16
Marta, a kind neighbor that lived in a house down the path in the opposite direction of Iliya and Elina, had agreed to look after Slava one morning, as Julia readied herself to get to the bus. She’d spent the better part of the morning doubled over in the outhouse, her face flushed, expelling bile, for she hadn’t eaten yet. She’d deposited Slava with her battered toy and then slipped away quickly walking back to the house willing herself to keep the contents of her stomach inside her. You look absolutely awful, Marta had said to her as she waved her thanks and left her holding Slava’s hand.
As she walked, Julia thought of how she had met Marta, and it was a moment that divided a day into two parts: happiness and grief. Marta was an older woman, childless, that had until recently been married, but was now a widow that kept to her house and sewed intricate embroidery to sell at the weekly market in Stratford. She was generous and kind, and had been beautiful once, but her grief mapped her face in soft lines. Peter, her husband, had been working in the cane fields and had suffered a devastating heart attack that killed him instantly. Henry had delivered the news to her as he’d arrived home that evening and walked over to see her. It’s Peter, Marta, I’m so sorry, he’d said, his face implying exactly what she understood to be true, standing at her doorway as if delivering the milk, and he had caught her as she collapsed in her grief. They all seemed connected now, in a kind of thin understanding of sorrow.
Julia took the bus into Stratford. Her handbag had her identity card, some money, an apple and tissues. The bus clattered ungracefully along the road, as she looked out the window not having any inkling as to what she would do when she arrived at the hospital.
The bus slowed its approach and positioned itself in front of the main doors at the front of an imposing tall brick building, with a white wooden porch wrapping itself around the front. There were a few nurses stood outside smoking, crisp white uniforms like paper cutouts against the red of the facade. Julia walked in clutching her handbag too tight, her heels too loud against the steps.
‘Hello, can I help you madam?’ the woman at the desk had a friendly round face, glasses slightly too big, making her appearance entirely more approachable than her tone.
‘Yes, I would like to see a doctor please.’
‘Why, exactly? What’s the problem?’
‘Oh, well, I think I may be pregnant.’
‘Alright, please have a seat,’ She handed her a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Fill this out will you, and give it back to me.’
And then it was over: it took 25 minutes. She walked in, was handed a cup with a lid on it, went to the bathroom, came back out and handed the nurse the yellow liquid. It reminded her of Neumarkt. And Acerra. And Bonegilla. And then she walked back out in the dust, waiting for someone to confirm or deny what she knew almost positively to be true.
‘Oh look, nice to see you here,’ she heard him say, and she immediately recognized the voice and her heart sank as if into ice water.
Julia was standing, waiting for the bus and checking her watch, steadying herself by staring at a point on the ground. When he spoke, she looked up and there they were: he and Elina with her arm linked through his, walking towards her. Her instinct was to run, but to where? Her face lost its color. She needed to come home, and it would look highly unnatural for her to leave suddenly as they approached. Besides, the people waiting alongside her already heard Iliya address her, so she kept up the facade and parted her lips into a wide smile.
They stopped next to her, and Elina leaned forward to place a kiss on both cheeks.
‘Julia, how lovely to see you here. Where are you off to?’
Julia smiled, her insides in knots. ‘Oh, just home. Needed to do a bit of shopping.’
Iliya leaned in. ‘What, no hello for me,’ and kissed her on the cheek, offering a wide smile and a wink. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes. They were fresh. There was a black line of dirt lining the tips of his nails.
Elina’s eyes searched her husband’s face, and then glanced at the bag near Julia’s feet.
‘Didn’t come away with much, then?’
Julia’s cheeks reddened. ‘Oh, no, I needed... well, it was just...’ she watched as Elina studied her, and Julia panicked. ‘I was at the doctor.’
‘Oh dear, I hope nothing serious.’ Elina’s eyes widened. Iliya smoked and listened calmly.
‘No, of course not. Just a cold.’ Julia moved the wave of her hair closer to her jaw, covering the fresh pink scar.
