Tremble

by Tobsha Learner

  “What did he say?” she asked nervously.

  “Nothing,” Dimitri replied with forced casualness.

  “If it was nothing then you can tell me,” she persisted.

  “‘He’s coming,’ that’s what he said. You see? The man has mental problems.”

  “Who did he mean by ‘he’?”

  “I really have no idea. Stavros is our local idiot prophet, some people listen to him, some don’t. Forget it happened, please.”

  But on the way back up the mountain Clarissa couldn’t erase the image of the man’s face, the ferocity of his features as he made his prediction. He’s coming. Who? she wondered. Who would be visiting me in this remote spot? Her father, perhaps? The idea of her father arriving at the dock in his suit and holding the ever-present mobile phone seemed absurd. No, it had to be someone else, someone she didn’t know yet who had searched her out, chosen her…for what?

  I’m a fool to take the babblings of the local village idiot seriously, she told herself, grappling with her newfound cynicism and a yearning still to believe.

  Clarissa continued counseling the village women, but her lack of faith spread like a cancer. Every morning she found it harder to drag herself out of bed and kneel on the freezing chapel floor with the other sisters. When she gazed up at Jesus’s face she no longer felt the rush of inspiration. “What is it all for?” she murmured under her breath.

  In the midst of her anguish she failed to notice that her period didn’t come that month, or the next or the next.

  One morning she checked the calendar and realized that she hadn’t bled for over four months. She wondered if she was anemic; remembered reading that a change in diet or even a change in drinking water could alter the menstrual cycle. She vowed to concentrate on improving her nutrition. Yes, the change in diet had to be the cause. Relieved she spent the rest of the day on a fishing boat with Georgio.

  For the next few weeks she cut down on dairy products and daily forced down a local meat dish. Her stomach grew swollen, but when the end of the month came still Clarissa hadn’t bled. That day at the cannery she kept imagining the onset of period pains but nothing happened. In the evening she wept with frustration.

  The next day she decided to visit the island’s herbalist. He lived in a cottage sandwiched between the bakery and the tannery. The scent of freshly baked bread competed with the sickening stench of tanning fluids and Clarissa thought she might throw up as she ducked through the low doorway. The décor looked as if it hadn’t changed since the sixteenth century and the tiny room was more like a cupboard, with hundreds of bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Nailed to the wall next to the long wooden counter, next to a 1956 calendar featuring Sophia Loren in a spotted bikini, were several shrunken goat and sheep heads. Clarissa reeled back in disgust.

  “So, holy woman, what can I do for you?” The herbalist spoke in a strange American-accented English. He barely reached her shoulders and his face was so wrinkled that it was difficult for Clarissa to see whether he was smiling or frowning.

  “I’m ill, I have problems…down below.” She placed a hand on her womb awkwardly.

  He looked her up and down, then sniffed reflectively. “I can see, even with my eyes. Lie down on the counter, I will tell you what is wrong.”

  Clarissa swung herself up onto the long table and lay down. With her habit draped over the sides she felt a little like a giantess trapped in a mouse hole. In an effort to ward off panic she stared up at the ceiling and watched a lizard stoically crawl across the wooden roof beam toward a struggling moth. Please make him not be a total fraud, she prayed to herself, trying hard not to feel ridiculous.

  The ancient herbalist climbed up onto a stool and pulled down two dried chicken claws from the wall. He hobbled over to the table and waved them slowly over her stomach, mumbling an incomprehensible incantation under his breath. Finally he laid the claws carefully in a cross across her abdomen then produced a tuning fork from one of his pockets. He banged it against the wooden bench, placed it end down next to her, and listened to the high-pitched note for a few seconds. Suddenly he clapped his hands as if to disperse the air above her.

  “Get up,” he said brusquely. While Clarissa rearranged herself, he concocted a mixture of herbs, pouring a little from one jar and then a little more from another until he had created his own foul-smelling blend.

