by Marié Heese
“When last did you bleed?”
Theodora thought. “I don’t know … it was … before Peter died,” she said, surprised. “Life has been so confused lately, I must have lost track. But … but … it’s often not that strong.”
“That’s over three months,” said Anastasia. “You skipped twice. Nothing at all, in that time?”
“No … no, nothing.”
“So whose is it?”
“It can only be … Gaius Lepidus,” said Theodora stupidly. “But … but … it was only … only the one time. It … I can’t possibly …”
“Once will do it,” said Anastasia, “especially at about two weeks after the last menses. Don’t know why. Was it then?”
Theodora thought hard. “Yes … yes, I suppose … Oh, Mother!”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” said Anastasia. “He could marry you. He doesn’t have a wife, we’re in the same social class – lowest of the low – although you and he are both well known. A good match, I would say. And he’s an attractive man, and he must have plenty of money with all the purses of gold he wins.”
“But he hasn’t been to see me again,” protested Theodora.
“No matter. You go to see him. Send him a message, make an assignation, get Marius to tell him a secret admirer wants to meet him. Marius will love to be the go-between. Then you tell Gaius Lepidus you’re expecting his child. A man like that would want a son.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I do,” said Anastasia briskly. “Now get up and dress and make yourself look as pretty as you can. It might be a deliverance for us.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Theodora.
“Easy!” repeated Anastasia furiously. “When was surviving in this city ever easy? You try bringing up three children with no husband and no money, and see if it’s easy! You slept with this fellow – I don’t imagine he raped you! Now live with the consequences!”
How did this happen? thought Theodora, in shocked disbelief. Suddenly, she was bereft of choices. There was no going back. And she could turn neither left nor right, for on all sides she was pressured by need, by the claims made on her strength by her mother, her younger sister, her own lack of resources. Also the claim to life of her unborn child. She had to do what she had to do.
Marius was delighted to take part in what he thought was a grand reconciliation scene between lovers. He did indeed convey a message to Gaius Lepidus, who was sufficiently intrigued to meet the mysterious cloaked and hooded lady who (Marius assured him) admired him so much that she could neither sleep nor eat and was dying to meet him.
Theodora waited for him in a small square near the Hippodrome. She sat on a bench near a fountain that spurted water out of a coiled serpent’s open mouth. Her hands were folded on her lap, her back straight. When she heard quick footsteps behind her she turned.
“Oh!” he said, and paused. “It’s you!”
“Yes, it’s me,” said Theodora. She pushed back her hood and smiled nervously.
“Marius said … I thought …”
“Well, I am a great admirer of yours,” said Theodora. “That is perfectly true. And I do want to see you, very urgently.”
“Why?” He didn’t bother to be charming, she noted.
“Because …” She swallowed. This was much, much more difficult than she had expected.
“Because? Do we have anything to say to each other?”
She thought: he really is quite a small man. Strange how tall he seems to be, mounted on the chariot. She said: “Because I am expecting your child.”
Silence. She heard the voices of children at play in the background. He stared at her, astonished.
“You of all people,” she managed to say, “should know that it will be yours. I’ve not … been with … anyone since. And I’m three months gone.” At least, she thought furiously, he couldn’t accuse her of trying to trap him.
“Well,” he said, “well … so … what do you want?”
“I thought you might want the child,” she said. “It could be your son. We … we could get married. We are both free, and … and of the same … same kind of …”
He looked her up and down, as if considering the purchase of a horse. Then shook his head decidedly. “Oh no, my dear girl, that would never do. No, no, that does not fit in with my plans. A marriage to you would not improve my standing, not at all. You see, I’m famous, I’m successful, I could marry into the upper classes. The rich upper classes. Do well for myself. No, I’m sorry, but that won’t wash.”
Her mouth was dry. “Then what do you suggest I do?”
He shrugged. “Get rid of it. Women do that all the time.”
“You don’t want … your child?”