‘Well, let me know if you need anything of course,’ Elina placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘Yes, anything at all,’ Iliya nodded, another smile appearing behind the veil of smoke. To everyone else he looked charming, rakish and handsome. She nodded uncomfortably. Elina looked at him, and then at Julia, her
lips pursed.
‘Haven’t seen Henry in a while, since I moved to another group. Shame. More money for me, though.’ As he inhaled, he looked at her as if examining a statue, and then slowly let the smoke dissipate in her direction. ‘Maybe I should invite myself to dinner soon.’ He smiled, and she felt her stomach turn.
‘I thought you came to see Henry just the other night,’ Elina looked at him, adjusting the handbag on her arm.
‘Oh well, yes, but such a short meeting,’ he replied, directly at Elina, and then looked over at Julia. ‘We should all do dinner again soon.’ They both looked at Julia, and it took every ounce of her frayed energy to respond with, ‘Yes, of course, that would be nice.’ Her stomach lurched and she swallowed hard.
A woman tapped her on the shoulder suddenly, and Julia very nearly jumped out of her skin. ‘The bus just pulled up ma’am.’
Julia turned back to Iliya and Elina, waved goodbye, and boarded. The smile was still on his lips as he turned with Elina and kept walking on. Julia wondered if she feared him, or for her friendship with Elina, or the revelation of the truth. Or all three.
Seven days passed, and then ten, and then sixteen. And in that period, everything felt as if nothing had changed, apart from the fact that Julia had begun smoking her husband’s cigarettes carelessly, the tobacco fibers constantly on the tip of her tongue.
This particular morning, she held one in her hand, the ash falling like confetti at her feet. She watched, sat on the steps, as Slava played in the fields to the front, her feet dirty and her green dress hidden in the tall grass. It was Saturday, and the afternoon light was soft and yellow, and she could see the hills rise far beyond, before they dropped towards the sea in the distance.
In her other hand, was a letter.
Henry had gone into town, to meet someone that was interested in contracting him out in a cutting group for extra money. It was common for cutting gangs to—despite the long hours and hard conditions—want to earn even more money than they were, with private companies. The money was more than they could’ve made anywhere else so far.
She inhaled deeply; her fingertips hot with the ever-shrinking cigarette. She saw him down the path, approaching her, his body growing taller as he walked. His lean shoulders belied his exhaustion. They sloped and softened and shifted with each step.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and saw what she held in her hand.
She waved the letter like a flag. ‘Well, here we are.’
‘Okay, okay.. well?’
‘Here.’
He opened it. Pregnant. Big, black lettering. Ten weeks.
And then he was back in Germany, watching as the girl he barely knew tearfully told him how scared she was that they would bring a child into a war. And he felt fearful, though he didn’t tell her, which is why he walked away. And he feared that he would resent that decision, and that he would grow distant like his father, and raise a child that didn’t love him, and yet, here he was, with a golden-haired child that slept in his embrace, and a woman he loved. And now he stood before the same scared girl, and they’d been given another chance to try again. And maybe they could. And now there was no war, but
he still felt fearful, though he didn’t tell her now.
‘Let’s see what happens,’ he shrugged, and smiled at her.
Julia’s neck and face flushed, and she immediately felt the compulsion, the ache, to tell him finally; to tell him everything, about why this had happened, and how. But the reality was that he wanted this child as badly as she did, and the truth would forever extinguish the hope that arose from his words.
She blinked, and a tear fell quietly. ‘Yes, let’s see.’
17
April 1949
The line of blood started it all.
Julia lifted her skirt up, and like a scarlet thread, it slowly progressed down her thigh, and though it scared her because of her prior miscarriages, she knew it was different because her waters followed after. She had been trying to clear the table after breakfast, but a familiar ache had been distracting her: her back radiated with a consistent tightness, the lower part of her stomach muscles pushed in a kind of familiar rhythm, back and forth and down. She had done this once before now, it would happen today. She clung to anything to steady herself: chairs, bed frames, the kitchen table with breakfast plates clattering as she pitched herself forward with a coming contraction.
