In this, the early, unconfirmed stage of her pregnancy there were times when she was still able to deny the reality of the child within her, a brief and ultimately gut-wrenching passing moment in time. Aware that weeks were slipping past and that the deed, if it was to be done, must occur before her maternal instinct took its unrelenting hold on her, she often thought that it was already too late.
From having borne three children, Annie remembered how sweet it was to be at the beginning of a new life. She recalled well enough the tenderness, the joy, the overwhelming love for the newborn that had caused her to lie sleepless throughout the first night of each of their lives. Annie was entirely aware of the magic of childbirth and the unutterable joy of new motherhood and felt the anguish of having to let go of this.
Not for her this time, she had concluded sorrowfully. They would all have to pay too huge a price, her children, her baby and herself. Wrapped further in bondage to this strange, angry, unreliable man, she could not be responsible for the emotional costs involved to them all.
More cloak and dagger enquiries resulted in information about a gynecologist in the nearby city of Ravensbrook who had a legal method of coping with these kinds of dilemmas. A referral from a GP was not required.
Jittery Annie rang for an appointment. She was given one for the next day.
After the children were asleep that night she approached Conrad as he lay on the lounge watching a loud and vicious episode of ‘Combat’, his favorite television program. Vic Morrow shot at an escaping prisoner of war and Annie thought she had better wait to see whether the escapee dropped or ran before she spoke. He dropped.
Conrad looked up at her coldly.
‘What do you want?’ he asked disdainfully, barely moving his lips, a frown on the forehead of his swarthy face. She looked at his arms, sinewy like tree trunks. He could take her out with one clip from those arms and the hairy, squat fingers at the ends of them. She girded her loins mentally and prepared herself for the next battle, should it be necessary.
After a lengthy silence, ‘Conrad,’ she began nervously, ‘I have made an appointment to see Dr. Mengel in Ravensbrook. If he will perform an abortion on me, I think it’s best for all concerned if I have one.’
She stood in the doorway twisting her hands around each other.
‘Suit yourself,’ he grunted in reply, jutting his square jaw out in defiance, wanting no part in the decision, she supposed. Best to let her make the decision and wear the consequences, then his conscience would be clear of any recriminations.
He rolled his eyes and waved his hands at her in dismissal, then turned his attention back to the program. She saw that he was in shutdown mode and would not give an opinion either way, leaving her to make the decision and cop the blame for the consequences.
‘The appointment’s for tomorrow at one o’clock,’ she continued, her face gaunt and tired while ignoring his surliness. ‘Will you drive me, please? I doubt if I’ll be fit to drive home afterwards.’
‘I suppose so. That’s enough about it now. You got yourself into this mess and now you can’t get yourself out of it without my help. Don’t you always rely on me to do your dirty work? Want me to front up? Huh. Typical. That’s the way you are, Annie. Hopeless. Just let me watch my program here, will you? I’ve been slaving my guts out all day while you’ve just been flitting around enjoying yourself.’ He looked at her with an indifferent glance. ‘I’ll take you,’ he acquiesced with bad grace and not a flicker of emotion, impervious to her distress.
‘Thanks.’ She unwound her hands and turned to go.
He gave a guttural snort of derision.
‘Can’t face up to it alone, hey? Chicken-hearted, as always,’ he threw after her in disgust, waving his meaty arm in space as a gesture of how little regard he had for her. ‘Just shut up about it,’ he warned darkly, enunciating each syllable clearly.
‘If you say so,’ she said, hightailing it from the room and down the hallway.
She left him alone to enjoy his violent program, helicopters whirring in the background, hand grenades and machine guns exploding in the foreground. He had agreed to let her go ahead if she wanted to, she thought as she went to bed to read one of her Thomas Hardy novels.
The following day he gave his tacit approval to the operation by being quite civil to her during the drive to the city of Ravensbrook, some twenty miles east of their small home town of Belsen. Only civil, she told herself. His sour nature was a fact of life, she was fully aware after eleven years of marriage.
