The Feasting Virgin

by Georgia Kolias

  “No. No. I’m not pregnant,” Xeni replied her eyes full of shame as she whispered to the nurse. “I have a disease. I’m hysterical. The doctor said so. Hysterical pregnancy. It’s not real. It just looks and feels real.”

  Callie stepped toward Xeni and put her arm around her shoulders. “Honey, you are pregnant. It’s real. Your wish came true.”

  Xeni pushed Callie’s arm away. “You know better than anyone that’s a lie! You were there!”

  “I was there. I was there when the doctor told you that. But that was last year. This is now. This is real.” Callie could hold back no longer. “But I was also there the night you got pregnant.”

  • • •

  “I gotta hear this,” Gus snorted, but then thought better of it. Was the mother of his child trying to say that she got another woman pregnant? “Hey, this is too weird. Shouldn’t we go to a hospital or something?” He looked at Penny, hoping that she would be the voice of reason in this situation.

  Penny met Gus’s eyes. “I think we have a little time here. It doesn’t seem as if her contractions are very strong yet.” Gus suddenly noticed Penny’s dark almond eyes and perfectly arched eyebrows, her fair skin, her nearly black hair, and her cherry red lips. She seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t place her.

  “You’re Greek, aren’t you?” Gus asked, and thought, a Greek Goddess.

  “Yes, I’m Greek. Those are my two children over there, and my parents.”

  “Where is your husband?” Gus asked.

  “Right now, what we have to focus on is this young lady.” Penny turned her gaze away from Gus, flushing slightly. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

  Xeni paused.

  “Her name is Xeni.” Gus filled in the empty space that hung in the air.

  “Really? I always liked that name. So, Xeni, I think what we should do is have you sit in this chair right here, get you a drink of water, and take some deep breaths. Can you tell me if you are feeling any contractions?”

  Xeni shook her head from side to side, in a kind of confused stupor.

  Gus dropped the flitzani into the loaded stroller seat and clutched Manny more tightly as he stooped to take a bottle of water out of the stroller basket. “Here, Penny, she can drink this.” As he handed the water bottle to Penny, Gus noticed Callie rolling her eyes at his sudden attentiveness. He shrugged it off, as she had little room to judge since he’d just heard Callie profess her love for Xeni.

  “Thanks . . .” Penny paused.

  “Gus. Constantino. But I go by Gus most of the time.”

  “Efharisto, Constantino.” Penny smiled at Gus and took the bottle.

  Gus felt himself experience a surge of excitement at hearing his name come from this woman’s full lips. “Para kalo, Panayiota.” Gus grinned, pleased with himself for guessing Penny’s Greek name. “It’s Panayiota, right?”

  “Of course. Panayiota translates as seamlessly into Penny as Constantino translates into Gus, right?” Gus and Penny shared an insider’s laugh over the imprecision of Greek immigrant name translation.

  “Okay, enough. Shouldn’t we be focused on Xeni here?” Callie asked impatiently as she brought a chair closer so Xeni could sit down.

  “Of course, of course,” Penny agreed and turned her attention back to Xeni.

  “No, I don’t want you to focus on me. I want to go home. I feel, I feel . . . funny. I need to go lie down.”

  “Please sit down and have a sip of water, and then you can go home to labor for a while if you aren’t too progressed or to the hospital if your contractions start to become stronger and more frequent.” Penny helped Xeni back down into the small chair. Gus thought it looked as if it could collapse under her expanded size. Penny kept her arms close in case she needed to help steady Xeni. “Is there someone you want to call? The father . . .” Penny asked.

  A laugh escaped from Xeni’s lips at the word, father.

  “Well, thanks for your help, Penny. I think we can take it from here. I don’t want to keep you from your family,” Callie offered and put her hands on Xeni’s shoulders.

  Penny persisted. “Who is your doctor, Xeni? Maybe we should give them a call.”

  “I don’t have a doctor.”

  “So, Xeni, honey. Are you saying that you haven’t had any prenatal care at all?” Penny sighed. “You know, I think I’ll just ask my parents to take the kids over to the bounce house for a bit while we get straightened out here. Okay?”

