The Last Witness (26 page)

“Coffee would be nice. Thank you.”

Christine needed a few minutes to clear her head. This woman was troubled and the problem wasn’t her daughter and it wasn’t even the history course. The problem was her husband. When Christine returned, she was thanked for the coffee.

“Mrs. Krust, I have an obligation to ask you a question,” Christine said. “Are you in any way concerned for your daughter’s safety? Stephanie’s safety?”

“You mean here? At school?”

Christine gave her a nod.

“No. Why should I be worried about that?”

“And what about at home?”

She hesitated. She shook her head from side to side and there was something about the stilted way she did it that said she didn’t mean it.

“So what is it about my history class your husband is so upset about?” said Christine.

“It’s all this stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“You know. About the Jews.”

“What exactly?”

She looked unsure, as if walking on hot coals. Maybe that’s how it was at home. And she was so skinny. Christine wondered if they had enough to eat, but her daughter Stephanie wasn’t like that.

“My husband reads this newsletter. It’s written by some person called The Cobra.”

“What about it?”

“Well there was this article about … what’s it called … the Protocol of …”

“Protocol?”

“Something about the elders …”

Christine thought for a moment. “The Protocol of the Elders of Zion?” she said.

“That’s it! So you’ve heard of it?”

Christine had heard of it. “Yes,” she said. “I know what it is. I believe it has something to do with a Jewish conspiracy theory. Something like that, right?”

“It goes back to the early 1900s.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well Brett and I were talking over dinner and he was telling me about it. It seems it stems from this business about Jews working with the masons.”

“Uh-huh.”

“These Protocols … whatever they’re called … got spread all over the world.”

“You seem to know a lot about it.”

“Not really but Brett told me. You see he reads a lot and he belongs to this group.”

“Group?”

“Yes.”

“What group?”

“Well they think this Protocols stuff is right and the Jews want to take over everything. I mean they already control a lot, don’t they? And they’re worried about Muslims too and I can understand that. I mean isn’t that what 2029 was all about?”

“You mean the Great Holocaust?”

She nodded her head up and down, and it was the first confident gesture she had shown since coming in.

“They were killing Christians just because they were Christians,” she said.

“They claimed the Christians were trying to convert Muslims,” said Christine. “It was a horrible thing.”

“But they were targeting Christians, weren’t they?”

“Yes they were but what’s that have to do with Jews? Jews had nothing to do with that.”

“Well do we really know? I mean some people think they’re all in it together. Brett thinks so.”

She started fidgeting with her purse again. Opening the zipper. Closing it.

“What do
you
think?” Christine said.

“I don’t know but he reads a lot and like I say he goes to these meetings and when he comes home he tells me about it.”

“Can you tell me anything about this group?”

“Well they think white people know best.”

“Aren’t Jews white?”

“That’s why he says they’re dangerous.”

“Your husband thinks Jews are dangerous?”

“Yes … well … they’re not Christians.”

“So this is about white Christians then?”

“I guess so but it’s more than that … more than just color … you have to believe in Jesus.”

“I see.”

“Brett’s talked to our kids about it … Stephanie and our little boy Billy … he’s seven. What I mean is he tells them about the bible and what it says about Jews.”

Christine was trying to keep her emotions in check. She felt sorry for this woman. “So what’s all this crap have to do with me?” she said. She didn’t mean to say that, but
crap
is what came out.

“Look … it’s Ms. Fisher, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Let me put it this way. If you taught this Protocols business in your class I imagine some people would be upset about it. No?”

“I think some people would be upset about that. Yes.”

“Well what about the Jewish holocaust?”

“What about it?”

“Some people are pretty upset about that too.”

“Are you?”

She began fidgeting again, more than before. Her parched, boney fingers kept playing with that purse of hers.

“Yes I’m upset. My husband is angry about it and he’s causing me a lot of grief. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Christine nodded. Gentle now.

“So you’re asking me to change my history curriculum to accommodate your husband?”

This woman, this Mrs. Krust, leaned over and for the first time in the interview looked Christine right in the eye.

“I’m asking you,” she said. “I’m begging you.”

She stopped. She was on the verge of tears. She zipped open her purse and wiped her eyes with a tissue. The purse was wide open now and there was a knife inside it. A kitchen knife. It was as plain as day.

“Why do you keep that in there?” Christine said.

She snapped the purse shut.

“Look I’m not a political person,” she said. “I couldn’t care less about politics. As long as Stephanie stays out of trouble and is getting decent grades that’s fine with me.”

“She is getting decent grades. She’s not at the top of the class but she’s doing all right. I don’t have a problem with her.”

Christine was still looking at the purse. It was zipped up, but there was a knife in there and this woman didn’t want to talk about it.

“Look … my husband … Brett … he isn’t happy about this and he wants to go to the school board.”

“He would do that?”

She said he would. Christine leaned back in her chair and checked the time. She had other parents to see.

“I don’t have long,” she said and then she smiled. “Lots of meetings.” The woman didn’t smile back. Christine wondered if she was capable of it. “It seems to me that the crux of the matter here is what I’m teaching in my class. This stuff as you put it about the Jewish holocaust. It did happen, you know. It’s part of history.”

“I don’t know if it did and I don’t know if it didn’t and to tell you the truth I don’t even care.”

“You don’t care?”

“No. But what happens in my own household is something else again and I’m really starting to reach the breaking point with Brett I can tell you that. He’s my husband. He’s the father of my children.”

“I know that.”

“He’s not the easiest guy to live with but he’s been getting more difficult.”

She wanted to say something else. Christine could see that.

“What is it?” Christine said.

