Heritage

by Judy Nunn

  ‘I am sorry, Violetta.’

  She kissed him. ‘As soon as we get back to Cooma,’ she said, ‘we’re taking you to the doctor.’ Then she added, concerned, ‘You don’t look too good. How do you feel?’

  ‘I feel hungry,’ he replied. He didn’t – he felt as if he’d been run over by a truck and his head was still aching – but it didn’t matter. She loved him, and he was happy. ‘I feel like toasted sandwiches,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, Pietro, a long overdue visit.’ Maarten Vanpoucke smiled a welcome as he went to show the boy into the consulting room; it was his last consultation of the day and he’d told his receptionist to go home after she’d let him know Mr Toscanini had arrived for his appointment. Then he noticed Violet as she rose from her chair. ‘And you must be Pietro’s young lady; Lucky’s told me all about you.’

  Pietro and Violet shared a quick look – there were some things Lucky hadn’t told his friend the doctor, as they’d known Lucky wouldn’t.

  ‘Is all right if Violetta come in with me?’ Pietro asked.

  ‘Of course, if that is what you wish …’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Violet, isn’t it?’ Maarten asked. He’d seen her in Hallidays shop from time to time, a pretty little thing. ‘How do you do, I’m Doctor Vanpoucke.’

  ‘How do you do, Doctor.’ Violet was disappointed that he didn’t offer his hand. She knew he was European, although he didn’t really sound it, and European men shook hands with women. She would have initiated the handshake herself, but he was a doctor and she wasn’t sure if it was quite right. ‘I’ve seen you at the store,’ she said as he ushered them into his consulting room. She was disappointed, too, that he hadn’t mentioned the fact himself – she’d served him many times. ‘I work at Hallidays.’

  ‘That’s right, of course you do,’ he smiled.

  Gratified, Violet returned the smile. He was quite good-looking, she thought, for an old bloke anyway; he had to be over forty.

  ‘And you know my aunt too; she works at the hospital.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ He gestured at the chairs and they sat.

  ‘Maureen Campbell,’ Violet said proudly, ‘she’s my auntie.’

  ‘A fine woman,’ Maarten said.

  A bossy woman, he recalled. He didn’t know Maureen Campbell well, just as he didn’t know any of the locals well – it was the way he preferred it. But he remembered how, not so very long ago when there had been a severe shortage of doctors in Cooma, she had politely suggested he might give more time to the hospital than he did. Equally politely, he’d put her in her place, informing her that, as he had chosen an early semi-retirement, he preferred to work his own hours. He’d been aware of her criticism but he hadn’t cared. There would always be a shortage of doctors in Cooma and he would always live according to the way he wished, regardless of the opinions of women like Maureen Campbell who devoted their every waking hour to the hospital because they had little else in their lives.

  ‘A fine woman and a fine nurse.’ He sat behind his desk and opened Pietro’s medical file.

  Violet flashed Pietro an I-told-you-so look – she’d known that Doctor Vanpoucke would be impressed. ‘Auntie Maureen practically runs the hospital, Pietro,’ she’d said, ‘and it helps to have friends in high places.’ She’d heard the phrase somewhere and she’d relished the ring of it.

  When Violet had announced she was coming with him to the doctor, Pietro had at first been reluctant. There were no longer any secrets between them, but he wasn’t sure how he would feel about discussing his illness in front of her.

  ‘But we’re married now, sweetie,’ she’d gently reminded him, ‘and your problems are mine.’ Pietro had changed his tune in an instant. He’d never had anyone to share his problems with before. Now he had Violetta.

  ‘So, Pietro,’ Maarten said, ‘you’re long overdue for a new prescription. I presume you’ve been lax with your medication.’

  Pietro nodded guiltily, and Violet answered for him.

  ‘That’s why we’re here, doctor,’ she said. ‘He had a fit the other day and I bet it’s because he hadn’t been taking his pills.’

  ‘It is possible, but not necessarily the case,’ Maarten replied shortly; he’d have preferred it if the girl had allowed Pietro to answer. ‘How long is it since you stopped taking the Dilantin?’ he asked.

