A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe

Author:Kenzaburō Ōe
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 0330344358
Publisher: Picador
Published: 1968-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

AS Bird started up the stairs toward his wife’s hospital room, his shoes in one hand and a bag of grapefruit under his arm, the young doctor with the glass eye started down. They met halfway. The one-eyed doctor halted several steps above Bird and launched his voice downward in what felt to Bird like high imperiousness. In fact, he said merely, “How is everything?”

“He’s alive,” Bird said.

“And, what about surgery?”

“They’re afraid the baby will weaken and die before they can operate,” Bird said, feeling his upturned face blush.

“Well, that’s probably for the best!”

Bird’s color deepened noticeably and a twitch appeared at the corners of his mouth. His reaction made the doctor blush, too.

“Your wife hasn’t been told about the baby’s brain,” he said, speaking into the air above Bird’s head. “She thinks there’s a defective organ. Of course, the brain is an organ, there’s no getting around that, so it’s not a lie. You try lying your way out of a tight spot and you only have to lie all over again when the truth gets out. You know what I mean?”

“Yes,” Bird said.

“Well then, don’t hesitate to let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Bird and the doctor bowed decorously and passed each other on the stairs with faces averted. Well, that’s probably for the best! the doctor had said. To weaken and die before they could operate. That meant escaping the burden of a vegetable baby, and without fouling your own hands with its murder. All you had to do was wait for the baby to weaken and die hygienically in a modern hospital ward. Nor was it impossible to forget about it while you waited: that would be Bird’s job. Well, that’s probably for the best! The sensation of deep and dark shame renewed itself in Bird and he could feel his body stiffen. Like the expectant mothers and the women who had just given birth who passed him in their many-colored rayon nightgowns, like those who carried in their bodies a large, squirming mass, and those who had not quite escaped the memory and habit of it, Bird took short, careful steps. He was pregnant himself, in the womb of his brain, with a large squirming mass that was the sensation of shame. For no real reason, the women in the corridor eyed him haughtily as they passed, and under each glance Bird meekly lowered his head. These were the women who had watched him leave the hospital in an ambulance with his grotesque baby, that same host of pregnant angels. For a minute he was certain they knew what had happened to his son since then. And perhaps, like ventriloquists, they were murmuring at the back of their throats Ah! if it’s that baby you mean, he’s been installed on an efficient conveyer system in an infant slaughterhouse and is weakening to death this very minute—well, that’s probably for the best!

A squalling of many infants beset Bird like a whirlwind. His eye wildly wheeling fell on the rows of cradles in the infant ward.

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