“Well I guess what happens in my home is none of your business.”

“If it involves changing my course it is my business.”

“Look … I have an idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Couldn’t you just include some other stuff in your course? What about that?”

“Other stuff?”

“I mean what if you showed the kids what other people have to say? I mean people who don’t think all this happened. Maybe that would give it more balance.”

“You want me to bring your husband into the class so he can talk to them about it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Or maybe this Cobra character? What about him? You think I should download a copy of his work and circulate it to give my students more balance?”

“Could you?”

Christine, shaking her head now, was incredulous. She had come to the end.

“You want to know what I think, Mrs. Krust?” she said. “About this problem and about your husband?”

“What?”

“I think your husband is a coward.”

“What!”

“He must be. To treat you the way he does and to make all these crazy insinuations about how I teach history to my Grade 8 class. Tell me, why do you keep a knife in your purse?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a knife in there. I saw it. Why do you keep a knife in there?”

She didn’t say anything and then she went pale. Stephanie’s near anorexic mother became white as a ghost.

“I think I have to go,” she said and got up from the chair.

Christine tugged on her sleeve. Once. Twice.

“Why do you keep a knife in there?” she asked again.

“Why do you think?”

“For protection? From your husband?”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to.

“I really have to go now.”

Christine got to her feet.

“Look, Mrs. Krust. Can I call you Jennifer?”

No response.

“There are people you can talk to. People you should see. They can help you. I can give you a name and maybe your husband can go and he can talk to them too.”

She shook her head.

“No. No. I don’t want to do anything like that. But
you
could help me. If you can just make some changes to how you teach this. Make it a little more
fair
.”

“More fair?”

“Yes. Then all this might go away.”

“It will? I don’t think so.”

They started walking to the door.

“I guess we haven’t really settled anything, have we?” said Christine. “Your husband knows you came to see me, doesn’t he?”

She said he did.

“Well you’re going to have to tell him something and what you’re going to have to tell him is this. I have absolutely no intention of changing a thing about how I teach my course. I’ve already been through this with the school and the school board and I teach the course the way I teach it.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She looked up at the ceiling, her arms limp at her sides, the clothes hanging from her body as if from a mannequin in a showroom window. She was that skinny.

“Then I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “But I just can’t go on like this.”

36

“You ever hear of Sigmund Freud?” said Hodgson.

Jack was gazing out the window from the second-floor lounge of the Greenwich Village Seniors Center. Hodgson had just arrived and deposited himself in the armchair next to him. The chairs were identical, but Hodgson’s was being taxed severely with his huge frame and bulk. The moment he planted himself there was a loud
crunch
from the springs.

“Who? Freud? He was a famous psychologist, wasn’t he?”

“He was a neurologist. The father of psychoanalysis. He developed a lot of theories about defence mechanisms and how we repress memories and things like that. Between you and me I think the guy was a little nuts with all his ideas about sex. But this business about memory suppression is real.”

“And you think I did that? Suppress my memory?”

“Yes.”

Hodgson had Dr. Jordan’s report with the results of Jack’s brain scan. Dr. Jordan had assigned a number to every photo and film clip that Jack saw inside the scanner. Beside the numbers were readings.

“Now let’s see,” said Hodgson. “If I can only get through all the mumbo-jumbo.” He started reading from the report.

‘With the onset of the presentation of stimuli in the form of photographs to the subject, the fMRI images demonstrated immediate abnormal activation in the hippocampus suggesting that insufficient activation of the prefrontal cortex could be an indicator for suppression of unwanted
traumatic memories stored in the hippocampus. The level of neural activity was further heightened with the presentation of moving pictures and ensuing digital formats.’

Hodgson had a pained expression on his face. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You know what’s one of the worst things about my job? Reading doctors’ reports and the more degrees they have the worse they are.”

“Does Dr. Jordan have a lot of degrees?” said Jack.

“Many. Lucky for me he called back after I left him a message.”

“What did he say?”

“He said there was an increasing level of neural activity in your brain as the photos proceeded from shots of the Elora Gorge to shots of Christine. Then when you saw the movies your neural activity increased even more. The one with Christine waving at you and calling your name generated a lot of activity. Neural activity I mean. That’s not surprising. You probably felt like she was right there in front of you.”

Jack said he did.

“But this is interesting. The clip after that showed your wife and Christine but Christine was just a little girl. There was a huge jump in your neural activity with that one.”

“When she wanted to get up on the railing?”

“Yes. When you saw that your brain waves went through the roof.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Let me try and explain it to you. You see, there are different parts to the brain. The left and right frontal cortex is the part that represses memory. Then you have the hippocampus which is the part that remembers your experiences. Our friend Freud said unpleasant experiences we want to forget are still with us. Hiding somewhere in the brain. With this fMRI we try to
stimulate those memories and hopefully trigger something. We use this in criminal investigations all the time. Like homicides. Some character murders somebody then they go and dispose of the body. Maybe they hide it under a pile of leaves in the forest. We show our suspect pictures … 3D videos … whatever … anything about where that body was found … and sometimes we can tell if they’re lying. It’s much better than what they used to do with polygraphs.”

“You think I’m lying about something?”

“No I didn’t say that. In your case we’re just trying to learn more about Christine and her fascination with the Elora Gorge. She seems to have had that ever since she was a little girl.”

“She always loved going to the gorge.”

“Why?”

Jack thought for a moment. Even when Christine was a child, she couldn’t get enough of the place.

“It was big and peaceful,” he said.

“Peaceful? As in no pressures?”

“I guess so.”

“So later after she became a teacher and people got on her nerves she would go there to get away from it all?”