“I’ll have plenty of children at the right time,” he said. “This is not the right time. Sorry, but there it is. You’re a lovely girl, I’ll grant you that. No doubt you’ll find some other fellow who’ll take you on, but it won’t be me.”
“I see.” She thought: he smells of the stables.
His attention had already left her. He turned to go. “Well, then, goodbye, Theodora.”
She did not respond. Shame consumed her. She sat there like a person locked into the stocks, punished in public, with rotten eggs and tomatoes sliding down her defenceless face. Children called out and ran laughing around the fountain as he walked away.
Chapter 8: What have you done?
After Gaius Lepidus had swaggered off, Theodora sat still, hugging herself, and stared at the sparkling fountain. She was overcome by a feeling of utter desolation. Bitter fluid rose in her throat. She mastered it with an effort of will. She refused to throw up in a public place. Tears brimmed in her eyes, but she would not allow herself to give in to the urge to weep, either. She just sat, with her cloak tightly wrapped around her, as if to hold herself together.
As she sat, watching but not seeing the sunlight on the water, the people passing by, the children playing, a small boy stumbled and fell in a race around the fountain. He set up an agonised howl, compounded of pain and fury. The world had suddenly become a hostile place, it had turned on him with sharp teeth and bitten his fat little knees. He roared his misery. Her heart roared with him. Then his mother ran to take him up, kiss it better and comfort him until his sobs subsided.
All the while she held still, and thought.
There were not many alternatives. She would not be able to go on performing on stage once the pregnancy became obvious. She would be sacked, and that would be a disaster. They needed her earnings. They needed more than her earnings.
Another man? She had plenty of admirers, and more than one had offered to set her up like Comito, in an apartment with all expenses paid. But such a man would not offer marriage, and he would not be pleased to discover that his new mistress was pregnant, with what would only too clearly be someone else’s child.
She could join a convent and become a bride of Christ. There she could have the baby. But she knew it would be sent to an orphanage and probably adopted, and in any case that would not help to provide for her mother and Stasie. Even Comito, who was well enough off for the present, could find herself discarded with little warning and nothing to fall back on except a return to the stage, where competition was fierce – and they had no resources with which to buy the favour of the Dancing Master.
No, she had to face facts. Her best option was to look for a protector. In order to do that, she could not be pregnant. That was the crux of the matter. A simple and inescapable fact. Gaius Lepidus was right: she would have to get rid of it. There was no other way.
She stood up, took a deep breath and headed for their tenement block. She would have to talk to Fat Rosa. Rumour had it that the washerwoman knew about such things.
The laundry, which took up the entire ground floor, was filled with damp heat from the boilers and draped with lines of garments. The odour of soap and the urine used for bleaching slapped her in the face as she ducked through the steaming rooms.
> Theodora found Rosa in a small front cubicle that she referred to as her office, containing a small table in it and two upright chairs. Rosa was seated on one, her ample thighs overflowing its meagre seat, making lists with a reed pen, three chins pressed against her chest as she stared at her blotted handiwork.
“Drat!” she complained. “Can’t read my own writing. Well, good day to you, Princess. What brings you to my humble abode?”
Theodora flushed. She liked it when the blacksmith called her Princess, but Rosa’s sarcastic tone jarred. However, she could not afford to be rude today.
“May I sit down?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” said Rosa. She waved her hand and spotted her lists further with blobs of ink. “You don’t know somebody who wants a job as a secretary? Part time only, payment by the hour, meals included?”
“No,” said Theodora.
“So, what’s wrong this time? You didn’t pick up an infection from the last one, did you?”
“No,” said Theodora shortly, angry at the implication of “the last one”. “There hasn’t been another one, either,” she added.
“Ah.” Rosa leaned back, which made the chair creak alarmingly, and regarded Theodora through slitted eyes. “Well, well, don’t tell me there’s a tee-ny lit-tle pastry tart in the oven?”
Theodora felt tears of humiliation sting her eyelids. She swallowed, tried to speak, but couldn’t frame the words.
“Oho. You are pregnant, aren’t you? Rosa knows. Rosa can tell.”