  “I have seen this condition only once before, when I was four. The victim, she too was the attendant to the holy relic. Maria Stelopolis, that was her name. A beautiful woman.” He paused for a second. “You touched the nipple, didn’t you?” he asked, not unkindly.

  Startled, Clarissa tried to gauge his reaction but there was nothing judgmental in his tiny buried eyes. She started to stammer but silencing her he pushed the jar of herbs toward her.

  “I cannot promise I can stop what has begun, but this tea might help. You must drink it each day before the sun is in the sky and twice on a full moon.”

  “What happened to the other woman—Maria?”

  “I cannot remember. My mother took me to the mainland and I was not here to see the results.”

  “You must have heard something?”

  “It was over ninety years ago. I tell you, I can’t remember!” His face closed over and she could tell that he was lying.

  For a week she drank the tea every morning before dawn. Its flavor was what she imagined horse piss might taste like and the only effect it seemed to have was diuretic. As the days passed Clarissa waited anxiously for her period to appear, but nothing happened except that she continued to gain weight.

  Her distress did not go unnoticed. One morning the nun woke to find the abbess perched on her bed. She was so frail that she seemed to float above the sheets.

  “You have lost your faith,” the abbess said softly. Clarissa looked at her in surprise.

  “Your Mother Superior told me all about it.”

  “I don’t know, I’m not sure what I feel anymore.” She turned away in embarrassment, unable to hold the abbess’s gaze.

  “We have a retreat, a special place where the sisters may go for periods of solitude. I have been there myself. It is a cave by the sea.”

  On reading the expression of dismay on Clarissa’s face the abbess smiled. “Oh, it’s not that bad! It’s fully equipped with electricity. It is a beautiful place to be alone and reflect. You are at one with the elements. It’s magical—trust me, I know. Anyway, I’m giving you no choice; my driver will take you there tomorrow.”

  She exited in a cloud of lavender water and flurry of pale blue skirts.

  Clarissa climbed out of the car and helped unload her bags—two suitcases, one full of books, the other clothes—and a tray of potted seedlings. They were some herbs and several bulbs she had planted to remind herself of Australia.

  The retired soldier who chauffeured for the convent peered at the sea and the rocks then back at the Australian woman.

  “You gonna be all right?” he asked gruffly in broken English, thinking she was too pretty to be a nun.

  Clarissa looked at the mouth of the cave. It had a yellow door neatly built into the stone wall. Wild lavender, thyme, and fennel grew down the side of the cave and onto the grassy outcrop in front of it. A small cove fringed with spotless white sand lay below. It had rock pools into which the sea crashed.

  “We Australians are survivors,” she said and smiled.

  He grunted and insisted on showing her where the nuns kept a lobster pot in the ocean, explaining how she should pull it up once a week to either eat or free the unfortunate crustacean inside. There was also an oyster bed, mussels that could be picked off the rocks, wild onions and garlic growing farther up the grassy slope and a lone peach tree planted by a nun two hundred years before. Although Clarissa had brought plenty of supplies the driver was still reluctant to leave her alone in this remote spot.

  “Here,” he said, holding out a mobile phone, “this is for you to use in an emergency. The Mother Superior s
aid you should keep it with you at all times.”

  “No, thank you. I don’t think I want the temptation of talking to people.”

  The driver ignored her and pushed it into her hand.

  “You take it, if you don’t I lose my job. I have been told to collect you in four weeks.”

  Shaking his head he walked back to the car. All English are pig-headed but the colonial English are most pig-headed, he thought as he carefully maneuvered the ancient Jaguar back up the grassy slope.

  Clarissa slipped off her sandals and walked down to the beach. The soft grass felt delicious under her feet. She reached the sand, stripped off, and waded into the shallows naked. She lay down and allowed the gently lapping sea to roll over her body, lifting her up with every wave. For the first time in her life she felt safe, as if her physical self was melting into the water, extending like a thin film that stretched over the surface of the sea, then the oceans, then over the very skin of the world itself. Total safety, total surrender. Perhaps it is Nature that is divine; the thought curled at the edge of her mind like a whisper, almost indiscernible from the scented breeze that carried across from the beach, brushing against her closed eyelashes and cheeks.

