A Traitor to Memory

“Why?” He rubbed his eyebrows as if trying to stimulate his own memory. When he dropped his hand, he looked up at the ceiling instead of at me, but when he lifted his head, I had time enough to see that his eyes had become red-rimmed. I felt a pang, but I did not stop him when he went on. “Gideon, I've already recited a litany of your sister's ailments for you. Down's Syndrome was only the tip of the iceberg. She was in and out of hospital for the two years that she was alive, and when she was out of hospital, she had to have someone to attend to her constantly. That someone was Katja.”





“Why didn't you hire a professional nurse?”





He laughed without humour. “We hadn't the funds.”





“The Government—”





“State support? Unthinkable.”





And something within me jarred loose at that, my grandfather's words, spoken in a roar over the dinner table: “We do not lower ourselves to ask for charity, God damn it. A real man supports his family, and if he can't do so, he shouldn't produce one in the first place. Keep it in your bloody trousers, Dick, if you can't face the consequences of waving it about. You hear me, boy?”





And to this, Dad added, “And even if we'd tried for support, how far would we have got once the Government sorted out how much we were already spending to employ Raphael and Sarah-Jane? There was belt-tightening that we could have done. We chose not to do it initially.”





“What about the row with Katja?”





“What about it? We learned from Sarah-Jane that Katja had been lax. We talked to the girl, and during the conversation it came out that she was being sick in the morning. It was a short leap to the fact that she was pregnant. She didn't deny it.”





“So you sacked her on the spot.”





“What else were we supposed to do?”





“Who made her pregnant?”





“She wouldn't say. And we did not sack her because she wouldn't say, all right? That was hardly the issue. We sacked her because she couldn't look after your sister properly. And there were other problems, earlier problems that we'd overlooked because she'd seemed fond of Sonia, and we liked that.”





“What sort of problems?”





“Her clothing, which was never appropriate. We'd asked her to wear either a uniform or a simple, plain skirt and blouse. She wouldn't, no matter how often we instructed her to do so. She felt she had to express herself, she said. Then there were her visitors, who came and went at all hours of the day and night despite our asking her to limit their calls.”





“Who were they?”





“I don't recall them. Good God, this was more than twenty years ago.”





“Katie?”





“What?”





“Someone called Katie. She was fat. She wore expensive clothes. I remember Katie.”





“Perhaps there was a Katie. I don't know. They came from the convent. They sat in the kitchen and talked and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. And several times when Katja went out with them on her evening off, she came back inebriated and overslept in the morning. What I'm trying to tell you is that there were problems before the pregnancy issue came up, Gideon. The pregnancy—as well as the illness that accompanied it—was just the final straw.”





“But you and Mother argued with Katja when you gave her the sack.”





He shoved himself to his feet, walked across the room, and stood looking down at my violin case, closed now as it had been for days, the Guarneri hidden away from my sight so that it might cease to taunt me. “She didn't want to be sacked, obviously. She was several months pregnant, and she wasn't likely to find anyone else to employ her. So she argued with us. She pleaded to be kept on.”





“Then why not get rid of her baby? Even then, there were places … clinics …”





“That's not the decision she made, Gideon. I can't tell you why.” He squatted and released the clips on the case. He lifted the top. Inside, the Guarneri lay burnished by the light, and the glow of the wood seemed to make an accusation to which I had no simple reply. “So we argued. The three of us argued. And the next time Sonia was difficult, which happened the following day, Katja … took care of the problem.” He lifted the violin from the case and unclipped the bow. He said, and his voice was not unkind and the rims of his eyes were redder than before, “You know the truth now. Will you play for me, son?”





And I wanted to, Dr. Rose. But I knew that there was nothing within me, nothing of what had previously driven the music from my soul through my body to my arms and my fingers. That is my curse, even now.

I said, “I remember people in the house the night that … when Sonia … I remember voices, footsteps, my mother calling your name.”





“We were panicked. Everyone was panicked. There were paramedics. Firemen. Your grandparents. Pitchford. Raphael.”