Stories (24 page)

Hamish said, “The theory is, I believe, that medical science advances so fast that we should keep even the most apparently hopeless people alive in case we find something that can save them?”

Doctor Kroll gave them the ironical smile they had seen before, and said, “Yes, yes, yes. That is the theory. But for my part …”

Mary Parrish was watching the imprisoned little boy, who glared from a flushed wild face, straining his small limbs inside the thick stuff of the straitjacket. She said, “In Britain strait-jackets are hardly ever used. Certainly not for children.”

“So?” commented Doctor Kroll. “So? But sometimes it is for the patient’s own good.”

He advanced towards the boy and stood before the bars of the cot, looking at him. The child glared back like a wild animal into the eyes of the big doctor. “This one bites if you go too near him,” commented Doctor Kroll; and with a nod of his head invited them to follow him out.

“Yes, yes,” he remarked, unlocking the big door and locking
it behind them, “there are things we cannot say in public, but we may agree in private that there are many people in this hospital who would be no worse for a quick and painless death.”

Again he asked that they would excuse him, and he strode off to have a word with another doctor, who was crossing the court in his white coat, with another big bunch of black keys in his hand.

Hamish said, “This man told us that he has directed this hospital for thirty years.”

“Yes, I believe he did.”

“So he was here under Hitler.”

“The mongrel upstart, yes.”

“And he would not have kept his job unless he had agreed to sterilise Jews, serious mental defectives, and communists. Did you remember?”

“No, I’d forgotten.”

“So had I.”

They were silent a moment, thinking of how much they had liked, how much they still liked, Doctor Kroll.

“Any Jew or mental defective or communist unlucky enough to fall into Doctor Kroll’s hands would have been forcibly sterilised. And the very ill would have been killed outright.”

“Not necessarily,” she objected feebly. “After all, perhaps he refused. Perhaps he was strong enough to refuse.”

“Perhaps.”

“After all, even under the worst governments there are always people in high places who use their influence to protect weak people.”

“Perhaps.”

“And he might have been one.”

“We should keep an open mind?” he enquired, quick and sarcastic. They stood very close together under the cold snow in a corner of the grey courtyard. Twenty paces away, behind walls and locked doors, a small boy, naked save for a straitjacket and tied to bars like an animal, was grinding his teeth and glaring at the fat knitting wardress.

Mary Parrish said miserably, “We don’t know, after all. We shouldn’t condemn anyone without knowing. For all we know he might have saved the lives of hundreds of people.”

At this point Doctor Kroll came back, swinging his keys.

Hamish enquired blandly, “It would interest us very much to know if Hitler’s regime made any difference to you professionally?”

Doctor Kroll considered this question as he strolled along beside them. “Life was easy for no one during that time,” he said.

“But as regards medical policy?”

Doctor Kroll gave this question his serious thought, and said, “No, they did not interfere very much. Of course, on certain questions, the gentlemen of the Nazi regime had sensible ideas.”

“Such as? For instance?”

“Oh, questions of hygiene? Yes, one could call them questions of social hygiene.” He had led them to the door of the main building, and now he said: “You will, I hope, join me in a cup of coffee before you leave? Unless I can persuade you to stay and have a meal with us?”

“I think we should catch our bus back to town,” said Hamish, speaking firmly for both of them. Doctor Kroll consulted his watch. “Your bus will not be passing for another twenty minutes.” They accompanied him back through the picture-hung corridors to his office.

“And I would like so much to give you a memento of your visit,” he said, smiling at them both. “Yes, I would like that. No, wait for one minute; I want to show you something.”

He went to the wall cupboard and took out a flat object wrapped in a piece of red silk. He unwrapped the silk and brought forth another picture. He set this picture against the side of the desk and invited them to stand back and look at it. They did so, already prepared to admire it, for it was a product of one of the times when he was not depressed. It was a very large picture, done in clear blues and greens, the picture of a forest—an imaginary forest with clear streams running through it, a forest where impossibly brilliant birds flew, and full of plants and trees created in Doctor Kroll’s mind. It was beautiful, full of joy and tranquillity and light. But in the centre of the sky glared a large black eye. It was an eye remote from the rest of the picture; and obviously what had happened was that Doctor Kroll had painted his fantasy forest, and then afterwards, looking at it during some fit of misery, had painted in that black, condemnatory, judging eye.

Mary Parrish stared back at the eye and said, “It’s lovely; it’s
a picture of paradise. ‘ She felt uncomfortable at using the word “paradise” in the presence of Hamish, who by temperament was critical of words like these.

But Doctor Kroll smiled with pleasure, and laid his heavy hand on her shoulder, and said: “You understand. Yes, you understand. That picture is called The Eye of God in Paradise.’ You like it?”

“Very much,” she said, afraid that he was about to present that picture to her. For how could they possibly transport such a big picture all the way back to Britain and what would she do with it when she got there? For it would be dishonest to paint out the black, wrathful eye: one respected, naturally, an artist’s conception even if one disagreed with it. And she could not endure to live with that eye, no matter how much she liked the rest of the picture.

But it seemed that Dr. Kroll had no intention of parting with the picture itself, which he wrapped up again in its red silk and hid in the cupboard. He took from a drawer a photograph of the picture and offered it to her, saying, “If you really like my picture—and I can see that you do, for you have a real feeling, a real understanding—then kindly take this as a souvenir of a happy occasion.”