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘And have you recently suffered any headaches or lethargy?’

  The doctor was writing it down and Pietro wanted to get the facts right. He understood ‘headaches’, but he wasn’t quite sure about the next word and he hesitated.

  ‘Have you felt tired lately?’ Maarten’s pen remained poised.

  ‘Yes, a little, and I have some headache.’

  ‘There, you see,’ Violet said triumphantly as the doctor returned to his notes. ‘It’s because you weren’t taking your pills, I told you, that’s why you had the fit.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Maarten’s response was icy. ‘Not taking the pills may have contributed to the fatigue, but I doubt it was the cause of the attack.’ The girl was as vacuous as she was pretty, he thought. ‘Tell me about the seizure, Pietro.’

  ‘I am sleeping …’ Pietro paused, giving the doctor time to make his notes.

  ‘So the attack occurred while you were asleep?’

  ‘No, no, I am awake, I know that it will happen. Always I am awake, and always I know that it will happen.’

  ‘You had the same warning signs then? As you’ve had in the past?’

  ‘Yes, I know it is coming. I have a dream and …’ Pietro stopped himself just in time. He couldn’t say ‘and Violetta woke me’ as he’d been about to. The doctor would know they were sleeping together and that was not right – the doctor did not know they were married and he would judge Violetta. ‘… and when I wake, I remember this dream.’ He paused again, trying to be meticulous in his recollection, he must tell the doctor every single thing he remembered.

  ‘And it was your dream that brought on the seizure?’ Maarten prompted.

  ‘No, no.’ The doctor had misunderstood, Pietro realised. ‘I am happy with the dream, because it is of the past. It is real. I feel good that there is something I remember.’

  So the boy’s past was coming back to him, Maarten thought. How very interesting, particularly under the circumstances.

  ‘And what is it you remember, Pietro?’

  ‘I remember shoes. Man’s shoes. They are standing on steps, and the light is shining through the steps where I can see them. And I can hear a man’s voice calling my name.’

  The doctor nodded encouragement, and Pietro was pleased.

  ‘I am beneath the house,’ he said, ‘I can see the floorboards above me.’

  The boy had been hiding under the house.

  ‘I think that perhaps I am in a …’ Pietro couldn’t remember Violet’s word for it, and he looked to her for assistance.

  ‘A cubby.’ Violet dived in, thrilled to be of assistance. ‘Pietro had a cubby under the house as a child, and I told him he should walk up the steps to the door. I said if he could see inside the house, he might remember, but that’s when he had the fit.’

  See inside the house. Is that what the boy did?

  ‘So you were with him at the time of the seizure?’ the doctor asked, and Violet froze, realising that she’d given herself away.

  The girl had suddenly become important, and Maarten seized upon the moment. ‘Tell me about the attack,’ he said. ‘Come along, Violet, there’s a good girl.’ Good God, she was going coy – what the hell did it matter if she was sleeping with the boy? ‘Tell me everything that happened. It will be very helpful, believe me.’

  Violet realised that Pietro was about to jump to her defence and she stopped him with a shake of her head. Embarrassed and caught out as she was, she had no intention of telling the doctor that she and Pietro were married. Until their announcement to her parents, their marriage would remain a secret.

  ‘
What do you want to know?’ She looked squarely at Doctor Vanpoucke.

  ‘You said the fit occurred when you were encouraging him to recall the past, to enter the house, is that right?’

  ‘Oh.’ Violet felt dreadful. So the doctor thought it was she who had brought about the attack. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything wrong,’ she said. ‘Pietro and I often talk about the past …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Pietro agreed, not liking to see Violetta upset. ‘I wish to remember …’

  ‘But that was before I knew about the epilepsy …’ Violet was becoming agitated. ‘I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘Calm down, my dear,’ Maarten said soothingly, ‘you meant well and it was very caring of you to try to help Pietro remember.’

