Letter to a Child Never Born Page 3

  In the other nightmare there was a kangaroo. It was a female kangaroo, and from her womb emerged a tender and living thing: a sort of delicate worm. It looked around bewildered, almost as though trying to understand where it was, then began climbing up the hairy body. It proceeded slowly, laboriously, slipping and falling, but finally it reached the pouch and with a final tremendous effort threw itself headlong inside. I realized it wasn’t you; it was the embryo of the kangaroo, which is born this way because it emerges early from the prison of the egg and completes its formation outside the womb. But I spoke to it as though it were you. I thanked it for having come to show me that it wasn’t a thing but a person. I told it that now we were no longer two strangers, two unknowns, and laughed happily. I laughed … But Grandmother arrived. She was very old and very sad. All the weight of the world seemed to press down on her curved shoulders. In her wasted hands she held a little doll with closed eyes and an oversized head. She said: ‘I’m so tired. I’m paying for the abortions. I’ve had eight children and eight abortions. If I’d been rich I’d have had sixteen children and not a single abortion. It’s not true that you get used to it; every time is the first time. But the priest didn’t understand this.’ The little doll was the size of a crucifix, the kind you carry in your pocket. Lifting it like a crucifix, Grandmother went into a church where she knelt down at a confessional and began to whisper something. From behind the grating a harsh voice rose, the voice of the priest: ‘You’ve killed a human being! You’ve killed a human being!’ Grandmother was trembling for fear that others were listening. She kept imploring: ‘Don’t shout, Father, I beg you! You’ll get me arrested! I beg you!’ But the priest didn’t lower his voice, and Grandmother fled. She ran through the streets, followed by the police, and it was heartrending to see an old woman running like this. I felt as though I’d faint, and I was thinking: her heart will break, she’s going to die. The police grabbed her at the door of her house. They took away the little doll and tied Grandmother’s arms. She said proudly, ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll do it again. I never do it willingly but I can’t take care of so many children. I can’t.’ I was awakened by those pains in the lower part of the stomach.

  I must stop seeing my friend. It’s her speeches that cause me these nightmares. Last evening she invited me to supper: her husband was away; she thought it would be a good chance to talk to me about you, and it was torture. It seems indeed that there’s a scientist, Dr H.B. Munson, who’s in agreement with her. Even the fœtus, this man declares, is practically inert matter, little more than a vegetable that can be extirpated with a spoon. At most it can be considered a ‘coherent system of unrealized capacity’. According to some biologists, on the other hand, the human being begins at the time of conception since the fertilized egg contains DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid composed of the proteins that form an individual. A thesis to which Dr Munson replies that even the spermatozoa, even the unfertilized egg, contain DNA. Are we then to consider the egg and sperm as though they were human beings? Then there’s a group of doctors for whom a human being becomes a human being after twenty-eight weeks, namely at the moment when it can survive outside the uterus even though gestation has not been completed. And there’s a group of anthropologists for whom a human being is not even a newborn baby but someone who’s been moulded by cultural and social influences. We almost ended up in a quarrel. My friend favoured the opinion of the anthropologists and I was prompted to accept that of the biologists. Irritated, she accused me of being on the side of the priests: ‘You’re a Catholic, a Catholic, a Catholic!’ I was offended. I’m not a Catholic, and she knows it. What’s more, I deny that priests have any right to interfere in this matter, and she knows it. But I cannot, absolutely cannot, accept the arbitrary principles of Dr. Munson. I cannot, absolutely cannot, understand anyone who sticks a probe into herself as though taking a cathartic to eliminate undigested food. Unless …

