Free The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne Page A

elsewhere, suddenly. I wanted none of this to be happening. It had been the most unfortunate choice of words, that was for sure, but Dr Crawford simply stared at her as she laughed without any comment; I suspected that she witnessed any number of bizarre reactions during conversations such as this one.
    ‘I have suffered no medical traumas,’ said Zoya finally, composing herself and stressing the penultimate word in her sentence. ‘I have not had an easy life, Dr Crawford, but I have been in good health throughout it.’
    ‘Well, indeed,’ she replied, sighing as if she understood only too well. ‘Women of your generation have suffered a lot. There was the war, for one thing.’
    ‘Yes, the war,’ said Zoya, nodding thoughtfully. ‘There have been many wars, in fact.’
    ‘Doctor,’ I said, interrupting her to speak now for the first time. ‘Ovarian cancer, this is curable? You have some way to help my wife?’
    She looked at me with a certain degree of pity, understanding of course that the husband might be the most terrified one in the room. ‘I’m afraid the cancer has already begun to spread, Mr Jachmenev,’ she said quietly. ‘And as I’m sure you know, at the moment medical science is unable to offer a cure. All we can do is try to alleviate some of the suffering and offer our patients as much hope for a continued life as we can.’
    I stared at the floor, feeling a little dizzy at these words, although in truth I knew that this was what she would say. I had already spent weeks at my usual desk in the British Library researching the disease that Dr Cross had spoken to us about and knew only too well that there was no known cure. There was always hope, however, and I clung on to that.
    ‘There are some additional tests that I would like to run, Mrs Jachmenev,’ she said, turning to my wife again. ‘We’ll need to do a second pelvic exam, of course. And some blood tests, an ultrasound. A barium enema will help us to identify the extent of the cancer. We’ll take some CAT scans, of course. We need to determine how far the cancer has spread beyond the ovaries and into the pelvic area, and whether it has travelled towards the abdominal cavity.’
    ‘But the treatments, doctor,’ I insisted, leaning forward. ‘What can you do to make my wife better?’
    She stared at me, a little irritated, I felt, as if she was accustomed to dealing with devastated husbands but they were outside of her concern; she was interested only in her patient.
    ‘As I said, Mr Jachmenev,’ she replied, ‘the treatments can only slow down the progress of the cancer. Chemotherapy will be important, of course. There will be surgery, almost immediately,to remove the ovaries, and it will be necessary to perform a hysterectomy. We can take biopsies at the same time of your wife’s lymph nodes, her diaphragm, her pelvic tissue, in order to determine—’
    ‘And if I don’t have treatment?’ Zoya asked, her voice low but determined, cutting through the cold granite of these medical phrases which Dr Crawford had no doubt uttered a thousand times in the past.
    ‘If you don’t have treatment, Mrs Jachmenev,’ she replied, clearly accustomed to this question too, which shocked me; how simple it was for this lady to discuss such terrible notions, ‘then the cancer will almost certainly continue to spread. You will be in the same amount of pain that you are in now, although we would be able to give you some medication for that, but one day it will take you quite unawares and your health will deteriorate rapidly. That will be when the cancer has advanced to the later stages, when it has passed out of the abdomen to attack your organs – the liver, the kidneys and so on.’
    ‘We must begin the treatment immediately, of course,’ I insisted and Dr Crawford smiled at me with the tolerance of a doting grandparent towards a half-wit grandchild, before looking at my wife again.
    ‘Mrs Jachmenev,’ she said, ‘your husband is