Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  Poland mourned the death of Leopold II, Emperor of Austria and brother to Marie Antoinette. He had remained favorable to Poland’s Constitution, maintaining that it might prevent revolution in Central Europe. Anna’s compatriots clung to the hope—some judged it a thin one—that his successor, Francis II, would honor his father’s alliance with Poland.

  Aunt Stella’s mind seemed steady during this time, and like Zofia, she was kind to Anna in the weeks following Antoni’s death. Zofia, however, continued her entertainments at the townhome, and Anna became determined to leave the city soon after her child’s birth.

  Anna was napping one afternoon when Lutisha came up to her bedchamber to say that Count Stelnicki was below in the reception room. “Shall I tell him you are indisposed, Madame?”

  “Indisposed? You may not! Bring me my mirror.”

  “But Countess Anna Maria—”

  “But what?”

  “You are only six or seven weeks from coming to term,” she said, handing Anna the mirror. “And your husband has died so recently. It is not appropriate for you to see Count Stelnicki.” The servant stopped, blushing at her own forwardness.

  “Lutisha, I catch your meaning. I know what is said below stairs about Lord Stelnicki. Listen to me: it’s not true. Uncle Leo was mistaken; Jan was not at fault for what happened at the pond last September. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  Jan stood and complimented Anna on her appearance as she approached him.

  “What a cool liar you are, Lord Stelnicki.”

  “Lord Stelnicki? Is this what we’ve come to? Back to such formality?”

  Anna dropped her happy retort when she saw that Zofia sat in the countess’ chair near the fireplace. She was knitting. Knitting! Anna could not help but emit a little gasp. She had never seen her knit. She knew immediately that this was merely a bit of stage business and that her cousin planned to remain for the entirety of Jan’s visit. Anna felt the seeds of fury take root within her at the thought of her cousin’s intrusion.

  Jan was questioning Anna now on her health, showing sincere concern as her time came due.

  “What? Yes, I’m fine.” Anna spoke absently, drawing her eyes away from her cousin, who sat feigning disinterest.

  “You won’t be for long, Anna, darling,” Zofia said, without a glance up from her work, “if you don’t take care of yourself. You should be in bed.”

  “I am fine, Zofia,” Anna said. “Shouldn’t you be in preparation for tonight’s festivities?” Anna attempted a light tone but knew her meaning was clear and caustic. What had the two been talking about before she came into the room?

  “Oh, there is a wealth of time,” Zofia rejoined in the same false lightness. “I have all afternoon.”

  Jan and Anna seated themselves on the sofa. Jan told her that he had been in Kraków on political business and that he would have to go back within a day or two. Anna knew that it was Zofia’s presence that inhibited him from kissing her hand, or even taking it into his. They were meeting for the first time since Antoni’s death had freed Anna, yet she knew that neither of them would be able to say the things that only their eyes dared to communicate in the most surreptitious manner.

  For half of an hour they attempted conversation that was polite and stilted. Anna’s angry distraction with her cousin grew in proportion to the time lost.

  At last, she had had enough of Zofia’s meddling. She spoke directly to Jan, disregarding Zofia. “Jan, childbirth always involves a risk. Should something happen to me—”

  “Why, Anna, you look splendid! Nothing will happen to you.”

  “Nevertheless, I want you to take this.” Anna withdrew a sealed document from her skirts. “It is my will and statement of intent, should my child survive me.”

  Jan’s face darkened. He reached for the document.

  Anna sensed Zofia’s steady gaze upon her. She ignored it. “Before you take it, Jan, I must ask you to become my child’s guardian, should I die.”

  Zofia took in an audible breath and pitched in her chair, but Anna gave her no notice.

  “Of course, Ania,” Jan whispered.

  She gave him the document. “My child’s wealth will be left in your hands. I ask that you see to his education. I should like him to learn four or five languages. Knowing languages will be key to his future. Will you see to these things? It is much to ask, I know.”

  “It is not, but we needn’t worry about such things. Why, you will teach him Polish, Russian, and French yourself!”

