The Hope

by James Lovegrove

  “Then, last week, the porthole in our cabin shattered as Pushka was going to open it for some air. Exploded inward into her face for no apparent reason. The noise nearly turned my beard grey. Crack! Like a gunshot. By a miracle, she only received a small cut on her chin. It might have been graver, Doctor, grave enough to require your attention, but God willed otherwise.

  “‘My goodness!’ she said. And that was it. She has nerves of steel. Me, I finished off the rest of that vodka then and there.

  “And now, strangest of all was what happened the evening before last. It decided me that I should seek help, your help, Doctor, as one of the few sane men left on board. You have an excellent reputation, Doctor, did you know that?”

  “I only do my job. I hope I do it well.”

  “Ha, ha, so modest. ‘I hope I do it well.’ Ha, ha. Well, then. Let me tell you.

  “The evening before last, Doctor, the cabin came alive.

  “At dinner, Pushka and I were enjoying a quiet meal when I saw something move on the wall behind her. I believed it was a shadow cast through the porthole by the service light outside. We have had to cover the porthole with a sheet of polythene. It is unlikely it will ever be fixed by a janitor, eh? Perhaps, thought I, the sheet is flapping slightly and casting unusual shadows.

  “I went over to fix it. The polythene was firmly in place. I looked at the spot on the wall. There were no shadows.

  “My wife asked what was the matter. I replied that I thought I had felt a draught. Whether I had or I hadn’t, I certainly felt a chill of some sort. I took my seat again.

  “Pushka was telling me once again about her childhood in the Ukraine. I love the stories of her childhood, which was so innocent and uncomplicated compared with mine. My parents were Jewish, you see, and it has never been easy for us.

  “Mid-sentence, Pushka stopped.

  “‘Alyosha, what is it?’ she asked. I was staring behind her. I believe I dropped my knife. I don’t remember. ‘Alyosha?’

  “What I saw had to be real. My mind could not invent such a thing. The steel of the wall was running as if it were melting and reforming into a shape. It flowed and grew solid. It made an arm with a fist the size of your head, and it was poised to descend on my poor Pushka to crush her.

  “I made some sort of inarticulate cry – I think ‘grunt’ was the word Pushka used to describe it afterward – and I leaned over the table and pulled her towards me with little regard for her person or my own. The table tumbled over, scraping my shins, and with it Pushka fell into my chest. At the same moment that fist came down and smashed into the chair in which she had been sitting only a second before. The chair was left in ruins. I clutched Pushka to me and held her face away from that terrible, incomprehensible sight, not wishing her to share it. Luckily, before she could look round, the arm withdrew into the wall, leaving no mark of where it had been.

  “‘Alyosha, what happened?’ she asked.

  “I did not know. I could not explain.

  “And there you are, Doctor. I cannot stay much longer, as I must get back to my wife and protect her as much as I am able. I do not think I will be able to save her in the event, but I do not like to leave her alone.”

  “What do you think I can do?” I asked.

  “Tell if I am going mad.”

  “I can’t say. To be honest, I think you would agree with me that your story is somewhat … improbable. The accident on the walkway I can believe, the porthole shattering too. This is an old ship and things tend to go wrong now and again. But the fist… Well, it’s improbable.”

  “Improbable. Ha, ha. It is impossible! But I am not lying.”

  “No, I don’t think you are.”

  “Then I am going mad.”

  “The only help I can give you for that is to prescribe a course of tranquillisers. It’s all I’m qualified to do. That, and advise you to stop worrying.”

  “No, no, no tranquillisers. I can get my own tranquilliser, if I need it, in liquid form. Ha, ha.”

  “Then … there is nothing I can do.”

  “I know. But come and see my wife. Assure her all is well, it is just her poor, mad fool of a husband who sees things that should not be there.”

  “You told her about the fist?”

  “How could I not? And she insists the chair simply broke when I grabbed hold of her. Fell over and broke. Ha, ha. It was made of metal and plastic, Doctor, and it was mangled beyond recognition. Broke!”