  Gus watched Penny’s hips sway as she walked toward her parents and children and again wondered where her husband was. He suddenly realized why she seemed so familiar. Seeing her with her family, it all came back to him. He had first seen Penny dancing with her family at Mythos. She was the beautiful woman that had captured his attention that night, and here she was again. Was it fate?

  He tried to come up with an excuse to follow her. “I’m gonna go for a walk with Manolaki . . .” But Gus realized that Callie and Xeni weren’t listening to him at all and felt a surprising amount of relief in being left out. As if by some primal instinct, he found himself following a warm trail that smelled of honey. He imagined his nose burrowing into black hair, and the taste of cloves and cherries on his lips.

  The Pulse of Life

  Callie huddled close to Xeni, relieved to finally be alone with her again. The festival, the people, the music all disappeared. “Xeni, honey. Everything is going to be all right. I know you are surprised by all this, but isn’t it great? It’s what you’ve always wanted, right?” Callie was surprised to find herself ending the statement with a question.

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s happening.” Xeni looked back up through the glass dome at the clouds. “I saw her. I saw her. She came to me.”

  “Who, honey?” Callie asked.

  “I thought I saw her in the clouds after you said what you said—about your feelings for me—and then the liquid fell. Did it come from the clouds?”

  “It came from you, honey. There is an ocean inside of you that contains every beautiful pulse of life. Your baby has been waiting for you. She’s inside of you. She’s always been there. You’ve carried her your whole life. Now she’s coming to join you out in this amazing world.” Callie took Xeni’s hand, and this time Xeni let her. Callie’s eyes glittered with salty tears. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Xeni whispered, “I have been waiting for so long. But I never thought my dream could come true. That I could find love.” Xeni paused. “When that doctor told me that I was . . . I knew I was being punished. I knew what I was feeling for you was wrong. I had to go away. Especially after I saw you, with him, like that.”

  “I’m so sorry that you had to see that, sweetie. It’s not what you think.”

  Xeni shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “I have been waiting so long to see you. I knew you’d be angry with me and that I didn’t have a right to come after you. But I wanted to. I’ve thought of you every single day since you’ve been gone. I can’t cook without thinking about your hands. I can’t breathe without smelling your skin. I love you, and I don’t want to live without you.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed,” Xeni said, and then she gasped and bent over, clutching her belly.

  Callie reached out to rub her back. “Breathe. Just breathe. You can do this. Look into my eyes. You can do this.”

  Xeni looked into Callie’s eyes, and Callie held her there in her gaze. Xeni nodded her head and repeated, “I can do this.”

  The Virgin

  I don’t think anyone else sees her. It happens right after I hear those words leave Callie’s lips. “Xeni, I’m in love with you. I want to be with you!” I hear those words that I never dared hope to hear, and as I do I feel my body get lighter. It seems as if my eyes are swimming toward the glass dome of the chapel, rising toward the sky. I swoon, my swollen and engorged body wavering in the sunlight. I feel as if I might disappear, or, like the Vir
gin Mary, that I will float upward toward the sky, body and all. My body hovers between the balance of earth and sky, fire and water.

  I look upward through the glass of the dome, upward toward the sky. I can just make out the image of the Virgin Mary floating by in a fluffy white cloud, pure and untainted. Her beautiful red, blue and gold robes are draped around her shoulders and framing her peaceful face. Mary reaches out her fingers toward my belly and makes a circular motion. Round and round until I become dizzy. All around me I feel a sudden humidity in the air. And when I look up, Mary has vanished in the clouds and I feel a sudden splash.

  I slowly look down at my feet, now drenched, and then lift my eyes back up to the sky. Searching the clouds, and finding no one, I return my attention to the wetness running down my legs and onto the fresh cement, hoping that the parish will not be angry with me for unexpectedly christening their chapel. I look up again through the glass dome ceiling and then out toward the wide open doors of the chapel. “I think I . . .” and then fall silent again. My eyes fill with tears as I am overcome with an intense feeling of joy.