  Unless what? Am I going back on my decision? I seemed to be so sure of myself, to have triumphed so gloriously over all my uncertainties, all my doubts. Why do they come back to me now, under all these disguises? And by way of this malaise that makes my head spin, by way of these pains that stab me in the belly? I must be strong, Child. I must keep faith with myself and you. I must carry you to the end so that you’ll grow up to be someone who resembles neither the priest who shouted in my dream, nor my friend and her Dr. Munson, nor the police who tied Grandmother’s arms. The first considers you the property of God, the second the property of the mother, the third the property of the state. You belong neither to God nor the state nor me. You belong to yourself and no one else. After all you’re the one who’s taken the initiative. I was wrong to think I was imposing a choice on you. By keeping you, I’m only bowing to the command you gave me when your drop of life was ignited. I’ve chosen nothing; I’ve obeyed. If anyone is a victim, it’s not you, Child: It’s I. Isn’t that what you want to tell me when you hurl yourself against my body like a vampire? Isn’t that what you want to confirm when you give me nausea? I’m ill. All this week I’ve had trouble working. One of my legs is swollen. It would be awful if I had to give up that trip, which has already been set. And my boss seems to have understood that. In an almost threatening tone, he asked me today if I’d ‘be able to go’, adding that he hoped so. It’s an important assignment, one just right for me. He’s eager about it, and so am I. If I weren’t able to go … Of course I’ll go. Didn’t the doctor say that pregnancy is not an illness but a normal state, that I should go on doing what I’ve always done? You won’t betray me.

  * * *

  Something has happened that I didn’t forsee: the doctor has put me to bed. And here I am, motionless. I have to lie still and flat on my back. It’s not easy, you understand, since I live alone: if someone rings the bell, I have to get up to open the door. And then I have to eat, I have to bathe. To fix myself some soup or go to the bathroom, I have to get out of bed, don’t I? For the moment, my friend takes care of my meals. I gave her the keys and she comes by twice a day, poor thing. I exclaimed, ‘You didn’t want a third child and here you’re adopting a grown-up.’ She replied that better a grown-up than a new-born baby: you don’t have to nurse it. Will you believe me when I say my friend is a good woman? She is. And not only because she comes here, but because she’s stopped talking about that Munson, about her anthropologists. All of a sudden she seems very worried by the fear that I’ll lose you. Don’t be alarmed: there’s no danger. The doctor repeated his examination and concluded that you’re getting along fine; this immobility is a precaution due to the pains, which he attributes to different causes. You’ve completed two months, and two months mark a very delicate transition: the one in which the embryo becomes a fœtus. You’re forming bone cells, to take the place of the cartilage. You’re extending your legs, just as a tree thrusts forth its branches, and toes are also emerging on your little feet. We’ll have to be careful until the third month, and when that’s over we can go back to our old habits; this business of lying still and flat on my back won’t last more than two weeks. In fact, to the boss I pretended I’d had an attack of bronchitis. He believed me and assured me that the trip can wait after all: there are still a number of details to be arranged. Thank heaven for that; if he knew the truth, he might send someone else. Or go so far as to fire me. And that would be a fine situation, for me and for you: who would look after us? For one thing, there’s been no sign of your father. I guess he doesn’t want to get involved. Are you sorry? I’m not. The little I felt for him was extinguished by two phone calls. Or rather by the very fact that he stalked to me on the phone instead of looking me in the face. On his return he could have come to see me, don’t you think? He knows very well I wouldn’t ask him to marry me, that I’ve never asked him, that I don’t want to get married and would never want to: so what’s keeping him? Do you suppose he feels guilty for having made love to me? One day Grandmother really went to confess and the priest gave her the following advice: ‘Don’t go to b
ed with your husband, don’t do it!’ For some people, you know, the real sin of a man and a woman consists in making love in a bed. If you don’t want children, they say, all you have to do is simply become chaste. All right, but since it’s a bit difficult to decide who should be chaste and who not, let’s all become chaste and transform ourselves into a planet of old people. Millions and millions of old people incapable of procreation, until the human race, as in science-fiction stories set on Mars, wipes itself out against a background of marvellous, crumbling cities inhabited only be ghosts. The ghosts of all those who might have existed and have not. The ghosts of children never born. Or else let’s all become homosexuals, since the result would be the same: a planet of old people incapable of procreation, against a background of marvellous, crumbling cities, inhabited only by the ghosts of children never born… .

  And if instead we were to make use of old people? Somewhere I’ve read that it’s possible to effect the transplant of embryos. An achievement of biological technology. You remove the fertilized egg from the mother’s womb and transfer it to the womb of another woman prepared to give it hospitality. There you let it grow. Look, if another woman were to give you hospitality – for instance, an old woman for whom lying motionless wouldn’t constitute torture – you’d get born just the same and you wouldn’t be here to torment me. Making babies is a job for old people anyway. They’re so patient, old people. Would it offend you to be transplanted to a womb that’s not mine? A good old womb that would never reproach you? And why should you be offended? I wouldn’t be denying you life. I’d just be giving you another lodging. Forgive me. I’m raving. The trouble is that this immobility gets on my nerves, it brings out the worst in me.

