Saving Charlotte

by Pia de Jong

  I offer him the keys. But instead of taking them, he beckons to me to come inside. I follow him down a narrow hallway to a living room filled with books piled on the carpet.

  “Sit down,” he says, pointing to a huge loveseat.

  I hesitate. What am I doing here? I should go home. I have no reason to stay here. But something draws me in and I let myself sink deeply into the burgundy velvet. The quietness makes me light-headed. Closing my eyes, I smell the fragrances of bygone worlds. Of stews simmering on the stove for long afternoons. Of freshly picked lilies carefully arranged in a vase.

  I hear the pop of champagne being uncorked. Muffled moans of lovers in the bedroom, uninhibited sighs, and giggles of children playing in the attic. Yes, there must be an attic in this house. There is something about this place that feels like home. Not my real home, but an inner space I imagined in my dreams when I was very young. A place filled with portraits of mysterious people from a century long gone.

  “You found me,” the man says again, with a twinkle in his eye. “The girl from the other side.”

  I get up to look over at my house across the canal. Through the window I see the silhouettes of the two people in the world who are most dear to me. Robbert arches his back, extends his arms, throws Jurriaan up into the air and catches him. Their two shadows merge into one.

  The old man is standing quietly next to me. “I want to tell you something,” he says. “That house belongs to you. It was waiting all these years for you to move in. I should know. I’ve lived across from it all my life.”

  Rutger takes a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew from a bookshelf. “Actually, I should not,” he says. “I’m sick and I am not allowed to drink. But just one glass wouldn’t hurt, would it?” He points the bottle to a cabinet filled with antique wineglasses.

  I am not supposed to drink wine either, since I am nursing. But I fetch two glasses, which he carefully fills.

  “You remind me of the mother of my children,” he says. “When I first met her, she was about the same age as you are now. I fell in love with her brown eyes and her smile. She wore her hair the way you do, loosely around her face.”

  I can’t help running my hand through my hair while I look around for her photograph somewhere. “I had so many plans then,” he continues. “I was full of dreams about everything I wanted to do. My life still lay ahead.” On the windowsill I notice a framed, yellowing picture of Rutger. A handsome man on a beach, with a craggy look and a shock of unruly hair.

  “Tell me, young lady,” he says, “What are your dreams for the future?”

  Who is this man, at least twice as old as I am? I would rather have him tell me his stories. About the women he conquered, loved, and lost. Children he raised, jobs he held. He is full of secrets, but he will not easily share them.

  I take a last sip of my wine and put the glass down. I stand up and thread my way between the books to the door. “I’d better go,” I say.

  “That’s a pity,” he says.

  “Be careful with those keys,” I reply. “I don’t pass by your house every day.”

  “That’s a pity too,” he says. “Wait.”

  He reaches for his cane and walks outside with me. The air wakes me up. It is much cooler now.

  Together we look at the inky water gently lapping against the dock.

  “Tonight you are blue,” he says.

  I look at the glowing sky that hangs over both our houses. Across the street, upstairs in our bedroom, the light is switched off. Robbert and Jurriaan are lying in bed.

  After our goodbyes, Rutger softly closes the door behind me. The latch clicks, the lock turns. I leave him all alone in his house filled with memories of lost passions.

  Halfway home, walking on the arched bridge, I stop and look down at the canal. The surface of the water ripples ever so slightly. I look closer. Maybe a fish rose to an insect, or a flycatcher skimmed its wings on the surface. Then I see something that catches my breath. My shadow flickers on the water, reflected by the light of a streetlamp as the darkness gathers. My shadow is a deep shade of blue.

  A year later I am with child again. Robbert and I take long evening walks, talking about what lies ahead. What will the baby be like? Will Jurriaan be happy or jealous, caring or anxious? The new life growing inside me fills me with overwhelming joy. By the spring my waist swells under my yellow polka-dot dress. Jurriaan makes a spot for the new baby to play with his favorite dinosaur.

