Philip Roth - Letting Go

“All right, why then?” Gabe asked.

“Because,” said Dr. Wallach, his thoughts turning with difficulty back to the issue at hand, “I respect people.”

Mrs. Silberman momentarily withdrew the match from the end of the cigarette. “Mordecai loves people,” she said, then she held very steady while she lit her cigarette.

“And I don’t?”

Dr. Wallach did not know to whom Gabe had directed the question. Immediately he said, “Well, you don’t respect the parents to disobey their wish that way.”

“I respect the child,” Gabe said.

The doctor moved one finger around in a circle just in front of his chin; he circled, he circled, then he saw the light. “Ah that’s something, that’s curious.” He turned to his fiancée. “You see that? That’s identification that I was telling you about. You see, he’s never been a parent, so he can’t understand the parent’s position. But what has he been? What?”

Either she did not know, or out of respect was waiting for him to say it.

“A child ,” he announced. “So he takes the child’s side in this thing.”

“I see,” Fay said.

“Wait a minute,” Gabe said, “things are getting confused here. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I meant I respect the child’s right to live , and not the parent’s desire to kill it. I can’t have any respect for that. If you want to go ahead and be Freudian and pursue this thing all the way down—”

“Sure, sure, what? — go ahead—” Dr. Wallach said. “What?”

“Well, I don’t know. You might say that the parents are using what they see as moral and religious reasons for doing away with the child. You see, I don’t know anything about the case”—he motioned toward the floor, where the newspaper was—“the specifics of it, but it’s even possible that for some strange reason they want to kill the child. Look, we can’t begin to—”

“Now that’s an awful thing to say,” Fay told him, “even in jest. Parents give themselves up for their children. Look at all your father has done for you. Harvard, nice clothes, a car—”

“No, no,” said Dr. Wallach, silencing her, “let’s hear him. A theory is a theory. I’m very interested in his theories.”

“It’s not a theory,” Gabe said. “I just want to rule out this identification business. You’re not arguing on the issue then. You’re wanting to argue with me.”

Dr. Wallach pointed a finger at the boy, as though sharp thinking on his son’s part had caught him out, as though his lapse had been a deliberate point of strategy, a test of the young man’s alertness. “The old ad hominem — right,” he said. “Well, okay, I’ll give him that,” he told Fay.

“Fine,” Gabe said, and took a deep breath.

“Then you were saying?” Dr. Wallach asked.

“I was only asking,” Gabe said, “what right, as a physician, you would have to allow the death of a child, a patient, whose life you could easily save. That’s all, really.”

“And I told you. People have a firm religious belief, a way of life they cherish, then I leave them alone. I myself am an atheist—”

Mrs. Silberman bestowed upon him a motherly look.

“I am, Fay, please , and I have a perfect right to be. The same with these parents. Each man knows what’s best for himself. You’ll get older,” he told Gabe, “you’ll see you can’t rule the world.”

“Don’t people trick themselves ever?”

“That’s their business. What looks like a trick to you may not be a trick to them.”

“Well …” Gabe said, and he stood up.

“Well what?”

“Nothing. I just believe you’re talking theoretically. If you pulled a tooth, and the patient was bleeding unduly and a transfusion was necessary — well, you’d give it. At least I think you would.”

“I would not,” Dr. Wallach said in a loud voice. “I absolutely would not.”

“Well,” said Gabe, closing his hands slowly, “okay.”

“You see, this is a perfect example of an inability on your part to recognize somebody’s beliefs. You don’t know why people do what they do, believe me.”

“True. I simply said that if one were to let somebody die needlessly, that would be wrong.”

“To you what I do is wrong. Not to me!”

“I didn’t say you were wrong. I said I felt the position was wrong!”

“ I’m the positon.” Dr. Wallach was trembling. “I have my set of beliefs, you have yours—”

His son was leaning toward him, his hands on the back of a chair. “Please, I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I guess we just don’t agree about the transfusion. I’m willing to accept that.”

Fay was trying to absorb herself in smoking, but it wasn’t working. She had gone pale. “Sure, it’s only a game,” she said. “I know people who scream at each other over Scrabble.”

“It’s not a game.” Dr. Wallach lifted his napkin and threw it on the table. His eyes were burning and he looked at neither of them. “This actually happened … in … in …” He picked a section of the paper off the rug. He cleared his throat; he found it necessary to clear it again. “In Texas. Here.” He handed the paper across to Mrs. Silberman. “There, in black and white, what could happen to any of us. This man is going to lose his license, he can go to jail. It’s a historical fact — go ahead, read it. I didn’t make it up.”

Mrs. Silberman looked at the paper, then handed it to Gabe.

Dr. Wallach began stacking the breakfast dishes. “People’s lives, you don’t go fooling in them. You let people be themselves — you can ruin a life like that. Your own mother, on her last night, that’s what she talked about. That’s what she regretted above anything else. Don’t interfere—”

He set the dishes down and left the room.

In a few minutes the door opened and someone walked over to the bed. He did not open his eyes.

“Mordecai?”

“Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

“I just became overexcited.”

He felt her sit lightly down beside him. He could sense that she was afraid. She had reason to be. He wanted to open his eyes and tell her that he could not marry her. Youthful and trim as he had tried to keep himself, abreast as he had tried to stay of current affairs, he was an old man and he had had his life. Anna had been more than he could handle or understand, but he had asked her to marry him; maybe that was why he had asked her. He did not know. He had thought at the time and he thought still that he had loved Anna. He could no longer tell; he had never really been good at figuring people out. All he knew now was what he felt, and what he felt was no love for Fay. And no love for his son either. What was the use of loving him any more? He had sat there like a stranger, never once saying the right thing.

Fay was speaking. “Let him think what he wants, Mordecai.”

“I’m not telling him what to think.”

“Everybody’s entitled to his own opinion,” she said. “The individuals involved know what’s best.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

There was a knock on the door. Fay got up from the bed and opened it a little. Dr. Wallach heard his son ask if everything was all right.

“He’s resting,” Fay answered. “I think his swim tired him out.”

“Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Look, young man, you’re entitled to your opinions.”

“Please, just tell him that I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

She closed the door and came back to the bed. “When they grow up,” she said, “they think they know more than their parents. He says that he’s sorry. Now he says it.”