The Fan Tan Players, page 22
Both Nadia and Iain were full of laughter, whispering into each other’s ear indulgently, flirtatiously. For the first time in about a month Nadia felt as though a tranquil gaiety had overcome her. She was light on her feet and all thoughts of seeing Dr. Goode were wedged far away to the back of her mind. Instead, her talk was all about her fish – how strong it was, how beautiful its markings were, how well it played. She wondered what must have gone through its head when these twin monsters dragged it out of the water and what it would now be saying to its friends. And she still could not stop from smiling at Iain who grinned back at her, boyishly, indulgently.
Sensing the celebratory mood in the air, Jane went to put the kettle on and broke open a packet of Nairn oatcakes. She returned with three cups of Brodie’s tea and a plate of ‘oatie wafers’ on a tray, together with a jug of ewe’s milk. As soon as they settled into their armchairs with the scratchy upholstery, tea in hand, they heard the radio broadcast.
‘Chinese sources have confirmed that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the head of the Chinese Nationalist Army, was indeed kidnapped in December by agents working for former Manchurian warlord, Zhang Xue-liang, only to be released ten days later, unharmed. Chiang Kai-shek’s ruling Nationalists, the Kuomintang, have been engaged in a bitter civil war with the insurgent Chinese Communist Party for over a decade. Some Sino-experts have claimed that Zhang detained Chang Kai-shek in an effort to persuade him to abandon his fight with the Communists and present a united front against Japan. Japanese troops have occupied vast areas of Northern China since 1931 …’
Iain sat up straight.
‘‘What does it mean?’’ asked Nadia. Jane was standing at her elbow. Her hands were pale with flour from kneading and shaping the pudding pastry.
He did not reply. He exhaled loudly through his nose, thinking, his eyes steady in the dull twilight.
‘‘I suspect Japan’s about to show its hand,’’ he eventually said. ‘‘They’re going to make a push into China.’’
‘‘I don’t understand.’’
‘‘Japan’s threatening to invade China and the smaller Chinese factions are panicking. Chiang’s kidnapping will either unite the Nationalists and Communists or pull them further apart. Whatever happens, it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese start to infiltrate further into the mainland. Their expansionist policy is well-known to Whitehall. I think both China and Japan are preparing to go to war.’’
3
Leaning against the back seat of the taxicab, Nadia watched as the driver took her down the West End, skirting the Caledonian Hotel and the Princes Street Gardens.
This is it, she thought, the crossroads of my life. The doctor will tell me everything I need to know: whether I’m fertile, if my cervical fluid is normal, if my cervix is positioned correctly, if my eggs are healthy, if I have any eggs at all. She read somewhere that one in eight couples had trouble conceiving. She tried to imagine all the Christmases and birthdays to come without the laughter of children surrounding her. And she also thought about Mamuchka – imagined her sitting in the back patio in Macao, feeding the stray cats under the bauhinia tree, contemplating her happiness while her grandchildren ran about her feet. Nadia couldn’t bear the thought of depriving her of such pleasure.
Iain held her by the hand as they walked around St. Andrew Square. The trees in the square were spiky and leafless, brittle with frost. There was a small quadrangle of hard brown lawn and a path that cut right through it.
‘‘I’m nervous,’’ she said.
‘‘You’ll be fine. You’re my tough little girl.’’
‘‘I may seem tough. I may put on a good act that I know what I’m doing – but I don’t. I’m as frightened as anyone.’’
‘‘I know you are. But there’s nothing to be frightened of. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’’ he said.
A knot formed in her stomach. ‘‘Yes, I’m sure.’’ He took her in his arms and they embraced. He held onto her so tight she had to prise his fingers away when they parted.
Her appointment with Dr. Goode was for three o’clock at his surgery on George Street. She was twenty minutes ahead of time. Better to be early than late, she said to herself.
Now, as she stepped into the elevator to take her up to the fifth floor, she felt alone and vulnerable. She missed her mother. It was at times like this that she needed Mamuchka by her side. With a diminutive gesture, the elevator-boy pulled the cage shut and the lift ascended.
