The Maiden Voyage

You’ve gotta be careful. My mother says there are a lot of ways to make someone come out a Bad Egg. For example: giving birth on a bed. You have to be squatting, she says. And the head has to come out first. Josef Mengele was born feet first and instead of pushing him around the other way they just yanked him out by his feet, which made him have a deformed arm and then he became a Nazi. That’s what my mother says. Now that I am having a baby I am very grateful to have my mother around again. She has had six other babies not including me so she knows what to do. She helps all of the other women in the house with their deliveries. Sometimes I get to help too. I get to stand by the women while they are in labor. I wipe their foreheads with hot towels and hold their hands when the contractions come. Some of these women have quite a grip, my mother says. You’ve gotta be careful. They can almost break a finger. Today I learned to cut the umbilical cord. Today is when my baby brother was born. I used a pair of shiny silver scissors bigger than both of my hands.

There’s a lot of blood and mess when babies are born. More than you would expect and it smells too. It smells like copper and fish. When my baby brother was born there was more blood and mess than usual. My mother says it was a difficult pregnancy and a difficult birth, it took thirty-six hours to come out and even then she was worried the baby wasn’t going to make it. We have to clean up fast because the man is coming. He comes in the evening every other day and stays until sunrise. My mother says she wasn’t expecting the labor to take that long, not with the seventh baby, she specifically put aside eight hours and that was it. She went into labor right after the man left the last time. I help her pour bleach on the sheets and on the floor and on the mattress, which is stained with great blooming spots of red, like rose petals. The whole room smells like bleach. It makes my eyes sting and my nose burn. Quickly, my mother says, the man is coming.

We put new white sheets on the bed. We arrange the carpet to cover the stain. We spray smelly perfume in a big glass bottle that my mother usually puts behind her ears and on her wrists. My mother wraps the baby in a blanket. He is still and quiet. He is not crying like the other babies. My mother hands me the baby. Quickly, she says, you know what to do. I take the baby in my arms and go into the closet. I shut the door. It is dark in the closet and it smells like mildew. I can feel the rows of clothes at my back, old nightgowns with yellowing lace and itchy wool jackets and silky evening gowns. Some of the old clothes from the other women or from the men who had come only once and not returned. I am not allowed to turn on the light in the closet while the man is there. I sit cross-legged on the wooden floor and hold the baby in my lap. The baby still is not crying, but it is making little breathing noises so I know it’s alive. I hold its head to my nose and smell its new-baby smell. On the crown of the tiny head there is a tiny smattering of black hair, sparse and delicate like fur. More of a mouse than a baby, really. I hold the baby and try to breathe at the same time as it breathes but I can’t. It is breathing too fast, little panting gulps like it wants more air than it can get.

I hear the outside door slam. That means the man is here. I hear rustling that means my mother is arranging herself on the bed, in the middle of the new white sheets without any spots of blood. My mother is very good at acting excited when the man comes. I can hear her through the closet door. Her voice gets all high and breathy. She greets the man as if she has not seen him for twenty years even though she saw him two days ago. I hear the man come in. He is in a good mood. He is whistling a song from the radio. He does not say anything to my mother. I hear the bed creaking as he sits down on the edge of it and begins taking off his boots. When the man is not here I sleep in the bed with my mother but when he is here I have to sleep in the closet. I am only allowed to come out once the man falls asleep. He is a very deep sleeper. I do not know what I am going to do with this baby when it is time for me to go to sleep. I do not know what I am supposed to do if the baby starts crying while the man and my mother are together. The man is not supposed to know about the babies.

The man and my mother are murmuring in voices too low for me to make out the words. I hear the soft sigh of the bed frame as the man settles on top of the mattress. I have never seen the man but I imagine that he is at least twice as large as my mother. He has a low, rumbling thunder voice. When my mother makes him laugh his laugh rattles the floorboards. But today my mother does not make him laugh. What’s the matter, he says, you don’t seem well. My mother laughs, a nervous, flighty laugh. But I am well, she says. I’ve been looking forward to your visit since the moment you left. Then there is no more talking. My bottom is sore from sitting on the floor. I wish I had a window in this closet. I shift to one side so that my head is leaning against the wall and cradle the baby in one arm. With babies this small you have to hold up their neck all the time or else something bad can happen. My mother wants all the babies to live even if she can’t keep them. In the thin sliver of light from under the closet door I can just barely see the baby’s face. He looks like a tomato. His skin is all red and blotchy and his nose is so small it’s barely even there. His eyes are closed tightly and his eyelids are just little pockets of folded-up skin. His mouth is a little round pink ‘o.’ He has no teeth. I forgot that babies don’t have teeth at first. Outside I can hear my mother making soft noises, almost like she is crying but not.

When I hear the man’s snoring, I start counting to one thousand. Once I have counted to one thousand I can leave the closet and go to the bathroom. I have to go to the bathroom. I have been holding it for hours. The baby squirms in my arms. I have no milk for him. He wants his mother. In a few months my mother says my milk will come in too. My belly is still flat. My mother says that is a characteristic of women in our family, that our bellies never get very round. She says when she was pregnant with me I stood on my head for nine months. My toes tickled her lungs and poked her heart. She says that’s why I’m so flexible. Whenever she bent over, so did I.

I count up to one thousand and three to be safe. Then I open the closet door just a crack. The bedroom is dimly illuminated by the light from the streetlamps. The man is sleeping on his side facing away from the door. My mother is not in the room. I take the baby and go to the bathroom. The bathroom is down the hall. To get there I have to walk past all the other bedrooms. It is dark in the hallway. I’m not allowed to turn on the lights. I try to walk as quietly as possible. Most of the rooms are dark and silent but in a few of them the light is still on and people are making loud noises. I hear a woman screaming. She sounds like she is enjoying herself. I walk on. The bathroom is a tiny room with peeling yellow wallpaper and a flush toilet. You have to pay per minute to use the toilet unless you’re a guest. I am not a guest. I set the baby down on the floor and use the toilet. The baby still has not made a sound, but I know it isn’t dead because its little chest is rising and falling. Where is my mother? There is no soap left. I wash my hands with just water and then pick the baby back up, cradling its head in my hand. I have to find my mother or else the baby is going to die. I go back to the bedroom. The man has not moved. My mother is not there. Her outside shoes are not by the door. That means I have to go down the stairs if I want to find my mother.

The stairs are dark. I have to feel my way with my toes. I do not want to drop the baby. Downstairs in the parlor there is one lamp lit. My mother is sitting in an armchair by the window with her back to me. The curtains are drawn. She is wearing her white silk nightgown and her outside shoes. Her hair loose on her shoulders and down her back. She turns when she hears me. Her face in the lamplight is a quilt of shadows stretched over wire. Cheekbones high, eyes sunken. She should be sleeping. She gave birth today. My mother holds out her hands for the baby. I hand it to her and she puts it to her breast. I place a hand on my own belly, firm and smooth. A drum. It’s too early for me to feel the heartbeat.