That was my old life, she said. You’ve left things behind too.
I stood up, told her I was tired and going to bed and that she could follow me there, but that first I needed some time to think. Sit here and wait, I said. She remained, looking up at the sky.
Later on, when I was almost asleep, I heard her come to the bed. I heard her whisper, Nobody is immune, that’s what you have to understand, I didn’t want to be like this, I didn’t ask for any of this.
What does it feel like? I asked. What did it feel like?
Heavy, she said. Like a weight you carry around always.
11
It was strange to be around Valerie. We couldn’t help but resent her. Over breakfast we stared at her until she refused to meet our eyes any more. Her appearance had brought with it reminders of what we had shucked off; our voices subdued as we grappled with what she represented, as we worried about her judging our personalities and behaviour.
Childbirth is a kind of death, she said as we watched her. Can you blame me for not wanting to take that on?
None of us answered. Even Therese was quiet. We ate granola mixed with water and powdered milk. We tried to explain to Valerie that we were intrinsically wary because she had been found worthy all those years ago where we were somehow lacking.
I don’t see it like that, she said. If anything, I’m the one found lacking. All my life I’ve been told I can only be complete if I grow something inside of me and bring it into the world. Whereas you are whole and perfect as you are.
Her breath came in short bursts.
I never thought of it like that, said Marisol, mildly. Thanks for your perspective.
After breakfast, Marisol broke the news about what she was.
Go, if you want, she said. I’d understand.
Lila and Therese swapped glances, but what could they do? Where else to go?
Our old life is gone. Let’s not dwell on who we used to be, said Marisol.
We watched, through the window, Valerie sitting outside on a patch of grass. Smoking one cigarette and then lighting a second before the first was even done, stubbing it out on the ground. Lila was standing next to me. She licked her lips.
There was a lot of instant gratification in that life that we can no longer experience, Marisol explained.
You mean it’s hard to be good all the time, Lila said. She smiled suddenly. I used to be very raucous, she said. Me too, I agreed. Me too, Therese piped up, not wanting to be left out. I tried to picture them shrieking at the night sky, drinking shots of clear alcohol, dancing until they fell to the floor. It was difficult. Their faces were drawn, hair pulled tight. Everybody looked tired, no matter how long they slept. There was no mirror, but I imagined it was the same for me.
In my head I imagined things Doctor A might say. Who would want to bring a child into this world? What does it say about you?
I suppose I wanted to leave something on this earth, I said to the ghost of him.
Try harder, the ghost said back.
It was strange to have thoughts of him resurfacing. Perhaps intimacy under duress counted for something after all, had bonded us in a way I could never escape. Though if I were truthful with myself I could hardly picture his face. There was a strange grief to realizing that, like walking past someone you used to love, in the street.
In the night I sat up and thought there was a dark shape coming for us, but it was just a sheet I had hung up to dry. It was just nothing at all.
12
It was my turn to go for supplies. The other women did not want me to go because I was showing the most, but we didn’t have enough food to gain the weight we were supposed to, and besides, I was desperate to get out. The leaves were pressing down on me. Lila came with me, because she knew where the car was. I wore the maternity dress from the town with the lake, a little too big for me still, hanging loose over my new body. My hair was just about long enough for Valerie to do it in the white-ticket fashion—tied back neatly at the nape of the neck. Her hands were smooth. In my head I recited a telephone number. I ran the numbers up and down like an arpeggio, like fingers down a spine. Marisol watched me as I put the pistol in my jacket pocket. The women waved us off.
Lila was grim and silent in the forest as we walked. Occasionally she put a hand on my arm and motioned—this way. The trees gave way to road and field so quickly that it felt like a trick, our shelter as flimsy as a piece of cardboard. In the car itself Lila relaxed. She checked inside the boot and under the seats. I felt very affectionate suddenly, towards her anxious hands, chapped skin, the practised way she observed and took note.
Lila rifled through the glove compartment for anything useful and found a half-full packet of cigarettes. I’d love one of these, she said, wistfully, studying the branding.
Let’s share one in the car park, I suggested. Nobody else has to know.
So we did, lighting one up and sitting together in the car, passing it back and forth, watching the men and women go in the automatic doors. The taste was too strong and the rush of it made me break out in a sweat. The baby kicked in protest. Lila opened her car door, dropped the stub to the dirt and ground it decisively under the heel of her boot, and I liked her even more.
In the supermarket we pushed a large silver trolley under bright lights. The squeaking wheel was still audible even with the cheerful blare of the music. It seemed like a cacophony, so used was I to stillness. There were no emissaries on guard this far out. In the cereal aisle I lied to Lila about needing the bathroom. Of course, she said. It was outside of the supermarket, in a brick outhouse. I wavered by the door and then walked toward the orange plastic telephone booth beside it, as I knew I would, and dialled.
I thought you might be dead, Doctor A said when he came on the line. Relief overcame me. It made my legs shake.
How would that make you feel? I asked, winding the cord around my hand, my wrist, cutting off the circulation.