  “I’m not worried for myself, Jan. I want my son to be a man of character.”

  “How can you know it’s a boy?”

  Anna shrugged. “A presentiment, I suppose. I shall be surprised if it is not.” She felt a faintness overcome her then.

  “Anna . . . are you all right?” Jan asked. “You’re turning quite pale.”

  “It’s nothing. A dizzy spell. It’ll pass in a moment.”

  “She’s too weak to be out of bed,” Zofia said. “I knew this little interview would be too much for you, Anna Maria. My God, you’re as pale as Marzanna!”

  Like Anna, Jan ignored Zofia. “I’ll stay here in Warsaw, Anna, until your child is born.”

  “No, that’s not at all necessary. The birth is weeks away and you have important business to be about.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “I would be useless anyway, I imagine. But I shall keep you informed of my whereabouts so you may send word of the birth . . . or if, in some way, I might be of help.”

  “Thank you, Jan.”

  Jan smiled and for a moment Anna was completely happy in the warmth of those lips above his dimpled chin.

  “Anna, dearest,” Zofia pressed, “I think it is time you return to your room.”

  “Zofia is right,” Jan said, before Anna could protest. “I should be taking my leave.” He rose and bowed to Anna, then to Zofia, saying his goodbyes.

  Zofia rang for Lutisha.

  Just as the servant lumbered in, Zofia stood. “I’ll see Count Stelnicki to the door, Lutisha,” she said. “You are to help Anna back to her room.”

  Anna seethed at Zofia’s interference. She was left to wonder what Jan might have said, were it not for her cousin’s presence.

  Her mind’s eye would cling to the look Jan’s cobalt eyes cast in her direction as Zofia led him from the room, a reassuring glance from which she would draw strength during the ordeal of giving birth.

  49

  ALTHOUGH THE THIRD OF MAY Constitution had divided the ranks of the nobility, its first anniversary was greeted with unreserved, joyous celebration throughout the capital.

  On that day Anna received several selling women and seamstresses in the downstairs reception room. Despite her continuing estrangement from her mother, Zofia attended and surprised Anna by seeming to enjoy helping Anna and Countess Gronska select from an assortment of babywear.

  Countess Gronska had knitted a few things for the baby, but there were many more to be purchased. Anna preferred reading to sewing and so appreciated the painstaking craftsmanship that attended the making of the silken caps, the lace and cotton gowns, the tiny knitted booties, and, of course, the diapers. Each piece had some little flourish in design or coloring that was its maker’s signature, so Anna purchased at least a few items from each seller.

  “Oh, Anna,” Zofia gushed, “you must let me buy this silken white robe for your child. Why, it’s fit for a crown prince!”

  Anna could not answer, for she was holding her belly and gasping in pain. The searing sensation had come on unannounced. She became uncomfortably warm as a cycle of hot blood warmed her face, then drained away.

  The paroxysm seemed to pass, only to flare up again. Anna cried out in pain. The women around her buzzed like worker bees around their queen.

  Anna was coaxed to lean back in her chair. Her breath came and went fitfully. Her aunt and cousin were on either side of her, plying her with questions and reassurances. Lutisha and Marta bustled abo
ut her with grim faces. Anna was gripped with a sense of suffocation that threatened to overwhelm her. She became very faint.

  The pain struck a third time and Anna panicked. Was this usual? Had she come so far only to miscarry now, as her mother had done several times? Fear enveloped her.

  She pointed to those clothes she had chosen and they were placed in her lap. She clasped them to her, closing her eyes, feeling warm and alien movements within herself.

  “Lean forward to breathe, Countess,” Lutisha ordered, her hand pressing down on her head. Then the servant’s other hand—so large, Anna thought—was held to her belly. During the next several minutes, the pain came and went, came and went.

  “The Countess Anna,” Lutisha announced at last, “is about to give birth.”

  “It’s impossible!” Countess Gronska said. “She isn’t due until next month.”

  “You must be mistaken, Lutisha,” Zofia said.

