“This crow may be an omen, but the wet nurse isn’t under it,” said the boy who first saw the dead bird hanging. His nose gushed, his eyelashes stuck together with ice.
“When we find her, she’ll be stiff as a loaf of bread in a house where all the children have died,” said an older woman who puffed her cheeks, coughed up bile and spit it in the hole. She wore no coat just an old shawl with pieces of sackcloth sewn into it.
“Let’s follow the river, then return,” Margot signalled to the others. She looked my way, her goodly eyes consoling me.
At the tree line, I turned to leave. My nose was frozen and my fingers and toes burned from the cold. Everything became foggy, the snow, the sky, the hill in the distance. I thought about what the man said about her being a she-devil and the odd song entered my head once more, Black ink blood, white milk blood, what kind of blood does a bad woman have? Although this time, mixed with those words, was the faint yet persistent cry of freedom.
Passage
THE FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN. My heart beat like crashes of thunder inside my chest as I crept inside with great care and made my way to the kitchen. Two men were talking as they shuffled down the corridor in my direction. I grabbed two tapers and the tinderbox and ran down the rickety wooden steps to the root cellar. A few moments later they were in the kitchen. The room where I stood was small and had a little window high up and full of cobwebs. Shelves of preserve jars and baskets of carrots, turnips and other vegetables lined the dirt walls. I looked around for the passageway Armande and her father talked about, the place where she used to play as a child. Then the door to the root cellar swung open, and there I stood in a stream of light. I bolted into the darkness, feeling with my hands until coming upon a small wooden door. The latch lifted easily, and I squeezed myself through the narrow opening and stood up, though stooped. Cold and dark enveloped me, the air smelling of damp earth. After catching my breath I opened the tinderbox and blew on the tinder until a flame arose. Then, lighting one of the tapers with it, I edged along the passage just big enough for me. The ground was uneven, scattered with stones and crevices. I walked for a long time before thinking I made a mistake and had taken the wrong passage. Perhaps I missed the door to Nadine’s house and was on my way to the neighbour’s further away, or to somewhere else entirely. I went over in my mind what Monsieur Vivant had said. There’s a passageway to Bertrand and Nadine’s root cellar, and from there, to the wool spinner Madame Jardin. The passage then leads to the Gallants’ house.
My taper burnt out and I fumbled for a few moments trying to light the second one, then decided to keep walking for a bit in the dark so as not to waste the light. My fingers were frozen and so I stuck them inside my cloak for warmth. Voices in my head told me I was going to die, that the strangers in our home would hunt me down. I closed my eyes trying not to listen. If I let my mind wander to dark thoughts while in the narrow passage with no light and little air, I would lose my senses. My head hit something solid in front of me. It was a door, again with a latch. After pushing it open I came upon the neighbour’s root cellar: a little bigger than ours and with shelves full of preserves, and tools for digging and planting. I rapped loudly on the door that was bolted.
“It’s me Céleste,” I shouted. “Let me in.”
I was sobbing, begging for Nadine and Bertrand to rescue me from the cold and damp, from the men who I felt were trying to capture me just as they captured Armande. I hit the door with my fist until it was numb, yet it was no use, as they could not hear me. Then I remembered Monsieur Vivant telling me the root cellar was in their garden, not under the house like ours. I sat on the steps, leaning my back against the door and then lifted my under petticoat and felt for the embroidered pocket at my waist. The cover of her diary was cold, yet soft as before. I pressed my fingers down on it then kissed the spine, hugging the object to me. A little window gave me just enough light to read.
July 16, 1784
It would be odd to some in the village if they knew that merely two days after sweating, straining and bleeding on my childbed I am now sitting up in bed to record the events of the past few days in my diary. A handful of women in the village came by earlier with cakes for me, and bonnets, and blankets for the baby. All I could think of—as they were spouting aphorisms of motherhood—was writing about the birth. Many mothers have come before me, yet their experiences and thoughts about labour have scarcely been transcribed. Must hurry before another inquisitive lady should enter with yet another morsel of too-sweet cake.
