Unquenchable Fire

by Rachel Pollack

  She thought at first that their hesitation signalled a reluctance to betray their informant, but a moment later the redhead leaned forward and said, ‘You’d better thank the Devoted Ones for their devotion, because it’s certain that nothing you’ve done deserves their precious intervention.’ Jennie looked from her to the small one, the girl, who explained that the three of them, each in her or his apartment, had received an impulse to go to the hospital, despite the storm, despite the early hour, and visit a child they’d delivered the day before. When they’d arrived in the nursery the child had begun to speak to them, telling them that a woman needed their help, and they must go, without doctors or healers or anyone else, to a certain apartment on Cannon Street, where the supervisor would let them into the building.

  ‘You’d better give thanks,’ the woman said again. ‘There’s someone looking out for you even if you won’t look out for yourself.’

  Whatever Jennie might have answered vanished as a contraction took hold of her body. While the man timed her and the redhead examined her the burglar massaged her abdomen, beginning above the groin and spreading out towards the hip bones. ‘Try to relax,’ she told Jennie. ‘Breathe deeply. Have you ever done any meditation classes?’

  ‘In college,’ Jennie said. ‘Club med.’

  ‘Then do some pre-trance breathing. Low and deep.’

  ‘I don’t want any meditation.’

  ‘No, no. Just the breathing. Just try to relax.’

  The man, the hag, said, ‘That’s the wrong rhythm. She’s already starting to dilate.’

  ‘I know,’ the girl said, ‘but there’s no time to teach her anything fancy. We’ve just got to get her to relax.’

  Jennie paid no attention to either of them. The pain kept rising until she thought it could float her right off the bed. And in fact the hag and the girl were holding her down, one on her hips, the other hanging on to her legs. It was only when the pain subsided that Jennie realised they were just keeping her still while the woman shaved her groin.

  Jennie didn’t want her groin shaved. She remembered lunar enactments in her dorm at college where a few of the girls had shaved each other. It had given her a queasy feeling just to look at them. Her attempts to twist away only made them press harder. The redhead said, ‘Don’t move. Don’t make this any more of a mess than it already is,’ and the burglar added, ‘It’s all right. This doesn’t hurt. Just relax. We’re not going to hurt you.’

  By the time they’d finished, another contraction had started. While Jennie grabbed the sides of the mattress, and the burglar urged her again to relax, the other two stood on the side and argued over something. The burglar joined them, and when she came back to Jennie she said, ‘My Mother—’ (Jennie looked from one to the other until she realised the term was an official one; the woman would refer to the man as her ‘Grandmother’) ‘—thinks we should take you to the hospital. I agree. Will you go to the hospital? There’s still time.’

  ‘I want to stay here.’

  Gently she said, ‘You can’t stay here. There’s no preparation. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

  ‘No hospital.’

  The Mother said, ‘We can’t force you. We’ve got our wonderful courts to thank for that. Not unless there’s an outright emergency. And by then it’ll probably be too late.’

  ‘No hospital.’

  The daughter asked, ‘Who’s your doctor?’

  ‘No doctor.’

  ‘We’ve got to at least call him so we’ll know whether you need anything special.’

  Jennie was about to say she didn’t have a doctor when she remembered the phone was out. She gave the name of the doctor at the clinic on Smith Street.

  ‘A clinic,’ the Mother said. ‘Great. It’ll be closed today. Let’s hope he’s at home and not doing some private penance ahead of the enactment. Where’s the phone?’

  ‘In there,’ Jennie said and pointed back to the living room. She lay down and closed her eyes until the redhead came in again.

  ‘Not working,’ the midwife said. ‘We better not take any chances.’ She turned to the Grandmother. ‘Maybe you better drive down to the hospital and have them send back an ambulance.’

  ‘No hospital,’ Jennie said again.

  ‘Damn it,’ the woman said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘The Devoted One,’ Jennie said. ‘It told you no one else. Remember?’

  There was a pause and then the Mother said, ‘All right, all right. We’ll stay here. But at the first sign of real trouble you’re going. Do you understand?’