  It was later, after a simple meal of fresh crab, bread, and salad, that she noticed the tray of seedlings. They had grown at an extraordinary rate—the basil, which had barely been visible, was now six or seven inches tall and covered in leaves. Even the bulbs had shot up, several bearing buds just about to burst into bloom.

  “It’s not possible,” Clarissa said out loud; she’d only planted them the day before. Could she be mistaken? No, there was no way—she’d planted the seedlings herself, using the dry scrubby soil she’d scooped out from the convent grounds. She couldn’t imagine that thin earth being particularly fertile. So why were the plants growing at such a phenomenal rate?

  As she walked back to the kitchen table she became aware of how heavy her body felt. She stood up and lifted her smock, running her hands over her belly. She seemed to be swelling visibly. Was she growing as well? Coincidence; must be some kind of weird optical illusion, she thought, then carefully measured herself with a piece of string, tying a knot to mark the breadth of her waist. After another glass of wine she finally fell asleep watching the dying embers of the open fire.

  In the morning, half-awake, she turned automatically and was shocked to discover she had grown so large that lying on her side was impossible. She glanced across at the plants: the tulips had already blossomed and were beginning to die, while the basil had gone to seed.

  Maybe whatever’s wrong with me has speeded up as well! If it’s a disease it could be spreading unnaturally fast. The thought that she might have picked up some parasite upon her arrival on the island filled her with horror. She reached for the mobile phone but accidentally knocked it to the floor where it broke on the tiles.

  Panicked, Clarissa struggled to her feet. What was she going to do now, miles away from any medical help? She glanced around the cave and noticed a small pile of flares neatly stacked in the corner. She picked one up, it was damp with mildew. They were all useless. No flares, no phone, and no transport—she was trapped.

  “Clarissa, be rational.” The sound of her own voice echoing slightly against the cave walls made her feel even more lonely. Determined, she continued, “Don’t panic, perhaps the swelling will start to go down by itself.”

  To double-check that it wasn’t just her imagination she pulled the length of string from the mantelpiece and tried to wrap it around her waist. It didn’t even join. She was bigger, far bigger.

  Repulsed by her body she threw on a loose dress, then realized that she was ravenous. Like a crazed woman she pulled out the supplies of sardines. Her hands shook with hunger as she ripped three tins open and emptied the contents onto a hunk of bread. She crammed the food into her mouth, hardly chewing, desperate to appease the gnawing sensation that radiated out from her center.

  With oil dripping down her chin she eased herself into a chair. The weight of her stomach pushed against her bladder and made her legs ache. And still she was visibly expanding.

  “Well, if I’m still eating I can’t be that ill, right?” Anyway, what could she do? The nearest road was at least ten miles away and she couldn’t imagine finding the strength or the agility to walk there.

  “Trust in God” would be the advice she would give to a village woman in the same situation. Trust in God. But where was her faith? Desperate, she lowered herself onto her knees and began to pray. Suddenly a curious sensation made her sit up. Her stomach actually jumped slightly, then again.

  She froze, terrified. Whatever was inside her belly was moving. Perhaps it was a parasite, wriggling through her organs up toward her heart. She looked around wildly, trying to get some sense of reality. She noticed a series of charcoal marks crossed off on the whitewashed wall. Written neatly alongside each row were dates and names of women. Nuns, she guessed, who had stayed here before. It was a crude calendar. She peered closer; some of the dates went back to the sixteenth century. Suddenly she noticed the initials MS carved into the wall: MS 1904.

  Of course! MS stood for Maria Stelopolis, the other woman who touched the nipple, the one the herbalist remembered! No wonder he didn’t know what had happened to her—she probably came here and perished! Never to be heard of again. For a second Clarissa wanted to weep, imagining herself curled up, dying alone at the entrance of the cave, miles from anyone.