She nodded dumbly.
“Thought so.” Rosa’s grin showed a wide gap between her front teeth. She mopped her damp forehead. “Skipped menses? Throwing up? Sore tits?”
“Yes.”
“Knocked up, all right. And you don’t want it.”
Theodora blinked at the wave of emotion that had suddenly welled up from nowhere. “But I do,” she said, to her own surprise. “I do want it. Oh, Rosa, I do want this baby. But I can’t … I can’t …” She gulped, doing her utmost to restrain her tears. She had taken a firm decision: she would not cry.
“Not a good time for it,” nodded Rosa, her chins wobbling. “Not with Peter dead and Stasie too young to be much use.”
“No,” said Theodora desolately. “It’s up to me. Comito’s senator does what he can, but he has a big family, after all.”
“Ummm,” said Rosa. “This baby’s father, now, he won’t …”
Theodora had not told Rosa who the man had been. “He refuses to take any responsibility,” she said. “He says I must … get rid of it.”
“Well, if that’s the way of it, he’s right,” said Rosa. “Come now, girl, there’s no use weeping. It’s not as if you’re the first, nor the last, to be in such a pickle.”
“It’s not fair,” sobbed Theodora, angry at her own weakness in spite of her firm decision. “He just walks away, and that’s that. Not his problem. Not his baby to be destroyed.”
“Well, it is his baby,” said Rosa reasonably. “He just doesn’t care.”
“He should care! Oh, why doesn’t he care?”
“Men don’t,” said Rosa, “mostly. Not outside of marriage, any-how. No family name and so on.”
“Bastards,” wept Theodora.
Rosa stretched out a hand and patted her arm. “Look, sweetie, calm down. Rosa will help you. This one will have to go. You’re young and strong, there’ll be others. How far along are you, d’you think?’
“About … about …just over three months, I think.”
Rosa pursed her lips. “Pity you didn’t come sooner. But never mind, it can still be done. I’ll give you a draught to take. Tastes vile, and it’ll give you terrible cramps, but it works, never fails. Old Gypsy remedy, from my grandmother. Can you take it tonight? You’ll feel weak and ill for a couple of days.”
“I don’t have a performance tomorrow,” said Theodora. “Or the next day. But Rosa, I don’t want my mother to know. She thinks the man will marry me, but he won’t. I think she might not approve.”
“Tell her you’re going to stay over with Comito,” advised Rosa, “then you can spend the night in my rooms upstairs. Best I should keep an eye on you.”
Theodora nodded and rose. She drew her cloak around her. “I’ll come,” she said. “I have to do this. Oh – what … what will it cost?”
“Let’s talk about that later,” said Rosa. “Bring some old towels.”
That evening Theodora arrived at Rosa’s rooms with her basket. She had left a message with Stasie for her mother, who had to perform, and departed before supper, since Comito would certainly have been expecting her had the invitation been genuine. She was not in the least hungry, and was taken aback to find that Rosa had set a table with fresh fruit, hot bread and small bowls of soup.
“Oh!” said Theodora. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”
“No trouble,” said Rosa as she bustled around, plumped cushions and straightened cloths. The room, though small, was homely, with whitewashed walls, some large chairs, and red curtains faded to a dusky pink at the edges. Theodora noted fresh flowers in pots and a crucifix between the windows. Oil lamps cast a golden glow. The room smelled of soap, goose grease and chicken soup. Rosa said: “I didn’t make much, you shouldn’t eat a heavy meal.”
“You are very kind,” said Theodora. She thought: she truly is, but she is so often irritating that one doesn’t notice. She ate little and spoke less, but Rosa prattled on about her Gypsy grandmother and various other members of what seemed to be a large and widely dispersed family. Then, finally, the flow of chatter dried up. Rosa had washed up and sat, suddenly wordless, rubbing goose grease into her hands. It was time.
Rosa waddled to a corner cupboard and unlocked it with a small key on a string around her neck. Out came a bottle with a large stopper. She set it down in front of Theodora.