No, I ask how you feel, he said.
But you didn’t, I replied. I was reminded of the best days of our practice, when I could bounce my antagonism off him, when I could goad and rant, and he would sit there unmoved.
Would that make you sad? I asked. I wanted, so badly, for him to be angry at me, for him to care. I kept watch on the doors in case Lila appeared.
I’m a professional, he said. I would feel impartial about it. I would feel, from a professional viewpoint, that it was a shame, that you’re not beyond redemption.
I thought I passed redemption a long time ago, I said. Hearing his voice made me feel giddy.
You might think you’re good at survival but you are prone to mistakes, he said.
Is that why I’m a blue-ticket?
You have a one-track mind.
But is it?
I’m just stating the facts, he said. I’m trying to help you by isolating your behaviours. I am reflecting yourself back at you, the way I have always done.
Do you love me? I asked.
Inasmuch as it’s my job to love all human creatures, he said. Inasmuch as it’s my job to respect and guide them through the darkness of their days.
Bullshit, I said, and I hung up.
I took a second to crouch down and bury my face, very briefly, in my hands. No comfort, less than comfort. It hadn’t helped at all and I felt cheated by my impulses, by the queasy anticipation of going over his number the whole journey, reciting it silently as if it had ever held any answers.
But there was no time to waste. I went and found Lila. She was standing, disorientated, at the meat counter, a pack of steak in one hand and sausages in the other. My eyes were drawn to the marbled slabs of red, to the oozing blood. I had to breathe in gulps to keep from retching.
I’m so hungry, Lila said to me. She spoke like a child, all her spikiness dissolved, and I realized with some surprise that she was possib
ly quite a lot younger than us; I felt the need suddenly to ask her the why and the how and the where, but that was against the unspoken bargain, that our old lives belonged to us and bore no relevance to the present.
I could eat a horse, she said, I could eat a wolf. I could eat anything. I hate this.
I put my hands on her shoulders.
Look at me, I said. Breathe deeply. Let’s pay for what we have. Let’s go.
The woman scanning our food seemed taken aback at the choices and quantities. I was reminded that every venture into the outside world was a breaching, phone call or no phone call. Lila’s eyes were red.
Please pack the heavy things, I asked her, as if everything was normal, as if anything could ever be all right again. What beautiful weather we are having. What a delicious dinner we are going to make when we are home.
13
Tell me about dying and coming back to life, I asked Marisol that night.
In the trees around us I pictured emissaries, closing in. I pictured them shooting orange flares over the forest where we were hiding. We had allowed ourselves to feel safe, but actually there was no safety to be found, and perhaps never had been.
I transferred my sense of loss into touching her, mapping her body, placing my hands on her soft ribcage, shins, stomach. Nervous energy displaced, replaced. You’re tiring me, she said.
Tell me, I asked her again.
She was lying down on the bed fully clothed, her arms crossed behind her head. She appraised me. All right, she said finally. If you’re sure you want to know.
She told me about the arm laid out for another doctor, the other arm with an IV line into the vein. There was a bag of fluid, a violet liquid injected into her bloodstream.
I was asleep, she said, and then I was awake in a clean white place. It was my childhood bedroom but it was almost completely empty, and everything was full of light. My mother came to me and held my hand. I had not seen her in a long time. I did go and visit her after I had settled in the city, once or twice, but it was never the same as when I was a child. In the dream she loved me again.
In this room there was a grey egg on a white table, she continued. I went to the egg and held it in my hands, and the shell pulsed. It became very important to break the egg. I lifted it up with both hands and I brought it down on to the surface of the table, started to pick away the pieces of the shell. But before I could see what was inside, I was brought back to life.
Very rarely I have dreams that take me back to the room, she said. Often I am on the verge of seeing what is in the egg. I am certain that I will get to see it before I die. And I am afraid to see what is inside it, but also I have been waiting my whole life.
She sat up and reached for her comb. She started to move it with long, deliberate strokes, pulling her hair over one shoulder.
I thought that if I could be a good doctor and person they would change my ticket, she said. I thought that there was a way to prove that you deserved it. That one day they would lead me into another room, a room full of light like the one I had seen, and they would say that I had earned my right to choose. I tried my best to demonstrate my suitability, I tried to be maternal at every opportunity. But there is no choosing.
That’s enough, I said to her. I put both my hands on her face.
Do you love me, she asked later, after we had fucked. We were breathing hard as if we had been chasing each other. It sounded like a statement, not a question.
I couldn’t answer satisfactorily. I didn’t know how to explain that all my love was bound up in my stomach, that it was contaminated with fear.
Do you love me, I echoed instead, copying her tone, but she had already fallen asleep.