  At the height of summer I lay myself down in the same room on the same bed as I did two years before. Robbert again is by my side every second, making the pain bearable. Meanwhile, Mackie chases cheeky teenage boys from the alley. Through the wall the sopranos sing of longing, hope, and love. The bedroom turns golden.

  By the middle of that humid night we hold a sturdy boy in our arms. We call our son, who for nine months warmed me from the inside out, Matthijs. A name that immediately fits him perfectly. The next day the sun rises, as it always does. As if no miracle had happened that night. As if the world had not gained this beautiful child. Jurriaan is over the moon. The three of us hover over Matthijs, not getting enough of him. His presence fills the room like a spring breeze.

  The next day, as darkness falls, the blond girl closes her curtain. A moment later she knocks on the door, climbs the stairs, and walks into our bedroom. She is wearing shorts and a low-cut leather top that is tied behind her back with a shoelace. It’s so tight that her full breasts bulge out. When she sits down, her bare thighs stick to my sheets. Insouciantly she kicks off her high heels. Jurriaan looks with wonder at her polished toenails, which glisten like silver coins. This girl exudes sex just by exhaling.

  “What a cutie,” she says, and hugs Matthijs so tightly he is squeezed between her breasts. “Such a handsome boy.” With puckered lips she kisses him on the forehead, leaving a smear of red lipstick.

  Jurriaan crawls closer to her, watching his baby brother carefully.

  “Slaap, kindje, slaap,” she sings as she cradles Matthijs. A gold pendant bounces from a necklace. Letters engraved on it spell the name Cindy. As she continues to sing her lullaby, she dissolves into an eight-year-old girl playing with her doll. A child, seductive in spite of herself.

  In recent months she has been more responsive to the boisterous boys who leer and whistle at her. Sometimes she goes outside to negotiate. I try not to listen to the details of what they want from her.

  She has knitted a red cotton cap for Matthijs. It is impossible to recognize any size or form in the amorphous tangle of cloth. “It fits him perfectly!” she coos triumphantly as she tugs the hat over his head. She pulls it to the left, then to the right. Again and again the cap gives up and collapses over his ears. It is so funny that we all get the giggles.

  The room becomes darker. She sings and talks and plays hide-and-seek with Jurriaan. Together they empty the box of chocolates on my nightstand. Slowly she turns into the sister I never had. I resist the urge to lie down next to her.

  But then a clamor on the street. Men shouting and cursing. Mackie’s voice rises above it all. “Uh-oh,” she says. “There goes that old nut again. I’d better let my customer in before it gets out of hand.” She pushes Matthijs into my arms, slips on her heels, and leaves. At the door she straightens her back so that her breasts pop up. She gives me a blank stare, already retreating into another world. Then she skips down the stairs, two steps at a time.

  A few days later I wrap Matthijs in the yellow sling, and with Jurriaan holding my hand, I walk to the square. Still somewhat shaky, I let myself slump on one of the worn benches. Louis, who saw my belly swell over all those months and who brought me an occasional cup of tea, immediately walks over. He and I have grown rather fond of each other. I do not care that he is always miserable, complains continually about the weather and politics, and wears the same smelly clothes for weeks in a row.

  “There he is, finally!” he says when he sees Matthijs. His glasses, taped together, hang off his nose. He smells
of stale beer, as always on Mondays, the day after his choir rehearsal. “Another one,” he adds, chuckling. “Just as boisterous as his brother.”

  He has not shaved for a week, but I still feel like pressing a kiss on his stubbly cheek.

  “It’s a girl!” Robbert exclaims. He is staring at the monitor on which the blurry outlines of a baby appear.

  “A girl,” I repeat after him. I can barely grasp it. It means there’s a woman inside my body. As my mother held me inside her, and her mother her. It stuns me to realize this.

  Every night I dream about the little girl growing within me. She takes different shapes and colors. Sometimes she has brown hair and hazel eyes, exactly like mine, and sometimes she is the little blond sister I longed for when I was a child. At night she sometimes appears to me as an old woman. Strands of gray hair frame her furrowed face. She sits in her room among all the precious things she has collected throughout her life. Lost in thought, she looks through the window at the blue sky. Thinking of me, her mother.