Or at least she thought he gave his tacit approval as he drove without conversation to the nearby town, assuming they had formed a truce over this controversial matter. He wore his usual attitude of superiority, looking down his snub nose at the roadworkers on the verge of the highway.
‘Useless bastards,’ he commented with vehemence, lips curled in disdain. ‘Wouldn’t be capable of doing a decent day’s work slogging their guts out like I do.’
Annie tried to relax, hoping this event which would take place when they arrived at the doctor’s would not widen the ever–growing gulf between herself and her husband. Heaven only knew they had problems enough without any further dissent within the floundering marriage.
Her heart ached at the thought of the tiny being inside her that would soon cease to be a viable human being. Soon it would be simply a dead object that would have to be expelled from her body even as her body was preparing to bring it further towards life.
Eventually they pulled up before a long, low, cream brick house in the business area of Ravensbrook. The doctor’s name was the only one engraved on the brass plaque at the front door, proclaiming him to be a gynecologist. Old pine trees and young hibiscus shrubs surrounded the building and a wide concrete path led to the glass door.
She entered alone, Conrad opting to wait in the station wagon and read a Western novel.
A middle-aged nurse with heavy jowls, coarse, soap-stone skin and oily jet-black hair caught back with a rubber band, sat at the desk filling out filing cards. She was wearing a crisp, white uniform and looked up from her black laminated reception desk which was flanked by couple of tired umbrella plants, nodding briefly at Annie.
The receptionist looked down again and continued with her paperwork.
Annie, trying hard to be as unobtrusive as possible, sat down in a brown plastic stackable chair and glanced nervously at the pile of tattered magazines protruding from the peeling cane magazine rack. Her heart was thumping and her mouth was dry. She made several attempts to swallow, trying to suck some saliva into her mouth, finally making a gagging sound in her attempt to bring some moisture into her dry mouth.
There was no-one else in the bleak waiting room. A soft shriek pierced the air, emanating from the next room.
Annie shuddered and clenched her hands around her handbag, at the same time reaching for the right words in her mind to convince the doctor to help her.
‘Mrs. Himmlar?’ asked the receptionist pleasantly enough in the course of time.
Apparently the shriek was the notification that it was time to be agreeable to the next client. The woman’s glazed eyes gave the impression of a certain degree of boredom with the tedious, never-ending stream of troubled, pregnant women.
‘Yes,’ Annie answered with a feeble smile, trying hard to convince herself that this was just a normal, everyday consultation.
‘Doctor won’t be long. Come this way please.’
She spread her hands out before her like an opera singer’s then swept swiftly out from behind her cluttered desk and along a dim, musty corridor. Pausing and turning theatrically, she showed Annie into a spruce, timber-paneled room with deep, leather-covered chairs, a large mahogany desk and several expensive oil paintings, the luxury of the room in stark contrast to the sterile, cold waiting room.
Annie squinted to try to read the signature on the painting nearest to her. It was something to do while she waited. Should have brought my reading glasses she thought inconseque
ntly. She heard the strains of piped music. Chopin, recalled Annie from her classical music days. This unhappy episode will end to the strains of Chopin.
After what seemed to the patient to be a very long time, when she had reached the nail-biting, lip-chewing stage, the heavy door opened and there he was. Dr. Mengel. Large and friendly looking, he was a bulky man exuding pleasantness. A trustworthy man to all appearances who appeared to be a gentle, soft-natured person. His eyes were bluer than the sky and he wore a small, neatly trimmed mustache, snowy white to match his thatch of hair.
He who must be trusted, thought Annie, feeling like a lamb to the slaughter. She eyed him uneasily, still uncertain whether she wanted to go ahead with this plan or not.
Maybe if the child were a boy Conrad would accept it reasonably well. Such a macho man as he adored his son and would hopefully adore another one.
But what if it turned out to be another girl? A quick picture of Conrad’s disappointed face as he viewed the beautiful newborn Sarah, flashed through Annie’s consciousness. How could any father be disappointed in such a lovely healthy child, round and plump, healthy and absolutely perfect?
