by J. Naomi Ay
The baby room was my favorite place though. It was quiet and warm in there, and I could sit in a rocker and cuddle as many little bundles as I had time for. The older ones stood in their cribs and waved to me as I came in. Some babbled out a few nonsense sounds and some smiled showing me two or four tiny teeth.
"Hello babies," I called to them.
"Hello Meri," Sister Lena called back. She was in a rocker with one of the few little girls we had. Most of our children were boys. I didn't know why they were abandoned more often than girls. Girls could be put to work, I supposed. Certainly our girls unless they were rescued before age seven or eight, would be put to work earning their keep.
"Who have you got there?" Lena asked.
"A new one," I replied grabbing a bottle and settling down next to her. "This is Senya."
"A Karut," she gasped with surprise. The baby she was holding stopped sucking and looked at her for a moment.
"Yes, but he's pretty isn't he," I said offering him the bottle. He sucked it greedily and patted it with his hand.
"I wonder why the Karuts didn’t take him." Lena peered at him through her bottle thick glasses.
"Sister Moon thinks his mum was Mishnese. Was your mum Mishnese, Senya?" I teased. The baby smiled with the nipple still in his mouth.
"He says yes." I laughed as he sucked fiercely once again.
"He is beautiful," Lena agreed. "What color are his eyes?"
"I don't know. Open your eyes, baby. Let me see your pretty eyes."
The baby opened his eyes as if he understood me, and Blessed Saint, I nearly dropped him. His eyes were silver, like swirly specks of silver light.
"Blessed Saint," Lena cried upsetting her baby who howled in protest.
Senya closed his eyes again as if he knew this is what caused us fright. He finished his bottle and sucked air until I wrestled the bottle from his mouth and held him against my shoulder.
"He is possessed." Lena calmed her baby and then quickly put her back in a crib. "Do you think this is why the Karuts didn’t want him?"
"He's not possessed," I insisted, burping my little friend. "He's sweet." He patted my face with his hand while looking out across my back.
Lena looked at me warily. "It is strange though."
"It is," I agreed. "But they are kind of beautiful too." Surely, if he was possessed, we would know that somehow. I might have to ask the Father about that, but I hated speaking with the Father. He always wanted favors, and his breath was bad, and his old skin was wrinkled and made my own skin crawl.
I changed Senya and put him in one of our shirts. I was about to put socks on his little feet when I was stopped short.
"Lena, can you come here?"
She approached with narrow eyes. I held up a little foot. Senya reached for it too.
"Look at his nails," I said. "Why are they like this?" Gingerly, Lena touched them. She visibly shivered. Senya played with his toes. He put one in his mouth and sucked on the long curled nail.
"We should dispose of him," she said.
"Dispose?" I cried.
"Throw him out in the gutter before …before..."
"Before what? You mean to kill him?"
"No, no." She walked away. "Maybe send him to the Karuts. I have a bad feeling about him."
"Will you tell the Father?"
Lena turned and looked into my eyes. She nodded slowly.
"Don't hurt this baby," I begged. "Let me take care of him."
"I have a very bad feeling about him," she repeated, and her wimple nearly fell off as she shook her head. "Something is wrong about him."
"I promise, Sister. Please let me care for him. If he turns out to be bad, then I'll help you get rid of him. Don't turn him out now and don't tell the Father."
"What will you do for me if I agree?" She asked, lifting her head haughtily.
"What do you want?"
"All the diapers," she said. "All the time."
I looked down at Senya. He smiled at me, and when he opened his eyes they sparkled. "Okay," I agreed, falling in love with this strange little fellow. "I will do anything to save little Senya."
I was strange too. My back was crooked, and my face was scarred. I was ugly even though I wasn't always. Once I was a beautiful young girl who nice boys would ask to dance and nice girls would chat up. Once I went to school and got high marks in Mishnese and literature and fair marks in math and science. Then my step-father wanted me, and when I refused he pushed me down the stairs and broke my back. As I lay crumpled, he set my clothes on fire. The Saint saved me, and after I was healed, I came here to love other children who no one wanted anymore.