  Jennie said, ‘Why are you treating me like this? I thought midwives were friendly.’

  The woman laughed. The ‘Daughter’ took Jennie’s hand. ‘Don’t mind her,’ she said. ‘She just gets excited.’ The Grandmother, the man, picked up an aluminium case from among the neat pile of instruments. He placed it on the floor and the three of them bent down to lay their hands on it. When they’d pronounced a sanctification he unlatched it and they took out several small jars of paint, three brushes, and a velvet box with ribbons, costume jewellery, and small objects attached to strings. Just as Jennie’s body began to harden for another contraction they began to paint signs and stick figures on her breasts and abdomen. ‘Stop that,’ Jennie said, and tried to push or kick them away. ‘I don’t want any of that.’

  Smoothly they switched to one of them painting while the others held her down. The redhead told her, ‘Now you listen to me. We’re not in the mood for any more of your sec nonsense.’

  ‘Sec?’ Jennie repeated. ‘You think I’m a secular? Is that why you’re treating me like this?’

  ‘What the hell are we supposed to think? No guardians by the bed, none over the door—’

  ‘I’m not a sec’

  ‘I don’t care what you call yourself. We came because the Benign One sent us and because it’s our duty. And because the baby can’t help your perverted ideas. But we’re not giving you the chance to sue us later for malpractice. If you try to rub off the paint, or take off any of these adornments, or break the enactment in any other way, we’ll strap down your arms and legs. That’s a promise. Do you understand?’ Jennie didn’t answer. ‘Say yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  When they’d finished the painting they decorated Jennie with bracelets and ribbons, stones and feathers. Afterwards they unrolled a ball of red yarn and laid it clockwise around the border of the room. The daughter announced, ‘This room has now entered the Living World.’ While the Grandmother sprinkled rock salt in a circle around Jennie’s bed, the Mother taped a stuffed rag doll above the door and the Daughter covered the door itself with a chalk drawing of Mothersnake giving birth to her children. Through all of this they intoned a health and safety chant, invoking Jaleen Heart Of The World, Mothersnake, the living spirit of the Earth and the Sky, and the Chained Mother underneath the sea. After the first few verses they paused for Jennie to answer them or join in. When Jennie said nothing, the Mother shook her head in disgust, while the Grandmother sang louder and the Daughter wiped Jennie’s forehead.

  The foetus fed on the last remnants of her beauty. Wherever she went people turned away from her. They threw stones, they stoned her the way they’d stoned the President when he was a boy and called himself Son Of A God. Wherever she tried to rest they drove her away, frightened her tongue would poison the water, her toes would infect the soil. Posters warned people of ‘the hideous woman’ whose sweat could spoil the food in the supermarkets, whose stare could make men beat their wives, make women stab their husbands. She hid during the day and at night disguised her ugliness the way she once had disguised her beauty.

  She planned her revenge. When the baby came, when their child came, when it grew and could wear the Head of His Father, then all those who had humiliated her would receive their punishment. She longed for their confusion as well as their agony, their wonder at why they were suffering, and she pictured the exquisite moment in which she would step from the shad
ows to confront her dying enemies. ‘Look at my face and remember.’

  There was no Sun that day. Though the wind stopped by nine a.m. a squadron of clouds stood guard against the light. In the midst of her pain Jennie remembered the storyteller on Hudson Street, with her prophecy of a three day darkness. She thought I can’t last three days, it’s too much.

  Shortly after ten the doors opened and a man in jeans and a short white jacket strolled into the room. He carried a canvas bag slung over his right shoulder. To the midwives’ questions he said only, ‘You three look awfully hungry. I’ll bet you haven’t had any breakfast.’ He reached into the sack and with his left hand held out three chocolate chip cookies. They each took a bite, and another, and slowly the exhaustion and the anger and the confusion all drained out of their bodies, replaced by peace and a kind of surprise that was almost recognition.