Exactly two days ago, I was in the meadow by the house. Margot was right that dwelling on my troubling dream was no way to pass the time before for labour. Surrounded by clover, I ate wild strawberries, eavesdropping on the banter of bees. As the sun played behind a dusty cloud and droplets of rain danced across the pages of my diary, drinking in Nature’s magnificence soon steadied my mind, clearing away dark thoughts. I sensed that the summer wind pleased the baby inside me as I thought I heard her murmur, soft and gentle, rocking to and fro.
When all at once Nature’s riches were replaced by twinges of such proportion and strength that they became crashing waves. I stood up and a rush of womb water soaked my skirt, trickling down my legs and into my shoes as I crossed the field where pigs were fenced in at the far end. Grasshoppers snapped against my arms and tiny insects emerged.
Bertrand, Nadine’s husband was tying a length of rope around a fence when he saw me struggling and called out to his wife. The two pulled me along arm-in-arm to the door of my house, up the stairs and to my bed.
“Margot,” I shouted. “My baby will soon be here.”
Bertrand dashed off to find the midwife while Nadine prayed at my side as I thought of my mother and of how she died on her childbed. By the time Margot entered the room, the air was filled with women’s voices, praying, laughing and chatting at my childbed. They eyed me, making enough noise to cause Lucifer to plug his ears.
“It will all turn out right,” said a tiny woman with bouncy red locks and a cream complexion.
“You are so strong. You’ll drive that baby out from sheer will,” said another, her voice breaking up. She kept bees and extracted honey and wax from their hives. Two of her children died shortly after they were born.
Nadine crouched down next to me and whispered, “Patience and prayer for the pain.”
My eyes met hers. She repeated the refrain over a few times until a chorus was playing in my head. Patience and prayer for the pain, p and p and p.
“If you keep in mind this simple song, you will pull through,” she said.
The little nut moved inside me, my body was heating up, my loins tightening. Margot pulled up my skirt and placed her hands on my belly, moving her head downward, ear perched on the quivering within.
The pressure inside me turned to gnashing aches. Margot rubbed my temples with poplar ointment and applied a generous amount to my roundness and to my thighs. Then another violent wave crashed over my body, and the scream that came out of me was so loud that I surprised even myself.
“Yes, soon, very soon.” Margot wiped me down with cool rags. She did this several times already, yet still my head was on fire.
A spasm consumed me like someone yanking my innards, trying to pull them past my loins.
Beside myself with fatigue, I just wanted the spasms in my belly, my groin and back to leave me, for the child to be born and for sleep to take over. As though in a dream or in death, I floated up to the ceiling. The chorus of women ceased their banter. Faces became pale, expressions wistful and for a moment, I thought I was dying. Women’s hands gestured in my direction as majestic statues in a garden. There was blood on the sheets though less than I imagined there would be. I could see myself from above, my legs plum red. My skirt, pulled up to reveal my sex.
“Blessed be God,” said Nadine.
An awful violence brought me back to my body and my thighs felt like they
had been picked raw by crows. I convulsed.
“The head,” one of them shouted. “It looks at us.”
“Next time will be the last,” said Margot.
I pushed once more with all my might, and then collapsed on the bed.
“A rich jewel in the cabinet of God,” said Nadine.
Tiny puckered face and eyes as two little nuts.
August 1, 1784
The long sickness that has shaken me has come to an end. It was always my wish to follow Nature and nurse my child, even though many women of my station have no care for it. Margot told me I needed to nurse the baby right away as the milk that came at the very beginning would provide much goodness for her and would keep her well. She said to nurse about ten times a day to prevent engorgement and assist the milk’s flow. After the fifth day, I noticed that the milk was thinner and lighter in colour and my breasts gave me a sensation as if to burst. Once again Margot said to keep feeding often as the soreness would eventually subside. I did as she instructed yet began to feel increased pain and swelling around the nipple. Rose-Marie sensed that I was ill at ease with nursing. She nursed infrequently and began to cry more, sometimes for hours.