  It might even have been medically helpful, Maarten thought. It was possible Pietro’s fits were not epileptic at all, but pseudo seizures brought about by his repression of the past. Freud himself would argue that the boy’s trauma should be revealed to him. It was certainly a fascinating case.

  ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, I assure you.’

  The doctor’s bedside manner was well-practised and Violet felt herself relax.

  ‘So tell me,’ Maarten said, his full focus now upon the girl, ‘what was Pietro’s reaction to the discussion of his past? I am most interested.’

  ‘It all started with the goats.’ Violet, vindicated, enjoyed the doctor’s attention. ‘Pietro remembered his favourite goat Rosa and how he’d delivered her baby. Didn’t you, Pietro?’

  Pietro nodded. ‘Yes, I remember Rosa, and how I help her with her baby.’

  The boy had recalled more than the shoes and the steps.

  ‘What else did you remember, Pietro?’ the doctor asked, but it was Violet who answered.

  ‘For a little while he remembered a wooden donkey, and I told him that something like that would be inside a house. But when I told him to try to see inside the house, he couldn’t remember the donkey any more. Isn’t that right, Pietro?’

  Maarten interrupted before she could continue; the girl was annoying him again.

  ‘So you recalled your goat Rosa and her baby, and, at one stage, a wooden donkey. Was there anything else?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘No, that is all I remember.’

  ‘And at the time these memories returned, you had no warning signs and no fit?’

  ‘No.’ Pietro smiled gratefully at Violet. ‘Violetta, she help me to remember. Is good, yes?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The girl was not altogether as silly as she appeared, Maarten thought, the boy’s past was returning. But she was treading on dangerous ground.

  ‘Let’s get back to the recent seizure, shall we?’ he asked, returning his attention to the girl. ‘Pietro was lucid before the attack? He warned you that it was going to happen?’

  Violet nodded. ‘He told me not to be frightened, and he put a piece of leather between his teeth …’

  Maarten waited for her to continue.

  ‘He said it wouldn’t take long, but it went on forever and I didn’t know what to do. It was awful …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he tried to curb his impatience, ‘it is not a pleasant thing to witness –’

  ‘I thought he was dying, honest I did.’

  ‘Of course, most understandable. Now, Violet,’ he said, ‘without upsetting yourself, I’d like you to tell me everything you witnessed, before, during, and after the seizure.’

  He proceeded to ask her specific questions, and Violet answered in detail. Responding to his queries, she described the particular movements Pietro had made during his attack, and she confirmed that when it was over he had been lucid.

  ‘He told me about the epilepsy,’ she said, ‘he’d never talked about it before, and then when he said that he’d stopped taking the pills,’ she looked accusingly at Pietro, ‘well, that’s when I knew …’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Maarten wasn’t at all interested in her opinion. ‘And during the actual seizure, did you try to converse with him?’

  ‘No.’ Violet was amazed. ‘You mean that I could have? I could have talked to him, and he could have answered?’

  ‘It is perhaps possible.’

  Maarten had become more intrigued by the minute, and increasingly of the opinion that Pietro’s fits were not epileptic. The boy had said they never occurred during sleep, that he always had warning beforehand, and the girl had said that he was lucid immediately afterwards. Even Violet’s descriptions of the movements he made during the attack were in keeping with a pseudo-epileptic seizure. It was impossible to be sure, of course, Maarten thought, but the trauma of the boy’s background strongly indicated it. How interesting it would be, he pondered, to induce a seizure here and now; Freud would certainly recommend it.

  Maarten was an avid believer in Freud’s methods and, had it been any other case, he would have considered such action. But under the circumstances, he’d be flirting with danger. A pity – the results might have been quite thrilling.

  ‘Now, Pietro, I think we’ll continue with your medication,’ he said, taking his prescription pad from the top drawer of his desk.

  Violet’s eyes widened in surprise. Surely there was no question about it: Pietro had had his fit because he hadn’t taken his pills.

  ‘And if at any time you decide, of your own volition, to cease your medication,’ Maarten stopped scribbling and looked up, ‘then you will do so gradually. If you stop taking your medication abruptly, you will get headaches and feel tired. Do you understand me?’

