Eloquent Silence (16 page)

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,

‘No gal made has got a shade on Sweet Georgia Brown.’

At least he seems to love his work, thought Annie wryly.

He inserted long, curved instrument, scraping it around and around inside her until she cried out from the excruciating pain.

‘There, my dear, it wasn’t so bad, was it? When you get home ring your GP and get him to put you into hospital to do a dilation and curette. Then you’ll be like brand new. Just rest for a while.’

Floating, floating, never mind the pain.... Never mind the fetus floating in the blood ....floating in the tears....drowning in the blood and tears ...floating ....drowning ...cringing.... my fetus....my daughter....my son...my baby....don’t cry.....perhaps another time....another day....another lifetime.

After a while she was allowed to climb down from the examination table, rearrange her clothing and sit near him at the desk while he wrote a prescription for antibiotics for her.

They discussed the state of the marriage further and her vague hopes for a peaceful life. He encouraged her to be open and frank with him, telling her he was forced to try to help women who were unable to contend  with their circumstances. He did not elaborate on what these circumstances should happen to be, allowing Annie to draw her own conclusion.

‘He treats me badly quite often,’ Annie felt compelled to continue explaining. ‘Many times I have bruises and lacerations from him knocking me around. A baby is a lifelong commitment and I can’t see how I can cope with what I already have on my plate,’ she explained as the doctor finished her script.

He tore it off the pad, placing it before her.

‘If I can ever do anything to help you, let me know. When you are bruised and battered you can come to me and I will photograph your injuries in case you need proof of your claims against him. You can sue for divorce on the grounds of cruelty, you know. You wouldn’t have to wait out desertion or separation or try to prove adultery. You have enough claims upon him for you to be able to get a quick divorce and be free of him.

‘Professional people are here to help those who can’t help themselves for whatever reason. In whatever way we can assist people who are being undermined by powerful bullies of any order. Circumstances can be awkward and it can help to know professional people.’

Very soon, the doctor trotted happily out of the room. Annie gathered herself together as best she could, replaced her clothing, paid the receptionist the remarkably small amount and limped out to the station wagon like some sort of wounded animal.

Conrad sat steaming behind the steering wheel glaring at her impatiently with his steely-blue assassin’s eyes popping as she maneuvered herself painfully into the passenger seat.

‘Jesus, you’ve been a long time in there,’ he spat at her with brutal rudeness, as if he had just been waiting for an excuse to go off the deep end. ‘What the hell did you get up to? Did he knock you off or what? Did you enjoy the ride? How long do you think I can sit here on my arse waiting for you?’ he asked viciously as he switched the ignition on, put the vehicle into drive and donned his sun-glasses.

‘All about you, as usual. Everything’s got to be all about you. Shut up, Conrad, shut up, just shut up, why can’t you? Your name should have been Adolf instead of Conrad,’ screamed Annie as they drove away, her eyes red-rimmed from crying.

‘Useless bitch,’ he said and barked further profanities at her. For once, in her pain and distress, she was tuned out to him, the obscenities drifting over her head as she wiped her tear-streaked face. She checked her watch to see if they would be in time to collect the girls from school and David from Kindergarten.

Later, a little contrite, he asked as they drove along, ‘Well, what’s the verdict? Are you knocked up or what?’ He gave her a slow, treacherous smile but would not look her in the eye.

‘No. I’m not pregnant any more if that’s what you’re asking,’ she murmured, a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. ‘It’s all over.’ Annie felt at the moment that her spirit was truly broken.

‘Good,’ he replied emphatically as the car roared along the highway. ‘Bloody good show! Be more careful in the future, will you, dimwit?’

With this experience, another layer of her soul had been peeled away. I must almost have the core exposed now, she thought, ready for the final slicing.

Drive on towards the train wreck, big boy. The wheel is in your hands.

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O
n the eighth day a tiny ball of flesh slipped away from her. This is as much as you and I will ever know of each other, she thought as she looked sadly at the glob of flesh and blood that had been her baby. Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood. Goodbye. He is never going to grow out of being dead. She felt as though she had cried every tear within her and it still wasn’t enough penitence.

The overnight trip to hospital for the D & C completed, life slipped back into normal for the Himmlar family, except for the fact that Annie had been introduced to sleeping tablets during her stay. This habit was to remain with her for the rest of her days. She could no longer sleep without the medication and never would.

Annie could not detect the presence of anything resembling God in what was left of her soul which was only an ever-diminishing, scanty thread of the powerful force it had once been.

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I
n spite of her faint hopes to the contrary, matters between husband and wife failed to improve. Conrad continued to hit out at her weak points. Tired, run down and nervous, as hard as she tried to ignore his jibes, eventually she responded as he knew she would, by hitting out at his own vulnerabilities. It was an ugly cycle.

And so they both played the predictable game they were so accustomed to—the ‘I’ll torture you until you scream, then we’ll see who can last the longest without crumbling’ game, a compulsory, no-win game for Annie.

The children, who were too young to understand what had taken place or why, had been told nothing of the pregnancy or its outcome. However, it gave Conrad something extra to play around with. He had a new trick up his sleeve these days.

‘Bit of a monster, aren’t you?’ he commented to her one morning a few days after her return from hospital. He sat at the head of the table, his lips drawn into a jeering laugh before tucking into his steak and egg breakfast.