by Inès Bayard
Marie rummages in her bag, looking for the penknife she bought the day after her rape to be sure she was safe. Now she can use it at last. All those hours practicing in front of the mirror, whipping it out of her coat as quickly as possible to strike her attacker. She grabs it and slides it under the sheets, then removes her panties and slowly inserts the blade between her thighs. She’s going to kill this baby, slash this fetus from the inside with all her strength, puncture it, impale it on the blade of her weapon. This is her act of war. During her last scan, she and Laurent could clearly make out its misshapen head, flaccid legs, and distended stomach all floating in amniotic fluid that she hoped was bitter and acidic enough to choke the thing, drown it. This is a real baby she’s going to kill, it’s not just the little black dot from the early days anymore. She feels the cold blade against the walls of her vagina. Closes her eyes and clenches her teeth. She’s going to drive deep into her womb with one sharp thrust, tear her guts by twisting the knife in every direction, to make sure she’s done with it once and for all.
Someone knocks at the door. “Hello, I’m Dr. Harcourt. I operated on you this morning and I’ve come to see how you’re doing. My colleague tells me the baby’s doing well, which is great news.” She discreetly withdraws the penknife. She won’t manage it, they won’t let her do it. The world is against her. Fortune tips only in the wrong direction, away from what she wants. They all want this baby to be born—well, so be it. Marie accepts her fate. She’s exhausted. She gives up on killing her child. It’s too late, the moment has passed. She’s going to see this pregnancy through to term, supported by her husband, her family, and her friends, who’ll pool their efforts to ensure the best possible conditions for her to bring the successful product of her rape into the world. Memories of that night spring up in her mind. She can picture the man, his body oozing pleasure as he came inside her with a long moan that, at the time, seemed to go on forever. Marie doesn’t understand why on earth she let the moment slip through her fingers, why she didn’t do anything to avoid the worst, why she didn’t go to an all-night pharmacy for the morning-after pill and a post-exposure treatment to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, or why she hasn’t done a paternity test to be sure about her fate. Instead, she just went home to take a shower and go to bed. It’s her own fault. She chose doubt over the truth. She feels ashamed and guilty, thinks how stupid she was not to behave differently. Here in this hospital she’s paying a high price, and for once everyone seems to be in agreement with her. The surgeon ends his little spiel with “Do you have any questions?” Not one.
Feeling whitish liquid trickling between her legs on Monday evening reminds Marie of her rape. When her blood mingled with her shit and her puke with her blood. The pain pulses through the small of her back, her stomach, arms, and legs. She can feel she’s dying. With her hands clenched on the sweat-soaked sheets, her body hovers in the embrace of physical suffering that’s impossible to master. The long-forgotten powerful sense of fear resurfaces just as brutally as before. She can’t distinguish sounds anymore. A nurse squeezes her hand and encourages her to push even harder. Every contraction tears her body apart. Maybe she’ll die on this delivery couch before she even sees her child born. Her pelvis will eventually snap under the pressure. Thirteen hours in labor. It doesn’t want to come out. She suddenly regrets forcing this child to come into the world. It didn’t ask for anything. If she tells it later that she was raped and didn’t have the courage to tell her husband, maybe it won’t resent her so much. Its head comes past her perineum. Marie feels like a fucking animal. Paul presses down on her lower abdomen and yells, inserts part of his hand into her vagina to widen the birth canal and help the baby’s head through. Her perineum is too tight. “We might need an episiotomy…No, no, scratch that, we’re gonna be okay as we are.”
People talk in her name, make decisions for her, she has nothing to do but push. Her eyes are wide open. She can hear everything, feel everything. The epidural isn’t working, doesn’t entirely eliminate the pain. She contemplates the fact that later she’ll have to make the decision to kill this baby. She’ll wait till Paul and all the nurses have left before she makes her move. She doesn’t love it and never will, better for it not to exhaust itself living pointlessly, better for it to go back to where it came from. She’s tried to get rid of it before, but that didn’t work, she was stopped. There is also a possibility that life will gain the upper hand, that when their eyes meet something will happen and this will stop her strangling it.
