Anja

“DAMN IT,” her sister said, trying not to let the tears start. “What in God’s name are you planning?”

Anja stroked the fluted edge of a Villeroy & Boch plate with the fingers of her left hand, thinking about how to formulate her answer. Her sister was in a panic. Why was Marita acting this way? Was she losing her grip? Twice now in a rather short time Anja had seen that helpless, pleading look in her eyes. There was no backing out. She had to tell the truth. But with the right words, not revealing too much.

“Well,” she began.

Her sister stood in front of her, stricken with terror, her hands held up as if she were ready to cover her ears so she wouldn’t have to hear anything too painful.

“I’ve been thinking …” Anja began again.

Her sister groaned and lifted her hands to her face. “Don’t say it. Damn it, don’t say it out loud,” she moaned from between her fingers.

“But I haven’t said anything yet.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” her sister whispered. “I know damn well what you’re planning to do.”

She looked at Anja, terrified. Anja could see a boundless desolation in her eyes.

“There are some requests that have to be met,” Anja said.

“Don’t start that crap! What kind of ethics is that?”

“You don’t understand. You never can. No one can.”

“No, they can’t. There’s nobody who could understand what you’re planning.”

“Marita, honey,” Anja tried.

Marita started to cry. She sniffled and scrubbed the dishes with raspberry-scented Fairy dish detergent, refusing to look at Anja.

Anja went over to her. Marita was at her weakest; her tear-streaked, angry face was open, naked. She had raised her right hand to emphasize her words, the yellow dishwashing glove covering a hand that still held the soapy scrub brush, water running down her arm to her armpit. When she was little, Anja thought, Marita would have thrown the brush at her in a situation like this. Now she just stood there and looked at her. Anja was flooded with tenderness. She took her sister by the shoulders.

“You can’t understand. You can’t understand what it’s like to spend nights and days with the one you love when he’s become a child again, crying because he can’t remember.”

“And you can’t understand that as a doctor I can never accept that attitude.” Marita’s voice was a trembling whisper.

The scent of raspberry Fairy floated between them. Marita regained her confidence.

“I’m not stupid. I know it happens every day. But there have to be laws. Someone has to protect those boundaries. There have to be doctors who cherish life. What really happens is another matter. But as a doctor, I can never accept what you’re saying.”

“And as a person, I can never accept what you’re saying,” Anja answered.

Marita was quiet.

It was pointless to expect her to understand. There was nothing Anja could say that would make her sister change her point of view. She would have to experience the request, the extreme limit, and then perhaps she would understand.

She didn’t comprehend it, couldn’t comprehend it.

There it was — the thing that separated them.