Free The Children Act by Ian McEwan Page B

cherished beliefs but as statements of fact, like an engineer describing the construction of a bridge.
    Grieve waited, conveying by his silence that his question had not been answered. But Kevin Henry was done and looked directly ahead.
    Grieve prompted, “So, if blood’s a gift, why would your son refuse it from the doctors?”
    “Mixing your own blood with the blood of an animal or another human being is pollution, contamination. It’s a rejection of the Creator’s wonderful gift. That’s why God specifically forbids it in Genesis and Leviticus and Acts.”
    Grieve was nodding. Mr. Henry added simply, “The Bible is the word of God. Adam knows it must be obeyed.”
    “Do you and your wife love your son, Mr. Henry?”
    “Yes. We love him.” He said it quietly and looked at Fiona with defiance.
    “And if refusing a blood transfusion should cause his death?”
    Again, Kevin Henry stared ahead at the wood-paneled wall. When he spoke his voice was tight. “He’ll take his place in the kingdom of heaven on earth that’s to come.”
    “And you and your wife. How will you feel?”
    Naomi Henry still sat firmly upright, her expression behind her glasses impossible to read. She had turned to face the barrister rather than her husband in the witness stand. From where Fiona sat it was not clear if Mrs. Henry’s eyes, shrunken behind their lenses, were open.
    Kevin Henry said, “He’ll have done what is right and true, what the Lord commanded.”
    Once more, Grieve waited, then he said in a falling tone, “You’ll be grief-stricken, won’t you, Mr. Henry?”
    At this point the contrived kindness in the counsel’s tone caused the father’s voice to fail. He could only nod. Fiona saw a ripple of muscle around his throat as he regained control.
    The barrister said, “Is this refusal Adam’s decision, or is it really your own?”
    “We couldn’t turn him from it, even if we wanted to.”
    For several minutes Grieve pursued this line of questioning, looking to establish that the boy was not unduly influenced. Two elders had visited the bedside on occasion. Mr. Henry wasnot invited to be present. But afterward, in a hospital corridor, the elders had told him that they had been impressed and moved by the boy’s grasp of his situation and his knowledge of the scriptures. They were satisfied that he knew his own mind and that he was living, as he was prepared to die, in the truth.
    Fiona sensed Berner was about to object. But he knew she would not waste time in discounting hearsay evidence.
    A final set of questions from Leslie Grieve were prompts to allow Mr. Henry to expound on the emotional maturity of his son. He did so proudly, nothing in his tone now to suggest that he thought he was about to lose him.
    It was not until three thirty that Mark Berner rose to cross-examine. He began by expressing sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. Henry for the illness of their son and hopes for a complete recovery—a sure sign, to Fiona at least, that the barrister was about to cut up rough. Kevin Henry inclined his head.
    “Just to start by clearing up a simple matter, Mr. Henry. The books of the Bible you mention, Genesis, Leviticus and Acts, forbid you to
eat
blood or, in one case, exhort you to abstain from it. In the New World Translation of Genesis, for example, it says, ‘Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat.’ ”
    “That’s correct.”
    “Nothing about transfusion, then.”
    Mr. Henry said patiently, “I think you’ll find that in the Greek and the Hebrew the original has the meaning of ‘take into the body.’ ”
    “Very well. But at the time of these Iron Age texts, transfusion didn’t exist. How could it be forbidden?”
    Kevin Henry shook his head. There was pity or generous tolerance in his voice. “It certainly existed in the mind of God. You need to understand that these books are his word. He inspired his chosen prophets to write down his will. It doesn’t matter what age it was, Stone,