The doctor stares at me. “Didn’t what?”
“Tell me you didn’t sterilize her.”
Dr. Townsend cocks his head slightly. “That truly is none of your business, Miss Calvert. I believe we are finished here.”
“God Almighty, you did, didn’t you?” I say with a gasp. “I know you do that here.”
“Again,” the doctor says calmly, “that is none of your business.”
“But why?” I am unable to keep the accusing tone out of my voice. “Why did you do that? Rosie was just a young girl!”
“She could’ve easily passed her synesthesia on to a child. And as I said earlier, this genetic condition made her life miserable. Do you understand? Her life was handicapped because of it.”
“But how do you know her life was miserable because of it? And what gives you the right to decide who is worthy to be a mother or a father and who is not? What gives you the right to judge whose life has value and whose doesn’t as if you were—”
“As if I were God?” he cuts in. “I’ve heard that before from people like you who haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“I was going to say, ‘as if you are better than everyone else.’ God doesn’t devalue people the way you do,” I say evenly.
“Is that so? And yet he permits some to be born with the worst birth defects imaginable.”
“But he doesn’t love or value them less because of it! Do you honestly think because of her condition that God in heaven loves Rosanne Maras less than you or me? Do you honestly believe that he loves anyone who is blind, or crippled, or can’t think straight, less than anyone else?”
“If I was of a mind to convince you,” the doctor says coolly, “I might take you upstairs and show you the many men and women we have here with perfectly operating sexual organs but with the intelligence of four-year-olds. Do you think someone with the mind of a four-year-old would make a suitable parent or would produce a healthy child? I can show you women whose promiscuity has riddled them with diseases and who are of such low moral standards that they would fill the earth with miserable souls just like themselves, who would then grow up into a life of crime and depravity. Just because a person has the anatomical features to produce a child doesn’t mean they should, Miss Calvert. Deviance is woven into the fabric of a person’s genes, as is intelligence and moral fortitude. I would ask you how you could so cavalierly subject society to the immense financial and civic burden of caring for people like this and then their multiple offspring. But since you are not likely to be convinced, and you are no threat to our work here, I will kindly say, instead, good day, Miss Calvert.”
Martine’s words to Johannes that long-ago night are echoing in my head and heart.Who are we to say their lives are meaningless, Johannes!
Who are we indeed?
I rise from my chair, shaking with anger and regret for all that I did and cannot undo. “You think you know everything, have seen everything,” I say. “But I’m the one who has seen where this takes us all in the end, how the way you’re thinking right now can degrade and make you—yes, you, Doctor—just like Hitler and all his murdering Nazis. You want only perfect people living in the world, and foryouand only you to decide what is perfect and what is not. Wake up! That’s what they wanted! Can’t you see? That’s exactly what they wanted. And look what they did to get it. Look what they did!”
The man startles but quickly recovers his composure. “We arefinished, Miss Calvert.” Then he reaches for papers on his desk, as if I have already left the room.
I stand a moment longer and then turn from him and leave his office, two hot tears sliding down my face. I lost my temper. I said things I cannot take back, that can’t be unheard, just like before when Fraulein Platz came to the Maiers’ door.
I sweep the tears away with one hand as I walk quickly down the long hallway, wanting to believe, needing to believe, that George will somehow be the next one of us to walk down this hallway, and with a court order in his hand. Somehow I have to get one.
In the lobby, I stride past the nurse at the reception desk, who looks up at me but says nothing.
I swing the front door open wide, step out, and yank the door closed behind me. I pause on the top step, wishing I could go back in time and fix everything. I would tell Truman to be careful, to recognize he was unhappy in his marriage and deal with it so that he didn’t make a mistake that would ruin three lives. I would tell Celine to put Rosie in school and to stop treating everyone like objects to be controlled. If I could go back in time, there is so much I would do differently. So much.
If only I could. Two more tears are spilling down my cheeks as I walk toward the Studebaker. When I am halfway to the vehicle, the door to the institution opens and the young man who showed me to Dr. Townsend’s office steps out. He holds up a hand to indicate he wants me to stop and wait for him.
He hurries over to me. In his hand he holds a folded piece of paper.
“I heard you talking in there. I was just in the next office over. Here.” He offers me the piece of paper. “It’s the address of the hotel in Petaluma where Rosie Maras was given a job after she left here. I looked it up while you were talking.”
I take the piece of paper, too stunned to thank him.
“I’d appreciate it if you kept this just between us,” the man says. “My father would be livid if he knew I had given the address to you.”
“Your father?” I ask, finally finding my voice.
“Dr. Townsend. I work for him when I’m on summer or holiday breaks from medical school. My name’s Stuart.”
I again look at the address in my hand: Hotel Pacifica, 104 Washington Street. Petaluma, California. Then I raise my gaze to the young man in front of me. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I’m the one who is grateful for the chance to help you. I remember Rosie Maras. She was kind to me. Quite kind. And I...” His voice falls away.
