to Jan before heading back to the car, where her hesitant inquiry as to Shoana’s fitness to drive met with a resounding ‘yes’, which was refuted as soon as they took to the road. After a fraught encounter with the rush-hour traffic, they reached Paddington, where Shoana thanked her for coming as if she were a distant cousin at a funeral. She made her way on to the train, downing two large whiskies and blaming herself for having chosen to visit, let alone suggested the consultation.

  She arrived home, anxious to confide in Clement, only to find herself called on to comfort him when, the moment she stepped through the door, he launched into a graphic account of his father’s latest lapse. ‘He pissed himself in his chair. Right in front of me.’

  ‘He’s done it before.’

  ‘But this time it was my fault! I have to struggle to work out every word he’s saying. Half an hour earlier I thought he was asking to go to the loo, so I heaved him out of the chair. He’s such a dead weight, I didn’t think I’d manage.’

  ‘You should have called Ruth or Linda.’

  ‘And listen while “we” are asked if we want to do a “wee-wee”? No thanks! I finally got him to the commode, but nothing. I even put his hand on his cock… I’m sorry; I can’t bear it! He just stared at me like it was the ultimate humiliation. But it wasn’t. Because half an hour later, he began to make exactly the same noises and I ignored them. I sat oblivious as the piss trickled down his legs.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. I’d have done the same. I can only make out one word in ten.’ She stroked his hair, which felt more effective than stroking Shoana’s, while thinking of Edwin, trapped in a hall of mirrors, his scream distorted into a smile. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘In bed. I think he’s asleep, although it’s hard to tell. Ruth cleaned “our messy boy” up… It’s clear we’ve maligned her. The only way she can deal with the horror – the only way either of them can – is to treat him like a child incapable of reason, rather than an adult who’s lost his mind.’

  ‘I must go in and see him.’

  ‘No, wait!’ His desperation unnerved her. ‘How much longer will you let this go on?’

  ‘It’s not up to me.’

  ‘If I’d realised what it’d be like, I’d have insisted we put him on a plane to Switzerland when the tumour was first diagnosed.’

  ‘Please!’ The image of the ultrasound flashed through her brain.

  ‘In any civilised society, he’d be allowed to die now, while he still has some vestige of dignity.’

  ‘Dignity, dignity! What’s so special about dignity? Did the prisoners in a concentration camp have dignity? Do women who are raped have dignity? Should we show our compassion by killing them too?’

  ‘Why are you being so melodramatic?’

  ‘It’s a reasonable question, given that dignity seems to be your sole concern.’

  ‘But they have, or had, the chance to get their dignity back. Pa just faces the prospect of watching it disappear, a little more every day.’

  ‘No, Clement. He’s almost blind and his mind is clouded. It’s you who can’t bear to see your father like this. And I suspect it’s not just him you’re thinking about. If you’re frightened of what might happen to you – ’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Then it would be perfectly natural. But you can’t kill people because they offend your sense of propriety. You believe in God. That should be enough. Don’t try to play God too.’

  ‘What became of my look-life-straight-in-the-eye mother? Since when did you allow reason to be muddied by sentiment?’

  ‘Not muddied: informed!’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong! I’m not trying to imply you can’t see what Pa’s going through. I know how hard it must be for you.’

  ‘This isn’t about your father. Why don’t you ask me about my afternoon – why I stayed on longer in London?’

  ‘I thought you were having a good time with Susannah.’

  ‘I took her to the hospital.’

  ‘Why? Is something the matter with her?’

  ‘No, no
t with her. Although it’s a moot point.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or perhaps I should say an ontological question?’

  ‘You’re making no sense!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Endeavouring to put her impressions in some sort of order, she described events at the hospital. ‘It’s my fault. If I hadn’t suggested seeing Jan, she might never have known anything was wrong.’

  ‘Thank goodness you did! At least now she can have an early abortion.’

  Marta shrank from a word which had once been as neutral as appendectomy. ‘She might decide not to have one.’

  ‘Come on! You know as well as I do, Susannah’s not the person to look after a Down’s syndrome child.’