The baby gives a heinous scream. Almost before it’s been hauled from her gaping vagina, the shapeless bloated creature covered in amniotic fluid, blood, and a waxy white coating is handed to Marie. Its skin is flaky and slightly translucent. She can see its blood vessels in places. It’s monstrous. The moist stump of its umbilical cord is stuck to its stomach. Its icy feet paddle gently at her breast. The baby starts opening its eyes but Marie looks away quickly. Its wandering gaze tugs at her emotions. Sticky secretions dribble from its eyes. A green liquid emerges from between its buttocks and spreads over its naked legs. An acidic smell—a vile combination of tar, sweat, and urine—permeates the whole room. Its purplish penis is swollen, distended, almost inflamed. It looks as if the baby’s just been raped or beaten up. Marie tries to contain her disgust. The nurse smiles at her idiotically as if to convince her that what’s happening right now is a moment of pure pleasure and she should be thrilled that she’s extricated this fetus from her fat stomach. “My dear Marie, allow me to introduce your son.” You don’t introduce a child to its mother. She already knows him better than anyone else. She doesn’t have a choice now, she has to look at her son. He’s struggling to open his screwed-up little eyes. He writhes in every direction and starts to scream. Marie suddenly feels tired. Her breathing is labored, her eyes slowly close. The baby is taken from her arms, she falls back, lowers her guard, stops fighting. It feels as if her body is emptying itself between her legs. She hears a faraway cry: “Her blood pressure’s crashing. She’s lost consciousness. Call the crash team in block two.” Marie’s not frightened. She knows that, once again, everyone will look after her.
We were really scared, you know…When are you going to stop this nonsense! But you did a good job, just look how beautiful our son is. Our little Thomas.” Thomas, his grandfather’s name. Laurent is sitting facing her, holding the newborn. The baby’s body is washed, clean and presentable. Laurent hands him slowly into his wife’s arms. She studies him, analyzes him, tries to spot the first physical resemblance to her rapist. She scrutinizes the length of his hands, his nose, the color of his eyes, his skin, the shape of his mouth. Everything’s too small. It’s too soon, but she’s already convinced that this isn’t her husband’s child. Jeanne is sitting next to Laurent and doesn’t share her daughter-in-law’s secret thoughts, judging little Thomas the “spitting image” of Laurent when he was born.
A nurse comes into the room and announces that it’s time for a feed. Marie didn’t want to breastfeed her son, a decision that unleashed major fights with her husband, who is completely against the idea of formula. In the end she accepted. The child’s tiny mouth comes up to Marie’s warm breast. Her hands tense, she’s frightened. It feels disturbing, perverse: this child, the fruit of her rape as she is convinced he is, sucking her nipple, licking it, pulling it out of shape and squeezing it between his bleeding gums before her husband’s and mother-in-law’s sentimental eyes. The humiliation is too much. She asks everyone to leave the room so she can be alone with her baby. They comply without asking any questions. Marie’s tears roll slowly over the baby’s head as he continues to suckle. She’s touched by the child’s innocence. She feels close to him, suddenly grateful to have carried him inside her through those difficult periods of her life, as if they shared the same ordeal, both victims of the same misfortune. Marie wants to love him. She strokes the blond peach fluff on his tiny head, lifts his little fingers that instinctively grip hers, know
ing they’re his mother’s. Marie won’t be able to bear watching Thomas grow up. The newborn of today overwhelms her with emotion, the man of tomorrow terrifies her. A man with a penis, a body, virility, hands stronger than hers, a smell, a voice, a man’s future, an animal. If Marie had had a little girl, things would surely have been different. She would have harbored less bitterness toward her. In fact she would have wanted to protect her from everything, to keep her close by her side to spare her from suffering the same torments. It would have become an inner battle. Marie’s eyes alight on a large poster stuck to the wall opposite her: “Start your life as a mom in perfect serenity!” Women are offered workshops in relaxation techniques, personal development, discussing their new role as parents and doing pelvic floor exercises to ensure a swift return to sexual activity after childbirth.