  Her time slowly draws closer. I cannot wait to welcome her.

  On one beautiful summer day we drive through the promising morning mist to the seashore. The boys, elated, run to the water. Slowly I walk along the beach, counting every step. Robbert holds his arm around my waist so I do not fall. Warm waves suck our toes into the sand. The boys splash in the surf in bright red swimming trunks. I have never been more at peace in my life than in this very moment.

  Then Matthijs is swallowed by a huge wave. Robbert runs toward him as fast as he can. He pulls him out of the water and throws him high above his head. Matthijs squeals with laughter.

  “Me too, me too!” shouts Jurriaan. Robbert holds both boys, one with each arm. They can’t get enough of it.

  After a while I let myself stretch out on the sand. The baby flutters exuberantly inside me. She cannot wait to see me either.

  We eat at a fish stand while the gulls wheel in the wind above us. Whenever we want to leave, a new wave invites us to stay. I let myself be hypnotized by the endless pulse of the sea.

  Then I feel a sharp cramp. And another one.

  “We’d better go,” I tell Robbert. “Her time has come.”

  It’s almost 10 p.m. The heat of the day lingers like a thick haze in our bedroom. Sounds from the street float through the open window: tourist carriages pulled by horses, the throaty murmur of a beer boat on the canal, a dog barking.

  Contractions now follow each other quickly, and Robbert calls the midwife. Shortly afterward, a pert young woman bounds up the stairs. She checks on me and then retreats into a corner of the dusky room, understanding that I need to be alone with Robbert to deal with the pain.

  I am now only my body. I have become an animal with no influence on what happens to her, surrendered to the grip of nature. Robbert holds me close the entire time. With him next to me, I can handle all of this.

  Ninety minutes later, a little girl lies on my belly. A bright-eyed and extremely delicate baby. We already know each other so well. She looks at me curiously.

  “My girl,” I whisper. “Here you are. Finally.”

  “Hello, baby,” Robbert says, wrapping his arms around both of us. His voice shakes with relief. Trembling with exhaustion, I let my head sink into the pillow.

  I just want to let my baby rest on my stomach for a while, but the midwife picks her up. She weighs and measures her and writes down the numbers. Then she examines her from head to toe. From my bed I watch her stroking her index finger along my daughter’s tiny back. Her brow moves, and her expression changes. A fraction of a second only, but long enough to tell me something is not right.

  “What do you see?” I ask her.

  She points to a bump on the baby’s skin, a soft, rosy hill. She then presses again on it with her index finger. When she lifts her finger, the spot turns blue. The color of a lake in a remote forest around noon.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  She starts making notes again. I gasp for air while the walls close in.

  “What are you writing?” I ask.

  “That she has a spot on her back,” she replies.

  “What exactly are you writing down?” I ask.

  She turns her head toward me. Her piercing gaze in no way reassures me. “‘Healthy baby,’” she reads. “‘Good reflexes. Weight, 3050 grams. Length, 46 centimeters. Notes: spot on lower back. With light pressure it turns blue. Will watch it closely.’” She looks up, smiling reassuringly, the look midwives give to new parents. “What name will you give her?”

  I pause. All of a sudden I worry that the name we have chosen is too weighty for this fragile child.

  “We do not know yet,” says Robbert, who guesses my doubts. “We need to think about it a bit longer.”

  Soon the midwife disappears into the night. Her bike rattles along the canal until the sound fades. The room is unusually quiet. The baby does not cry. Like us, she seems to be waiting. And like us, she too has no idea what she is waiting for.

  “Something is wrong,” I tell Robbert. “Could you please check out that spot on the Internet, right now?”

  Robbert looks at me and the baby, bewildered. Then he stretches out beside us with his laptop and begins his search through websites. I hear only the sound of his fingers tapping on the keyboard. Faster and faster he goes. I’m hoping for one word from him to relieve the tension.