  ‘Shoana!’ she shouted. ‘Shoana,’ she repeated more quietly. ‘You’re so keen to give everyone their dignity; give her hers! And that’s just the trouble. It’s not as easy for Shoana as for Susannah. Her faith won’t allow it.’

  ‘But why? I went through the Bible with a fine toothcomb for my Modern Nativity series, and the references to abortion are even more inconclusive than the references to gays.’

  ‘You’d know more about that than me. Although the doctrine that all human life is sacred because it comes from God seems plain enough. But, since they don’t permit amniocentesis, it’s academic. Whatever happens is God’s will. Que sera sera.’

  ‘That’s fine if you’re living in a Doris Day movie!’

  ‘The question for the rest of us – even those who fought for the right to abortion – isn’t when life begins but when it begins to be human. And that’s been determined in different ways at different times.’

  ‘Precisely! It’s all about social control. It isn’t God’s will, but the bishops’ or the rabbis’ or the imams’.’

  ‘Try another scenario,’ she said, taken aback by his passion. ‘What if it were the gay gene they’d tested for?’

  ‘There isn’t one. At most there might be a cluster.’

  ‘All right then: the gay cluster. Sooner or later, scientists will identify it and enable parents to abort gay children. How will you feel then?’

  ‘Being gay isn’t a disability.’

  ‘Not to you, maybe. But it is to some people.’

  ‘Fortunately, they’re the very people who are so rabidly anti-abortion that they won’t be able to have one, or, if they do, they’ll put themselves through the same hell they wish on us.’

  ‘Revenge isn’t a valid philosophical position.’

  ‘I can’t believe we’re having this discussion. Whatever happened to a woman’s right to choose?’

  ‘It’s as strong as ever. But it isn’t an absolute – any more than any other right. Choice always comes with constraints.’

  ‘Ma, you’re seventy-seven. I want you to live forever; I really do. But, unless those scientists who inspire you with such hope come up with something fast, it’s not going to happen. You’ll have the grandchild you’ve always wanted – and I’m sorry, truly, that I couldn’t give him to you – but you’ll have him for how long? Ten, twelve years at best? Shoana (are you happy now?) will have him for the rest of her life, when he isn’t a four year-old ten year-old, but a four year-old forty year-old. How will she cope with that?’

  Marta drew a deep breath and asked him to accompany her to her bedroom. Refusing to let his questions weaken her resolve, she moved to the dressing table and unlocked a drawer, itself a rare event in a household that prided itself on its lack of secrets. She pulled out a photograph which, despite its artful restoration, bore the indelible marks of its three-year concealment beneath her vest. She handed it to him without a word, following his glance as he studied an image as familiar to her as any in the room: the bashful woman in an embroidered blouse, with a basket in one hand and a cloth in the other; the darkly handsome man in shirt sleeves clutching a book; the pair of identical twins, aged three or four, dressed in pale skirts and shoes so polished that they reflected the light. Their only distinguishing features were that one wore a bow which had slipped towards her ear, while the other had a blotch on her cheek which, if it were a smut and not the result of the picture’s travels, might account for the cloth. They were holding hands, but their pose was more formal than that of their parents and it was unclear whether their intimacy were genuine or assumed for the camera. At their feet – a detail that never failed to hearten her – lay a single doll.

  ‘Is this your family?’ Clement asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you always said that you had no photographs of them.’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘Why?’

  It was a question she had often asked herself, coming up with so many answers that she had avoided the need to address a single one. At times she felt that she wanted to preserve a part of her that was Polish from assimilation into her English life; at others that she wanted to protect the past from the intrusive gaze of the present. At times she felt that she wanted to keep the rounded individuals of her memory from becoming the standard victims of newsreels; at others that she was reluctant to entrust her sole remaining relic to less reverential hands. One emotion, however, never left her, causing her to lock the picture away, and that was guilt, not just the familiar guilt of the survivor, but her specific guilt towards Agata. It was that which had made it impossible to show the picture to any of her children, especially the twins.

  ‘You and your sister look so similar, it’s uncanny.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘You’ve always said you were older.’

  ‘So I was. Just as Mark was older than you.’

