Three months after we moved to our new home in New Jersey in mid-April 1988, I quit my job at the Café des Artistes presumably to focus on my dissertation and foundation work. Instead, I became pregnant.
18
Baby in a Storm
The pregnancy was not an accident. I had carefully prepared for it, even discussed my intention with my doctor a few weeks earlier.
“Have you ever been pregnant?” he’d asked me.
“No, I’ve been on the pill forever,” I’d told him.
“Then I suggest you stop and try not to get pregnant immediately. Use any kind of non-hormonal contraceptive for about three months, then let it happen,” he’d advised.
The objective was to cleanse my system and let it return to its natural rhythm. I’d thought that was a good precaution.
“Do you think it would be difficult for me to conceive?” I’d asked him nervously.
“I don’t see why. You’re only thirty-one, you’re in good health. No, it should be fine.” He’d smiled. “Just don’t worry about it, okay? After all, you’re exactly in the right place, if need be.” He had winked at me and stood up to see me off.
Dr. Johnson, a tall Scandinavian-American with curly hair and blue eyes, was my mother’s gynecologist. She’d been referred to him when her pre-menopausal symptoms got out of hand, a couple of years earlier, and I had accompanied her to most of her visits since. He was a well-known Ob-Gyn, infertility specialist, and best-selling author on women’s health.
I had stopped taking the pill and, without a second thought, winged the question of contraception altogether. I conceived within a month. I was astonished at how quickly it happened. What in the world was I thinking? A baby, at that moment? A wobbly marriage, a very incomplete and listless doctoral research, and an unstable financial situation—those were the stark facts of my life, as I knew them, not exactly the most desirable environment for a baby.
“You know, I really think my biological clock began ticking louder, and my body just tricked my mind,” I explained to my sister when I announced the news to her. She laughed.
“Really? But aren’t you happy about it?” she asked.
“I am happy, of course, but it really doesn’t make sense that I’d get pregnant at a time like this.”
What I didn’t know, then, was that once again I’d found a radical way to escape the unbearable stress caused by yet another academic challenge. The burden of completing my Ph.D. was met by that fear of failure that had already plagued me when confronted with the Baccalauréat. And again I was blind-sided by my angst. As I had in the past, I was running away at a defining moment in my life. Again, I chose to take the seemingly easier way out, the path most travelled, and disguised my fear in a way that could never be viewed by others as a lack of judgment on my part.
On the surface, Robbie and I had been married for five years and had just bought our first apartment in a doorman building—a lovely one-bedroom with a large terrace, sitting on the Hudson Palisades in West New York. It faced mid-town Manhattan, was filled with Eastern sun and boasted one of the most magnificent views imaginable, nothing less than the unfolding city skyline from the Verrazano Bridge to the George Washington Bridge.
Robbie had been at his job for four years, I had a terrific one-year paying foundation internship, and, it was readily assumed, I would finish my doctoral thesis after the baby was born. One of my counselors’ assistants concurred. “You’ll be able to do all your writing when the baby is napping,” she’d said. How I wished that were true!
In reality, I had been running on empty for a very long time. I was burnt-out by eight years of full-time study and hard physical work waiting on tables, and my marriage was anything but idyllic. True, most of our relatives and friends clearly thought Robbie and I had a good relationship going and were far from suspecting the rot at its core. We were such a sophisticated, attractive couple. Robbie was well liked, and not just for his looks, polished manners, and worldliness.
Unlike many globetrotters, who roam the earth with their cameras, from resorts to retreats, his love of travel did not simply scratch the surface. He showed real empathy and interest in people, especially the poor and downtrodden of our planet. He valued their mores and strived to understand their cultures. It seemed he could converse for hours, engrossed in his interlocutors’ stories, with sincere compassion.