  ‘What have you got for me?’ Jennie said. ‘I hope it’s strong.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sitting down in the chair the Grandmother had placed beside the bed. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go on a little more.’ He picked up a compress and wiped the sweat from her face. The touch of his fingers, even through the gauze, sent a warm shudder through her body. ‘Too much suffering,’ she said.

  ‘Suffering’s not something you can measure. There’s no quota or upper limit. It’s just there.’

  ‘No lectures,’ Jennie said, and gasped in pain. ‘No goddamn lectures.’

  He became her nurse, massaging her, directing her breathing, reassuring her she would get through it. ‘Take me to a hospital,’ Jennie demanded, and he told her it was too late. ‘Am I being punished?’ she asked him, and he explained again how things were just the way they were. She paid no attention, only screamed with the pain, and wondered afterwards why the neighbours didn’t bang on the walls or call the police.

  Again and again, looking at the dream-soaked faces of the midwives, she asked him for one of his cookies. Each time he told her it wouldn’t work on her the way it worked on them. Finally, in the late afternoon, he held one out to her. ‘What flavour is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Chocolate-chocolate chunk.’

  ‘Is that the one you gave them?’ He didn’t answer. As the next contraction began she grabbed the cookie and jammed it in her mouth.

  She was spinning round, slowly turning, with her naked body strapped to something. A ferris wheel, she was tied to a ferris wheel, she’d got one of the faceless Workers to do it, that was days ago, for days she’d turned round and round, her feet and head exchanging the sky between them. Flickers of red and orange light tinted the air. She remembered now, she was on fire, the story had appeared and set fire to her, she could feel that blessed heat surge through her body, ‘a sweetness beyond description’, as Adrienne had called it. Below her she could see the glow on the faces of the people standing watch at the base of the wheel. And beyond them she saw the city and the burning buildings of the Revolution.

  Soon the Workers would take her down. She could lie in a bed again, rest. But not yet. First she had to wait for the story to finish. The ‘Picture’ as Danielle would say. She could almost feel the end now. The last pieces had begun to climb out from the crack that had opened in the world.

  ‘You bastard,’ Jennie said. ‘You gave me the wrong cookie.’ Her nurse paid no attention.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘You’re fully dilated now. The cervix is open. That means the contractions are going to change. Do you understand?’ Jennie didn’t answer. ‘They won’t be as regular, and they may hurt a little more.’ Jennie shrank away from him. ‘But this whole period won’t last as long. Only about half an hour. But you mustn’t push. Do you understand? It’s too soon.’

  Jennie shook her head. Flickers of fire scorched the pillow on either side. ‘I don’t understand anything,’ she said.

  ‘I’m going to show you how to breathe,’ he said. ‘Pay attention.’

  ‘Pay attention,’ she repeated. ‘That’s from Birth of Beauty. Proposition number—’ She gasped in pain.

  It was only a small hill, overlaid with ragged flowers like all the others, but as soon as she began to climb she realised she had found it. The centre. The place where she could rest and wait for her baby. At the top she came to an indentation pressed into the rock by the weight of heaven. She Who Runs Away squatted down with her back braced against the curve of stone.

  It was time for her children to emerge. More than one. She could feel them rolling around each other.

  Jennie did her best to follow the complicated breathing shown her by the cookie vendor. She was supposed to suck in air in small gulps and then blow it out all at once. The trouble was, she could practise it in the in-between times, but as soon as the contractions began everything became confused.

  She could feel the baby sliding around in her, as if it had finally woken up and decided it was time to move into position. She wanted to get rid of it, push it out, but he wouldn’t allow her. ‘You’ll rupture the perineum,’ he said, whatever the hell that was. Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

  She smelled something foul, and felt the midwives lifting her, cleaning her off. They were stuffing the sheet in a plastic bag, sliding another sheet under her. The smell followed them as they carried the bag into the bathroom.

  Just then a man entered the room. Tall, with white hair, he wore a filthy coat, but when he took it off, his shirt shone so white Jennie winced from the glare. He stood in the doorway, staring round like a sleepwalker waking up in someone else’s house.