‘Hello, Mrs. Himmlar. And how are we today?’
He’s speaking to me as if this were a normal day....as if I were a normal person.....as if I had come here to get in ingrown toenail removed....as if he does this every day.....he does....I can’t.
‘Fine, thanks, Doctor,’ she told him with her stomach performing double flips. My stomach’s full of writhing snakes....God, what if I have too be sick right now....right now here in this pristine office....sick.. Oh, God...Dear God.
He eased his large bulk into the huge leather chair behind the desk. He looked at her kindly, inviting her to have confidence in him. He picked up her card and regarded it with much interest.
‘So, here you are all the way from Bergen Street in Belsen, my dear. I see. Uh huh. Quite a drive. And what can I do for you, my dear?’ he inquired genially.
Annie smiled at him timidly and he gave a hearty laugh with his mouth open wide enough for her to see several gold fillings twinkling in his molars.
‘I have some problems, Doctor,’ she whispered, almost inaudibly as she tried to deal with her turbulent emotions.
‘Why don’t you tell me about them?’ He glanced briefly at her card again. ‘Anna,’ he added with a compassionate smile.
Something unspoken passed between them. He held her in regard and she, in turn, gave him her trust and respect.
‘I like to be called “Annie” please Doctor,’ she said.
‘If that makes you feel more comfortable, my dear,’ he replied genially.
‘I think I’m pregnant. I already have three children and that’s really quite enough. Just ideal for me. My marriage is as good as on the rocks.’
‘I see, my dear. Sad. Very sad indeed,’ he remarked sympathetically as he lit a cigarette and dragged on it enthusiastically.
‘My husband and I are very unhappy. At least, I’m very unhappy but I don’t think he’s at all aware of just how badly I feel. He seems to think everyone lives the way we do but I’m sure they don’t. I hope sincerely for their sakes’ that they don’t.’
She was making small, meaningless gestures with her hands as she spoke, forgetting to hold on to her handbag which slipped to the carpeted floor.
She picked it up nervously, spilling half the contents before continuing, ‘We often look like parting. I spend a great deal of time thinking about leaving him and wishing that I could be brave enough to do it. I plan how best to do it but then I don’t have the courage to go through with it. I love my children dearly but I don’t think I could handle another baby as well, the way we have to exist with my husband’s bad temper. I hate my life. I love my children and I resent the way we have to live with him treating me like a criminal and each of the children, especially the girls having to suffer in their own way.
‘I have a very sick little four-year-old boy. I’m afraid of the consequences of this pregnancy. Deeply afraid. I suffered from toxemia towards the end of my last pregnancy and had to stay in bed for six weeks. It was a very awkward time, with other children to attend to. My aunt had to come to care for the children and me, which I thought was very hard for her as she’s in her sixties.’
Everything came tumbling out in a rush, not knowing how to stop now that she had begun to confide in this placid, patient stranger. Saying so much but so much left unsaid.
‘I spent the final weeks in bed last time, as I said, couldn’t even look after my little girls for those weeks. One day I was hungry and I asked Conrad for a piece of bread and jam. He slapped a bit of strawberry jam onto a slice of bread and threw it on the bed—no butter, no plate, just threw it at me. I felt like a dog being thrown a bone. Here, Rover. I guess you wouldn’t understand how things like that feel, being a man. Well, I didn’t feel like a woman, I felt like a dog. But you wouldn’t comprehend that.’
‘Oh, but I do,’ he nodded. ‘Believe me, I do,’ he said quietly as he continued with his interrogation. ‘When was your last period?’
‘Sorry, Doctor. I didn’t mean to go on about it all,’ she said sadly and named the date he needed. ‘I’ll soon be a month overdue.’ A sense of the gravity of the situation and the doom which had descended even further into her life enshrouded her. There was no way out of this without heartache, desperate heartache at every turn.
The doctor gazed seriously at the paperweight on his desk then jotted a few more details on Annie’s card.