  ‘You were twins?’

  ‘Give me back the picture, Clement, please!’ She was gripped by panic until he handed her the photograph, which she clasped to her breast.

  ‘Which is you?’

  ‘Who knows? I’ve always assumed I’m the one on the left because of the livelier expression, but I can’t be sure.’

  ‘I’d no idea you were a twin.’

  ‘Nor did my mother. That’s what went wrong.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m nervous. Let me try to explain. Poland, seventy-odd years ago: it was a different world. No clinics, no scans, just a doctor and his forceps. Especially the forceps. Mine was a difficult birth, a twenty-six hour labour. My mother never spoke of it; I only found out the truth much later from my aunt. It wasn’t until I was safely delivered that the doctor realised there was another baby. My mother was exhausted, far too exhausted to push, so the doctor pulled Agata out with his forceps, but he applied too much pressure, causing permanent damage to her brain.’

  ‘Why did you never say?’

  ‘Oh darling, how I used to love all your whys! Now they simply weary me. We were brought up together till we were four. Which is how I can date the photograph. Then some time before her fifth birthday – our fifth birthday – Agata was taken away.’

  ‘You were split up?’

  ‘I said it was a different world. Such things – much worse things – happened then. She was put in a home. I was taken to visit her a few times. She looked very happy playing with the other children. They had a small farm. I even remember feeling jealous… but I might just be trying to make myself feel bad.’

  ‘You must have been bereft!’

  ‘I expect so. She was my sister.’

  ‘She was your twin!’

  ‘Then again, soon afterwards I was bereft of so much more that who knows if the lesser loss wasn’t simply subsumed? She came home on special occasions, but my parents were afraid that if she stayed she’d hold me back. I was the normal one… the clever one, who was to be given all the opportunities.’

  ‘So they sacrificed her for you?’

  ‘Until the Nazis came and she returned to us for good. The home closed, sending as many children as possible back to their families. I don’t think we need spend too long speculating on what happened to the rest. I was ten years old when she joined us in the ghetto. All my resentment of the Nazi
s, of the pain and privations of my life, were focused on her. I resented the fact that she could look so like me yet be so different. I resented the hours my parents devoted to trying to make sense of her prattle. I resented our having to share a mattress in an already packed room and, worse, that she thought it was a game when she wet it. I resented the fact that my father – my dear, kind father – hit me for the first and only time when I stole some of Agata’s rations and said they were wasted on her. You know the best thing about leaving the ghetto? It wasn’t the extra food or the space or the cleaner air; it was breaking free of her. It was becoming myself again without the permanent shadow hanging over me. But of course it has; it’s hung over me ever since. I’m living the life she was denied, first by nature and then by the Nazis. In a way I suppose I’m still trying to make it up to her. I’ve always thought it was something we had in common, you and I.’

  ‘I’m not sure Mark would appreciate it,’ Clement said ruefully. ‘He never even liked my work.’

  ‘He was so very proud of you. And I was proud of you both. You’ve no idea how excited I was to hear I was having twins, both excited and terrified at the same time. But once I knew all was well… that I had two perfect little boys, I felt as if I could wipe out all the horrors of the past.’

  ‘But you never told us.’

  ‘No. It seemed unfair to burden you with my expectations. And you were so happy together. Such strong individuals and such a devoted pair. I didn’t want to show you a world where twins were less compatible… where identity was more brutal. So my twin became my younger sister.’

  ‘A matter of minutes.’

  ‘In one sense. And years in another.’

  ‘Did Pa know?’

  ‘Your father knows everything about me.’

  ‘And he agreed you should keep it from us?’

  ‘He trusted me to do what I thought was best.’

  ‘And now, after all these years, you’ve changed your mind?’ Clement gently prised the photograph from her hand and stared at it again.

  ‘Not to try to reconcile you to Shoana’s decision – and remember it is her decision, not yours or mine – but to show you that whatever she decides comes at a price. Would I have been happier if Agata had never been born? Or if she’d escaped and I’d been left to take care of her ever since? Was it just the law of nature that the stronger, fitter, brighter one survived?’