Princess Daisy

by Judith Krantz

  “Well, Maman,” he said after he had examined her. “The great day is here.” Allard always called women in labor “Maman,” feeling that it focused their minds on the future rather than the present.

  “So it’s not false labor?”

  “Indeed, no. You are well on your way, but we must expect a certain number of hours to pass. After all, this is your first delivery, even if you are a bit early.”

  After the next half-hour of contractions, Francesca’s calm acceptance of her physical discomfort began to disintegrate. Fun was fun, she told herself, but this was really hurting. There was no way in which she could visualize herself playing the role of a woman in labor. She was in it for real and she wanted to be out of it, and fast

  “Doctor Allard, could I please have something for the pain? I’m afraid I need it now.”

  “Alas, no, Maman, in your case we must avoid giving you any drugs.”

  “What!”

  Beaming as if he were giving her good news he continued, “Anything I gave you now would affect the unborn babies adversely. It would be passed along to the babies through your bloodstream. Because you are more than a month early, they still have not reached their proper weight. To be frank, I can give you nothing at all …”

  “No drugs!” Francesca was pale with terror. Like generations of American women, her idea of childbirth without drugs was firmly based on the long and fatal agony of Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind.

  “It is for the best, Maman, much for the best.”

  “But, my God, for how long?” she asked.

  “Until you are ready to deliver the little ones. Then I can give you a saddle block and from then on you will feel no pain at all.”

  “A saddle block? My God, what’s that?” she gasped in horrified apprehension.

  “Merely a painkilling injection,” he explained, thinking it best not to add that it was administered into the fourth lumbar interspace of the spinal column. The Princess was agitated as it was, without exact explanations.

  “But Doctor, can’t you use a saddle block now?” Francesca implored him.

  “Alas no. It might stop the labor and your babies want to be born, Maman.” He was kind, but she knew then that absolutely nothing she could say would move him.

  “Doctor, why didn’t you tell me about this before? It just seems incredible that with modern medicine …” Francesca stopped, unable to adequately express her outraged, fearful disbelief.

  “But you are having premature twins, Maman. Modern medicine calls for precisely these measures.” The doctor took her hand and stroked it paternally. “I will leave my head obstetrical nurse with you now, but I will be in the next room. If you need me or want me for anything, just tell her and I will come at once.”

  “The next room? Why can’t you stay here?” Francesca begged, terrified at the idea of his leaving her for any length of time.

  “For my catnap, Maman. Tonight I have already delivered two babies. You must try to relax completely between contractions—I strongly advise that you take a catnap, too.”

  The next eight hours passed in a kaleidoscope of emotions: physical anguish of a kind never experienced or dreamed of, which left no time for thought; anger that this was so much worse than she had expected; raging euphoria tinged with the knowledge that it would only last until the next contraction; fear, like that of a swimmer realizing that the tide is too strong and all hope of fighting it is gone and, above all the other emotions, triumph which painted those hours in their single unforgettable light; triumph at being fully alive, totally involved with every atom of her mental, moral and physical resources engaged in the most important work of her life.

  Francesca endured without medication, helped only by the constant encouragement of the two doctors and the many nurses who came and went, busy with examinations which she soon disregarded entirely. When she saw the two orderlies appear with the cart on which they were to roll her into the delivery room, she was too dazed to realize what they had come for.

  On the delivery table, Dr. Allard waited until Francesca was between contractions. Then he helped her to a sitting position for the saddle block. Afterward, she was placed flat on her back with a pillow under her head. The complete relief of pain, as astonishing as a clap of thunder, was so extraordinary that Francesca was startled and alarmed.

  “I’m not paralyzed, am I, Doctor—it’s not that, is it?”

  “Of course not, Maman—you are doing wonderfully. Everything is going just as it should. Relax, relax … we are all here for you.” He bent over her for the hundredth time with his stethoscope, listening for the fetal heartbeats.