Someone knocks at the door. “I’m sorry but I think the baby might need changing. I can show you how to do it if you’d like.” Marie uncouples the child from her breast. He regurgitates some of her milk over her and a sour smell wafts up to her face. The nurse carefully takes the baby in her arms, wraps him in a thick blanket and lays him on the changing table next to the bed. Marie doesn’t want to see her child naked again. The first sight of his penis horrified her.
Laurent comes in along with his parents and Roxane and her husband. “Oh my God, he’s gorgeous! My nephew, little Thomas.” Her sister looks at the baby first; her second impulse is to look at Marie. Soon the room will host the whole family, and it will be a carnival for days with permanent comings and goings of friends, relations, and coworkers. Great exclamations about how beautiful the baby is and then incidental congratulations to the mother for doing well. It’s not fair being this utterly overlooked. No woman deserves to be treated so badly. A little circle gathers around the baby. Marie, lying in her bed, is excluded. She’s merely a spectator. Paul arrives, accompanied by Sophia. Now everyone’s here. The story keeps building relentlessly, bringing with it the tension needed to produce the most shocking outcome. The champagne cork pops. Laurent really did think of everything.
Thomas is celebrating his two-month birthday today. His father hangs a present on the buggy, a cuddly rabbit toy that plays a few musical notes while the baby watches transfixed. The wind blows and the sky darkens in the space of a few seconds, sending walkers racing along the boardwalk that runs the length of the huge Normandy beach, as they hurry to avoid the impending storm. Marie adjusts her baby’s top. Through the restaurant’s huge picture window she watches waves break out to sea. Laurent plays with his son. “I think the beach can happen tomorrow,” he croons. “His first little walk! My big boy who’s two months old already!” He kisses the baby’s cheek, lifts him slightly to hug him, thrusts his face right inside the stroller. Marie has stopped noticing his tenderness. She thinks all these demonstrations of affection are misplaced because everything was wrong from the start. A big fat lie grinds away amid all the banality of family life. Laurent’s aunt Nathalie, who lives in Deauville all year round, has gone to Martinique for three weeks with her husband and has invited them to come and spend a few days here to make the most of her spacious villa perched high up in the town. Marie would have preferred to stay in Paris, but Laurent, exhausted by his numerous work commitments and his recent appointment to join the company’s management team, persuaded her to get away and enjoy the fresh Normandy air.
They’re planning to go to Honfleur after their lunch, but right now Thomas needs changing. Marie slips away, so Laurent heads for the restrooms with the baby to change his diaper. The minutes tick by. “They don’t have a changing table here. Let’s do it in the car instead. Here, you take him and I’ll go settle up and join you outside.” Marie still holds the baby awkwardly, as if about to drop him. Thomas suddenly howls. His father turns around anxiously, watches his wife from a distance, then turns back to the waiter to pay.
Marie goes out to the car. Every time she has to change the baby’s diaper she feels frightened. She doesn’t want to see or touch his penis. She peels open the sides of the diaper and rolls it up to throw it swiftly into a plastic bag. She doesn’t clean her son’s little buttocks with wipes, preferring to look away. But the baby gazes straight at her. Marie lifts his chubby little legs by the feet and fastens the clean diaper. Laurent comes over and checks that everything’s okay. He doesn’t know why but he always likes to know what his wife is doing. He doesn’t suspect her of anything and thinks she’s a good mother, but from the start he’s felt the need to help and support her in everything she does with the baby.
Marie likes Honfleur, sitting eating waffles with chocolate by the quays that frame and protect the town’s small port. When the weather’s gray the warm glow of antique shops sheds a weak light over the streets heaving with people. Even in summer Honfleur wears the melancholy of the first days of winter. It is a place that tells the truth. Laurent starts to climb toward the top of town with the stroller while Marie lingers outside the shop fronts of art galleries. A classical-style clay figure of a naked woman slapped by a man catches her eye. She stops for a moment to look at it more closely. Laurent comes up behind her and rests his face in the crook of her neck.