She took a seat in the waiting-room. From her coat pocket she removed a letter that she had received the day before from Izabel. It started by talking about the ball that she and Senhor Pinto were hosting in support of their little orphanage on the Rua S. Lourenco. She said that invitations had already been sent out to members of the Clube Militar and the Jai Alai Association, to the stewards of the Trotting Club and to the editors of local media; she had even asked all the the doctors and nurses and social workers in the surrounding area.
The letter also mentioned that her young cousin, Anna, had arrived safely from Barreiro. She spoke of the Chinese New Year party that she threw and of all the people that attended – saying that Uncle Yugevny and her parents were in fine form, staying up past midnight, that Senhor Pinto got a little drunk and attempted press-ups on the living-room floor, only to be outdone by Costa who let off a stream of firecrackers in the kitchen which blew a hole in the wall. That although it was a good party, everybody said it wasn’t the same with Nadia and Iain gone and that they were to hurry back as soon as possible.
The letter released a jumble of images – Papashka so frail, yet still so full of life; Uncle Yugevny singing Russian drinking songs at every opportunity, Mrs. Lo proudly boasting about her son Lennox, Costa being Costa and causing mayhem, Senhor Pinto still handing out embroidered handkerchiefs, and Mamuchka smiling sweetly through the ensuing chaos.
A female voice broke her concentration. ‘‘Mrs Sutherland, Dr. Goode will see you now,’’ said the nurse with an enigmatic smile.
The clinic was brightly lit and smelled of camphor and iodine. The nurse rapped her knuckles against a door and waited for a response. When she heard a voice respond from within, she turned the door handle with a click and ushered Nadia inside. The doctor was a slight-shouldered man of about fifty with a Kitchener moustache. He wore wiry spectacles and had white hairs sprouting from his ears. A cloud of pipe smoke hung over him like a veil. He had pale slender hands and wore a humourless expression on his face as she entered his office, but as soon as he sensed her apprehension, his eyes softened.
‘‘Please sit, Mrs. Sutherland.’’
Nadia sat down, rested her hands on her knees, gripping them. She saw that his desk was neat, devoid of paperclips, fountain pens and documents; a glass inkwell with twin receptacles, adorned the work surface. Its silver lids lay open. Nadia could smell the drying ink. Dry, she thought to herself, just like me.
Dr. Goode began by asking her how long they’d been trying for children. He wanted to know her age and medical history, whether she had any allergies to wheat. After that he questioned her about her diet, if she consumed coffee, white flour, fatty foods or alcohol, whether she smoked, whether Iain smoked. He wanted to know about her menstrual cycles and if she had ever miscarried, whether she suffered from cysts in the ovaries, symptoms which included unpunctual or absent periods. Nadia answered as clearly as she could, all the time noticing the different photographs that were scattered all over the room, surrounding Dr. Goode; images of children, infants, toddlers – all the little people that he had helped to bring into this world.
‘‘Do you experience acute pain during your menstrual flow?’’ he asked.
‘‘Yes, sometimes.’’
‘‘Pain like a knife cut or as though you’ve eaten something bad.’’
‘‘Like a knife.’’
‘‘And do you feel severe fatigue or nausea during such times?’’
‘‘Yes, both.’’
His fingers closed round the bowl of his pipe. ‘‘And during your menstrual flow, does it hurt when you urinate?’’
‘‘Sometimes.’’
‘‘Do you feel pain during intercourse?’’
‘‘Not often.’’
‘‘But sometimes?’’
She nodded.
‘‘What about hot baths,’’ he asked, changing his focus abruptly. ‘‘Does your husband take them often?’’ She said that he didn’t, that he preferred to shower. ‘‘He suffers from prickly heat in the summertime, so he showers quite frequently to cool down.’’
She felt her face redden. Was it the intensity of his gaze that made her look away? She wasn’t sure. Her eyes wandered across the room, moved to the numerous medical diplomas and certificates that hung like medals across the wall. He began to explain the ovulation cycle to her. ‘‘Timing is crucial,’’ he added. ‘‘Get it wrong and it’s almost impossible to conceive. If I may use a snooker analogy, it’s like trying to pot a ball with all the pockets sealed off.’’