  “In no time, Countess Zofia, you can tell that to the child itself,” Lutisha dared to say. “It is ready to enter the world.”

  Anna listened absently to the buzz of conversation and whirr of activity. Suddenly, she became aware of a warmth spreading over her legs. She opened her eyes to find her lower body awash with water. Lutisha was right: she was about to give birth!

  While she marveled that a child could come into the world so quickly, she was filled with fear, not so much fear for the pain she knew would come, but fear for the child. She knew early babies did not often survive.

  The selling women were being dismissed, and each time the door to the street was opened, Anna could hear the festive music playing throughout the capital. That her child was being born on the third of May gave her confidence. Her father had once told her to look for signs in small things.

  “The countess must go to her bed,” Lutisha said.

  “We’ll not attempt the stairs,” Aunt Stella replied, her mind never clearer than in this crisis. “Take her to my room.”

  While the countess and Marta rushed away to prepare the bed, Zofia and Lutisha supported Anna in her walk to her aunt’s room.

  Hours passed. Anna was nearly unconscious when a priest appeared at the bedside. He told her what prayers to say, but the searing pain left her unable to speak. Before departing, he placed a rosary in her hand; however, she soon lost hold of it.

  “Can you hear me, Anna Maria?” It was her aunt’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve sent for the physician, but he may not arrive in time. Lutisha will deliver, if need be. She has experience. Do you understand?”

  Anna nodded.

  The room seemed unbearably hot. Perspiration ran from every pore of her face. The combs had been taken from her hair, freeing it to fall about her shoulders in wet strands. She did all that was requested of her.

  Lutisha prepared to serve as mid-wife. The countess and Marta would assist. Zofia excused herself, whispering words of encouragement to her cousin, then removing herself from the room.

  The pain heightened.

  Outside, the Third of May celebration escalated, the lively polkas and mazurkas providing a surreal background to Anna’s ordeal. Anna began to move to the music in the bed, not caring what those attending her would think. Later, she thought she only dreamt she was able to move to the music.

  That she called out in pain no one could contest. Anna had never known such pain. For a time she felt certain her own death was near. She knew that many women did not survive childbirth. Her first prayer, however, was for her child. Through the fiercest paroxysm, she heard her aunt at her ear: “God gives nothing freely,” the countess whispered, “but opens everything, and everyone takes from God as much as she wants.”

  She felt the women touching her, directing her, urging her. She placed her faith in God and in Lutisha. Neither had disappointed her before.

  Push, Anna, push! Again. Harder, Anna! It’s coming, Anna. Push! The baby is coming!

  The greatest effort, the greatest strain she could ever imagine came, endured, and finally passed. This time was short, she was told later, yet it seemed an eternity.

  Anna’s eyelids flew back at the sound of a high-pitched screaming. An infant’s sound! Lutisha was holding the child high in the air. The cord had been cut.

  The screaming child was drenched in blood and other matter, and at first sight Anna thought it was dying. Lifting her head, she tried to call out in alarm.

  “It’s the most beautiful baby boy,” her aunt announced.

  “He’s bleeding—”

  “We need only to wash him off,” Lutisha said. “He is a wondrous babe!”

  Anna tried to smile as she lay back upon the pillows. I have a son!

  The women seemed to take forever in their separate attention to Anna and the child. She longed to call out, to demand she be given her baby, but she couldn’t speak because she was so weak and lightheaded.

  At long last, the child was placed in her arms. For a moment, she thought the women were mistaken. The infant seemed so small and fragile she thought it a girl. Though she would have welcomed a girl, she saw for herself now that it was indeed a son.

  “Do you have a name in mind, dearest?” her aunt asked.

  “Yes. This is Lord Jan Michał.” She hugged the squirming pink body to her naked breasts, lightly fingering the fine wisps of blond hair. After a time the child slept. Anna, too, was exhausted by the ordeal of birth and soon fell into a peaceful sleep, her child in the crook of her arm.

