The idea made me excited. I floated it to the others. We could go anywhere if we wanted to.
Breakfast time, said Marisol, bringing over our sludge. Let’s be quiet for now. This is still in the future. Survival is another country too, and we have to make it there first.
15
In the night and early mornings I started to see strange things. Waking dreams, streaks of light. The shadows in the corners of our room moved and re-sculpted themselves. I drew the knife through the darkness as if something could be caught on the blade. Whatever was happening to Lila was happening to me too. It was catching, a low-grade fever. We couldn’t tell if it was normal, something to be expected. What other sickness or state could make our taste buds change, push our hearts against our lungs, set our moods to swinging wildly? I found I no longer wanted to know the details of what was happening inside me, even if it were possible. It was too overwhelming to think about bursting out of myself, new-blooded and transformed. When I looked down at my body, I half expected to see feathers, scales.
I didn’t know if pregnancy was a kind of wound, what the body considered it: a state of grace, a state of danger, or both. When I touched a finger to my armpit it came away slick with sweat. The heat came off me like I was a star in a dark sky.
Come back to bed, Marisol said. You need to watch these behaviours. Her voice was gentle but she held me in her arms with a vice-like grip so I could not return to whatever I thought was there. I’m worried about you, she said.
I’m not worried about me, I replied, feeling hard and clean and ready.
You’re slipping away from us.
No, I said. I’m here more than ever before. I’m just pregnant.
I wasn’t afraid to say the words any more, mostly. Pregnant, I said to myself like a dare. Mother. Mother. Mother.
Pay attention to yourself, Marisol said. That’s all I’m saying.
I waited until she turned over and went back to sleep. I lay awake. The knife wasn’t in my hand but lay on the floor, where I could reach it easily if I needed to. Fingertips brushing the handle, the blade.
All night I imagined my baby. Round, peach-downy. How even their worst cries would be a chiming of a note that I held inside myself too. And the knife on the floor, to protect them. My hands of comfort capable of tearing enemies apart. There had been a viciousness in the way I had cried over babies before, in the city, the way I had wanted to run away with them in my arms. And now this urge, to keep them safe at any cost: there was nothing gentle about that instinct. Now that I was there, almost there, grasping for it, the idea of softness felt laughable.
16
Marisol started to offer sessions to the other women. You might as well let me help you, she said. To my surprise they all said yes, even Valerie. I refused, of course. What are you thinking, I said, and she said, I’m thinking about the good I can do, while we’re here. I’m thinking about what it means for us to be alone and afraid and how if we can just talk, if we can untangle ourselves, it might help.
Marisol in a mint-green room, weighing somebody, adjusting the counterweight and reading the results out loud for the tape. Marisol observing, as if a brain could be placed in the palm of one’s hand and read like a book. Marisol making calls, elegantly and with the minimum of fuss, to the necessary authorities. All the while, the blue ticket around her neck; knowing it was not what she wanted, she must have been able to see into herself from the start, unless even doctors had a blind spot there. I wondered how she felt about mind over matter, about how the two could work together. Even she had been undone by loving someone—that had been her downfall, and there was a comfort in that thought, how could there not be?
I thought about it more and more. And earlier things too. A friend of my father’s in the doorway of my room, silhouetted, as I pretended to sleep. Those boys on the road. How I had swum in the mulch of dead leaves and dirt. How I had made the things I was afraid of mine. How if you can do that, not much can hurt you. The intimacy of someone’s hands near your face. Blood on my thighs and thinking what are you. The things I didn’t want to talk to Doctor A about. The things I felt might confirm to him who I was, might give a name and reason to my badness.
The weight of the air pressed down on me, and yet I was floating. I waited for the women to come back to me. Out there, kneeling in the woods, performing their confessions. Waiting to be absolved, the only way possible. I sat amidst the weeds in the garden or lay on the mattress I shared with Marisol, and let myself fall asleep, waking with a start. Whenever I woke I lay there very still for a few minutes, listening out for anything that would indicate the approach of an enemy, but all I could ever hear were leaves blowing, the birds crying above me.
17
I was restless all the time, that low-level fever again. I woke too early one morning and went to walk in the forest, but Valerie was up too, sitting alone outside on the grass. I’ll come with you, we shouldn’t go alone, she said, before I could make an excuse. Rain pattered on the grass and leaves, dampened our hair, but neither of us complained.
As we walked I wondered about the baby and what they were feeling or seeing, what strange dreams moved through their mind, whether they were like the ones I experienced, attenuated and filtered through my blood. The trees around me kept switching between beauty and malevolence in the grey early-morning light. Valerie hummed a little tune. It was strange to be alone with her. The curve of her neck. Her skin, even beneath the bruises, was very smooth. She didn’t seem so dissimilar to me. Perhaps we could swap selves, walk out of the forest with the lives we wanted. The boundaries of our flesh felt permeable. I pushed through the branches. The sun was coming up; I could feel the first small bursts of heat on my face. I realized it was past midsummer, that I was ripening, moving towards completion or rot. The baby was moving. I stopped, patting my stomach, trying to calm them down.
