The Song of the Earth
Page 4
The Board of Directors was fit to be tied that Fritz had publicly associated the Institute with Gynarchism; we’re talking here sixteen powerful old Japanese men. Their bête noir was Gynarchism. Like most Japanese males, their turn of phrase for Gynarchism was rezu kisoku—“Lesbian rule.”
Fritz had a lot riding on Ozaki’s Project.
Polly Baker
After Jeanette’s nausea went away, she passed her first two trimesters without a hitch. She took up biking around Lake Twilight and did her pelvic exercises religiously. She craved orange marmalade; I once watched her eat a whole jarful.
I enjoyed going with her every Tuesday afternoon to the Childbearing Center.
Aura Jones
Jeanette was obsessed by her baby’s prenatal development, which was perfectly normal. According to my records, he opened his eyes during the twenty-sixth week of her pregnancy. Jeanette carried on like he was going to be born sighted in the country of the blind.
From Jeanette Baker’s Journal, August 17, 2037:
Tuned in this afternoon at the Childbearing Center to all the sounds that Johnny now hears in my womb: the rumble of my intestines, the whoosh of blood through my arteries, and my own voice, which sounds deeper than a man’s. My spoken words are individually unintelligible, but he hears the melody and rhythms of my speech—what Aura Jones calls “the mother’s primal tune, the music of her spoken language, to which her baby listens till it’s born.”
Tonight I read aloud to Johnny for an hour from Clorene Welles’ Collected Poems.
Cressy makes Alex jr. listen to Waleed Parmalee conducting his chorale The Murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
My heartburn is back—worse than yesterday.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, October 22, 2037:
At today’s exam, Aura reported Johnny’s head is engaged and I’m already 2 cm dilated. He could be born any time now.
Jeanette Baker to Cressanthia Thomas, October 23, 2037:
Dear Cressy,
Aunt Polly will let you know when Johnny’s born. For reasons I can’t explain, I’ll be out of touch for the next six months or so. I hope all goes well for you in November.
See you next spring. Meantime, the best of luck.
Cressanthia Thomas
I couldn’t help thinking that Jeanette broke off our relationship because of racism—she didn’t want Johnny and Alex jr. growing up friends.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, Oct. 24, 2037:
On Aura’s recommendation, and with Polly’s generous financial help, I hired a baby nurse today named Delia Claire for $1250 a week. Have also rented a cookbot @ $25/hour.
Polly Baker
Jeanette’s water broke in her living room while she and I were watching the third quarter of the Nebraska-Oklahoma game on Saturday afternoon, October 24, 2037. The score was tied fourteen all. I helped clean Jeanette up. Then she flushed twenty capsules of Euphorol down the toilet.
The Huskers won twenty-eight to seventeen. Jeanette went into labor about 11:30 P.M. I was with her the whole time.
Jeanette Baker to Frederick Rust Plowman, October 25, 2037:
John Firth Baker born 6:01 this morning @ Lake Twilight Child-bearing Center, in Cather Keep, Lancaster County, Nebraska.
Weight: 7 lbs. 8 oz. Length: 21 ½ in. Apgar score: 9
His F dendrite formation scan shows—as hoped!—hyperarborization of synapses in his visual cortex. Ditto, Broca Region—please explain.
Am now off Euphorol 23 hours. No discernible effect.
Frederick Rust Plowman to Jeanette Baker, October 25, 2037:
Congratulations on the birth of your son, the arsogenic metamorph John Firth Baker.
The Broca region is the language center of the brain. Its hyper-development in your son seems to be an unforeseen consequence of the enhancement of his genome with arsogenes. It should greatly facilitate his verbal capability.
Polly Baker
I left the glad tidings on Cressy’s machine. She sent Jeanette a dozen blue metamorphic roses. They arrived, I remember, while Jeanette was nursing Johnny for the first time. He sucked once or twice and fell asleep. Jeanette kissed the top of his bald little noodle and said, “He’s all mine!”