  “Very well. Let’s go and see your wife.”

  He took me down to a lower deck. Every time I go downstairs I am appalled by the conditions in which these people are expected to live. Every available surface is covered in soot and filth. The graffiti of desperate youths trying to make a name for themselves, however insignificant, is scrawled over certain areas. Stoppers line the walkways at regular intervals, asking for money or the time, or your time if they simply want to talk. The air is unclean and turgid and reeking of despair. Every time, I wish there was something I could do. Every time, I feel inadequate, as a physician, as a human being.

  Meeting someone like Pushka Antonov, however, I have a small lift of the heart. To endure such degrading misery and come through with such alertness in your eyes, such grace in your bearing, such dignity, is nothing short of miraculous. She was in her late fifties and still handsome, and had a manner that suggested ingenuity and resourcefulness. She certainly didn’t appear terrified or victimised.

  The Antonovs have made the best of their cabin. Richly coloured Armenian rugs hang over two of the walls and a photograph of a former President is dutifully pinned on the door to their bedroom.

  I thought it would be intrusive to bring along my tape-recorder and so did not record any of the conversation that took place in the Antonovs’ cabin, but I will attempt to supply the gist of it as far as I can remember. The precise details are immaterial.

  Pushka Antonov offered us tea. We both accepted, and in the meantime I examined the hollow porthole. It would take an expert on these things, but I could discern no obvious structural damage around it. The wall was neither warped nor buckled. The same held true for the patch of wall which Alexei was convinced had come to life.

  When the tea came, it was bitter and dark brown.

  “Thank you for coming, Doctor,” Pushka said. “I know you are a busy man.”

  “I wish I could do more than sit and tell you not to worry,” I replied. “My experience in psychology is limited, in psychiatry nonexistent.”

  “These are bad times, are they not?”

  “We have to make do.”

  “But there is so much sickness here. You surely have seen that.”

  “Too much. I’m close to giving up hope that anyone will survive the crossing. It is a long journey. Our stocks of food and medical supplies are dwindling…”

  She reached across the table and grasped my arm with disarming intimacy.

  “Do not give up, Doctor. You must not give up. You must do everything you can, save as many lives as you can. It is the only way.”

  “It’s not the way of the Hope.”

  “Maybe not, but it is the way of humanity.”

  She turned to Alexei, who was sitting brooding. “Alyosha, my love, would you leave me with the Doctor? Just for a little while?”

  “I must be here to look after you and protect you.”

  “Oh, you big old baby! I will be fine. The Doctor will look after me. And we must talk alone.”

  “Very well. I will go for a short walk, but I will not go far and I will be back soon.”

  She gave him the tenderest of kisses and squeezed his hand and said something softly in Russian. I have never seen a more devoted couple. When he had gone out, she sat down opposite me again.

  “No doubt Alyosha has told you everything,” she said with determined humour. “Fantastic, no?”

  I used the adjective improbable, as before.

  “Poor Alyosha! His family have always been emigrants and immigrants, you know.
His life has never been settled. Always travelling, always having to find a new place to live. That is why we came on board the Hope, to find a new place. And I don’t think we will live to see that new place. It is sad. I do believe it has driven him mad.”

  “You think he’s mad?”

  “Quite so. Come, let me show you. I am sitting on the very chair which he insists was smashed out of shape by his … phantom. Look.”

  I looked. One leg of the chair had been broken and repaired with plastic tape, and that was it.

  “And the porthole?” I asked.

  “Maybe a young boy broke it, threw a stick or a tin can or something at it. These things happen. It gave us such a fright that we did not think to look outside until much, much later. Besides, Alyosha was too worried fussing over my little graze here.”

  “I see. What about the walkway?”

  “Oh, it still scares me to think about that! If it had not been for Alyosha… But it was an accident, clearly. This is an old ship.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him.”