In the morning, before everyone else was awake, I heard a wild dog. It was in the garden and it was making an evil-throated sound. Stop it, I whispered through the window. I could see its teeth bared. I watched as it came further into the garden, searching for an entry point, and I knew it was going to come into the cabin, its eyes wide, ready to rip us all to shreds, we were already dead. Go away, go away. Nobody was waking up, I was alone. Therese’s gun was on the table, just lying there. I took it up, hesitated, then ran outside. We faced each other, two animals. Our eyes locked. It was going to jump and get my throat. My finger pulled the trigger, and it didn’t seem possible that it would work, but it did.
The sound deafened me temporarily, louder than I remembered from the days when my father had showed me how to pick off the pinwheeling shape of birds in the sky. The dog dropped. Dark mist over the forest; ragged panting for a few more moments, and then silence. I thought about its tracks leading out from our cabin into the darkness. The other women found me there, frozen.
It was a demon, I explained. It was like my dreams.
It was just a dog, Marisol said, kneeling over the glossy body. It was just a dog, and now it’s over.
14
Without unloading my thoughts to Doctor A, my brain started to feel heavy and sodden. I slept often, sometimes needing to nap even before the sun reached the midday point in the sky, dreaming of two mothers with their faces blending into each other, and was woken by the racing of my heart. Sometimes I woke to Marisol taking my pulse, and her cat eyes trained on my face. There was a weight on my chest.
Real love is a degradation, Marisol said to me one morning. You’ll do anything for your child, and I mean anything. Worse things than you’ve ever imagined.
Her speech was slipping towards the syntax of the doctors, the rhythms of their proclamations. I couldn’t stop seeing her like that now. When she arched her back, sighed, there was an edge of revulsion that at once tempered my desire and whetted it. I no longer felt truly safe, I no longer felt truly healthy, but I couldn’t turn her away or ignore her or leave. When I thought of leaving all I could see was myself crawling through the forest, on my hands and knees, towards disaster.
She put her hands inside my mouth to search for more loose teeth. Let me pull them, she begged, but I didn’t let her, I bit her fingers lightly, until she moved them out, ran them over my chin, my neck.
In the mornings she was luminescent, though she never seemed to sleep any more. She spoke nonsense-words to birds outside our window, went out at dawn to catch the animal chorus, her attention to which no longer seemed a sweet affectation.
I could tell that the other women talked about her, and about me. I was angry because we had taken them in, so they could not say anything about us, they could not judge us or whisper. We had drawn them into our shelter, our quiet world, and they should be grateful for it.
Blue mornings. Lila started to sleepwalk, to thrash inside nightmares. We found her standing on the thresholds of rooms, or the windows and doors were open when we woke, letting in wet rushes of air.
Perhaps it was the baby. Hers had started to move now—she ran in one afternoon, her hair and dress damp with sweat, clinging to her like tissue paper. It feels like magic, she said, clutching at her stomach. I feel seasick.
Oldest magic of all time, said Marisol, coming over from the stove to feel the kicking.
Lila named the baby River. We patted her stomach through her grey cotton dress. We were collaborators and competitors. A sudden ache at the thought that her baby might make it and mine might not, tamped down at once before it could surface too clearly.
Tell us the story of what happens when we get to the border, Lila asked Marisol, who had gone back to the stove and was peering into the pan.
You cross it, she said, not looking up.
But how? Lila asked.
You just walk right across it.
It can’t be that easy, she protested.
We were all listening by now.
It can be, Marisol said, but still she wouldn’t turn to face us. I watched her shoulders rise then fall.
You cross, and then you take the locket off. Nobody sen
ds their children into the country or follows anyone else around. Nobody has to see a doctor all the time. Only if you want to. Only if you’re sick.
I had gone on holiday across the sea once, the only time that my doctor had approved my visa. Back then, a baby had been the last thing on my mind. I would not run off into the sunset and become pregnant and never return, the idea had been laughable. I took a train underneath the water. Every so often a guard would come round and check everybody’s tickets and papers and permits. Opening my locket for them felt so intimate. I hated being looked up and down. I had already been inspected before my papers were issued, my legs in stirrups, my old doctor calmly pawing at my cervix.
I had slept through the train journey, head leaning on the cloudy glass of the window. Outside, red earth, like we were emerging on to another planet. It was very hot there, hotter than in our own country. I saw tiny reptiles with sharp teeth in the swampland and on the beaches. In the night, moths stuck to every lamp, some of them with bodies as big as my thumb. I drank cheap blue drinks on the beach and cheap clear spirits in my hotel room, pouring them into the glass where my toothbrush was supposed to rest.
Nobody wore lockets there. People spoke to me with curiosity, asking if they could look inside the locket, even asked if they could take my ticket out and see what it was made of, but I drew the line there. They wanted to know how I felt about it and I said it was great, I was very happy in fact, that sometimes choice was not beautiful or necessary but bewildering, that I had lived a good life without thinking what if, what if. Sometimes when I was especially drunk I took the locket off and let people pass it around. A small girl took a liking to it; her parents used a disposable camera to take a photograph of her wearing it. Somewhere in the world that photo might still exist. The minutes without it around my neck had made me feel free and naked. Everybody had been very kind to me. I could take the baby back there, perhaps.
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