Wakinoya Yoshiharu
“The Three Fates”—Mariko Tanaka, Anya Kammerovska, and Jeanette Baker—gave birth within five months of each other. And each arsogenic metamorph showed synaptic hyperdevelopment of both the visual cortex and the Broca region of the brain.
Fritz sent each mother a baby present: a metamorphic birth tree. Anya got a flowering birch; Mariko, a winter cherry; and Jeanette, a towering bower. The towering bower was an American favorite, designed specifically at the University of Nebraska for the Creeping Sand Hills, but also planted in the Sahara and Gobi deserts.
Frederick Rust Plowman to Jeanette Baker, October 28, 2037:
The sealed phial contains the gamete of his metamorphic birth tree, a towering bower (Nova Prosopis tamarugo).
Plant the phial as directed in the Creeping Sand Hills. The tree’s gamete, being nurtured within, will grow to more than sixty feet in height without rain or an underground source of water. Its massive root system, which flourishes on carbon dioxide, has been designed to grow in sand. The leaves of its huge crown, or bower, absorb moisture from the night air. In thirteen years, its showy white flowers, streaked with lavender, will bloom between March and May. Its sweet and spicy spherical blue fruits will ripen two-and-a-half to three months after that. The fruit is a variety of the metamorphic type popularly known as “manna,” one-half pound of which provides an adult’s minimum daily nutritional requirements.
May Johnny and his beautiful birth tree flourish together in the years to come.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal October 27, 2037:
Off Euphorol since Sat. Trouble sleeping. Indigestion. Never noticed a baby’s feet before. Johnny’s soles look unused.
Indira Rabindra
I had my astrologer cast Johnny’s horoscope but never showed it to Jeanette. Johnny’s focal planet of the finger of fate, his yod, was opposed by transiting Pluto, which was also in exact square to his natal Mars in the twelfth house. In other words, he was going to die young.
Polly Baker
Jeanette and I brought Johnny home Tuesday morning. First thing she did was program her apartment to keep a video baby book. Then she asked me to plant Johnny’s birth tree behind the old ranch house in Cherry County. That required an OK from the Nebraska Ecological Authority because the ranch was now part of the Wild Cat Creek Sand Hill range.
I called an old friend at NEA. The OK came within twenty-four hours. I went out and planted the tree in the dunes some fifteen yards west of the half-buried house, where we once scattered Maggie’s ashes.
I got back around six. Jeanette was nursing Johnny. She put him down before supper. He woke up crying. Jeanette burst into tears.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, October 29, 2037:
I feel like Johnny’s still part of me. When he cries, I cry. We’re stuck together as if he’d never been born.
Jeanette Baker to Pediatrobot 333-L14, Lake Twilight Childbearing Center, Cather Keep, Nebraska, November 8, 2037:
My baby pays no attention to the mobile over his crib. Is something wrong with his vision?
From: Pediatrobot 333-L14
To: Jeanette Baker
Date: November 8, 2037:
No. Your baby can’t make out a mobile hung directly above his crib. He can only focus on an object between 8 and 14 inches away, the distance at which he sees your face from your breast.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, November 10, 2037:
Dreamed last night I gouged Johnny’s eyes out with a teaspoon.
Weepy all day. Palpitations, headache, sweaty palms. Very sore nipples.
Delia Claire
Jeanette had no energy. She nursed her baby, then lay around in bed or sat for hours staring into space. Once in a while, though, she roused herself to
write in her journal.
Johnny was an easy baby. By three weeks, he slept three to four hours at a stretch during the day and woke only once at night. He gained weight steadily even though he was a big spitter-upper.
Polly Baker
I looked in on Jeanette every evening after work. One night about the middle of November she whispered to me, “Johnny’s in danger.”
I asked, “Who from?” and she whispered again, “Momma.”
Next morning I took her to the doctor.
From: Obstetrobot 129-D33, Lake Twilight Maternity Care Center, Cather Keep, Nebraska
To: Jeanette Baker
Date: November 18, 2037
Your low blood levels of equilibric acid, estrogen, and progesterone indicate that you’re suffering from a Postpartum Major Affective Disorder (PMAD).
Your 5-HIAA level, however, is still only slightly below normal, which means that you’re not yet in imminent danger of committing suicide or harming your baby.