  “He loves me very much. I love him very much. I think he is feeling his age, feeling a little frightened that one of us will die soon, and he wishes it was me and not him. He would do anything to spare me the grief of his death.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “What do you advise, Doctor?”

  “There is nothing I can advise. Look after him. Humour him. Treat him well. I suspect you have been doing that anyway. If he is a little over-protective, well… There are worse things.”

  “Yes. But I feel so sorry for him.”

  At that point, Alexei returned, his short walk having been very short indeed.

  “Well, friend Doctor,” he said. “What is the diagnosis?”

  “Rest, good vodka and a loving wife.”

  “I have all three,” he said, giving her a great hug. “Am I not mad?”

  “I have seen madder,” I replied with a laugh.

  “Thank you, Doctor. You have done everything you can, and I feel better for talking to you. Please come and have dinner with us some time.”

  “Tomorrow evening,” said Pushka. “I will accept no excuses.”

  “The cooking won’t be fancy, but it will be excellent.”

  Who was I to refuse such an invitation? I took my leave and promised to be back the next evening.

  Looking back over what I have just written, I find it reads like a bad novel. There are many cases equally deserving of such attention, but in my defence I would like to point you back to earlier case histories that I have dealt with in similar depth, such as that concerning Mr Quinnell in Week 1,095 and the incident in Week 945 when the inhabitants of the deck area, gripped with a sudden mass hysteria, came to believe that they were all ghosts and stopped eating since, they reasoned, ghosts don’t need to eat. I could not persuade them otherwise. All but three died of malnutrition.

  Certain matters demand such attention. There is an element of the Antonovs’ situation that, to me, is endemic to life on board. I ought really to list all of Tuesday’s statistics under this new heading.

  I have chosen to call it the Hope Syndrome.

  Saturday, Week 1,783

  I will be happy to live without seeing again the events which I saw this evening.

  I do not need to relate anything about the actual meal at the Antonovs’ other than that the food was, as promised, excellent and the conversation intelligent and delightful. When you don’t notice three hours passing, when you don’t want those three hours to pass, that is a sign of happiness and a rarity on the Hope. With every minute of those hours I became more and more enraptured by Pushka’s lively character and affectionate towards Alexei’s bluff good nature. The conversation did not touch once on madness, nor did anyone mention the way of the Hope.

  One remark of Alexei’s I will repeat, in that it has some bearing on his condition. When I asked as tactfully as I could why they had no children, he responded: “Ah, what kind of place is this to bring young ones into? What quality of life will they have? No decent food, pitiful education, breathing air you can actually see. No doubt they would end up running with some gang, sticking knives into each other for something to do. It’s not a life.”

  Pushka was nodding, in a way that meant she did not agree but would go along with him if his feelings were that strong.

  After the meal, over cups of coffee brewed so black it was almost solid, Pushka told me, at Alexei’s urging and presumably for his own benefit as much as mine, stories of her childhood. Hardships, small joys, deprivation, triumphs of love – I can see why these stories so enchanted Alexei.

  As she was speaking I noticed Alexei growing restless and agitated. Nothing she was saying could have induced this state of mind in him. When he wasn’t drumming his fingers on his knee, he was engaging in the habit I mentioned in yesterday’s entry of running his hand through his hair repeatedly. Pushka saw this too and stopped.

  “Alyosha, what is the matter?”

  “Nothing. Pay no attention to me. The good Doctor wants to hear your stories.”

  “Is it the fist?” I asked. “Can you see the fist again?”

  “No, no.”

  “Something is troubling you,” she ventured.

  Without warning, Alexei pounced on her, crying, “No, leave her be!”, and his hands were about her throat. I rushed to grab his wrists, and it was like grabbing steel bars, but I pulled as hard as I could with markedly little effect.

  “Let go, Doctor!” he yelled. “Can’t you see the hands? They are strangling her!”

  “There are no hands,” I replied. Pushka was choking hard and clawing at her husband, at the same time trying to form words. If she had been able to say anything, I have no doubt it would not have been angry or fearful, but calm, reasonable, soothing.