  Later, she would notice that Lutisha had tied a red ribbon around the baby’s wrist, a protection against the evil eye.

  50

  IT WAS A SOURCE OF immeasurable happiness to Anna that she was able to nurse her child. As each week passed, Jan Michał seemed to grow more beautiful, more precious. Or so it must appear to every mother, she thought. “Let me see your little blue eyes,” she would coo, pulling a face. His eyes were wide, inquisitive and quick as a falcon’s, Anna thought. He would stare up at her as if he were trying to fathom what she was saying. He was several weeks old when he suddenly smiled toothlessly at her antics, then broke into a fit of giggles at the faces she made over him.

  Anna felt somehow transformed by motherhood. Certain vague and unfounded fears—which used to wash over her like dry desert breaths—ceased. Oh, there had been some very real anxieties rooted in the dark turn of events that had started with the deaths of her family and shadowed her through to the end of her unhappy marriage, but now she dared to think that her luck had changed.

  Motherhood seemed to make her heart always content, always glad. A sublime sense of peace descended on her, a peace, she was certain, that men with their warring ways could not know. Homer had gotten it all wrong. Yes, Odysseus had stood in the stern of a majestic ship and cut through the shimmering waves, propelled from one adventure to the next, along the way falling into the pleasurable snares of Circe and Calypso. It was he whom history called brave. But Anna knew that it was Penelope who endured a woman’s pain to give birth to their son. And it was Penelope who summoned from within herself a reservoir of courage and cleverness in order to fend off suitors while raising him for the twenty years Odysseus was gone. And it was Penelope who had to wait. Homer doesn’t speak nearly so highly of her for her quiet domestic deeds and faithfulness. How heroic she was, though, and how heroic is every woman who has ever risked life to give birth.

  Often, Anna would take her son down to the kitchen—womb of the house, she called it—and there spend a part of her day with Lutisha, Marta, and Marta’s daughters, Katarzyna and Marcelina. The huge room had wide windows that were a source of light and life to a variety of potted herbs lined up on the sills. She loved the tantalizing aromas of baking bread and puddings, simmering soups, and skewered meat in the fireplace, the fat of which made the fire sputter; it was always a lively place, a warm and healthy environment that renewed her enthusiasm for life.

  Sometimes, while the women played with Jan Michał, Anna assisted with simple kit
chen tasks and meal preparations. At home she had helped Luisa with a few dishes, but her culinary skills were enhanced seven-fold under the tutelage of Lutisha and Marta. While she relished the diversion, she took care to keep from her aunt and cousin the extent of her association with the servants.

  One day Anna was kneading the dough for dark bread while Katarzyna held Jan Michał, singing lightly to him. Her young brother Tomasz came in and began to make a fuss over the child. Anna could not help but smile at the scene they made. It was like children playing out the manger scene. Jan Michał made a perfect Christ child.

  “May I hold him, too, Countess Grawlinska?” Tomasz asked. He was not shy.

  “I’m holding him now,” Katarzyna said.

  “Well, you won’t have him all day, will you? Let me see him. . . . What color are his eyes, Countess Grawlinska?”

  “Blue,” Anna said. She saw no reason to deny the boy his request. “You may, in a few minutes. . . . Tomasz, you are to address me as Countess Berezowska.”

  “Yes, Countess . . . Berezowska.”

  “Now go away, Tomasz,” Katarzyna was pleading. “Look, he’s making a face at you.”

  “Is not! I think his eyes are brown.”

  “They’re blue. Didn’t you hear the countess?”

  Anna looked at the boy. He seemed uncertain whether he should say anything more, and when he caught sight of Anna his lips tightened. He knew not to contradict. Anna thought it most appropriate that he was named for the apostle who doubted.

  Marta came up to her son as if to shoo him from the kitchen when she stopped for a moment and stared at the baby in rapt attention. “Why, Countess, Tomasz may be right. The eyes do seem to be taking a turn for brown . . . they do! It happens that way sometimes, blue when a baby’s born, only weeks later they change color.”