She breathed. It was suddenly quiet. She turned to walk towards her husband, and it was then that she felt it: a burning, like a rope being pulled through her back, dividing every tissue of her abdomen on its way through the other side. She doubled over and gripped a chair, its back shaking from her effort. ‘Hironimus.’ Her voice was insistent and flat. ‘This is wrong.’
As she called for him, his name catching in her throat, she heard him in the other room with Slava. She had been in their lives for seven years now, and they had hoped and tried for more children, but the luck had run out until nine months ago. Still a young family with so much to look forward to. And now this. ‘A miracle, finally’, Henry called it, his face overcome with relief at the news.
‘Papa! Look at that!’ Her joyful twittering mixed with his low laughter, and their voices echoed in the thin farmhouse as if it were just another day, books and toys and pencils strewn across the floor, drawings of giant eyes and round faces atop spindly legs on sheets of paper that would eventually be torn and discarded. A life in one room as it was, a life that would begin in another. And when the bright burst of new pain came again, she became uneasy and unsure, and became nauseated.
‘Henry. Can you ask Marta to help look after Slava? ‘It’s… just…’ The words drowned in a fresh burst of pain in her stomach and back. Her face went white. She worried that it would end up a failure, like so many others before it.
Her husband finally walked in, hands in his pockets, as if he were waiting for the train. Henry was the calm one. Some may say cold, others would say controlled. She searched his face for strength. She looked down and just before another surge of pain, she noticed that one of his socks had a hole in the toe, and she would remember that detail more than anything else in that moment, for some reason— probably because it was a little thing. A little thing that could unravel over time.
‘Hey, hey…’ he said softly and came closer and his hands reached out and rested on her shoulders as he saw that she was pale and staring and though he was prepared for her to ask him something, he wasn’t sure what, and he felt immediately insecure of how to respond. She looked different than she had the other time, with Slava.
‘Tell Marta. And then take me to the hospital. I need a doctor.’
‘Why not Elina? I’m sure she’d— ‘
Julia shot him a look. ‘No. Not Elina. Just… because…’ she searched her thoughts. ‘It would be better to have someone older, maybe. Or she’s probably working.’ She stiffened and groaned softly. ‘Just please ask Marta.’
She clutched her belly and took slow, steady breaths. In the pause between the pain she shuffled slowly to the bedroom, stopping occasionally to use the wall as support. She reached the dressing table (the dressing table he’d bought for her in Germany, shortly after they’d married) and sat, leaning forward on her elbows and folding her hands behind her head, legs spread onto the chair and belly comfortably in between.
When she was alone, it felt better. Important things are sometimes better accomplished alone, her mother used to say.
The room was quiet, and the smell of soap and coffee clung to the air. She noticed the bed hadn’t been made, and his shirt lay on the floor beside her— the one that he’d slept in-- discarded from his body as if he’d vanished abruptly, leaving a soft shell. She picked it up and held it to her cheek and buried her face in it: it was still faintly warm to the touch. She still found joy in these small things, and these things were important in a marriage.
Henry padded urgently down the path that cut through the tall, dry grass to the house three doors down. The earth hugged his shoes as his lanky body loped along. He was surprised at how protective he felt over someone. This woman that he’d grown to love. Marriage was never what he’d wanted or didn’t think he even deserved (let alone love, for love was not an economical use of a man’s time, his father had always said). And yet, he knew (as if he’d known it always) that their path had taken them to the
right place: here, in Stratford, newly married with a baby on one hip, and another life on the brink of arrival. They hadn’t thought, or planned, how to survive in the barren fields, surrounded by winds and rain, in a mill town that had a layer of dust on its doorstep, but they had given it a go.