Can I feel it? Valerie asked, pointing at my stomach, and I lifted up my T-shirt for her. She put one hand on my skin. Oh, that’s horrible, she said, starting to giggle, which set me off too. Suddenly it seemed like the funniest thing in the world, to have something alive inside me. And awful too. Her face was soft.
I don’t understand why you want to have your body hijacked this way. To embark on such danger. You were lucky not to be picked, you know.
I don’t feel lucky, I said.
You are, she said. She pulled her hand away from my stomach.
Would you do it again? I asked. My heart thumped, as if I didn’t really want to hear the answer, but also I did want to hear her say it, I wanted the unspeakable to be spoken, I wanted it filling up the forest, the space between us.
Yes, she said. I wouldn’t hesitate.
You don’t have to have one, I said. The white-ticket women existed on another plane even as we walked past each other in the street, even as we locked eyes, hands brushing in shops or bars or cafés.
I do, she said. Everybody expects it. The doctors. Husband. I don’t want any of it. I’d rather die. It’s the worst thing you can do to yourself.
Something in you, I said to her. My mouth felt dry and unwieldy, I didn’t want to look at her any more. There’s something in you that’s not in me.
I don’t see it, she said. She lifted her hand suddenly, pressed her palm to mine with soft force. Do you see it?
No spark passing between us, no atmospheric disturbance. No indication of the lack. She seemed like a witch. She seemed unyielding and ungrateful. To be chosen in that way and not to understand it, not to value it. I turned away from her. I’m going back, I said.
I expected the others would still be asleep, but as we approached the cabin I saw two figures outside. They were looking down at something. Animal, vegetable, mineral. I ran through the options. Enemy felled. Something come for us finally. One or both of them was crying, a thin noise. Valerie and I glanced at each other, hesitated, before drawing closer.
Soft flesh, wet grass. I saw the shape lying on the ground and I fell to my knees. I realized, too slowly, it was Therese.
This is a dream, said Lila’s voice at my side. This is one of the dreams I’ve been having.
This is not a dream, said Marisol, from the other side.
Belly-down to the ground with arms flung out as if swimming, her long hair making her faceless, strewn across the earth. Around us, all the birds were singing like an alarm. They were waking up to the world.
18
The first thing, the worst thing, was having to discuss whether we could save the baby. Having to turn her over and put our hands on her stomach and feel for movement, for something still swimming in her blood. It was hard to tell. Someone had brought a knife from the cabin and I pictured us cutting the baby out, holding it up by its ankles, shaking air into its lungs. Marisol removed our hands from Therese’s skin, gently, one by one.
Slowly, we pieced together the evidence. Large, sharp stone smeared with her blood. The hollow in the mud where her feet had slid, earth loosened by the rain. Lila sat on the ground, put her arms around her legs and stared at the body.
What happened? Marisol asked, crouching down next to her.
I woke up here, Lila said. I don’t know how I got outside. I must have heard something, and then I woke up to her like this, fallen. Her teeth chattered, eyes spun. They fixed on me and I had to look away.
Oh God, she said, looking back to the body. She put her head into her hands.
Marisol took in the ground beside Lila, where the knife from her survival kit lay abandoned in the mud. An accident, she said firmly. She went over to Lila, put a hand under her chin and raised up her face so she could look into her eyes. It was an accident, she repeated.
Lila nodded as if in a trance. Yes, she said.
We spent the rest of the day digging a grave. We cleaned up the blood on our hands and knees, and covered Therese with her blanket. Therese’s feet stuck out from under it, but when we adjusted the material another part of her was revealed instead. In the end we left it, her toes better than seeing her face.
Lila didn’t say anything. She scooped up earth as if it were what she was born to do, as if this were just another one of a hundred graves she had dug. We couldn’t get it very deep. When it came to carrying the body out, there was no dignified way to do it. Valerie, as the only non-pregnant woman, took the majority of the weight, lifting her under the armpits. Marisol and I took the legs. Lila supported the torso, the bump. When we reached the grave, it was Valerie that got her into it, sweating, pushing and pulling.
Burying her felt strange and shameful. I wanted to let Therese float down the stream. I wanted to set her aflame. Marisol said a few words.
For Therese. Who was our friend. We are sorry about what happened. She knew what she was getting into, just like we all did. So while she could not have foreseen this, we know that she would have understood.
Lila let out a small, strangled gasp, pushed her hands into her mouth to stifle it. I bowed my head. Each of us threw a handful of earth on to the partially wrapped body, the way we had seen in films.
Maybe I am not like you after all, Valerie said afterwards, when we were inside and had washed the dirt off us as best as we were able. She seemed disgusted. Maybe I am nothing like you, and the difference they spoke about exists after all. I would not make such mistakes with my freedom, so careless, so reckless. I would not be that way.
We bunched together, us blue-tickets. Fine, we said to her. Believe what you want.
Did you know that, even now, your baby is taking control of your circulatory system? Your brain, your hormones?