  One of the midwives, the daughter, came up to him and tilted back her head to get a better view through the mask. ‘You’re Allan Lightstorm,’ she said. ‘I saw you last Summer. You’re Allan Lightstorm.’

  Magruder pushed her aside to come and kneel at the foot of the bed. ‘Bless me,’ he said to Jennie. ‘Release me.’

  ‘You’re too soon,’ Jennie told him. ‘I’m not the one.’

  When the storm ended, at six o’clock, the owner of a riverside restaurant drove down to check for damage. Before he could even take a look at the building, he heard a loud whistling noise coming off the river. When he went to investigate he saw something, some kind of swarm, rising out of the water just before the mid-Hudson bridge. They looked like insects made of coloured aluminium foil. They hovered in the air in front of the suspension cables, fluttering about like tiny excited birds, all the time whistling. Then they blew away in a gust of wind to vanish over the cliffs on the other side of the river.

  The restaurant owner returned to his car. For a while he sat there, staring at the water, trying to remember. He was sure he knew what it was, he just had to remember.

  Of course. The children. The souls of the children who had served the Army of the Saints in the Battle of the Waters. For decades they’d clogged the river, scaring the fish, jamming boat rudders, forcing him to close his restaurant every night at ten to avoid the weeping that always began at a quarter past eleven. No one could live there because of the weeping. Most of the land along the riverfront was near worthless because of it. He’d opened his restaurant there because he could get the property so cheap, but he’d always had to fight against people’s reluctance to come there during the day.

  And now they were gone. Something had released them. He should tell the SDA, he thought. And the papers, and the TV. But first—He laughed and hit the dashboard with excitement. First he would contact an estate agent.

  The cookie vendor said, ‘It’s time to push, Jennifer. Do you understand?’ She shook her head. He lifted her shoulders and tilted up her chin. His touch made her smile. For a moment the pain rose off her body to hang in the air in front of her. Then he passed her to the redhaired midwife and the pain sank into her again. ‘Come back,’ she said, ‘don’t go away.’ The midwife held her gently, with love she stroked Jennie’s shoulder.

  The cookie vendor hadn’t left. Instead, one hand gently tilted back her chin while the other pressed slightly on her lower abdomen. As
the next contraction started she found herself pushing, as if she was expelling a deep breath through the vagina. With his hand on her it seemed so effortless. She had no idea how long it lasted. When the contraction ended, and he stood up, she said, ‘Is it over now?’

  He smiled at her. ‘Not yet. Just a few more times.’

  ‘It’s not born yet?’

  ‘Almost.’

  Someone was holding her hand. Kneeling by the bed. It wasn’t the cookie vendor, or the midwives, they were all doing something, supporting her back, her legs. She twisted sideways to see. It was that man with the white shirt—Allan Lightstorm, that’s right, the midwife had claimed it was Allan Lightstorm. She laughed, remembering how she’d tried to find him, how that bitch at the Fifth Avenue Hall had refused to tell her anything. She laughed again and closed her eyes.

  Jennie never knew how long this final period actually lasted. It carried no sense of time, neither extended nor short, only the endless pushing, which somehow never strained her, but only made her think of a ribbon pulled along in the air. In between, the midwife would let her down on the pillow and her nurse would take his hands away, leaving her alone for the fear and pain to grab hold of her again. But then the pushing would start again and he’d return and it would be all right.

  She never saw the baby emerge. The other two midwives had rigged up some mirror at the foot of the bed, and as the pushing came closer to the end, they shouted at her to watch (at least she thought they shouted) but she kept turning her head away, not knowing what it was she was afraid to see, only certain that she couldn’t bear to look.

  ‘It’s coming,’ she heard the Daughter say, ‘there’s the crown.’ The cookie vendor was telling her something, the Grandmother was urging her to look in the mirror…

  But when she opened her eyes and looked down it wasn’t the baby’s head she saw, or her own blood and ooze, but people’s faces—the face of her mother, of Karen, Mike, even Gloria and Al, all of them smiling as if they’d let go of some burden they’d carried all their lives.