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CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 17 - раздел История, Эрик Сигл. История любви     It Is Not All That Easy To Make A Baby. ...

 

 

It is not all that easy to make a baby.

I mean, there is a certain irony involved when guys who spend the first

years of their sex lives preoccupied with not getting girls pregnant (and

when I first started, condoms were still in) then reverse their thinking and

become obsessed with conception and not its contra.

Yes, it can become an obsession. And it can divest the most glorious

aspect of a happy married life of its naturalness and spontaneity. I mean,

to program your thinking (unfortunate verb, "program"; it suggests a

machine)-to program your thinking about the act of love in accordance with

rules, calendars, strategy

("Wouldn't it be better tomorrow morning, 01?") can be a source of

discomfort, disgust and ultimately terror.

For when you see that your layman's knowledge and (you assume) normal

healthy efforts are not succeeding in the matter of increase-and-multiply,

it can bring the most awful thoughts to your mind.

"I'm sure you understand, Oliver, that 'sterility' would have nothing

to do with 'virility.'" Thus Dr. Mortimer Sheppard to me during the first

conversation, when Jenny and I had finally decided we needed expert

consultation.

"He understands, doctor," said Jenny for me, knowing without my ever

having mentioned it that the notion of being sterile-of possibly being

sterile-was devastating to me. Didn't her voice even suggest that she hoped,

if an insufficiency were to be discovered, it would be her own?

But the doctor had merely been spelling it all out for us, telling us

the worst, before going on to say that there was still a great possibility

that both of us were okay, and that we might soon be proud parents. But of

course we would both undergo a battery of tests. Complete physicals. The

works. (I don't want to repeat the unpleasant specifics of this kind of

thorough investigation.)

We went through the tests on a Monday. Jenny during the day, I after

work (I was fantastically immersed in the legal world). Dr. Sheppard called

Jenny in again that Friday explaining that his nurse had screwed up and he

needed to check a few things again. When Jenny told me of the revisit, I

began to suspect that perhaps he had found the.., insufficiency with her. I

think she suspected the same. The nurse-screwing-up alibi is pretty trite.

When Dr. Sheppard called me at Jonas and Marsh, I was almost certain.

Would I please drop by his office on the way home? When I heard this was not

to be a three-way conversation ("I spoke to Mrs. Barrett earlier today"), my

suspicions were confirmed. Jenny could not have children. Although, let's

not phrase it in the absolute, Oliver; remember Sheppard mentioned there

were things like corrective surgery and so forth. But I couldn't concentrate

at all, and it was foolish to wait it out till five o'clock. I called

Sheppard back and asked if he could see me in the early afternoon. He said

okay.

"Do you know whose fault it is?" I asked, not mincing any words.

"I really wouldn't say 'fault,' Oliver," he replied.

"Well, okay, do you know which of us is malfunctioning?"

"Yes. Jenny."

I had been more or less prepared for this, but the finality with which

the doctor pronounced it still threw me. He wasn't saying anything more, so

I assumed he wanted a statement of some sort from me.

"Okay, so we'll adopt kids. I mean, the important thing is that we love

each other, right?"

And then he told me.

"Oliver, the problem is more serious than that. Jenny is very sick."

"Would you define 'very sick,' please?"

"She's dying."

"That's impossible," I said.

And I waited for the doctor to tell me that it was all a grim joke.

"She is, Oliver," he said. "I'm very sorry to have to tell you this."

I insisted that he had made some mistake-perhaps that idiot nurse of

his had screwed up again and given him the wrong X rays or something. He

replied with as much compassion as he could that Jenny's blood test had been

repeated three times. There was absolutely no question about the diagnosis.

He would of course have to refer us-me-Jenny to a hematologist. In fact, he

could suggest- I waved my hand to cut him off. I wanted silence for

a minute. Just silence to let it all sink in. Then a thought occurred

to me.

"What did you tell Jenny, doctor?"