Polly Baker
Jeanette agreed to have her 5-HIAA level monitored once a week but nixed any treatment. She told everybody at the Center that it was against her religion.
Delia Claire
Jeanette said to me, “Delia,” she said, “I’m suffering a postpartum depression, but I won’t take medicine for it because I’m a Christian Scientist.”
I said to her, “God love you, Ms. Baker! I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints myself.”
Polly Baker
As usual, I made Thanksgiving at my place. Jeanette hardly ate. And you know what? I couldn’t even get her interested in the Huskers’ big win over Colorado.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, November 26, 2037:
Today was Thanksgiving for everyone but me. I’ve got nothing to be thankful for anymore.
Delia Claire
Johnny was coming along nicely.
Katherine G. Jackson
Within a month of his birth, Johnny, like all babies, was fixated on the bilateral symmetry, glistening brightness, depth, acute angles, curves, and contrasts between light and dark that compose the humin face. And, like all babies, beginning at eight-and-a-half weeks, he tried repeatedly to make eye contact with his mother while he nursed or lay in his crib. Jeanette almost always looked away.
He first smiled at her on Friday, January 29, 2038, at 7:35 A.M.13
Delia Claire
Ms. Baker often burst out crying. In the weeks to come, Johnny got clingy and sad. I cuddled him all I could.
Once Ms. Baker screamed, “Keep your hands off my kid!” Once, she begged me, “Take Johnny home. He’s safer with you.”
Polly Baker
I monitored Jeanette’s 5-HIAA level twice a day; it pretty much stayed okay at around .02.
Katherine G. Jackson
During the second half of February 2038, when he was three-and-a-half months old, Johnny gained complete control over his eyes. By early March, he stopped trying to elicit Jeanette’s gaze and instinctively sought visual gratification from things like his crib bumper and cotton balls, a Mickey Mouse mobile, and Shubha Roy’s drawing framed above him on the wall.
From February 29 through April 30, 2038, John’s eye movements and the duration of his glance increased respectively 86% and 61%, more than double the usual increase for infants his age. The concomitant increase in John’s retinal images, as he frantically looked around his nursery, resulted in abnormally extensive neuronal activity for a six-month-old who under ordinary circumstances would have primarily focused his gaze on a nurturing mother.
Polly Baker
In the beginning of April, I let Delia go and moved into Jeanette’s apartment, where I slept on the living room sofa for the next six weeks or so. Jeanette’s 5-HIAA level hovered around .02.
The day the six months were up, I took her back to the doctor.
From: Psychotherobot 129-D33, Cather Keep Maternity Center
To: Katherine G. Jackson
Date: June 11, 2064:
On April 25, 2038, at Jeanette Baker’s request, I treated her Postpartum Major Affective Disorder (PMAD) with intramuscular Euphorol and progesterone, and estrogen suppositories. She also went on a daily maintenance dose of 5 mg. Euphorol, and recovered fully from PMAD by the end of the month.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, April 28, 2038:
This is my first journal entry since November 26th.
Weaning Johnny to formula milk, which gives him diarrhea. Which gives him chronic diaper rash. A few minutes ago (2:30 P.M.) he screamed, “Mama!”—his first word. At six months!!
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, April 29, 2038:
While Polly babysat Johnny, I left the keep this morning for the first time since he was born.
Walked east on Arbor Road all the way to 70th Street. The warm breeze on my face felt wonderful. I’d forgotten how crowded outside streets are. And how sandy. The gritty scrunch underfoot set my teeth on edge.
This afternoon, took Johnny for a scan of his prefrontal cortex, the portion of the brain that attaches powerful emotions to visual stimuli. My experiment was a success. He has 62% more neurons there than average. Sent the results to Fritz.
Frederick Rust Plowman to Jeanette Baker, May 2, 2038:
Congratulations on Johnny’s extensive neuronal arborization of the prefrontal cortex. It constitutes the physical basis of “the lust of the eyes.”
Wakinoya Yoshiharu
Fritz said, “If only Yoshida were here.”