  “Get a grip,” she told herself. “This cave is real; women have stayed here before and survived. I’m going to recover from whatever’s happening to me. I will!” She took a deep shuddering breath and forced her heartbeat to slow down. Then she was overwhelmed by another bout of extreme hunger. Again she was driven to the table, this time with an insatiable desire for cheese. In half an hour she’d consumed half her supply of feta. Finally she was forced to drag the bed over to the kitchen table, which she had covered with fruit, olives, bread, and yogurt. She spent the rest of the day lying on the bed, cramming herself with food. She continued to swell at a rapid rate. By late afternoon she’d abandoned her loose dress as it had grown too tight and had wrapped herself in a sheet.

  Outside, the shadows grew longer. Clarissa walked heavily over to the fireplace. She lit the pile of driftwood balanced precariously over the mound of coals, then turned on the lamp. She had just made her way back to the bed when she was gripped by a terrible cramp. It lasted for about five seconds then disappeared. Minutes later she was seized by another shocking pain. It went on for hours. With each new wave of agony she swore that she would make herself crawl outside and just scream for help, but then the pain would abate and she could do nothing except gather her strength to deal with the next surge. There were times when she thought the agony would kill her, would split her in two like a peach being ripped open, but as the night progressed she slowly sensed a shift within her body.

  The first light heralded the dawn. With a mighty effort Clarissa pulled herself to her feet and squatted, acting on pure instinct. She screamed—one long howl at the top of her lungs—and pushed down hard. To her complete surprise a baby shot out of her vagina and onto the bed. A bluish-red color, scrunched up, with a cone-shaped head; it was obviously a boy and obviously alive. Clarissa collapsed back onto the bed in shock.

  This isn’t happening to me. This…alien thing couldn’t possibly have come out of my body, she found herself thinking. Alien it certainly looked, covered in a whitish gunge with the deep red corkscrew umbilical cord still attached, spiraling out of her. She had another contraction and the placenta followed. She lay there for a moment, legs sprawled, her thighs covered with blood, adrenaline surging through her body. The whole event felt like some extraordinary dream and part of her expected to wake up into a reality she would recognize—not this…this pulsating landscape of blood and confusion.

  She looked down. She was still bleeding profusely so she grabbed the sheet and stuffed it between her legs. It was then that
she heard a little whimper that sounded like a cat. Clarissa’s heart jolted. “My child,” she said as blissful astonishment washed over her.

  She turned toward the baby. His arms and legs kicked wildly in the air and it was obvious that he was trying to open his eyes. She wiped his face and nostrils clear of the toothpastelike muck he was covered in, then wondered about the umbilical cord.

  “You’ve been at a birth, remember? C’mon, Clarissa,” she said out loud in a desperate attempt to clear her brain of the hormones that had left her functioning in a thick fog.

  “Peg it, that’s it….” She reached out and pulled a couple of small metal clamps off the fuse box near the bed. She pegged one either side of the cord and cut it in the middle with a kitchen knife.

  The baby opened his eyes and looked at her. It was an extraordinary feeling—that she had produced this thing, this whole other being, out of what? She put her hand over his skull. He was warm, alive, she could feel the life force beating through him. This was no dream. Suddenly the adrenaline left her. She lifted the baby up to her breast and placed a nipple into his mouth. He began to suck immediately. Exhausted, she fell asleep.

  She woke five hours later and to her utter amazement the baby was already the size of a three-month-old, robust, beautifully formed, with thick black hair and almond-shaped eyes of a curious green color. Why is he growing so fast? Clarissa wondered. He must be influenced by the same phenomenon that affected me and the seedlings. The baby gazed up at her with his huge eyes, which also seemed uncannily wise. Other than that, he looked completely normal.

  She sat up. She felt remarkably fit. With the use of a mirror she checked her vagina. She knew she had torn but the skin had miraculously healed itself. And already her figure was almost back to its usual size.