"That you were both all right."

"She bought it?"

"I think so."

"When do we have to tell her?"

"At this point, it's up to you.

Up to me! Christ, at this point I didn't feel up to breathing.

The doctor explained that what therapy they had for Jenny's form of

leukemia was merely palliative-it could relieve, it might retard, but it

could not reverse. So at that point it was up to me. They could withhold

therapy for a while.

But at that moment all I really could think of was how obscene the

whole fucking thing was.

"She's only twenty-four!" I told the doctor, shouting, I think. He

nodded, very patiently, knowing full well Jenny's age, but also

understanding what agony this was for me. Finally I realized that I couldn't

just sit in this man's office forever. So I asked him what to do. I mean,

what I should do. He told me to act as normal as possible for as long as

possible. I thanked him and left.

Normal! Normal!

 

 

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Эрик Сигл. История любви

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Chapter 1
    What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles

CHAPTER 2
    Oliver Barrett IV Ipswich, Mass. Age 20 Major: Social Studies Dean's List: '6

CHAPTER 3
    I got hurt in the Cornell game. It was my own fault, really. At a heated juncture, I made the unfortunate error of referring to their center as a &

CHAPTER 4
    "Jenny's on the downstairs phone." This information was announced to me by the girl on bells, although I had not identified myself or my

CHAPTER 5
    I would like to say a word about our physical relationship. For a strangely long while there wasn't any. I mean, there wasn't anything more signifi

CHAPTER 6
    I love Ray Stratton. He may not be a genius or a great football player (kind of slow at the snap), but he was always a good roommate and loyal frie

CHAPTER 7
    Ipswich, Mass., is some forty minutes from the Mystic River Bridge, depending on the weather and how you drive. I have actually made it on occasion

CHAPTER 8
  "Jenny, it's not Secretary of State, after all!" We were finally driving back to Cambridge, thank God. "Still, Oliver, you could have been more enth

CHAPTER 9
  There remained the matter of Cranston, Rhode Island, a city slightly more to the south of Boston than Ipswich is to the north. After the debacle of introducing Jen

CHAPTER 10
  Mr. William F. Thompson, Associate Dean of the Harvard Law School, could not believe his ears. "Did I hear you right, Mr. Barrett?" "Yes

CHAPTER 11
  Jennifer was awarded her degree on Wednesday. All sorts of relatives from Cranston, Fall River-and even an aunt from Cleveland-flocked to Cambridge to attend the c

CHAPTER 12
    If a single word can describe our daily life during those first three years, it is "scrounge." Every waking moment we were concentrating on how

CHAPTER 13
  Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Barrett III request the pleasure of your company at a dinner in celebration of Mr. Barrett's sixtieth birthday Saturday,

CHAPTER 14
  It was July when the letter came. It had been forwarded from Cambridge to Dennis Port, so I guess I got the news a day or so late. I charged over to where Jenny wa

CHAPTER 15
    We finished in that order. I mean, Erwin, Bella and myself were the top three in the Law School graduating class. The time for triumph was at hand.

CHAPTER 16
    CHANGE OF ADDRESS From July 1,1967 Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Barrett IV 263 E

CHAPTER 18
    I began to think about God. I mean, the notion of a Supreme Being existing somewhere began to creep into my private thoughts. Not because I wanted

CHAPTER 19
    Now at least I wasn't afraid to go home, I wasn't seared about "acting normal." We were once again sharing everything, even if it was the awful

CHAPTER 20
    It is impossible to drive from East Sixty-third Street, Manhattan, to Boston, Massachusetts, in less than three hours and twenty minutes. Believe m

CHAPTER 21
    The task of informing Phil Cavilleri fell to me. Who else? He did not go to pieces as I feared he might, but calmly closed the house in Cranston an

CHAPTER 22
    Phil Cavilleri was in the solarium, smoking his nth cigarette, when I appeared. "Phil?" I said softly. "Yeah?"

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