Jeanette Baker to Cressanthia Thomas, May 5, 2038:
All well. What’s with you?
Cressanthia Thomas
Jeanette’s message caught me in the middle of moving us into a three-bedroom apartment in Du Bois Keep outside Atlanta. I couldn’t get back to her for days—till that weekend, as I recall.
Then we talked and talked. I filled her in on Alex jr., born December 5th, and we oohed and aahed over each other’s baby.
Jeanette was worried about her weight gain—fourteen pounds—but wouldn’t go on an appetite inhibitor while she was nursing, something neither of us was nuts about. She never once mentioned her long silence.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, June 12, 2038:
Arsogenic metamorphs are obviously verbally very precocious: Cressanthia tells me Alex jr., six months old, said “cup” yesterday, his first word.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, June 21, 2038:
About ten after seven this morning, on my way to report for jury duty in Lincoln, I walked through the keep’s West Gate and froze in my tracks. Light-headed, short of breath, my heart pounding, I shook like a leaf. I was scared stiff of leaving the keep. I thought, What’s going on? Am I going crazy? and ran back inside.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, June 23, 2038:
The strangest thing: I feel safe at home anywhere within the keep, but I can’t leave it, even virtually. This evening, I started on a VR walking tour of Brooklyn’s new Tropical Gardens. Got dizzy. Then I couldn’t breathe. I thought, If I’m not out of here this instant I’ll die.
Polly Baker
On Fridays, I cut hair for free at the Lincoln Municipal Shelter near Sherman Field, which was packed with American exodusters who’d been deported from Canada. One Friday, I couldn’t make it and asked Jeanette to go in my place. She begged off. I suddenly realized she never left the keep anymore. I said, “If you don’t watch out, you’ll become a keepie shut-in.”
She said, “That’s what I’m scared of.”
So I said, “Then do something about it! Check with your therapist!”
From: Psychotherobot 147-B22
To: Jeanette Baker
Date: June 25, 2038:
Your blood test indicates that you have a 53% chance of becoming a keepie shut-in. Because your body has been unable to metabolize enough of the exogenously-administered hormones, a pathological increase from 1 to 5 in the degree of permeability of your intercellular membranes has significantly altered the relati
onship between extracellular and intracellular concentrations of minerals such as calcium and magnesium that are specifically devoted to neural transmission. As a result, your neural transmissions are impaired, giving you an acute form of agoraphobia, which afflicts 5.6% of American keepies. If left untreated, the phobia will render you incapable of leaving the environs of your keep.
Your genetic predisposition to unipolar depressive disorder necessitates your treatment for this type of agoraphobia with an individually-formulated variant of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) patented under the name Outease, the cost of which is $43,500 yearly, an amount not covered by your medical insurance.
Polly Baker
I said to Jeanette, “Don’t look at me! God knows, I don’t have that kinda money!”
But you know what? I felt guilty. Why did Jeanette always make me feel guilty?
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, July 5, 2038:
I’ve joined Stepout, an online keepie–shut-in support group. Under the direction of Dr. Monique Chung, Stepout advocates the use of gradual exposure (Grex) therapy to treat keepie agoraphobia without medication.
Chung: “Grex behavioral therapy incrementally conditions the keepie shut-in to leave her keep at will and resume a normal life. To this end, Stepout members are assigned specific biweekly actual excursions of gradually lengthening duration outside their keeps, during which they must accomplish a simple task of their own choosing.”
Each day during the next two weeks, I must do something for at least thirty seconds outside Cather Keep’s West Gate.
From Jeanette Baker’s journal, July 7, 2038:
The good news: today—my third try—I managed to hang just outside the West Gate for thirty-eight seconds while I copied down the following, scribbled in red crayon on a cardboard sign hung around the neck of a wrinklie panhandler:
Cather keepies pleas help my name is Maria. I am an exoduster aged 73 forced from Colorado by black blizzards. My daughter Betty died June 6. June 7 her kids threw me out of there squat into a heat wave. I been living under the weather ever since. State welfare said no to help me get a place inside. Pleas take me in or money will do. Major credit cards accepted.