  * * *

  Today I had a pleasant surprise. The bell rang, I got up grumbling, and it was the postman with an airmail package. My mother had sent it, along with a letter signed by her and my father. I had told them about you some days ago. I thought it was my duty. And every morning I’d been anxiously expecting their answer, shuddering at the thought of the harsh or painful things they might write. They’re two old-fashioned people, you see. Instead, their letter says that even though they feel shocked and upset, they rejoice all the same and welcome you. ‘We’re two old dry trees by now, we have nothing more to teach you. Now it’s you who has something to teach us. And if you’ve decided on it, that means it’s right. We’re writing to tell you that we accept your lesson.’ After reading the letter, I opened the package. Inside was a little plastic box, and inside that a pair of little white shoes. Tiny, tiny, so light, and white. Your first, shoes. I can hold them on the palm of one hand, and they don’t even cover it. And I get a lump in my throat when I touch them; my heart dissolves. You’ll like my mother. With her you’ll have two mothers and that will be true riches. You’ll like her because she thinks that without children the world would end. You’ll like her because she’s large and soft, with a large, soft lap to sit on, two large, soft arms for protection, and a laugh that rings like a concert of little bells. I’ve never understood how she’s able to laugh like that, but I think it’s because she’s cried a lot. Only those who have cried a lot can appreciate life in all its beauty and have a good laugh. It’s easy to cry, hard to laugh. It won’t take you long to learn this truth. Your encounter with the world will be a desperate wail; all you’ll be able to do at first will be to cry. Everything will make you cry: light, hunger, anger. Weeks will go by, months, before your mouth opens in a smile, before your throat gurgles out a laugh. But you mustn’t get discouraged. And when the smile comes, when the laugh comes, you must give it to me: to show me that I did the right thing by not availing myself of biological technology and handing you over to the womb of a mother more generous and patient than myself.

  * * *

  I’ve cut out the photograph that shows you at exactly two months: a close-up of your face enlarged forty times. I’ve pinned it to the wall, and lying here in bed I’m admiring it: haunted by your eyes. They’re so large compared to the rest of your body, so wide open. What do they see? the water and nothing else? The walls of the prison and nothing else? Or what I can see too? I have a delightful and disturbing suspicion: the suspicion that they see through me. It makes me sad to think that soon you’ll close them. On the edges of your eyelids a sticky substance is forming that in a few days will glue them together, to protect the pupils during their final development. You won’t raise your eyelids again until the sixth month. For twenty weeks you’ll live in complete darkness. What a pity! Or is it? With nothing to look at, you’ll hear me better. I still have so much to tell you, and these days of immobility give me plenty of time, since my only activity is to read or watch television. And then I have to prepare you for a few uncomfortable truths. I can’t really believe that you know everything already. But explaining these things to you will be difficult because your mind, if it exists, is acting on matters too different from the ones you’ll find. In there you’re alone, magnificently alone. Your only experience is yourself. We, instead, are many. Millions, billions. Each of our experiences depends on others, each of our joys, our sorrows, and …