  The doctor’s horn-rimmed spectacles had slid down his nose and, as he peered over the rims, his eyes were stern and admonishing.

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Pietro said apologetically, averting his eyes from the doctor’s and wishing the doctor would look away.

  ‘Good lad.’ Maarten smiled approvingly at the boy. If his diagnosis was correct, there was no need for anti-epileptic medication, but as he couldn’t be sure, it was wisest to prescribe it. That’s what made the boy’s case so intriguing, he thought, tearing the script from the pad. Pietro actually wanted to recall his past, regardless of what he might discover. Most unusual. Those suffering pseudo seizures were usually looking for attention or an avenue of escape, and the boy was seeking neither. He was a perfect subject for psychoanalysis.

  As the doctor rose and circled his desk, Pietro and Violet quickly sprang to their feet.

  Maarten gave the prescription to Pietro and shook his hand briefly. ‘Good to see you, Pietro.’ It was best for all concerned, he thought, that the boy be kept in ignorance and continue to believe that his fits were epileptic in origin. ‘You too, Violet. Give my regards to your aunt,’ and he ushered the young couple quickly out of the surgery door, Violet a little offended that the doctor hadn’t shaken her hand too, particularly as she’d been so helpful.

  Maarten returned to his desk and watched the couple through the bay windows as they walked down Vale Street, hand in hand.

  So the boy had been under the house.

  He pictured the squat hut, several narrow wooden steps leading up to the door. He’d never thought to look under the house; there hadn’t been space enough there for the boy to hide. And all the while he’d called the child’s name, the boy had been watching his shoes on the steps.

  He felt no threat that Pietro had re-entered his life – on the contrary, he found it a fascinating situation. The moment Lucky had told him about the young man named Pietro who’d had a seizure and had placed a strip of leather between his teeth, he’d wondered at the coincidence. He’d seen the boy alone in his consulting rooms just in case, although he knew that, even if it were the same boy, Pietro would not recognise him. He’d made sure that no-one recognised him these days – and he himself had not recognised the child in the young man. But he had recognised the leather strap.

  ‘If you feel an attack coming upon you when you are alone, Pietro, this is what you must place in your mouth, do you understand?’

  He remembered the very words h
e’d said as he’d given it to the child. The leather had not been worn then, it had been shiny and new, cut from the reins of the wooden donkey that stood in the corner of the room. He’d used the killing knife which the peasant father had fetched from the drawer of the bench where the mother prepared the food.

  How extraordinary, he’d thought as he’d looked at the scarred leather.

  It was interesting now to consider that perhaps his diagnosis of the child may not have been fully correct.

  ‘He suffers from a condition which will likely remain with him until adulthood, and possibly for the rest of his life.’

  That was what he’d told the peasant couple and he’d believed it at the time – the boy had appeared a classic case. But Pietro’s childhood epilepsy may well be a thing of the past, he thought. The aberrant firing of the brainwaves may have ceased and the boy’s seizures could now be psychologically-triggered. Particularly if he’d been traumatised by the sight of his murdered family, which it seemed he had. He must have entered the house.

  A most intriguing case – so little was known about pseudo epilepsy, he would have loved to investigate further. If only he were not so personally involved.

  He cleared away his papers and rose from his desk. It was remarkable how the past continued to catch up with him in this remote outpost, he thought as he locked his consulting rooms and walked upstairs.

  In the lounge room, he poured himself a large Scotch and topped it up with a finger of water. The irony of his situation amused him. Over recent years he’d become surrounded by his past – who would have believed it possible? He’d escaped from the world which would condemn him, and had exiled himself to one of the farthest regions on the globe, the Snowy Mountains of Australia, but the world had followed him.

  How could he have known when he’d arrived in the backwater of Cooma in 1948, that barely a year later Europe would be on his doorstep? Now, at the end of 1954, the Snowies and the Monaro were populated by more Europeans than Australians. And among the hordes of migrants were refugees from displaced persons’ camps and Holocaust survivors, some quite possibly bearing the brand of Auschwitz on their wrist.