In short, Robbie had an uncanny knack for appearing flawless to all those who knew him outwardly, including his own parents. But perfect he was not. Beneath the shiny veneer were hidden blemishes: an addictive personality, a perfectionist procrastinator with a violent streak and a foul mouth, prone to incomprehensible wrath, and in need of constant validation. It took years before I had the courage to expose his physical abuse to my loved ones, and even then I am not sure they really believed me until much later.
My pregnancy had its ups and downs, with the first trimester and the last month being particularly difficult. My body turned into a single-minded gestational laboratory responding to no other exigency than catering to the growing fetus in my womb. I had my share of morning sickness, but the most maddening problem was my somnolence. I had been sleep-deficient for so long I’d become used to it; I usually just pushed through my daily drowsiness.
All of a sudden, I had no say in the matter. I would get out of bed in the morning to head for work only to find myself nodding in strange places. At the foundation, my desk was set up in a corner of a quiet and spacious windowless conference room, so I fell asleep on my computer keyboard, for hours, rarely being disturbed by anyone; or perhaps no one wished to nudge me up. I once found myself snoozing on the steps of the emergency staircase. NYU’s Bobst Library was a perfect dormitory for my sleepy body when I ventured there for additional research. No place was too uncomfortable for a doze-off, no bookstore or movie theater, and, most certainly, no bus or train, causing me to often miss my stop. It seemed I just napped right through my first few weeks.
Thankfully, things seemed to settle a bit during my second trimester, and I enjoyed a bit more energy. My attention shifted to food, and I fell prey to cravings, with sushi at the top of the list. At that time, doctors were not yet preoccupied with the dangers of seafood to pregnant women, so I just indulged in sushi four to five times a week, often alone, never feeling I’d had enough.
On the whole, however, my pregnancy progressed without any major concern—except I was pretty sure I was induced into labor about two weeks before my official due date, without the open acknowledgement of my physician. How do I know that? Simply because he had asked me to come for a visit at the hospital after I called him about some light contractions. During the course of the examination, he announced that my cervix was dilated a few centimeters. And then I felt it, a distinct and sharp sensation, a quick poke to my membranes. I did not say anything—I wasn’t sure of what had happened exactly.
He sent me back home and, within twenty-four hours, my water broke. I was admitted to Lennox Hill around six in the evening on Easter Sunday, hooked to a hormonal IV pump to augment my contractions, and left to wait. After seven hours of labor-the last three excruciating-I delivered my baby at 1:30 AM on Monday. Robbie cut the umbilical cord with a trembling hand.
“Don’t do it, it’s unbearable! Those were the first words you uttered when I called you,” said my sister later that day, when she and Mom visited me. “Was it that terrible?” she asked with a smirk.
“Of course it was,” said Mom by way of reprimand. “But she didn’t mean that, she was in pain.”
The two of them were fussing around me; I could see there were flowers in a couple of vases. I was still in a haze, aching all over, and could not sit up properly.
“I look like crap, don’t I?” I moaned. “I hardly slept at all. I’m exhausted. I didn’t know how to soothe the baby—they gave her a little water.” I closed my eyes. “Isn’t she beautiful, though?” I smiled feebly. “Can you please get me a mirror and fix me up a bit?” I asked looking at
my sister.
Mom kissed my forehead and caressed my head lovingly.
“Don’t worry about it. No one else is visiting you today,” she murmured. Nezha took a hair brush out of the drawer on the other side of the bed and leaned over me.
“You know… I have to tell you-I’m sure my doctor induced me earlier than necessary,” I said. Finding it painful to sit up straight, I bent my head forward instead.
“Really?” Nezha was pulling my hair away from my face and tying it in the back of my head.
“What?” Mom had come back from the bathroom with my make-up bag. My sister repeated what I’d said.
“What do you mean?” asked Mom. “Did he give you any drugs? Did he say anything?”
“No, he didn’t. But I felt he did something to me during my last visit on Friday. Now I know he ruptured my amniotic sac.”
I took the face lotion from Mom’s hand.
“Why would he do that? How can you be sure?” asked my sister.