  Alexei’s face was a red mask of righteous fury. Reason alone would not put him off. There is a nerve just above the shoulder blade which, if pinched correctly, induces temporary paralysis in the arm. Knowing I could not use brute strength to dislodge Alexei, I chose this alternative method. With a bewildered yelp he fell back, and I interposed myself between him and his wife, who was ashen-faced and drawing quick, rasping breaths.

  “There is nothing there, Alexei. Can’t you see? Nothing! No arms, no hands. The ship is not trying to kill Pushka.”

  Clutching his numbed arm, he glared at me from beneath brushwood eyebrows. His voice was roughened with a growl.

  “Get out of the way, friend Doctor, or to reach Pushka I will kill you.”

  “Kill me, then. But look! Where are the hands? There are no hands.”

  “Around her neck, idiot! Are you blind?”

  He lumbered towards me and it was clear there would be no contest between us, but I was not about to let him lay a finger on Pushka. I would rather have died. I was preparing to do exactly that when Pushka pushed me gently aside and stood in front of Alexei, dwarfed by his size. On her neck purple contusions had already appeared, but despite the obvious pain she looked up at her husband with eyes clear of flecks of mistrust. He raised his good arm. It hung poised before her.

  “Alyosha, I am unharmed. The hands are gone. There is no danger.” She repeated it in Russian, I gather, and Alexei made a reply in kind. For a full minute they stood there, facing one another a few inches apart, saying nothing, as if Pushka was daring him against the name of all the years of their marriage to kill her. Slowly, Alexei blinked, blinked again and gave all the signs of waking up. Then he glanced abruptly at the wall.

  I followed his line of sight. I cannot be sure – I will not commit myself on paper – but for an instant I thought I saw something moving on that wall, a slight swirl in the solid steel such as that of oil on water, shapeless, spreading and losing form. It was gone so quickly that it may have been a trick of the light. But I will never be certain.

  “It is gone,” breathed Alexei. “It is gone.” He clasped Pushka to him with one arm and buried his weeping face in
her hair. I took my leave as hastily and politely as I could, but Alexei caught my elbow and said quietly: “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “I’m sorry about your arm, Alexei, but it will be back to normal soon. One of the few occasions I have been glad of my medical training.”

  “No matter.”

  He laughed and patted me on the back. Pushka braved a smile, and I left them clutching each other.

  To see so noble a man driven to such insanity…

  I thought I saw something move in the corner of this office. It is late and I am tired. It was probably a rat.

  But there are no rats on the Hope.

  Sunday, Week 1,784

  No appointments today.

  I have not been feeling particularly well since I got up this morning. The events of last night haunted my dreams, made them ghastly and feverish.

  I went for a walk along the outer rim to clear my head but could not find the broken section where the Antonovs had their narrow escape. Naturally it was too far to walk all the way round the rim. Perhaps I was nowhere near the scene of the accident. Perhaps, that most unlikely of occurrences, it had been repaired.

  I wish I could know for sure.

  Monday, Week 1,784

  You must have discovered by now, Marcus, that there are no drugs left except a few harmless sedatives and tranquillisers. In a few minutes, when I have finished writing this entry, I intend to take a whole bottle of sedatives. I have it on the desk in front of me. Little white pills.

  I have disposed of all the major drugs, the vaccines, the inoculations, the antibiotics. It took me all day to pour them down the sink. They will have drained into the ocean by now. I emptied pills into boxes and took them to the side and threw them overboard. It is one advantage of being situated so near the outer rim which I have never appreciated before. In the same manner I have thrown away all the syringes and surgical implements.

  I have left you with the aspirin and some sedatives and the disease, the Hope Syndrome. I am truly sorry for my cowardice. We should not foist our own failures on the successive generation, as if they have a duty to clean up after us or try to live with our mistakes. The sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the sons. I am sorry. That is all I can say.