After three days of this pain and frustration, Margot applied a cabbage leaf compress to my chest for two hours. Then she removed the drooping leaves and added fresh ones. She did this all day until some of the swelling dissipated.
The next day, a feeling of foreboding drifted over me. Margot said this sometimes happens to new mothers. As an antidote to my melancholia, she instructed me to walk in the garden and meditate on God. These quiet times only caused me to be prey to my own distressing chatter. Robert still hasn’t returned even though I wrote him in March to tell him I was with child. So much time has passed without a single letter from him after I wrote him several times. Perhaps my worry of him being enamoured by another was not unfounded after all. Could it be he took up with a lusty Parisian actress and forgot his educated mountain girl? Then there was my father who always counselled me to remain childless. From the time I was a little girl, he told me mothering could only bring sorrow when the child dies, and distraction from the important issues of life such as rallying against the King’s tyranny. These thoughts weakened my spirit and threatened to draw me further from my own self.
I pulled the curtains, retired to bed and handed off the baby to Margot to care for.
One never knows how experience will pull at our heartstrings. I longed to care for my own child and refused, whatever my weakened and melancholic state, to send her away. I thought that I would be blissful about the motherly duties presented to me. Yet where before, I could spend hours in my father’s library reading or laze about watching clouds change from sea beasts into towers of silk, now I was bound to the simple needs of this little being who was reliant on me for everything. That woman is naturally committed to her offspring, that motherhood is a gift from the gods who bestow upon the fairer sex the most delightful experiences, is a philosopher’s flight of fancy. The fact is, though I would not admit it to a living soul, a part of me longed to be relieved of my shrieking and odorous destiny. I washed the child and no sooner did I replace the napkin with ties at the side than she soiled herself again. I held as truths Rousseau’s ideas about motherhood being the equivalent to bliss, yet I now felt that my existence was an illustration of despair. I know I am not the only mother who feels this way.
Let the truth be known: sometimes we mothers are sad, worse even. Sometimes we are nothing at all and are told we have no earthly reason to be thus. You’re a woman. And woman must bear fruit and be glad for it. How could I express sentiments of sadness at being a mother? I’ve nobody to turn to but the extension of myself that I rock back and forth, this bit of breath that clings to me for survival. Never having had a mother to care for me, I grew up clinging to the myth of her wonderfully embroidered quilts that my father set fire to before I was of age to look on them. Margot told me she was also a gifted singer who showed her talent only to her husband and to a few trusted friends. Why must women be so unbearably modest? In the past, I have taken comfort in writings by some of our respected philosophers and thinkers though, as a mother, have neither time for study or for reflection. Although I love my father dearly, if it was up to him I would be neither wife nor mother. Spinster scholar is more in line for what he wished for me.
After days of loneliness and despair a morsel of hope has edged its way into my life. After months of waiting, I have finally received a letter from Robert. The poor dear has been laid up with both his legs broken from an accident in which he fell from a horse during a dreadful storm. On his way home, he was visiting his cousin Gaston and went to look for a precious lily observed in those parts. Gaston searched the countryside when the storm calmed and found Robert crumpled against a tree, the horse no doubt scared off as the beast never returned. He summoned a doctor. Splints were applied to both legs and Gaston’s wife Françoise and their daughter Claudette are tending to him until he is up and on his feet once more. When I read the letter, I thought, poor dear and poor me for being alone with a child to care for.
Claudette has eyes like a Spanish dancer and a head of thick black hair. The two came to visit last year and I recall what a vision she was. I am certain her beauty alone will help him to be well again. Yet what if, when he is better, he falls for her and never returns to my side? I responded to him without delay telling him of our dear baby girl, and wrote a few words of love and so forth. There was no point in pouring out my sentiments of despair, as he would discover soon enough what was in my heart.
