one of the reasons his lectures were so popular. He waited while they all filed out, then collected up his notes and wiped the whiteboard clean.
Several students waited for him by the door. ‘Are you saying that evil is relative?’ one of them asked him as he came out, ‘or that it doesn’t exist except as a societal construct?’
‘That’s for you to think about, Gary,’ he said, smiling. ‘Don’t anticipate the next lecture, please, you’ll leave me with nothing to say.’
He was tired of it, he thought, walking back to his room. All this abstract ethical theory. He knew what Carly would say about it — she’d suggest that he bring his students on a tour through the children’s wards, see what real damage could be done by their so-called protectors and nurturers. They’d had shouting arguments when they lived together, when she was still a nurse on the floor.
He remembered one time shortly after they’d set up in their rented house, when he was unpacking his books. She’d been standing close to him while he squatted on the floor, stroking his neck while he made neat piles to place alphabetically in the shelves. Then she’d moved away to pick through them, coming up with a battered copy of Hannah Arendt . ‘Th e Banalit y o f Evi l,’ she said. ‘Is that what you think? Is that what you teach, Tom, that evil is banal?’ He’d been surprised at her apparent emotion, had tried to outline Arendt’s argument, and for the first time he had seen her real anger, as she deliberately chose to misunderstand him.
‘It doesn’t have to be imaginative,’ she said. ‘But it is. I don’t think you could even come close to guessing the variations possible. The things I’ve seen. Evil’s ingenious enough, Tom, believe me.’ She gestured towards the book that he was now holding. ‘Perhaps the Nazis wer e bana l , stolid Germanic minds and all that. And it was institutionalised, which is always a damper on the creative spirit.’ She’d gone on to describe some of the recent cases of child abuse that had come through her wards, telling him with technical and anatomical precision what these children, some of them babies, had been through before they were finally hospitalised. He’d been sickened, listening, but she kept on with her infuriated monologue long after he asked her to be quiet. He’d got up and walked into the kitchen, and she’d followed him, still recounting her appalling litany. Then she’d stopped suddenly, almost in the middle of a sentence, and flung out of the house, leaving him shuddering. She hadn’t come home for two days and he’d never asked her where she’d been, though he’d been frantic, ringing everyone they knew looking for her.
For a while he’d tried to explain his position to her. Later he learned to avoid the whole subject. But occasionally, out of nowhere, she would tell him about some new case, some new horror from work, depicted in clinical detail. ‘Do you think that’s banal, Tom?’ she would ask, her eyes narrowed at him. ‘A little bit banal? A lot?’ He learned not to answer, but to put his arm around her and hold her close while she calmed down.
She was the only one of his adult acquaintance he had told everything about his own wretched childhood, trying to alter her deterministic view of things. ‘All right,’ she said, after a surprised and, he thought, sympathetic silence. ‘You seem to have escaped the inherited taint. Some do, I suppose. But most don’t. If it’s been done to them, they’ll end up doing it to others. They can’t help it — it’s all they know of relationship. Jesus,’ she’d twisted away from him in bed and sat up, her head on her knees. He’d stroked the long sweep of her back. ‘I sometimes think we don’t deserve to survive as a race. What other species can’t nurture its young?’
His thoughts had skittered around half-known facts — rats and male cats devouring their babies, but he hadn’t said anything. In
Several students waited for him by the door. ‘Are you saying that evil is relative?’ one of them asked him as he came out, ‘or that it doesn’t exist except as a societal construct?’
‘That’s for you to think about, Gary,’ he said, smiling. ‘Don’t anticipate the next lecture, please, you’ll leave me with nothing to say.’
He was tired of it, he thought, walking back to his room. All this abstract ethical theory. He knew what Carly would say about it — she’d suggest that he bring his students on a tour through the children’s wards, see what real damage could be done by their so-called protectors and nurturers. They’d had shouting arguments when they lived together, when she was still a nurse on the floor.
He remembered one time shortly after they’d set up in their rented house, when he was unpacking his books. She’d been standing close to him while he squatted on the floor, stroking his neck while he made neat piles to place alphabetically in the shelves. Then she’d moved away to pick through them, coming up with a battered copy of Hannah Arendt . ‘Th e Banalit y o f Evi l,’ she said. ‘Is that what you think? Is that what you teach, Tom, that evil is banal?’ He’d been surprised at her apparent emotion, had tried to outline Arendt’s argument, and for the first time he had seen her real anger, as she deliberately chose to misunderstand him.
‘It doesn’t have to be imaginative,’ she said. ‘But it is. I don’t think you could even come close to guessing the variations possible. The things I’ve seen. Evil’s ingenious enough, Tom, believe me.’ She gestured towards the book that he was now holding. ‘Perhaps the Nazis wer e bana l , stolid Germanic minds and all that. And it was institutionalised, which is always a damper on the creative spirit.’ She’d gone on to describe some of the recent cases of child abuse that had come through her wards, telling him with technical and anatomical precision what these children, some of them babies, had been through before they were finally hospitalised. He’d been sickened, listening, but she kept on with her infuriated monologue long after he asked her to be quiet. He’d got up and walked into the kitchen, and she’d followed him, still recounting her appalling litany. Then she’d stopped suddenly, almost in the middle of a sentence, and flung out of the house, leaving him shuddering. She hadn’t come home for two days and he’d never asked her where she’d been, though he’d been frantic, ringing everyone they knew looking for her.
For a while he’d tried to explain his position to her. Later he learned to avoid the whole subject. But occasionally, out of nowhere, she would tell him about some new case, some new horror from work, depicted in clinical detail. ‘Do you think that’s banal, Tom?’ she would ask, her eyes narrowed at him. ‘A little bit banal? A lot?’ He learned not to answer, but to put his arm around her and hold her close while she calmed down.
She was the only one of his adult acquaintance he had told everything about his own wretched childhood, trying to alter her deterministic view of things. ‘All right,’ she said, after a surprised and, he thought, sympathetic silence. ‘You seem to have escaped the inherited taint. Some do, I suppose. But most don’t. If it’s been done to them, they’ll end up doing it to others. They can’t help it — it’s all they know of relationship. Jesus,’ she’d twisted away from him in bed and sat up, her head on her knees. He’d stroked the long sweep of her back. ‘I sometimes think we don’t deserve to survive as a race. What other species can’t nurture its young?’
His thoughts had skittered around half-known facts — rats and male cats devouring their babies, but he hadn’t said anything. In
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