  A circular sensation rings itself around my belly, and I feel a deep squeezing down lower. I gasp as a strong clenching force moves through my body. Then Callie reaches out to rub my back and tells me to breathe. I look into Callie’s eyes, blue and sure as a summer sky, her red hair and golden skin glowing like the sunlight filtering through the dome. “You can do this,” she tells me. I feel the painful clench unwind, and my body floods with a sense of release. I nod my head and repeat, “I can do this.”

  The Baby Divine

  Cramped and curled with feet pressed against the roof of its abode, tightly wound with arms akimbo on knees so close to the chin. The watery elastic womb has gotten smaller and smaller, causing a pause in the dancing and swinging of earlier days. With head wedged tight close to bone and the tenuous muscle walls shivering, it senses or perhaps knows that a change is occurring, although the possibilities are a mysterious blank. With very little room for high jinks, it twiddles the thick cord erupting from its round belly, strokes the bumpy braided surface, and hiccups at the pulsations that cause the cord to move up and down within its palm. It stares wide-eyed at the thick purple walls, kicking out as far as it can, which at this point is not very far.

  Then the tastes arrive, infusing the atmosphere with colors and something else—emotions. Green, green, fresh green, bitter and pungent. Red, sweet, and greedy, curls the tongue. Yellow, thick, and glowing, warms and comforts. Orange sparks puckered tangy excitement. White flows serenely. Tan, beige, rust, black, sage, brown, gray sprinkle and spice the atmosphere with intrigue. The sounds and images of the womb are forgotten by the born, unknowingly kept in a tiny receptacle deep within the gray tissue of the head, and tucked neatly within a pink valve of the heart. Some are tinged more strongly with images, or tastes, or spirit, but all are divine.

  Second Chances

  Gus followed his nose, absentmindedly carrying Manny, who was getting tired by now of all the commotion, music, and crowds. He hung limply on Gus’s shoulder falling into sleep. Gus could see Penny up ahead talking to her children, kneeling before them and reflexively fixing their clothes and hair, and then pulling them in close to her body. They clung to her with arms around her neck and shoulders, draped on her with abandon and surrender. Gus hugged Manolaki a little closer to him, feeling a warmth in his heart that spread to his cheeks and erupted into a spontaneous smile. He didn’t know what was coming next in life, but he knew he loved his son. Everything will work out fine, he told himself, not sure why he was feeling so confident.

  A look back over his shoulder revealed Callie and Xeni sitting close together, framed by the entryway of the Koimisis Chapel, Xeni leaning against Callie, and Callie tenderly placing her open palm on Xeni’s belly. Xeni looked up at the sky through the chapel dome as if waiting for a sign, and receiving none she placed her hand on top of Callie’s, and moved it a little farther to the left, where both hands jumped at the kick of the unborn child. This made Gus smile wider, and he knew that he was finally free. Xeni really did hold his fate, he thought. He both hated and loved how his mother was always right.

  “What’s with the big smile, Constantino? We’ve got to get Xeni to the hospital,” Penny teased Gus, surprising him out of his reverie.

  “I was just thinking about my mother. You ought to meet her sometime. She’s really feisty.” Gus laughed.

  “Of course she is. Aren’t all Greek mothers? You ought to see me in action.”

  “I’d like that,” Gus murmured. “What about your kids? If we go to the hospital . . . will their father come to take them home?”

  “Look, Gus. When I was young, I made some mistakes, trying to run away from the old-country ways, you know? The best thing that came out of it was my kids. Their dad is no longer in the picture. So you can stop asking about him.”

  Gus beamed. “Well that’s too bad, I guess.”

  “Not really. It’s all for the best, I think.” Penny paused, “Everyone deserves a second chance at happiness, no matter what their past, right?”

  “Right.” Gus was warmed by this thought and he felt excitement rise within him at the chance for a new beginning.

  “Okay. So, my parents will take the kids home. What about your little guy and your wife?”

  “She’s not my wife.” Gus felt a bit sheepish. “I was never sure it was the right thing, but I was trying to make it work for my son’s sake.”