  Yes, that’s where I’ll begin. I’ll begin by telling you that out here you’ll no longer be alone, and should you want to free yourself from others, from their unwanted company, you’ll never suceed. Out here one can’t look after oneself all alone, as you’re doing. Those who try go mad. At best, they fail. Sometimes someone does try. And escapes to the forest or sea swearing that he doesn’t need the others, that the others will never find him again. But they find him. He may even be the one to come back. And he comes back defeated, to be part of the ant heap, the treadmill: in the desperate and impossible hope of finding his freedom there. You’ll hear a lot of talk about freedom. It’s a word we exploit almost as much as the word love, the most exploited word of all. You’ll meet men who get themselves cut to pieces for freedom, undergoing tortures and even accepting death. And I hope you’ll be one of them. But in the same moment that you get yourself tortured for freedom, you’ll discover that freedom doesn’t exist, that at most it existed only in so far as you sought it: like a dream, an idea born from the memory of your life before birth, when you were free because you were alone. Yes, I go on repeating that you’re a prisoner in there; I can’t help thinking how little room you have and that from now on you’ll even be in darkness. But in that darkness, that little space, you’re freer than you’ll ever be in this huge and ruthless world. In there, you don’t have to ask for anyone’s permission, anyone’s help, since you have no one alongside you and don’t know what slavery is. Outside, you’ll have countless masters. And the first will be myself who, without wishing it, maybe without knowing, will impose things on you that are right for me but not for you. Those nice little shoes, for instance. To me they’re nice, but to you? You’ll yell and scream when I put them on you. They’ll bother you, I’m sure. But I’ll put them on all the same, even telling you you’re cold, and little by little you’ll get used to them. You’ll yield and be tamed, to the point of suffering when you don’t have them on. And this will be the beginning of a long chain of servitude whose first link will always be represented by me, since you won’t be able to do without me. I who will feed you, I who will cover you, I who will bathe you, I who will carry you in my arms. Later you’ll start walking by yourself, eating by yourself, choosing for yourself where to go and when to wash. But then other forms of slavery will arise. My advice. My instructions. My recommendations. Your fear of hurting me by doing things other than those I taught you. A lot of time will pass, in your eyes, before I let you leave like the bird whose parents throw it out of the nest the day it learns to fly. But finally that time will come, and I’ll let you go, I’ll let you cross the street alone, with the green light and with the red. I’ll push you on. But this will do nothing to increase your freedom since you’ll remain chained to me by the bondage of sentiments, the bondage of regret. Some call it the bondage of the family. I don’t belie
ve in the family. The family is a lie constructed the better to control people, the better to exploit their obedience to rules and legends, by whoever organized this world. We rebel more easily when we’re alone; we resign ourselves more easily when living with others. The family is nothing but the mouthpiece for a system that cannot let you disobey, and its sanctity is nonexistent. All that exists are groups of men, women, and children compelled to bear the same name and live under the same roof, often hating and detesting each other. But regret exists, and the bonds exist, rooted in us like trees that bend not even to the hurricane, and they’re as unavoidable as hunger and thirst. You can never free yourself from them, try as you may with all your will and logic. You may even think you’ve forgotten them, but one day they re-emerge, incurably, mercilessly, to put the rope around your neck more tightly than any hangman. And to strangle you.

  Along with that bondage, you’ll know the kind imposed by others, namely by the thousands and thousands of inhabitants of the ant heap. Their habits, their laws. You have no idea how suffocating it is to imitate their habits, to respect their laws. Don’t do this, don’t do that, do this and do that … And if this is bearable when you live among decent people who have some idea of freedom, it becomes hell when you live among the arrogant who deny you even the luxury of dreaming of freedom, of realizing it in your imagination. The laws of the arrogant have only one advantage to offer: you can react to them by struggling and dying. The laws of decent people offer no escape since you’ve been persuaded that it’s noble to accept them. No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it’s always the strongest, the cruellest, the least generous who win. Least of all can you escape the law that to eat you need money, to sleep you need money, to walk in a pair of shoes you need money, to keep warm in winter you need money, and to have money you have to work. They’ll tell you a lot of stories about the necessity of work, the joy of work, the dignity of work. Don’t ever believe it. It’s just one more lie invented for the convenience of whoever organized this world. Work is blackmail and remains such even when you like it. You always work for someone, never for yourself. You always work with effort, never with joy. And never in the moment you would have liked. Even if you depend on no one and cultivate your own patch of earth, you still must hoe when the sun and the rain and the seasons tell you to. Even if you have no one to obey and can freely ply your own trade, you still must yield to the requirements and tyranny of others. Maybe in a very distant past, so distant that the memory of it has been lost, things were not this way. And working was a feast, a joy. But then there were only a few people, and so they were left alone. You’re coming into the world one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five years after the birth of a man they call Christ, who himself came into the world hundreds of thousands of years after the first man whose name is unknown; and ever since then things have gone as I’ve told you. According to a recent statistic, there are already four billion of us. You’re going to enter this heap. And then you will look back and wish for your solitary splashing in the water, Child!