  “Oh, this is heaven …” Francesca sighed.

  Although the delivery room contained Allard and Dr. Rombais, as well as three nurses and an anesthesiologist, silence was the rule for the next forty minutes except for Allard’s instructions to Francesca. Allard’s team were trained to work together without speaking, by eye and hand signals, since it was his belief that women giving birth were more than normally alert to any spoken words and almost certain to misinterpret them. “Remember,” he would say to his staff, “a Maman may look unconscious under anesthetic but the sense of hearing is the last to go—say nothing.”

  After forty minutes Francesca was once again conscious of pain, but of a greatly diminished degree.

  “Doctor, Doctor,” she murmured, “I think the injection is wearing off.”

  “No, indeed—we are merely coming to the end,” he reassured her in the most jocund of tones. “Now, when I say push, bear down as hard as you can. You won’t feel the contractions but I can see them, so you must obey my instructions.”

  In another ten minutes Francesca heard him grunt in satisfaction. Almost immediately she heard the cry of a baby.

  “Is it a boy?” she whispered.

  “You have a ravishing daughter, Maman,” answered Allard, hastily handing the baby to Dr. Rombais who carefully clamped its umbilical cord. Allard plunged back to his position between Francesca’s thighs. The nurse who was monitoring the fetal heartbeats had just indicated urgently to him that the heartbeat of the unborn child was becoming slower. He saw, to his consternation, that the amniotic fluid which still appeared was yellow green in color instead of clear. The heartbeat of the second twin was growing slower every second. Allard palpated Francesca’s uterus and discovered that it had gone completely rigid. All contractions had stopped. He signaled vehemently at Dr. Rombais to put immediate pressure on Francesca’s fundus, the uppermost part of the uterus, while Dr. Allard squeezed with all his might on her now boardlike uterus. Using all the force at his command, he manipulated the second twin down the open birth canal into a position from which he could deliver it with forceps.

  Within a matter of minutes, no less than four and no more than five, the second twin was delivered. She did not start to breathe spontaneously as the first one had, but had to be roughed up in a towel with considerable friction before a weak cry came from her mouth. As Dr. Allard cut her umbilical cord, he carefully noted that although the child appeared perfectly formed, she could not weigh much more than four pounds, a guess confirmed by the delivery-room scale. Worse, as he had feared, because of the sign of the yellow green amniotic meconium in the amniotic fluid, Francesca had suffered a massive internal hemorrhage due to an abrupt separation of the placenta from the walls of the uterus minutes before the delivery of the second twin.

  “Doctor?” Francesca’s voice implored. “What’s happening—is it a boy or a girl?”

  “Another daughter,” he answered briefly. The terseness of his answer, the neutral quality of his normally merry voice, indicated to the others in the delivery room that their chief was deeply concerned about the second child. Something was gravely wrong.

  Even as he spoke, the anesthesiologist who was watching Francesca’s vital signs saw that her blood pressure had suddenly dropped and her heartbeat had risen markedly. Her pang of bitterest disappointment at Dr. Allard’s announcement was
forgotten as she became aware of feeling suddenly nauseated and dizzy. Sweat began to pour from her body. Still she persisted. “Show them to me … please show them.”

  “In just one minute, Maman. You must try to relax now.” Allard motioned for two nurses to start simultaneous transfusions in each of Francesca’s arms. She was beginning to go into shock, but within a short while the transfusions and the administration of fibrinogen brought her pulse rate and her blood pressure back to safe levels. As soon as he saw that his patient was stabilized, Allard told Dr. Rombais to bring the babies to the delivery table. Both infants’ eyes were tightly closed, both of them had their fists firmly curled. On one twin the Saxon-white hair, which had just been gently dried, had already started to curl. On the other, the pale hair was still a bit damp.

