Astor Place Vintage: A Novel (44 page)

I entered the apartment. Angelina lay on the bed, moaning in
pain. Her flushed face was wet with tears and perspiration; her black hair splayed over the pillow in a matted mess.

“Angelina . . .”

Her eyes pleaded. “It’s time.”

“Now?”

“It’s coming fast.”

What a day to oversleep. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I came inside. Still couldn’t sleep but didn’t want to go back up, then I couldn’t. Olive, it’s coming!”

“I’d better get help—”

“Don’t leave!” she whimpered in pain.

“I’ll call for the doctor and come right back.”

“No . . . please . . .” Drawing her knees up, she planted her feet on the mattress, let her nightgown fall open, and moaned. The bedsheet was soaked. “There’s no time!”

“Your water broke?”

“Yes! It’s happening right now!”

I forced myself to look between her legs. My eyes widened as the sliver of a dark, hairy head bulged out. “I see it!” I tried to mask my horror with enthusiasm. “It’s coming out!” But then it went back in, and she sobbed in distress.

“It keeps trying,” she said, “but it can’t. You have to help me!” She moaned miserably as that patch of hair poked out again and back in.

“Are you pushing?”

“I don’t know!”

She didn’t know if she was pushing? Should she? How could she not be, with its head poking out like that? God almighty, why hadn’t I read the pamphlet from her doctor more carefully? “I’m getting help.”

“Thirsty,” she said.

“Of course. Water.” I spotted a glass on the counter. A carving knife sat next to it. I cringed at the idea of having to use it. What if
she was dying . . . like my mother . . . and that was the only way to save the baby? No. Never.

I gave Angelina’s neck support so she could sip until she shoved the glass aside and groaned while writhing on the bed. “Help me! You’ve got to help me!”

“I’m going for help. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Don’t leave!”

“I’ll be right back!”

No time to dress properly. I flew down the stairs and out the door to the tobacco store. “I need to use your telephone!” The row of old men sitting on a bench by the door stared at me in my wrapper as I yelled into the receiver. I had to repeat the number three times before the operator understood me. Thankfully, Dr. Singer answered immediately.

“Please hurry! Her water already broke! I saw the head!”

“I’ll take a taxi right up.”

“What should I do?”

“Boil some water. Stay calm. Try to keep her comfortable.”

“But it’s trying to come out!”

“That is the baby’s objective, miss. Now don’t worry. I’ll be there straightaway.”

I rang off and screamed at the old geezers as I ran out. “Does anyone know how to birth a baby?”

They stared at me as if I’d gone daft. As I ran back upstairs, Angelina’s cries grew louder. Where were the women who lived in this building? Shouldn’t they be bursting through the doors to help their neighbor?

“He’s on his way!” I announced triumphantly as I ran into the room.

“It’s too late!”

For a moment my spirits lifted as I thought the baby had been born.

“Please help me!” she screamed. “I can’t bear it any longer!”

“Stay calm,” I said, as much to myself as to her, as I lit the stove. “This is what we’re going to do.” I didn’t know what to say. I was useless! He said to make her comfortable, but that would seem the most unlikely thing possible.

“Oh god, get it out of me, please!”

While I was filling the kettle with water, one idea occurred to me. “Stand up.”

She rocked her head back and forth and fell to whimpering.

“Did you hear me? I think you ought to stand up.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” I hoped Tessie had been square with me when she described how her mother gave birth.

“You aren’t supposed to stand,” Angelina said.

“The baby has to come down, not sideways. Like a waterfall. Let gravity help it.”

She drew her knees up again and began to moan with pain from the contraction. I saw the hairy top of that head poke out and then disappear back inside, like before. When the contraction eased off, she whimpered, “I’m gonna die.”

“No, you’re not.” I saw blood seeping out between her thighs.

“God have mercy . . .”

“Stand up!”

“I can’t!
Non ce la posso fare.
”

“I’ll help you!”

