“Anthony,” she says.
“Anthony,” I repeat. It feels so wonderful to say his name. The word fits beautifully in my mouth. It’s a benediction.
“Tell me about him.”
I sit back. I’m so rarely asked this question. My friends who knew him don’t need to know, and new people I meet don’t need to know. “He was funny and frank. Always took me seriously. He was tall and strong and when I stood with my back leaning against him, he would put his head on top of mine and I would feel like nothing bad could ever happen to us. He was clever and loyal and so, so proud of me. You know, it’s hard to find someone who’s truly proud of you, without any resentment or pride. He was perfect. He was mine.” I look at her almost apologetically, as though I’ve committed a faux pas by having had a wonderful husband.
“I’m so glad you had him,” she says, and it is the most lovely thing someone has said to me about him. Perhaps Amanda also feels it is simply too awful to focus on the loss of those we’ve loved. “I’m glad he was yours.”
“Thank you, Amanda. I’m glad too.” I decide to ask her the question I’m terrified of, the question that has driven my travel, my work, my hearing of other people’s stories, my desperate attempts at another baby. “Do you think they’ll be remembered, our sons and husbands? Or will they just . . . disappear?”
“I think we’ll remember them, and talk about them and tell their stories. We’ll know we loved them and were loved by them. That will be enough.” She pauses. “You know, the world doesn’t have to remember you for you to matter. We were loved by those we loved. Not everyone can say that,” she tells me softly. No, I don’t suppose they can.
FOREWORD TO
“STORIES OF THE GREAT MALE PLAGUE”
BY CATHERINE LAWRENCE
September 9, 2032
I’ve sat at my desk for many days, wondering how to write this introduction. The book is finished, the manuscript complete, yet the beginning escapes me. In the time between finishing the collection of the stories in this book and writing this foreword, I’ve experienced enormous change in my own life. I couldn’t sit and write this while a piece of the story was missing.
Some of the extraordinary men and women I spoke to have accepted the losses they have experienced. I could not accept the loss of my son. I felt only raw grief and regret that grew over time. Lots of people told me I must finish the book on a hopeful note. For months, I appreciated their optimism and yet, until recently, I despaired of it. How could anyone live in optimism when the world has shown itself in so many ways to be full of random cruelty? Optimism is a privilege, I used to tell myself, and not one I can afford. But that’s not true. Of course it’s not true. If there is one thing I learned from the many weeks I spent with men and women discussing the Plague, it is that we did the best we could with what we knew at the time. I did my best in the most awful of circumstances. The past has been painful, but that doesn’t mean the future can’t be better.
I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Maeve Antonia Lawrence, on January 2 this year. She is perfect, and not just because she has made my life feel as though it is once more my own. She represents the hope I didn’t dare to have for years as, like so many others, I was pummeled by loss and the new emotional landscape of a world in which I felt entirely alone. Maeve will never live in a world in which she has a father, and this will not mark her out as unusual. She will have no siblings and very few male friends. She will go to school and be taught by almost entirely female teachers, in a country governed mostly by women. To my daughter, this new world will be normal and I’m conflicted. I’m grateful she will never know the pain of losing so much and yet, what a thing to not understand what has been lost.
As an anthropologist, I will admit I am biased. I lost my husband and my son to the Plague; I cannot study it with the distance and emotional neutrality academics requires. It is testament to the impact of the Plague that no British anthropologist is untouched by it. I have decided to include my own story rather than pretend to be an invisible observer I am not, and keep my own losses hidden. There is no omniscient narrator to tell this story. We are all biased. We are all changed.