  Both of the babies were wrapped in soft white flannel cloths and as Francesca, weak but alert, studied them, she felt a burst of astonishment such as she had never known before. The transition from the creatures with whom she felt a total connection and communication as she carried them inside her, to the sight of these two separate human beings who each possessed the individual authority to close their eyes and curl their fists and thus reject the brightly lit world in which they found themselves, was such a stunning and incomprehensible change that she couldn’t grasp it intellectually, but only feel it emotionally.

  “Are they identical, Doctor?”

  “Yes, but your second daughter weighs less than the first. This one,” he said, pointing to the smaller baby, “must go directly into an incubator until she gains some weight But rest assured, we have counted and they both have all their fingers and toes.”

  “Thank God,” Francesca whispered.

  “Now, Maman, you must rest.”

  “Tell my husband.”

  “He must wait for just a while.” The doctor had no intention of leaving Francesca until he was completely satisfied that the new blood running into her arms had done all its work. He didn’t leave her until she was ready to be transferred to the recovery room. Then he left the empty delivery room untying the strings of his white cap wearily.

  When the tired doctor entered the room in which Stash had been waiting, he saw that he had fallen asleep sitting up, his forehead pressed to the window out of which he had been peering, sightlessly, during all the long night. Dr. Allard stood behind the sleeping man for a long minute. Then he sighed and lightly pressed Stash’s shoulder. The Prince woke instantly.

  “Tell me!”

  “You have twin daughters. Madame is well but very tired.”

  Stash stared wildly at the doctor as if there might be other information. The assault on his rigid expectations was so ruinous that he could say nothing. The doctor, after a short pause, continued blandly to answer the unasked questions with which other men would have bombarded him.

  “One of your daughters is in excellent condition, Sir. As for the other …”

  Stash finally found his voice. “What about the other.… Tell me!”

  “There was a problem, a clinical condition, before the second child was born. The placenta separated from the womb just before birth and Madame suffered an internal, concealed hemorrhage.”

  Stash slumped against the wall. “So the child is dead. You can tell me, Doctor.”

  “No, the child is alive, but I must warn you that she is in grave difficulty. She is very small, only four pounds, two ounces, and because of the placentae abruptio—the separation—and the presence of meconium in the amniotic fluid, we know that there was a period during which no oxygen reached her brain. We acted as quickly as possible, Prince, but it was four minutes, perhaps four and a half, before we were able to deliver the baby safely.”

  “What are you trying to tell me? Just say it, Doctor!”

  “There is the probability—no, the certainty—of brain damage.”

  “Brain damage? What the hell does that mean—what are you saying?” Stash took the doctor by the shoulders as if to shake him and then lowered his hands. “Forgive me.”

  “It is much too soon to tell. The extent of the damage cannot be foreseen until I have had an opportunity to examine the baby closely.”

  “How soon will you know—when will you examine the—the other?”

  “As soon as I think she is strong enough. Meanwhile, as a precaution, she should be baptized. What name shall she be given, Prince?”

  “I don’t give a damn!”

  “Prince Valensky! Calm yourself. There is absolutely no need to give up hope. And you have one healthy, perfect little daughter. Don’t you want to see her? She’s in the nursery. She weighed five pounds, ten ounces, so there was no need for an incubator. Would you like to visit her now?”

  “No!” Stash spoke without thinking. All he knew was that it would be impossible to look at any baby. The doctor observed him shrewdly. This was far from the first time he had received such a response.

  “My advice,” he said kindly, “is that you go home and sleep and then return to visit the Princess. You have been up all night under great stress. And when you come back, no doubt the little princesses will also be awake.”

  “No doubt” Stash turned to go, turned back and said in a tone which contained a hidden question, “I’m sure you did the best you could.”

  “Indeed, yes, Prince. But there are some things about which we can do nothing.”

  Still Stash glared at him. The little doctor drew himself up, offended in his art. “Accidents happen in nature, against which the utmost skill of man can do nothing except salvage as best it can.”