Senya loved me, I thought. He greeted me every day with a smile. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even make noise, but he stood in his crib and waved at me and his silver eyes sparkled. Everyone else he ignored. He sat in the corner of his crib sucking his fingers, or lay on his back and played with his strange toes.
The Father came to look at him. "How much was in the purse?" He asked Sister Moon. She told him, and we all gasped as it was such a large sum. It would feed everyone in this house for a year. "Will there be more?" The Father wondered aloud.
"I think so," Sister Moon replied. "For as long as we keep him."
"Then we will keep him until they want him back," the Father declared. The next week, the Father had a new speeder. It was shiny and red with rich leather and polished wood inside. It looked very expensive. He wanted me to sit in it with him. He wanted me to pleasure him while he drove it around. I did because he was the Father and I was so ugly no other man would want me. If he threw me out on the street, I would have nowhere to go and be forced to pleasure other men who were worse than him. This is what he told me when his leavings were in my mouth, and I wished to spit them out on the fine carpet of his new speeder.
When I came back to the orphanage, I went to the baby room and found Senya crying. He sobbed silently, his little body heaving but making no sound. There was a red welt across his back. "Who did this?" I demanded of Sister Lena.
"Sister Moon," she said. "Sister Moon says he is destroying too many socks and wasting our precious cloth. She says he is to have cold feet all winter. He shall have no more socks."
"But why did she hit him?" I asked, picking him up and holding him tight until he stopped crying. He put his hand on my face and nuzzled my neck.
"He looked at her with his wicked eyes and she said she felt dizzy because of it and nearly fell down. He is possessed she says, but the Father says he must stay here so we cannot throw him out in the gutter."
I wondered if I could take Senya and run away. I would have to pleasure anyone who would give me money, and how many would want one as ugly as me? I would have liked a real job. Once I knew how to type and could speak well and answer a vid and perhaps put together things with my hands. There were no jobs like that anymore. There were no jobs for anyone because Mishnah was broke. There were only jobs for men who joined the guards and women who worked as maids in the Palace. I could not do that because I was a woman with a broken back and burned face.
It was a cold winter, and there was not much food. The money from the purse had been spent on the Father's new speeder and his fine clothes and jewelry. The children cried because they were hungry and cold, and the old radiators spat and hissed, but little warmth came from them. Senya's little feet were always cold, and when I was with him I wrapped them in rags, but someone else always took them off. Senya sat in his crib and held the bottle himself. He was getting big, and his face was taking shape.
"He looks more and more like a Karut," Lena said beside me. "He looks like Prince Sorkan."
"He does," I agreed, admiring his handsome little face. "But pale."
"Maybe he'll get darker over time," Lena thought. "Did you give him this bottle? It's not time for him to eat." She took it away. Senya opened his mouth to protest.
"I didn't," I said. "He was already drinking it when I came here."
"Well I wonder how he g
ot it then," Lena frowned and just as she did so, the bottle went flying out of her hand and back into Senya's.
Lena and I both screamed.
Senya popped the bottle back in his mouth and gave us a big smile.
"How did he do that?" Lena whispered, her eyes giant saucers.
"I don't know," I whispered back. "Do you think that's how he got the bottle from the warmer?" We both looked at the warmer as if it could speak to us. Lena turned back and snatched the bottle out of Senya's grasp again. He opened his mouth in a silent howl. Lena ran across the room and put it on the warmer table.
"You want it, Senya?" She challenged. "Then take it."
Senya pulled himself up by the bars on his crib and held out his little hands. The bottle flew across the room right into them. He fell back on his bottom and sucked triumphantly.
"Don't say a word of this to anyone," I begged Lena.
"Blessed Saint," Lena collapsed in a chair. "What is he?"
"Please Lena, please! I'll do anything. Don't let them throw him out on the street!" I was on my knees before her.
"Okay," she said, narrowing her eyes and smiling wickedly. "Forever and ever you will be doing the diapers, Meri."
"I will, I will," I promised.