“When I got to the hospital, I overheard the nurses complaining about the very high number of deliveries they had that weekend. ‘Johnson did it again,’ one of them was saying. ‘He must have all his deliveries done before the week starts—he doesn’t like his office hours disrupted,’ another one replied. They didn’t sound very happy. I’m telling you I was induced. I knew it,” I added in frustration.
“What are you going to do about it?” Mom held my hand.
“Nothing. What can I do? The baby was due in about twelve days, it’s not unusual. She’s healthy, and I am okay. It just bothers me that he didn’t even discuss it with me, you know?”
Naming our newborn was easy. Robbie and I had already settled on Sophia months before. It meant ‘wisdom’ and sounded beautiful in every language, and both of us deemed ‘philosophy,’ the Greek word for the love and pursuit of wisdom, to be our higher calling. So naming our baby daughter Sophia was only fitting. Our choice of a boy’s name had not been as definite.
Sophia was born bald—that is without hair, but also intrepid and strong-willed. I decided to feed her breast-milk only, convinced that formula would not provide her with all the essential nutrients she needed. I breastfed her from the moment she was born and for an entire year without fail. If I was not going to be around for any period of time, I just pumped my milk, no matter how painful, and stored it in the freezer.
My entire purpose was to mother the little miracle that had materialized in my life and brought me a level of love and joy unlike any I had ever imagined. Gone were all considerations for any other obligation. I had completed my internship at the Guggenheim Foundation and was free to devote myself to motherhood with passion and dedication.
Robbie seemed happy and proud. Perhaps the baby would be able to reconcile our differences and help us grow into mature and responsible parents, I hoped. He had taken a week off, and there were moments of great care and tenderness after I returned home from the hospital. For the first time, he was the sole breadwinner and I thought that, in and of itself, would change the destructive dynamic of our relationship for the better.
Sadly, whoever believes that a new baby can heal an ailing marriage has no clue about the strains of sleepless nights and their effect on exhausted parents, especially those who have to contend with the distressing cries of a colicky newborn. Never in my life had I ever felt so crushed with fatigue. When she was napping, which she did only after long spells of heartbreaking howling, I could hardly keep up with my personal hygiene and most basic household chores. I was permanently sleep-deprived and cranky.
I had no help at home except on the few occasions when my mother, or my sister, who worked with Norma Kamali in Manhattan at the time, paid me a visit. My breasts were engorged and sore, my nipples raw and swollen, I could only sit on an inflated plastic bagel, and the rest of my body was still bloated and achy.
Alas, only a few days after Sophia and I returned home, Robbie’s demons resurfaced again.
It must have been around three or four in the morning, when Sophia, whose crib occupied a corner of our bedroom, woke up again, wailing on the top of her lungs. I had been feeding her every two or three hours and had just fallen into a deep slumber.
“Robbie, could you please pick her up and bring her to me?” I muttered plaintively?
He didn’t answer.
“Please pick her up, I’ll feed her here,” I pleaded, nudging him awake.
I heard him mumble something about having to work early, then ignore me. The baby was hysterical by then. I extended my hand and pushed him in the back again, imploring him to get up and bring the baby to me.
“It’s your turn to get her, Robbie! I still have to do the feeding,” I persisted. “I’m exhausted, can’t you see? I can’t stand on my feet anymore. Can’t you do this for me, for once?”
“I’ve been working my ass off and you know it, you bitch.” He turned around abruptly. “Just you get her,” he yelled, and he shoved me so hard with his feet, I fell off the bed.
My mind went blank. No, it couldn’t be. Not that again. I’d honestly thought somehow that kind of brutality was behind us.
I pulled myself up despite the ton of bricks that had just crashed on me and stumbled to the crib.
As I directed Sophia’s little head toward my throbbing breast, I swallowed back tears of hurt and helplessness.
19
Madness
During the months that preceded and followed Sophia’s birth, events had seemed to take on a life of their own, spinning in a disconcerting spiral, in quick succession.