“There you are, girl,” she said. “You need to drink the lot. All at once.”
Theodora sat and stared at the dark liquid. This is poison, she thought. I am about to poison my child. If I drink this, I will be guilty of murder. Murderer. I’ll be a murderer.
“It’s damn bitter,” said Rosa. “Best to take a deep breath and polish it in one go.”
“I don’t want to go to a convent,” said Theodora. “Rosa, I don’t …”
“Of course not,” said Rosa. “Bunch of mewling hypocrites. Boring, too, I should think. Drink up, now.”
“And I’d … I’d like to have a child. Some day. Only not now, I can’t have this one now, you see that, don’t you, Rosa? But some day …”
“No reason why you shouldn’t, sweetie, if you really want to, though I reckon they’re more trouble than they’re worth, mostly. Go on, now.”
“It won’t … it won’t … make me … not be able to …”
“Oh, you’ll have plenty of babies yet. Pop ’em out like baked pastries. If you really want ’em. You got this one fast enough. Come on, girl. Drink up.”
“See, Mother and Stasie, they … they …”
“You three need money, sweetie, not another mouth to feed. Simple as that,” said Rosa. “I have some dates for you – you can eat one or two after, to take the bitter taste away.”
Theodora closed her eyes. Oh, God, I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this. I don’t. Want. To do. This.
“Do it now,” urged Rosa. She reached over, shook the bottle and removed the stopper, releasing an unpleasant smell. She pushed it nearer.
Theodora picked up the bottle with a hand that shook. She took a deep breath, threw her head back, and began to swallow. It was, indeed, bitter and nasty. But she drank it all, every drop, to the dregs.
“Good girl,” said Rosa. “There you are. Won’t do a thing for a while. We might as well have a game of dice. Here, have a date.”
They played for about an hour. Then the oil lamps began to gutter.
“Time for bed,” said Rosa, briskly. “Come along, now. You’ve brought some old towels, I hope?”
“Yes,” said Theodora, and indicated her basket.
“We must tear strips.”
Working swiftly, they made a pile.
“Right,” said Rosa. “All ready.”
Theodora picked up the basket. She felt unreal. This is a stage performance, she thought. I am not really doing this. I am only pretending to do this. It’s all part of an act. It’s a pantomime.
Rosa opened a door into a small bedroom in which a large bed took up most of the space. It had been stripped down to the mattress. An old blanket, thin and faded, was folded across the bottom. A candle and a tinder box stood on a little table together with a basin of soapy water. Some kind of large box was pushed against a wall. A rug had been rolled up and put out of the way. This detail made Theodora shiver with dread. Rosa must be expecting a lot of blood, she thought.
“There’ll probably be a fair mess,” said Rosa. “But don’t go out to the toilets. See, this here is not a box, it’s a commode. Lid opens. Got a seat. Bucket inside. Keep the towelling strips handy. All right? I’ll be through there. I sleep light, you can call me if you need help.”
“Thank you very much,” said Theodora in a faint voice.
“Oh, and take your clothes off. Here’s an old nightgown of mine you can put on. Cover yourself. Try to get some sleep.”
“Thank you,” said Theodora again. She heard her own voice as if at the end of a long tunnel.
“You’ll be fine,” said Rosa. “Remember now, lots of girls have been through this. They survived. You will too.”
Theodora nodded dumbly. She sat down on the bed. Rosa walked out and shut the door. Slowly Theodora began to undress. Some-how it was harder to do than when she was on stage in front of a huge audience. It was as if she had to remove a last layer of protection against she knew not what. She stood up and looked down at her naked body. It was pale and shapely and showed no sign, other than slightly swollen and tender breasts, of the momentous changes that had taken place. She pulled Rosa’s vast gown over her head. It was soft with repeated washing and had some holes in it. She lay down and pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of soap and a small bunch of honeysuckle in a pot on the windowsill. She waited. Outside in the street voices shouted, horses’ hooves clopped and wheels rolled by.