This, he thought, was what he’d done for them, and more recently, after Julia had announced the pregnancy, he had worked harder than he’d ever had before. He had been contracted out to a private group of cutters, earning more money, which in turn lead to thoughts of eventually moving the family to Sydney, once their time had been served here. His felt a warm sense of duty, and love, as he imagined his young family in a warm, solid house sat within view of the ocean. He put his hands in his pockets and his face broke into a smile.
He took a breath, and then knocked. ‘Marta.’ His voice was hoarse and certain. ‘I need help. Julia needs help.’ ‘Marta. Can you hear me?’
There was a shuffling and what sounded like a wooden handle being dropped on the floor and then a drawer being opening, and then a groan, footsteps coming closer still, and then she appeared, in a black dressing gown with faded red poppies on it, her dark eyes heavy, as if a light had been shut off.
‘Oh. Henry. What can I do for you?’ She rustled for a pack of cigarettes in her pocket, pulling one out and holding it, acting confused as to what she needed to do next. She was missing something. It was still early, and Henry was embarrassed that he had intruded.
‘Marta, do you mind if I bring Slava to your house this morning? Julia is starting to feel contractions and she’s—’ he paused, letting fear escape his facade ‘— she’s worried. She needs to get to the hospital.’
Her eyes widened a bit, and then composed themselves again. She fingered the other pocket of her gown: ‘Yes, fine, bring her.’ She had always hated children, but Slava was manageable.
‘Yes, okay, thank you very much, she’ll be over shortly? Thank you, Marta.’
‘Fine.’ With Marta, things were always ‘fine’. She withdrew her husband’s Zippo and sparked it sadly as she closed the door.
‘Henry?’ Julia called from the bedroom as he came back in.
‘Yes, yes, Marta is fine to take her.’
‘All right well can you get her ready? I’m just here.’ She gripped the dressing table and sat immobile.
Slava’s voice rang out like bells. ‘Mama! Mama!’ She bounded across the floor, the untreated floorboards creaking beneath her feet.
‘Oh rabbit,’ Julia murmured as the toddler flapped at her legs. ‘Papa will get you dressed,’ and she turned her little body away. ‘Henry, can you please…?’ Her mind had already wandered to the things she had to do that morning, the things that would be forgotten shortly.
‘Mama, but I’m hungry!’
‘Marta
has milk and bread,’ Julia answered, her breath hissing in focused energy as she watched Henry coax Slava’s legs into tights and then a green cotton dress.
‘Mama?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Mama, love you.’ She covered Julia’s cheek with a wet kiss and patted her belly. ‘Sweet baby, in there.’
‘Yes, yes, okay go. Go with Papa.’
Julia dug her fingernails inside her closed fist as she heard him speak to Slava. Their voices faded the farther they got, and she felt the sharpness of betrayal. He’d tried his very best in the kind of situation that he’d never been able to adjust to, and she felt sorry that she had led him away from a secret that would change both of their lives. She heard him as he assured Slava that yes, they’d go to Marta’s, and that yes, they could take a few buns with them and that Mama would be fine she just needed to see a doctor because she felt unwell and that the baby was coming. It was all coming out monotone, and here she was, sat in a chair in the other room, disconnected from it all.
Another contraction came and tasted metal on her tongue, and then an acidic tightness radiated throughout her abdomen, sending her forward in a dry retch, saliva glistening at the corners of her mouth. She suddenly felt a hand on her back, and she silently realized how much she needed her husband, and how good he was, despite it all, and how foolish she had been. She winced in regret; she winced in apology. They were connected, yet neither realized it.
‘Julia, come. Are you able to make it to the car?’
Another wave of pain, her jaw tightened, and she grabbed his hand.
‘Help me, Henry.’ Her voice broke, and she cleared it. ‘Would be a shame to have the baby in a car.’
‘I’m sure worse has happened.’
So much worse.
‘Just get me there. I will be okay.’ And she felt his hand circle her waist, the weight of his arm pushing her forward.
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