Nadia nodded.
‘‘Well, my dear,’’ he said, tapping out the bowl of his pipe and resting it upside down. ‘‘I think we’d best have a closer look at you. No time like the present.’’
He led her to an adjoining room and motioned her towards a raised examination table. ‘‘There’s a dressing gown on the chair,’’ he said. ‘‘Kindly remove your clothes. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’’
‘‘But I have never undressed for any man apart from my husband.’’
His Kitchener moustache twitched. ‘‘Mrs. Sutherland, I am a physician. You mustn’t feel shy with me. If you like, I will ask the nurse to be in attendance.’’
Nadia hugged herself as though she were cold. ‘‘Yes, that would make me feel better.’’
He yanked the privacy curtain closed.
Nadia returned the following day, a Wednesday, to have a series of more complicated and often painful tests, including a blood and urine evaluation. Following this, they took swabs of her cervical mucus and measured her blood pressure at regular intervals.
She returned to her hotel bed exhausted, burying her face in the sheets, hugging her pillow tight as she slept, only to come back the next day and go through it all again.
On Friday morning Dr. Goode struck a match and lit his pipe. ‘‘There’s very little I can find wrong with you, Mrs. Sutherland,’’ said the doctor, gazing at his ash-tray.
Nadia wanted to smile with relief, but didn’t dare tempt fate.
‘‘However,’’ he continued, with a stroke of his moustache. ‘‘That doesn’t mean I’m giving your reproductive organs a clean bill of health.’’
‘‘Oh,’’ she said.
‘‘Yes, there’s a great deal medical science can tell us about fertility. There’s also a great deal that remains hidden from us. And one of these things concerns your fallopian tubes – whether they are working properly or not, whether they are twisted, or infected or obstructed. Conception usually takes place when a female egg is ejected from the ovary and travels down the fallopian tube. Somewhere along the way our egg meets the male sperm who fertilizes her. After that the cells divide and reproduce, eventually multiplying to create a little baby. The fact that you encounter acute pain during menstruation, and discomfort during intercourse, the fact that I discovered mild traces of inflammation and evidence of scar tissue along your cul-de-sac, indicates that you may be suffering from Endometriosis.’’
Fear crept into Nadia’s eyes. She swallowed hard, shielding her trembling mouth. ‘‘And what is that exactly? This endoterminus.’’
‘‘Endometriosis. It’s an immunological disease which causes the cells that line the insides of your uterus to form elsewhere resulting in inflammation and internal bleeding.’’
‘‘I … I see.’’
‘‘I’d say that your problem, and please, this is only an educated guess, is that these cells have made a home in your fallopian tubes.’’
‘‘Which means?’’
He made a steeple with his hands, frowned at his fingers. ‘‘Well, the prognosis isn’t good. It implies that your fallopian tubes may be blocked. In a few years they may discover some sort of way to treat it, perhaps find a cure but until then …’’
Nadia felt her heart thud in her chest. Her eyes lingered on the twin inkwells on the doctor’s desk. The ink was completely dry now. She waited a few seconds before asking desperately, ‘‘What are my chances of having children?’’
‘‘I’m afraid,’’ he paused in mid-sentence, ‘‘it means that you may never be able to conceive.’’
The colour drained from her lips. She tried to respond, her voice stiff in her throat. But his words had blotted out everything.
Empty tables and wooden stools snaked along the length of the pub. It was eleven in the morning and the place smelled of stale beer, nutty pipe smoke and the previous night’s cigarettes. The publican, a portly man with a mermaid tattooed on his left forearm, was still setting out clean beer towels and ashtrays, lining up the freshly washed tumblers along his shelf; he had still to change out of his string vest. There were only two other people in the establishment, both men, both nursing halves of McEwan’s ale. The other early-birds, it seemed, had yet to arrive.
Iain sat across from Nadia, holding both her hands. They had taken a table against a window looking out onto the street. When he looked, he saw that his wife’s eyes were misty with shock.