Very shortly after I moved to New Jersey, my sister and Hisham, her new, striking, Iranian-Kuwaiti companion, had rented an apartment across the street from me on Boulevard East. The day after my pregnancy was confirmed, around mid-August 1988, my mother had followed, moving from Queens to North Bergen, in New Jersey, only minutes away.
Her catering business, launched some three years earlier, had slowly begun to wane. I had been too busy to help her grow it, and she didn’t have enough English, or business knowledge, to do it on her own. At one point, we had entertained the thought of opening a Moroccan restaurant in Manhattan. I’d put together a thorough business plan, had it reviewed by a group providing assistance to community entrepreneurs at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and sent it to my rich uncles in Morocco, inviting them to invest with us in an exciting American venture. They had showed no interest and simply ignored our offer.
Greatly disappointed, my mother had continued to get by on a meager income, based on inconsistent catered functions and the same stipend—not adjusted for inflation or place of residence—that her brother Abderrahim was still giving her. My sister and I, and occasionally one of her younger brothers, Hak or Latif, helped her out with a little additional money. Her financial situation was precarious, though not desperate; she lacked for nothing essential. But she felt vulnerable most of the time even as she lived comfortably enough in a pleasant apartment across North Hudson Park.
Then tragedy struck. In July 1989, less than four months after Sophia’s birth, Uncle Hak died in a Paris hospital of multiple complications following prostate cancer surgery. His death had been precipitated by the arrest, in Brussels, of his brother Latif, for drug trafficking. Aggrieved by his brother’s shocking criminal activity, Uncle Hak had been unable to fight the post-op infections.
Throughout their lives, the two had been there for their sister and her four children. Not only had they been more than uncles for my siblings and me, they’d been father figures for her as well. In the best of times and the worst of times, they had come through for her when she had no one else to turn to. Suddenly, she was orphaned: Neither would ever be there for her again.
This realization was made the more painful by Uncle Latif’s latest reassurances. He’d told her that his business was doing so well that she would shortly be free of financial concerns altogether.
“Soon, very soon, you’ll never have to worry about money again,” he had promi
sed. My mother had been elated by what she saw as an overdue success for her beloved brother.
I was about four months pregnant, in the fall of 1988, when he’d invited her and Nezha to visit him in Paris. The trip, which she prepared for with sheer euphoria, had turned out to be fraught with odd incidents and was a letdown. Uncle Latif, who, after at least two detoxification treatments, had been alcohol-free for a couple of years, had displayed frenzied behavior and volatile moods.
“He was weird, hardly slept at all, chain-smoked, drank excessively, tipped outrageously, and generally acted in an erratic way,” my sister had afterward confessed. “He was not the man we knew and loved.”
To our dismay, the business, it’d turned out, was not only risky, it was illicit. Uncle Latif, with the collusion of high-profile Moroccan officials, had partaken in a profitable, albeit short-lived, drug trade to Europe. Uncle Hak’s untimely death combined with Uncle Latif’s offense, had marked an indelible shift in my mother’s disposition. She traveled to Morocco for the funeral and, once there, collapsed under unmitigated sorrow. Many in the family viewed her display of grief with concern, even alarm. After that, she was a different woman.
I, however, failed to see any change in Mom’s personality until she announced, out of the blue, her decision to marry a total stranger.
What she saw in Chester was a handsome and well-mannered fifty-two-year-old with an affectionate personality. What she did not see was a perennially underemployed, bruised Vietnam veteran, a blue-collar worker from Bayonne who’d never set foot in Manhattan or knew where Morocco was on a map. He had little education, no money, and was prone to heavy drinking and jealous fits.
They had met at Archer’s, a Fort Lee restaurant, where she’d gone out for a drink with a friend, shortly after her return from Uncle Hak’s funeral. He had been drawn to her exotic beauty, sweet temperament, and refinement. The two had very little in common other than mutual physical attraction and a need for companionship.
THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO Page 17