Senya laughed. It was the first noise we had heard from him. I ran to him and gathered him in my arms.
"You little devil," I cried, and he laughed some more.
"Mayhap, he really is," Lena snorted and walked away.
We lost four babies from the baby room including our one little girl. There was a fever going around, and the diapers were endless and messy. Our one year olds and two year olds were sick too, and I was forever dumping buckets filled with loose and foul smelling stools. Our two year olds were messing their pants, but we did not punish them because several of them had died, as well. Our building was cold, and the snow and frost outside made it impossible to open the windows and bring in fresh air. The children burned with fever and then shook with chills. I wrapped and rewrapped as many as I could, but there were not enough of us Sainted Ladies here to take care of them. There was sickness in the city, and bodies lay in the gutters where ever you walked. Our dead children joined them waiting for the coroner's van to collect them.
Three times a day I checked on Senya and each time he stood and greeted me with a smile. He called me by name now and jumped up and down yelling 'Meri, Meri, Meri' when I came in. He didn’t get sick like the other babies even though his feet were like ice every time I checked them.
The spring came, and Senya was moved to the one year old room. I did not think he was quite that old because he had only four tiny teeth. He could stand well on his own and feed himself with his hands and he was hungry and wanted more food than all the bottles in the warmer. I gave him a spoon, but he banged it on the table top and hit himself in the face with it. Though we had lost many from our nursery, many more were coming having lost their parents during the winter freeze. Our baby room was crowded, and we had to move out anyone who could manage in a chair for now.
Senya sat in the chair like the other one year olds. Most of them sat quietly or slept, laying their little heads down on their table tops sometimes right into their food. Senya didn’t like it. By summer, he was climbing out as quickly as anyone could put him back in. Some of the other boys followed his example and in no time they were running about the room knocking over the buckets and creating a nasty mess. They were all punished soundly, and their poor little bottoms were red and swollen for days and days. Senya didn’t learn though. He continued to climb out, and now Sister Flower locked him in the closet.
The closet was exactly that, two feet this way and two feet that with a small door at the bottom to crawl in and out.
"I have never used the closet for one so young," Sister Flower said as she carried the squirming Senya. "But this one is beyond any other punishment." She opened the door and shoved him through, swatting his bottom soundly. "Don't mess in there," she called. "Or you shall have to sit in it for many days." The door slammed shut, and she locked it with the key.
I cried myself to sleep that night worrying about my poor baby locked in that tiny dark space. As frigid as the winter was the summer burned with heat and in that tiny closet, he could be roasted alive.
The next day, Flower opened the door and pulled him out. He glared at her with his silver eyes and then held out his fat little arms to me.
"You are too kind to him," Flower spat at me. "He is a horrid little Karut that should be thrown out on the street."
"Come baby," I said and fetched him a glass of water because he was too old now for a bottle though I would dearly have loved to sit with him on my lap; his head against my breast, watching him suck the bottle and pat my face as he did so. Senya returned to his chair but still he did not like it and climbed out again and again. The boys watched him but did not follow. Senya was returned to the closet again and again throughout the summer.
One day in the last month of summer, a man called upon us. Sister Moon sent for me.
"This fine gentleman is here to see Senya," Sister Moon said, and I saw in her hand was another purse.
"Do you mean to adopt him?" I asked meekly for this gentleman was dressed in fine clothes and looked very wealthy. He was big with white blonde hair and very pale skin. I wished for Senya to be adopted by such a fine man, but my heart would be broken too.
"It is none of your business, Sister," Moon snapped at me. "Go fetch the brat."
Senya was in the closet, and so I had to first convince Flower to release him. I ran back and forth to Flower and Moon before the door was opened and then Senya crawled out. He was sweaty and covered in dust for the closet was never cleaned. I feared the fine gentleman would be distressed to see him in such a condition, so I quickly took him and bathed him. I dressed him in the clothes of a two year old, little pants and a shirt for he was certainly big enough and I was certain the gentleman did not wish to see him dressed only in our one year old sheath. I brushed Senya's hair which was thick and wavy and shiny black like all Karuts. Then I took his hand, and we walked to the foyer where the fine gentleman sat waiting on a bench. He stood as we approached and looked down at the boy appraisingly. Then he squatted down on his haunches and held out his hand.