  “I can’t find anything about the spot,” he tells me after a while. “Nothing even close to it.” After he closes his laptop we avoid looking at each other. We are not reassured at all.

  Morning breaks. Outside, the city slowly stirs. We bow over our child, blow warm breath on her skin, and caress her with gentle fingertips.

  “She’s beautiful,” I say.

  “Vulnerable,” says Robbert.

  “Vulnerable and strong,” I say.

  He looks at me from the side. Her first day has begun. Soon her two brothers snuggle between us, like cats under a blanket. They are still warm from the night.

  “This is your sister,” I say.

  “I know,” says Jurriaan. “Last night I dreamed she was born. She looks exactly as in my dreams.”

  “What is her name?” asks Matthijs.

  Robbert and I find each other’s gaze. “Charlotte!” we say simultaneously—the name we had chosen for her from the start. It is still too big, but she may grow into it.

  The boys give her kisses and hugs and wrap their hands around her hands. Charlotte likes to be part of everything. I seize every precious second, want this bliss to never end. An endless day which broadens like a river fed by many springs. After this, I realize, everything will be different.

  “I would not worry,” our family doctor says as he examines her. “Let’s just wait and see. Often spots like this just disappear.”

  We want to believe this gentle doctor who has treated all my boys’ ear infections, colds, and fevers. There might be something wrong with our daughter, we warn our family and friends, but according to the doctor we need not worry.

  When we are alone with her, we scan every square millimeter of her skin. There are more blue spots every day. Small bumps like blueberries on her tiny body.

  From the silent witness of my window I watch the hooker showing her client out, a man with a gorilla’s stomach and a glistening red face. She pulls a cardigan over her bra and crosses the alley. Today she wears black leather boots that rise above her knees and a skirt so short her panties show.

  “I need to see her,” she demands as she enters the house. “Just for a moment.”

  She has not refreshed her lipstick, and her makeup is smeared under her eyes. The stale smell of cigarette smoke wafts around her. I try to block the image of her with the red-faced man on the bed. She crawls close to me, folding one leg under the other so that her bare thighs are exposed.

  Now she puts her hand on Charlotte’s forehead, as if to check wheth
er she has a fever. Then she takes her from my arms and holds her up. “She is so light,” she says. “Thin, too. You would not expect that for a baby born two weeks late.”

  I wonder how she knows these kinds of things so precisely. Carefully she rocks Charlotte. “So glad you now have a daughter,” she says. “Girls will stay with you forever. Unlike boys, who will one day leave you for another woman.”

  The neighbor puts on “Casta Diva,” the recording he and I have been listening to often during my pregnancy. The girl jumps off the bed and dances with Charlotte, swirling across the room, pretending she is in the opera chorus. At the end of the aria she stops in front of my window.

  “Gosh,” she says. “You can look right inside my place. Am I glad I always close those curtains.” She swivels, teetering on her high heels. “Oh, look, a customer! I have to go.” She drops Charlotte into my arms and hurries down the stairs. “I’ll hold the gift,” she calls out from below.

  “Ah, there she finally is,” Louis mutters when I first arrive with my three children on the square. The boys immediately run to the sandbox. I sit on the weathered wooden bench and lift Charlotte from her sling. Carefully, as I do everything carefully with her. Louis sits down beside me. His back aches, so he bends slowly over Charlotte. “She is so small,” he says softly. “And quiet, almost too quiet. Very different from her brothers.”

  He reaches out to touch her but withdraws his hand, looking bewildered.

  “There’s something wrong with her,” I say, as gently as I can.

  He looks away from her, gazing up into the sky. He asks no further questions. Louis, who always wants to make everything right, does not know what to do now. He stands up and begins pacing around the sandbox. This he can do for hours, with his hands folded behind his crooked back. A lonely man who looks much older than his years.

  The spots on Charlotte’s pale skin do not disappear; instead they multiply. They are scattered around her body as if thrown by a malevolent witch. Our family doctor still does not know what to make of them, so he refers us to the hospital for further examination.