Lila and I shook our heads. We didn’t know this. I looked to Marisol, hoping for some sign, but she gave no indication either way.
Your baby is diverting your blood supply, Valerie said. Your body is in danger but the baby will have you ignore this. The baby wants to survive at all costs, the baby doesn’t care about you. It’s disgusting. You think you have agency, but it’s all just biology.
Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic? asked Marisol, and in her voice I heard an echo of Doctor A.
That’s why you feel like you’re being controlled, Valerie said, ignoring her. That’s why you want to push soil into your mouth or lick salt or consume raw meat. That’s the baby’s way of telling you what it is missing, telling you what it needs.
Marisol sighed. Don’t let her scare you, she said.
What else? I asked anyway.
The baby alters every part of you, Valerie said. There are women whose babies send them into a deep depression. There are women who are never the same again. Women who die pushing the baby out. The baby will rip your muscles and break your bones.
Marisol shook her head. It’s not like that at all, she said. She made to say more, then stopped, stood and left the room.
I don’t know why you want to do this. I don’t know why you gave it all up, Valerie continued. All I ever wanted was freedom, all I wanted was to know that my life wasn’t moving towards this dead end, but I knew it was, ever since I was twelve years old. I knew the shape of my life before I even understood what it meant.
She got to her feet, her hands in fists. I hate you in a way, she said, her face shining. I hate you all. You think the secret to happiness or whatever lies in our so-called fulfilment. You think that family fixes everything, and I will tell you now that it does not, and I’m sorry to break it to you, I’m sorry that your body has pulled such a stunt, such a dirty fucking trick, and that you can never go back. You will regret it every day of your life.
In the morning she was gone. She had taken a blanket, a sleeping bag, a bag of pasta, a box of powdered soups.
Good riddance, said Marisol. After all we did for her.
So we were back to three. Or six, depending on how you looked at it.
19
Lila stopped talking entirely after that. She spent most of her time in the tent or down by the stream. Marisol and I watched her surreptitiously from a distance to check that she would not drown herself. We followed the smudge of her as she lay on the grass, clothes rucked up so that the sunlight could reach her body. She got into the stream but it was not deep enough to do any damage.
She must have been sleepwalking, said Marisol, eyes trained upon her. Maybe she thought Therese was an emissary, in the darkness, in her sleep, and she chased her. Poor Lila. She must have thought she was an enemy. But she was wrong.
But how wrong, I wondered silently to myself. All things considered.
I thought about Valerie’s parting words, and about what could happen to my body that I had not necessarily planned for. But then a lot of things had happened to my body that I had not planned.
The animal chorus came out and Marisol was distracted. Hello, my beautiful things, she said to them. But they ran away when she approached, as if we could no longer be trusted.
Stay awake, Marisol told me in the night. I get lonely.
But I couldn’t; my eyes became heavy even when she pinched me hard enough to run bruises up and down my arms.
What do they do to the blue-ticket women that they catch? I asked Marisol. You know, surely?
I don’t know, she said. They don’t tell all of us.
You’re lying, I said. I turned away from her and she didn’t try to placate me, did not put her arms around me.
I’m not lying, she said. If you know one thing about me by now it’s that I’m not a liar.
She was always so calm, and it killed me. Sometimes I could not bear to look at her.
They don’t let you keep the baby, I assume, I said.
No, she said. You assume correctly.
Did you ever treat a white-ticket? Did you ever deliver a baby? I asked her.
No, she said. I was never allowed.
I coul
d sense her helplessness, the frustration of knowing something, but not enough. I was not used to seeing that in her, and the vulnerability of it repelled me a little.
They must have seen it in you, I said to her, wanting to hurt her. The weakness. They knew you weren’t the right sort.
Cold fish, she called me then. No longer swamp monster. No longer queen ant.
You know you can’t obliterate yourself any more, she said. You’ve given away that right. Take your vitamins. She palmed two into my mouth and I swallowed them with no water.
But I didn’t tell her that when I thought about giving birth all I saw was a tunnel of shining white light, and beyond that the purest obliteration I had ever imagined, which is to say that everything that had made me myself would fall away and then come back together, refigured, forged in the heat of a kind of love I had no comprehension of yet.
Which is to say I supposed I thought it would be like dying, but less pointless. Something to show for it.
I could hear Doctor A’s response in my head as perfectly as if he stood in the room. That’s exactly the kind of thing only someone with no children would think.
Sometimes I still wanted to ask him whether living my life on instinct was not the way I should have lived my life after all. Running, hurtling, towards the dark feeling.
A memory came back to me from the road. A raining night, dark, and I had tried to build a small shelter at the corner of a field with some tarpaulin I had found, but I was too afraid and too wet to sleep. I had heard a group of boys earlier shouting to each other as they walked, and I did not want to draw their attention. All night the mud and water ran on to me. The tarpaulin was ragged. I had stolen it from another girl when she slept, and it felt like the shame would not leave me ever, and wasn’t even worth it, because it didn’t do what it was supposed to. My fingers had gone white at the tips. Everything smelled rotten, even myself.
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