"Hello Senya," he said.
Senya clutched my hand tightly but opened his eyes and gazed with his silver light upon the man. The gentleman raised his eyebrows and glanced briefly at me before turning his eyes back upon the boy.
"Are you a good boy, lad?"
"Not at all," Sister Moon cackled. "He is a challenge to all of us."
Senya hid behind my skirt. He didn’t like Sister Moon.
"Come now, Meri," Sister Moon scolded. "Make him stand before our lord sir."
I pushed Senya out from behind me and held him by the shoulders. The man touched the boy's cheek and ran his hand across the soft shiny hair. Then he nodded and rose. "Thank you." He turned to leave, but Senya had let go of me and instead held his arms up for the man. "Ah, my son," the man said and picking up Senya, he hugged him tightly. There were tears in his eyes. "I can't take you with me now. You have to stay here."
"Are you his father?" I asked. Could it be his mother was the Karut?
"I must go," the gentleman replied, handing Senya back to me. The boy perched on my hip and held his hand up in a little wave. The gentleman didn’t respond to my question.
As winter approached again, Senya was moved to the two year old room even though he had been with us slightly longer than a year and was probably only a few months older than one. He could toilet, dress, and feed himself with a spoon, so he did not need to sit in a chair or be tended to all day. My time was spent primarily with the infants and the ones, and so I did not see him often. He still spent an inordinate amount of time in the closet. He never complained when going in but rather seemed to prefer not to come out. He did not speak except to call me by name. Sister Moon feared he was of small brain and would never speak or
learn a productive trade. He was beautiful though and everyone who gazed upon him agreed. This was unfortunate for him. As soon as he was old enough, he would be put to work in a trade where his beauty and silence were the only requirements.
As for me, the Father traded my favors with his friends in exchange for money or possessions. During the food shortage of the winter, I was traded for two loaves of bread. He said of me that I was ugly, but was good with my hands and mouth and therefore, worth more than a few pennies. The money from the gentleman's summer purse was spent on more beautiful women, wines and chocolates and of course, a newer speeder.
The fine gentleman came every summer, and each time brought another purse. He stayed not more than a few moments, asking Senya of his health and whether or not he had been good. Senya did not speak and not since that first year did he wish to be held or hugged. He gazed warily with his brilliant eyes and nodded in response to the gentleman's questions.
Our adoption day took place in the spring. We bathed and dressed our children in clothes kept just for this day. Then we lined them up in their rooms, which were scrubbed clean and couples looking for a child came through. All the girls were adopted on this day and some of the boys. Senya was sent to the closet. Year after year, I looked for him in each room and only when it was over, and all the new families had gone home did I find him. The Father didn’t want him adopted, Sister Moon told me. That would mean the end of his rich purses.
When Senya was with us six years, he was taken to the school room. He did not speak for the sister there and so it was decided that indeed he was of small brain and could not learn. I was fearful now. There was only one place he would go and already I saw the Father smiling and asking of him. The Father flush in new robes purchased with the coins from gentleman's latest purse called me to him one evening and bid me bring Senya. It was winter again, and there was snow on the ground, and the windows were covered in ice that seeped through and left puddles on the floors of the nursery. I fetched Senya and holding his hand, walked with him through the back corridors to the Father's study. I had been here many times, and at this hour I knew it would come to no good. I considered running away. I could steal a coat and some shoes for Senya for still he wore nothing on his poor ugly feet. We could run out into the snow and find shelter for the night and in the morning run far enough away from this place that we might come upon somewhere else to begin a new life. Perhaps I could take him all the way across the continent and from there take a boat to Karupatani and bring him to those people who surely would recognize him as one of their own. I did nothing though. I led him toward the back rooms because I was weak of heart and soul. My own body ached from the chill in the air which seeped into the marrow of my bones. I had no strength to run. I was weak and complied.