  “And now? She seems . . . involved?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. I guess that makes me free.” Gus smiled.

  “Well, you know what they say, Constantino.”

  “What’s that, Panayiota?

  “If you see a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.”

  “Oh man, you’ve totally used that line before.” Gus laughed.

  “Actually, no. I haven’t,” Penny said quietly, pushing her black hair behind her ear.

  Gus’s heart lifted a second time that day. It isn’t often that a man is caught and released all in one day. “How about tomorrow night? Mediterranean Soul is performing! Dinner and dancing?”

  “Depending on how late we’re up with Xeni tonight, but that sounds perfect.”

  “Well, let’s get moving then! No time to waste. Let’s get her to the hospital.”

  The Brilliant Host

  I never thought I’d find myself here, sitting in a car with Callie and Gus and a strange woman who insists on taking me to the hospital. Manny is sleeping in the car seat between Callie and Penny while Gus drives. Gus is nervous that I’ll get his seat wet, so he’s spread a large black garbage bag under my bottom. I can’t see it. I can’t see anything right now except the road and the cars ahead of us, blocking the way. Manny’s babysitter will meet us there and take him back to their house on stilts.

  I don’t know why Callie says she loves me. Can’t she see that I am troubled? From when I was a little girl, and my nouno . . . I never wanted anyone to come too close to me after that. Not my mother, not my father. They never saw me anyway. I was a ghost who cleaned and cooked, silent and brooding. As long as I kept to myself, they were happy fighting. They never protected me because they were too busy tearing each other apart.

  If I am not crazy. If I am not fat. If I am. If I am carrying a child in my womb at this moment, I will always protect it. I will always look into its eyes and make sure its spirit is vibrant and not dull. I will teach it to say “yes,” and I will teach it to say “no.” I will teach it to say “NO!” with a righteous thunder, and I will run to its side when it needs me. I will be its home, its motherland, its protector, and savior. My child will answer proudly when someone asks where they come from, who their people are. My child won’t lie, like I do. My child will be pure and brilliant as the sun, free from the darkness of shame.

  At the Hospital

  Callie sat behind Xeni in the car as they drove to Berkeley and reached forward to touch her arm, to feel cl
oser to her. That morning she didn’t know if she’d ever see Xeni again, and now she was helping her breathe deeply through contractions. Xeni was about to birth a baby, a baby that Callie might have helped bring to life. She squeezed her eyes shut and said a prayer of thanks to the universe for all of her blessings. As Gus pulled the car into the driveway of Alta Bates Hospital, Penny directed him to park in the temporary parking up front. The row of parking slots was nearly full, with only one space left near the entrance. The other cars represented laboring women upstairs on the third floor of the hospital in various states of dilation, somewhere on the painful road to motherhood.

  “We’ve got to get Xeni up to triage and have them take a look at her. With no prenatal treatment at all, we should take a thorough look at what’s going on. Make sure Mama and baby are okay. Is that all right with you, Xeni?” Penny asked.

  Xeni paused before answering, “I’m afraid to go up there. What if they tell me I’m crazy?”

  “Well, it won’t be the first time,” Gus joked. Callie kicked the back of Gus’s seat, “Gus! That’s not funny.”

  “Okay, I know. I know. I’m sorry!”

  “Hey, you two. Let’s focus on Xeni right now,” Penny intoned with authority, then changed to a soft and reassuring approach as she addressed Xeni.

  “It’s going to be all right. I promise you. They won’t say you’re crazy. I won’t let them. And it isn’t true. You are pregnant. I can see that with certainty, and I am a nurse. You can trust my medical opinion, okay?” Penny reached forward and placed her right hand on Xeni’s shoulder. Callie was grateful for Penny’s reassuring words, and imagined love and courage flowing from her heart into Xeni’s core.

  Callie touched Xeni’s arm. “She’s right, Xeni. You are pregnant. In just a number of hours you’ll be holding your sweet baby in your arms. It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. I promise you when you look into your baby’s eyes the first time that everything else will just fade away. It will all be worth it.”