A day later I was cheered to receive a letter from my father who was in Paris. He continues to distribute books and travel throughout the country, occasionally journeying to England. He was writing a fair bit and said he missed everything about me—my wit, views, tears, cooking, and even my temper. I would write him when my body grew stronger. I hoped he would delight in hearing that I was a mother in spite of his warning me against it.
I wasn’t able to rest much that week. I forced my eyelids open and dragged out of bed with nary an ounce of vigour. To allow me reprieve, Margot applied rancid oil on Rose-Marie’s temples so she would sleep longer. The old woman looked on me sadly. No doubt disappointed by my failure to mother, as I should. Rousseau instructs that a mother needs rest at the time of childbirth, a soft and sedentary life to nurse her children, patience and gentleness from those around her, zeal and an affection that nothing can rebuff in order to raise her children. Yet most rarely have the occasion to rest and hold their infants when they are thrust back into their duties such as cooking, soaping the linens, chopping wood, mending, and on and on. Where is the time for rest?
Margot was right that I did know better than most what a child required and embraced my motherly duties with almost completely open arms, yet still I couldn’t shake the melancholic feelings. I wasn’t sure how such sadness produced in me. My child was born healthy and had a calm temperament. Her little mouth opened to let out the sweetest and most joyous sounds and her eyes radiated warmth.
“With patience, a taste for living will return,” said Margot.
Could it be that joyous thoughts would ease their way back into my life? Each time Rose-Marie awakened my melancholia grew fiercer. Why didn’t Margot come and take her from me so I could sleep or read? Then, just as I was pondering my fate and feeling shame over what a wretched mother I was, my bodily condition grew worse.
What I am about to write will be of great service to mothers and that the great service to me is in the telling of it. The swelling came back the second week. Not only that, the milk was begging to come out yet something was stopping it. I’m still trying to arrange it all in my mind. The sickness, if I can name it thus, started with redness around my nipples, cracked skin and a burning pain that felt as though tiny knives sliced into my flesh. Nursing Rose-Marie caused me discomfort and I had trouble sleeping because of a constant throbb
ing. My face grew hot and my whole body was aflame.
“You are too full of milk,” Margot said when she saw the milk mixed with blood seeping from my breasts and soaking my shirts. “The milk needs to come out. It has stopped up and is causing swelling.”
My fever worsened. I don’t recall all who came to assist me on my sickbed during those few days of torment, but I know the village doctor was there for a time, along with a travelling barber-surgeon, an apothecary and a healer of the stone evil. One advised bleeding and another clysters. Still another insisted on purgatives in the way of small spoonfuls of cinnamon water. Margot applied compresses and told me to continue suckling even though the doctors warned against it.
“Eventually your body will rid itself of milk fever,” she said.
Heat consumed every part of me, setting my skin on fire. One night I didn’t sleep and hallucinated instead. In my half-mad vision, all the saints were there before me—Augustine, Teresa, Sebastian, Thomas, Francis, Cecilia—and many mortal beings who were now absent to me. Although I lay in bed amidst damp sheets, I saw my dear mother who died bringing me into the world, childhood playmates of mine who fell during the scourge and were buried together in one solitary grave. A neighbour who didn’t survive the birth of her second child, and yet another woman crying out as her son lay on his deathbed—all of them scaling the exterior walls of my house like red-eyed lepers seeking a crypt to hide their half-deadness. At first, I didn’t want to let these lost souls into my life. They were, after all, echoes of the past, wreckage from a sea-bound ship that never made it home. Although I am afraid of what they showed me, I was compelled to let them in.
I awakened in a pool of water, nightshirt clinging to my hot, wet body. My child was no longer beside me. Did the lost souls take her, I wondered. Perhaps the flames licked her all away. Just when I had given up hope of ever seeing my darling baby again, Margot walked into the room. She passed a cool cloth over my forehead and cheeks. Its freshness soothed me.
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