  “Salvage?” Stash said the word as if he had never heard it before. What had he to do with salvage? There had never been any allowance in his life for loss, so what room could there be for salvage? “Goodbye, Doctor.”

  He drove home at a dangerous speed, ignoring the servants gathered at the front door. He didn’t stop at the villa but sped on farther to the stables. There he hurled himself out of his car, ran inside the stable and jumped on the back of the first horse he saw. As the groom saw his master about to ride off bareback, he ran up to Stash and shouted, “Prince? How are the twins—and the Princess?”

  “The Princess is well. One child. A girl. Now get the hell out of my way!” Stash drove his heels into his bay’s side and buried his hands in the beast’s mane, with a command that was more a howl than a word. The animal, suddenly as savage as its master, reared with a great whinny and galloped off into the hillside with Stash kicking him on as if the devil were riding behind him.

  6

  In Dr. Henri Allard’s clinic in Lausanne the month of April 1952 passed. The month of May passed too, and Francesca Valensky and her twin daughters had not left the clinic since the premature birth. It was on a June day, rather late in the month, that a nurse brought Marguerite, the firstborn of the twins, into her mother’s room for the earliest of her two daily visits. The nurse, Soeur Anni, barely glanced at the passive woman with an extinguished face who sat, motionless as always, in an armchair. Soeur Anni had long ago become bored with the monotony of these useless, routine visits. All the other nurses in the clinic who had, at first, bulged with cautious gossip about this glamorous patient had become equally accustomed to the facts of the case. Princess Valensky never spoke and had not shown a minute’s interest in her babies; she would not take the slightest care of herself although she wasn’t physically sick, and she only left her bed if two nurses held her by the elbows and guided her, unprotestingly, around the little enclosed garden outside her bright, sunny room.

  Postpartum depression in all its sad guises was nothing new to them. Poor thing, they agreed, but then even the doctors didn’t know what to do. Sometimes they got better by themselves, sometimes they just never recovered—each nurse had some particularly lurid tale to tell about such cases—but they were careful not to indulge in them within earshot of the special round-the-clock psychiatric nurses who were in permanent attendance on this patient who must never be left alone, even while she slept.
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br />   Soeur Anni nodded to the special nurse who was knitting in a corner. “You might as well take your break now. I’ll be here with the baby—no need for two of us to be hanging about, is there?”

  “Not really. She’s been quiet—as usual.”

  It was a particularly warm and sunny day. Holding Marguerite expertly in the crook of her arm, Soeur Anni opened the windows wide and drew aside the curtains to let in the fresh, flower-touched air. Then she sat down in the chair next to Francesca and after ten minutes, which passed in the customary silence, she began to doze off.

  A ladybug flew inside the room and settled on the baby’s forehead, right between her eyes, like a Hindu caste mark. The nurse, her eyes half-closed, paid no attention. Francesca glanced at the drowsy nurse and child without a flicker of interest. But, in one tiny part of her mind she waited, without knowing it, for the nurse to notice the insect. After a few minutes the nurse’s faint snore still showed no sign of stopping. The ladybug promenaded around on the baby’s face and finally lit on one delicate eyelid, close to the fine line of lashes. Too close, perilously close. Francesca reached out a tentative finger to brush away the bug. As she did so she touched her child for the first time, touched the baby skin and found it shockingly soft, shockingly alive. The child’s eyes opened wide, looking straight at her, and she saw that they were black, as black as her own. She ran one finger over the almost imperceptible blonde eyebrows and then timidly curled a lock of the child’s flaxen hair between her fingers.

  “Could I … could I hold her?” she whispered to the half-slumbering nurse. The nurse slept on, unhearing.

  “Nurse?” Francesca said in a low tone. Only a snore answered her. “Nurse?” This time her voice was stronger. At its sound something heavy shifted inside of her, some mass blew apart as she rediscovered her own voice. “My God, my God,” she said out loud, stroking the baby’s hair with fingers to which life and joy had returned.