“How poetic. Mind you, sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!” He’s joking, laughing. All at once the baby cries as if coming to his mother’s aid. They need to get back to the villa soon. Time is constantly counted, divided, subtracted, carved up, torn away from the mother, who must bow to her baby’s needs. The day is over.
* * *
—
A large sunbeam breaks through the bedroom curtains. Marie slept badly, the baby woke three times in the night and it was her turn to soothe him. Laurent is still fast asleep next to her. Last night they watched television and drank wine. With his son lying there in his stroller, her husband tried to stroke her between her thighs, to glide his hand over her breasts, but soon realized that nothing would happen. Marie now has absolutely no desire to sleep with her husband; since giving birth her sex drive has completely evaporated. Laurent briefly mentioned the problem to Paul, who advised him to wait awhile, to give his wife some time before resuming normal sexual activity. That’s what he’s forcing himself to do, but Marie sometimes hears her husband masturbating in bed next to her. She hears him moan, innocently pressing his stiffened penis against her butt, trying gently to spread her thighs, and she sometimes finds traces of semen when she throws back the sheets in the morning. When the tension gets unbearable she consents to perform fellatio or chooses to lie on her stomach so she doesn’t have to endure her husband looking at her when he penetrates her.
Laurent gets up and comes to join her in the kitchen. The child is still asleep. Marie is cooking eggs for breakfast. “It’s the most fabulous day today. We could go to the beach at the end of the afternoon?” Marie gives a curt nod. She doesn’t feel like it. She doesn’t feel like anything anymore. She sometimes wonders how long it will take her husband to realize there’s something wrong. Maybe he never will. He’s burying his head in the sand. He loves his wife with all his heart and doesn’t have any suspicions about her despair. She can hide her misery and anger but still struggles to act a part. In a few weeks she’ll go back to work at the bank, she can’t take being alone with her son all day any longer. In fact she mostly leaves him on his own in his cradle, isolated on the living room carpet or in his bedroom, and makes a point of only feeding and changing him. The bare minimum. At the end of the day his father gives him the ration of affection he needs and that’s all he gets.
Laurent dresses Thomas so that the sun can’t harm him, and smothers his face and arms with sun cream. Marie attaches the big parasol to the stroller. They’re ready to head to the beach. For the first time Laurent’s excessive enthusiasm sparks some excitement in Marie at the idea of a family outing. But an inner voice soon reminds her this is just a facade, just another advertising image in which she wants to believe. Marie has given up on bikinis, choosing instead
to buy a one-piece swimsuit. She gained twenty-five kilos during her pregnancy and has lost only eight of them. She despises her body. Everything is misshapen. Cellulite on her thighs and buttocks, flaccid skin, sagging breasts, big white stretch marks over her stomach and hips, her vagina still distorted from the birth, her skin dry and damaged by the protracted lack of sleep. She who was so slim, so proud of her smooth slender figure, simply casting off her sarong to skip into the water, now hides behind her towel to take off her slacks and T-shirt. While Laurent stands facing her, undressing insolently. His tanned, muscled body hasn’t suffered at all, it’s exactly the same as it was fifteen years ago, more beautiful even. “I’m going for a quick swim. I’ll be back.” A group of young women sitting nearby watches him stride off across the beach. Pitying looks are cast in Marie’s direction. What’s this fat cow doing with such an attractive man? Marie rummages for candy in the rucksack, stuffs handfuls of colored chocolate balls into her mouth to the sound of mocking laughter. Thomas starts whimpering. His mother hates hearing these first signs of a tantrum, when he ends up dribbling over his clothes and kicking out at the sides of the stroller. She’ll have to pick him up. The watching faces suddenly soften. She’s a new mother. That explains everything. Her body’s changed, which is only natural. The hyenas have vanished, replaced by a charming bouquet of kindly, cooing smiles. “Oh, he’s so adorable. How old is he?” Marie snaps her reply, hiding the baby’s face with her hand as if to get him away from them, to avoid him enjoying too many compliments.