“How?”

I knelt, facing away from her, next to the bed. “Here, lean on my back.”

Using me as a crutch, she hoisted herself to a seated position on the edge of the bed. Then I slowly rose, letting her lean on me all the way up. As soon as we were both standing, she came around in front of me, hugging me with her arms around my waist and resting her head on my chest. The bed was against the back of my knees. At least it would break my fall if I buckled under her
weight. She pressed up against me, wet with sweat and blood. “There. Good. Is that better?” I asked.

She groaned in response. Now what? Where was that damn doctor? Continuing to moan, she rocked from side to side, and I rocked with her in a strange kind of dance. She was heavy, like deadweight. Supporting her took all my strength.

Her moaning stopped. Something shifted. She lifted her head, her face tensed up, and her fingers dug into my back so hard that I felt the edges of her nails straight through my wrapper. “It’s starting again,” she said, on the edge of hysteria. “I have to push.”

“All right,” I said, recalling something else Tessie had told me. “When you push, pretend you’re using the toilet.” Angelina didn’t reply. “Pretend you’re . . . you know . . .”

“What?”

“As if you’re . . .” I heard Tessie’s vulgar word “crap” in my mind but couldn’t force myself to utter it. I settled on the phrase I’d heard that man use at Mrs. Craven’s. “You know . . . as if you’re having a number two.” Whether Angelina had heard it before, the meaning was obvious enough.

“You’ve gone mad.”

“I have it on the best authority.”

The water began to boil. How would I turn it off? Another idea occurred to me. “And you ought to squat. That’s supposed to help.” Didn’t Tessie say that? In any case, I couldn’t hold her up much longer. “I’m going to help you down.”

I lowered myself, and she came along for the ride, leaning on me until I was sitting on the edge of the bed and her head was cradled on my lap. Knees on the floor, thighs open wide, she groaned with what I hoped was some relief mixed in with the pain. “Ohhhhhhhh . . .”

Nice as it was to be sitting, I knew I was on the wrong end of where I needed to be to help. So I lifted her head from my lap and slid out from under her. By now the water was boiling furiously, so
I ran to turn off the flame. “When the next contraction comes, you ought to push . . . you know . . . like I said.”

She rested her forehead on the mattress and splayed her arms on the bed for support. Her groaning turned into grunts. Actual grunting, like a pig or a hog or a sow.

“Good! That’s good!” This seemed more promising. “Give the baby room . . . let gravity help her down!”

I hiked up her nightgown to get it out of the way. No time for prudery now—least of all my own. At any rate, she didn’t appear to notice. The grunting got louder. Her face was convulsed and twisted in pure effort and agony, so red that she practically turned purple. I realized I had to stop gawking in case the baby should come out, so I knelt on the floor behind her. What happened next filled me with fascination and horror. The entire head of the baby popped out and hung down between her legs.

“It’s out!” I yelled. “The head is out! Completely out!”

She sobbed with misery from the effort.

I cupped my hands underneath the dangling head. “The baby is coming!”

But it quickly became clear that the baby wasn’t coming. It was stuck there with the head outside and the body inside. Angelina screamed as the pain got even worse.

My god. What now? Shoulders were wider than heads. How would she ever get it out? Should I pull on it? Reach inside? Try to turn it? I was afraid to, and my hands weren’t sterilized, and what if I was only helping her to die? “Keep pushing, you’re nearly done!” I said, praying I was right. “Keep pushing as hard as you can!”

She grunted and pushed. I couldn’t believe she still had the strength. Blood seeped out around the head. Her skin must have been tearing, but the baby remained lodged in place.

She began to sob. The contraction must’ve eased off. She rested her cheek on the mattress. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do it.
Non ce la posso fare.
”

“You mustn’t say that. You can’t give up.”

“I’m done for. Too weak. You must save the baby. Forget about me.”

“Don’t talk like this.”