Parts of her were trembling. First it was her hands, then the muscles on her neck throbbed and twitched. She reminded him of a deer he’d once seen that had just been struck by a car. The animal walked away but he could see that there was something very wrong, that something inside of it had been badly mangled. Something awful, too, he knew, was happening inside of Nadia. The woman he loved was breaking apart.
‘‘I want to go home,’’ she said.
‘‘I’ll go and hail a taxicab to take us back to the hotel.’’
‘‘No, I mean Macao.’’
‘‘We’ll be back there soon.’’ Iain squeezed her hand in his. He wondered whether he ought to tell her the news.
His mind went back an hour to a dark office in Jamaica Street. There were four men in the room: Fielding from HQ in Regent’s Park, London, whom Iain had previously encountered in Hong Kong; Bowman from Internal Security; Patterson-Mutre from Records; and Ridley from Briefing and Debriefing.
‘‘How long’ve you been married now?’’
‘‘Seven years.’’
‘‘You do realize that by marrying a Russian you went against policy etiquette.’’ It was Fielding talking. His lips were thick and red like a toilet plunger.
‘‘Why on earth are you bringing this up now?’’
‘‘My dear boy, you haven’t had a full debriefing in almost twelve years. You’re not stationed across the road, you know. We’re simply running you through policy etiquette.’’
Iain told them he couldn’t give a monkey’s about policy etiquette.
‘‘Couldn’t give a monkey’s? My dear boy …’’
‘‘Don’t give me that my dear boy rubbish, Fielding.’’ Iain stared at them with the cold calculating eyes of a man who’d heard similar bigotry for the best part of a decade. ‘‘This has nothing to do with you.’’ He spoke with the authority of a thirty-eight-year-old man with an unimpeachable record. ‘‘I fell in love and I got married. End of story.’’
‘‘You’re lucky the grey suits on the 9th floor hold you in such high esteem, Sutherland,’’ said Patterson-Mutre, ‘‘otherwise, in my opinion, you’d’ve been on your bike by now.’’
‘‘Frankly, I couldn’t care a damn about your opinion. I gained Home Office consent to marry my wife, who now holds a British passport, and I received the full support of both C himself and Section VII. As far as I’m concerned that’s all that matters. If you have a problem with that, then you should take it up with C or with your respective department heads and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring up my private affairs again, all right?’’ He let the sentence hang in the air for a brief moment. ‘‘So, without further ado, let’s move on to the next topic, shall we?’’ Thereafter, Iain had held his ground, knowing he was in control of the meeting. It took him only a further twenty-seven minutes to secure the posting he was looking for.
His attention returned to Nadia now.
‘‘Did the doctor prescribe any medication, can it be treated?’’ he asked. ‘‘Will the condition improve with time?’’
Cardiganed and vulnerable, she drew her arms over her chest, hugging herself. ‘‘No, there’s no treatment. And he wasn’t hopeful anything would ever change.’’ She thought about the little bottle of pills in her bag and offered him an indignant smile. ‘‘He gave me some aspirin for the pain.’’
‘‘But you said he based his diagnosis on a guess … he didn’t say for sure.’’
A pause.
Iain could almost read what was going through Nadia’s mind – it was as though her femininity, her whole existence was suddenly in question. She was filled with anxiety and despair and a fear of the future; a feeling of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her.
‘‘Remember what I told you,’’ he said as gently as he could. ‘‘It doesn’t matter to me.’’
‘‘But it matters to me, Iain. It matters to me that you are with someone who can give you children. Do you have any idea how this makes me feel as a woman? How this makes me feel as a wife? I want a family. And so do you, I know you do.’’
‘‘We can adopt.’’
‘‘I don’t want to adopt!’’ She snapped like a pair of well-oiled scissors. ‘‘I realize it’s selfish of me, especially being involved in the orphanage … but I simply want to have my own child. A baby that has our blood, a combination of you and me.’’
He folded his arms over his chest.
‘‘I don’t think you understand how important this is to me,’’ said Nadia.