‘And do you have regular periods?’
‘Reasonably. A day or two either way but I don’t go this far over.’ She faltered and looked for a moment as if she would dissolve into tears. ‘I seem to have lost control of my life,’ she added inconsequentially.
‘I see,’ he replied in polite observation, managing to give the phrase much meaning. ‘Several other matters could be causing you to be overdue rather than your being pregnant. Stress is one.’
‘I have been to see my GP and he thinks I am. Pregnant, I mean,’ she told him as she rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. ‘I often feel nauseated.’
‘Stress can cause that, too. We won’t try to decide the reason at this stage until I examine you,’ he replied heartily, leaning back and regarding her attentively. ‘Go on about your life.’
Annie proceeded to unburden herself further, telling him the glaring truth regarding the marriage and its increasing deterioration.
‘When I was carrying David and forced to be in bed, that was quite dreadful, with the two poor little girls needing attention. My toxemia was so severe that it was touch and go for David for a while and even for me, I was told. Once David was born it was okay but we had a dreadful time getting there.’
She continued to relieve her psyche of many matters burdening her down, but there were other subjects that she could not bring herself to touch upon.
There was a breathless pause as she wondered what else she could say to persuade him to help her.
‘I was hoping it might make a difference if we didn’t have any more children, that the marriage might improve as the children grew older and as David’s health improved—if it does—when it does. I thought somewhere down the track Conrad and I could have counseling. I don’t know if it would work. Conrad says we don’t need it. He says he’s in charge of the marriage and that’s the way it will continue and he won’t have any poncy do-gooder telling him how to live. Everyone lives like we do, he claims any time I open my mouth to try to change things, but I very much doubt that.’
‘I see,’ the doctor replied, watching her expression closely as he squinted through his near-sighted eyes. ‘And you speak of his bad temper. Does he hit you? Threaten you?’
‘Well, yes,’ she admitted as if she should be ashamed. ‘I simply don’t know what to do, Doctor,’ Annie finished lamely.
‘Mmm. Yes. Well. Pop up on the table, my dear, and we’ll have a little look at you,’ he said cheerfully, bounding to
his ample feet.
He left the room while Annie removed her underclothes and climbed onto the high examination table. Lying there on the dark green starched sheet, her teeth chattered as she shook with trepidation. It seemed as though the die was cast and there would be no turning back from here.
Dr. Mengel came back into the room, happily whistling ‘Sweet Georgia Brown.’
‘Just relax, dear. Don’t be afraid,’ he told her as he pulled the curtain around the cubicle, effectively shutting out the rest of the world. He cocked his heavy head to one side, considering her before he turned to scrub up.
Annie watched him wide-eyed as he sterilized his hands vigorously at the green enamel hand basin. Noisily, he donned his rubber gloves and settled them into place with a twang, then turned to face her, a friendly smile on his roly-poly face.
Chopin sounded in her right ear while ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ sounded in her left as Dr. Mengel resumed his happy whistling. He continued whistling on regardless. Perhaps this is supposed to make me feel confident, thought Annie.
‘I won’t hurt you Annie, so don’t stiffen up,’ he broke off his merry melody to tell her. ‘I’ll just insert this speculum and have a look around. Just a peek, hey?’ he rattled on and ended with a chuckle.
No sooner said than done, with every muscle in Annie’s body clenched against the intrusion. This was forever. Her baby would be dead forever. There would never be a time when this baby was not dead.
‘No, no, I’d most certainly say you’re not pregnant,’ he told her firmly once the speculum was in place and screwed up as open as it could be, smiling in her direction reassuringly.
Rigid with fear and discomfort, Annie failed to comment. She replayed the sentence in her mind. ‘No, no, I’d most definitely say you’re not pregnant.’
‘Now,’ he continued, patting her arm in an avuncular fashion, ‘I’ll insert this instrument and have a little scrape around. There are a few clots and things that I should get rid of. Tidy up, so to speak.’ Silence until he burst forth in chirpy song,
Eloquent Silence Page 12