“Before the baby dies, too! Whatever you have to do, just let it be born.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Angelina.” I began to cry. “Please . . .”

She opened her eyes wide but appeared not to see. “Promise you’ll take care of my baby.”

“I’ll take care of both of you.”

“Don’t tell my family. I beg of you. They’ll never accept it.”

“Stop talking like this!”

“It’s starting again.” Her head lifted as the contraction wracked her body. “It hurts!” Her voice rose in a frenzied panic. “It hurts! I don’t know what to do! What should I do!” She let out a full-throttled wail of pain.

“Push!” I yelled, hysterical myself. “Push as hard as you can! As if a ten-ton piece of crap is in there and you’re gonna get that damn thing out no matter what!” The words tumbled out as if another being spoke through me.

From somewhere deep inside—or perhaps from the shock of hearing me be so vulgar—Angelina managed to quiet down and take a few breaths. Then she heaved in a mouthful of air as if about to swim to the bottom of the ocean, squeezed her entire face, gritted her teeth, and bore down so hard that I thought the veins in her neck would explode. That was when her body turned into something else: an extraordinary piece of equipment; a machine with the express purpose of using every ounce of strength to get that baby out. Angelina lifted her head, braced her forearms on the bed, and made a low guttural sound. I watched in silent wonder as one shoulder popped out and then the other. Realizing I
needed to catch the little creature emerging from her body before it landed on the floor, I reached out just as it slithered out in a glistening, bloody mess and plopped into my waiting hands.

“It’s out!” I yelled. “The baby! It’s in my hands!”

Angelina let herself collapse over the side of the bed to catch her breath. I sat on the floor and held the slimy, shriveled, tiny human being attached to that pulsating red cord. Blood seeped through my fingers and onto the floor.

“Is it a girl?” Angelina asked.

“I’d say so.”

“Thank god.”

AFTER TURNING OFF
the kettle, I stood there, flabbergasted. What an insane dream. It seemed to go on forever. Had I gone up to the roof and seen Olive? No, of course not, but it sure felt that way—as if I’d actually spoken with her and sent her down to this room to help Angelina.

It certainly could’ve been Angelina’s apartment, and Jane Kelly might very well have been born in this room. Joe would’ve lived next door. Olive’s cot would’ve been next to the window. Did she stare across the street at those very tenements? If I scraped off decades of paint on the wall, would I find Angelina’s wallpaper?

Had I been the kind of person who believed in dead spirits, I would’ve thought some were floating around my apartment. Since I wasn’t, I grabbed my cell phone and called Dr. Markoff. Much more likely, his little hypnosis trick had screwed with my brain.

His voice mail answered, so I left a message asking him to call
back. Since it was Saturday, I wondered if he’d bother to return my call until Monday. I wanted answers now.

There was nothing to do but finish the journal. Right when I found my place, the phone rang, scaring the hell out of me, but it was just Dr. Markoff.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound calm and sane, “thanks for calling back. Something really strange is happening. I keep having these vivid dreams, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, where the people seem to be real and I feel like I’m getting out of bed and talking to them, but then I wake up and realize I was dreaming. It’s intense, almost like I’m hallucinating, and I’m wondering if the hypnosis has done something weird to my brain.”

“How did you sleep last night?”

“Lousy—and the night before that was lousy too. After listening to your tape, I saw four Fred Astaire movies in a row. I can’t remember the last good night’s sleep I’ve had.”

“That explains it. You’ve been short on sleep a long time. Your mind is playing tricks on you, but not from the hypnotic trance. You’re probably suffering from sleep deprivation or REM behavior disorder.”

“What?”

“A type of parasomnia. The lack of sleep can lead to nightmares, lucid dreams; it’s as if your sleeping and waking worlds have collided. How do you feel right now?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“See if you can stay up until the evening, and then I’d like you to take some medication to help you sleep tonight. Do you have the number of a pharmacy?”