She thanked him, and both she and Hamish looked with polite gratitude at the photograph. Of course it gave no idea at all of the original. The subtle blues and greens had gone, were not hinted at; and even the softly waving grasses, trees, plants, foliage were obliterated. Nothing remained but a reproduction of crude crusts of paint, smeared thick by the fingers of Doctor Kroll, from which emerged the hint of a branch, the suggestion of a flower. Nothing remained except the black, glaring eye, the eye of a wrathful and punishing God. It was the photograph of a roughly scrawled eye, as a child might have drawn it—as, so Mary could not help thinking, that unfortunate strait-jacketed little boy might have drawn the eye of God, or of Doctor Kroll, had he been allowed to get his arms free and use them.

The thought of that little boy hurt her; it was still hurting Hamish, who stood politely beside her. She knew that the moment they could leave this place and get on to the open road where the bus passed would be the happiest of her life.

They thanked Doctor Kroll profoundly for his kindness, insisted
they were afraid they might miss their bus, said goodbye, and promised letters and an exchange of medical papers of interest to them all—promised, in short, eternal friendship.

Then they left the big building and Doctor Kroll and emerged into the cold February air. Soon the bus came and picked them up, and they travelled back over the flat black plain to the city terminus.

The terminus was exactly as it had been four or five hours before. Under the low grey sky lay the black chilled earth, the ruins of streets, the already softening shapes of bomb craters, the big new shining white building covered with the energetic shapes of the workers. The bus queue still waited patiently, huddled into dark, thick clothes, while a thin bitter snow drifted down, down, hardly moving, as if the sky itself were slowly falling.

Mary Parrish took out the photograph and held it in her chilly gloved hand.

The black angry eye glared up at them.

“Tear it up,” he said.

“No,” she said.

“Why not? What’s the use of keeping the beastly thing?”

“It wouldn’t be fair,” she said seriously, returning it to her handbag.

“Oh, fair” he said bitterly, with an impatient shrug.

They moved off side by side to the bus stop where they would catch a bus back to their hotel. Their feet crunched sharply on the hard earth. The stillness, save for the small shouts of the men at work on the half-finished building, save for the breathing noise of the machine, was absolute. And this queue of people waited like the other across the square, waited eternally, huddled up, silent, patient, under the snow; listening to the silence, under which seemed to throb from the depths of the earth the memory of the sound of marching feet, of heavy, black-booted, marching feet.

R
ose’s mother was killed one morning crossing the street to do her shopping. Rose was fetched from work, and a young policeman, awkward with sympathy, asked questions and finally said: “You ought to tell your dad, miss, he ought to know.” It had struck him as strange that she had not suggested it, but behaved as if the responsibility for everything must of course be hers. He thought Rose was too composed to be natural. Her mouth was set and there was a strained look in her eyes. He insisted; Rose sent a message to her father; but when he came she put him straight into bed with a cup of tea. Mr. Johnson was a plump, fair little man, with wisps of light hair lying over a rosy scalp, and blue, candid, trustful eyes. Then she came back to the kitchen and her manner told the policeman that she expected him to leave. From the door he said diffidently: “Well, I’m sorry, miss, I’m real sorry. A terrible thing—you can’t rightly blame the lorry-driver, and your mum—it wasn’t her fault either.” Rose turned her white, shaken face, her cold and glittering eyes towards him and said tartly: “Being sorry doesn’t mend broken bones.” That last phrase seemed to take her by surprise, for she winced, her face worked in a rush of tears, and then she clenched her jaw again. “Them lorries,” she said heavily, “them machines, they ought to be stopped, that’s what I think.” This irrational remark encouraged the policeman: it was nearer to the tears, the emotion that he thought would be good for her. He remarked encouragingly: “I daresay, miss, but we couldn’t do without them, could we now?” Rose’s face did not change. She said politely: “Yes?”
It was sceptical and dismissing; that monosyllable said finally: You keep your opinions, I’ll keep mine. It examined and dismissed the whole machine age. The young policeman, still lingering over his duty, suggested: “Isn’t there anybody to come and sit with you? You don’t look too good, miss, and that’s a fact.”

“There isn’t anybody,” said Rose briefly, and added: “I’m all right.” She sounded irritated, and so he left. She sat down at the table and she was shocked at herself for what she had said. She thought: I ought to tell George…. But she did not move. She stared vaguely around the kitchen, her mind dimly churning around several ideas. One was that her father had taken it hard, she would have her hands full with him. Another, that policeman, officials—they were all nosey-parkers, knowing what was best for everybody. She found herself staring at a certain picture on the wall, and thinking: Now I can take that picture down. Now she’s gone I can do what I like. She felt a little guilty, but almost at once she briskly rose and took the picture down. It was of a battleship in a stormy sea, and she hated it. She put it away in a cupboard. Then the white empty square on the wall troubled her, and she replaced it by a calendar with yellow roses on it. Then she made herself a cup of tea and began cooking her father’s supper, thinking: I’ll wake him up and make him eat, do him good to have a bite of something hot.

At supper her father asked: “Where’s George?” Her face closed against him in irritation and she said: “I don’t know.” He was surprised and shocked, and he protested: “But Rosie, you ought to tell him, it’s only right.” Now, it was against this knowledge that she had been arming herself all day; but she knew that sooner or later she must tell George, and when she had finished the washing-up she took a sheet of writing paper from the drawer of her dresser and sat down to write. She was as surprised at herself as her father was: Why didn’t she want to tell George? Her father said, with the characteristic gentle protest: “But Rosie, why don’t you give him a ring at the factory? They’d give him the message.” Rose made as if she had not heard. She finished the letter, found some coppers in her bag for a stamp, and went out to post it. Afterwards she found herself thinking of George’s arrival with reluctance that deserved the name of fear. She could not understand herself, and soon went to bed in order to lose herself in sleep. She dreamed of the lorry
that had killed her mother; she dreamed, too, of an enormous black machine, relentlessly moving its great arms back and forth, back and forth, in a way that was menacing to Rose.