Lives of the Saints (26 page)

‘A few minutes more,’ she said weakly as we came in, ‘and I would have had to do it myself. The water broke.’ The doctor felt the mattress between my mother’s legs. His hand came away wet.

‘How long ago?’

‘A few minutes.’

‘The baby’s early?’

‘About a month.’

‘Luisa, we’ll have to put her on the floor. Spread some blankets out. And you’—the doctor turned to me—‘stand over there in front of St. Christopher and keep out of the way. And
get out of those clothes.’

Luisa stripped the upper bunk and arranged the blankets and pillow in the narrow aisle between the beds and the sitting area. The lights had stopped flickering now and the rolling of the ship seemed to have eased, though rain and waves were still lashing at the portholes. Luisa had set the basin she’d brought with her on the coffee table; a quart-sized silver canister was shifting inside it with the ship’s roll, metal against metal.

With the doctor and Luisa each taking one of her arms, my mother rose slowly from her bed and settled herself onto the blankets Luisa had set out for her. She was still breathing steadily but her face was stippled with sweat.

‘Get her ready, Luisa,’ the doctor said. He took off his jacket, turning away from my mother to slide out his bottle and take a quick pull from it. He draped the jacket over a chair and rolled up his sleeves, then reached into his black bag and pulled out a thick bar of brownish soap wrapped in clear cellophane.

‘Do you want me to shave her?’ Luisa said. She had knelt between my mother’s legs and reached under her night-gown to pull off her underwear. The underwear was dripping wet.

‘There’s no time,’ the doctor said, stepping around my mother to the bathroom. ‘The baby could start coming any minute now.’

As if on cue, my mother’s breathing became suddenly quick and sharp. Her body tensed and she stopped breathing for a few long seconds, her fists clenching the blankets beneath her. Finally a long, open cry passed out of her, dying down in slow degrees, like a wave spending itself on a shore. Her breathing did not calm down now, though, and only a moment passed before she cried out again.

The doctor had come out of the bathroom.

‘Give me my bag.’

When Luisa had handed it to him he pulled out a small package and tore it open with his teeth. The package held a wad of cotton; the doctor poured some of the contents of the silver canister onto it and knelt at my mother’s head.

‘What are you doing,’ my mother said, between breaths. ‘You smell—like a liquor factory.’

‘It’s just the anaesthesia.’

‘No. No anaesthesia.’

‘
Signora
, be reasonable,’ the doctor said, his hand still hovering above my mother’s head. ‘Why would anyone want to put herself through this pain?’

‘I want—to see—everything.’ But another spasm gripped her, and the doctor brought the cotton down over her face. Her cry came out muffled. The doctor held the cotton to her for a long moment; finally my mother’s body seemed to relax a little, the muscles around her eyes easing as if she had fallen into a troubled sleep, her breathing growing more calm and rhythmic.

‘Luisa, come up here and give her a dose of this every few minutes.’

The doctor knelt between my mother’s legs and pushed her night-gown up to her belly, then slipped a hand under each knee and spread her legs apart until it seemed he would split her open. He pulled a slim package from his bag and slipped out two gloves of thin, translucent plastic; these he drew over his hands with two deft tugs, the gloves stretching over his thick fingers and palms like an extra layer of skin. He leaned forward and began probing with his fingers in the dark spot between my mother’s legs. I looked away.

‘The head is already starting to come through. Thank God it’s not a breach like that damned Calabrese.’ My mother was still moaning, not the open cries of before but the half-stifled groans of someone crying out from a dream. Several minutes
passed when everything was quiet except for these half-cries; even the ship’s creaking had died down, the rain and waves no longer pounding at the portholes. Everything seemed poised at a point of stillness, on the edge of some yawning chasm.

The hunch of the doctor’s broad shoulders blocked my view of my mother; but when he shifted position I saw that his gloved hands were clutching the top of a cheesy bluish-black sphere that was pushing itself out from between my mother’s legs like an egg.

Luisa, seeming now tired and dreamy, her long eyelashes drooping, was still kneeling at my mother’s head, bringing her wad of cotton down every few minutes.

‘Go easier on the ether,’ the doctor said. ‘It’s not coming out.’

But when several more minutes passed and nothing happened, the doctor seemed to grow impatient.

‘Get my forceps from my bag,’ he said.

Luisa rummaged with her free hand in the doctor’s bag.

‘They’re not here.’

‘They’re there, I put them there.’

Luisa set down her wad of cotton and searched more thoroughly.

‘I can’t find them. Do you want me to go up and get them?’

‘No, I want you here,’ the doctor said, irritated. ‘I’ll send the boy.
Come ti chiami, ragazz’
?’

‘Vittorio.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s right.
Beh
, Vittorio, I want you to go upstairs to the infirmary and into my examining room, the room at the back. Inside the third drawer of the first cabinet on the right you’ll find something that looks like two big spoons joined together so you can open and close them like a mouth. Like this.’ He pulled his hands from between my mother’s legs to flap them open and closed like jaws. ‘Understand?’

I nodded.

‘O.K., go. And be quick. And when you come back change out of those clothes.’

Maintenance people had begun to come out into the halls now to mop up floors and run wet rags along railings and walls, grey-overalled men who grinned at me through crooked teeth and thick-waisted women in hair nets and rubber gloves.

‘Oh,
giovanotto
, where are you going in such a hurry?’

But I kept running, breathless by the time I reached the infirmary. The walls in the examining room were lined with cabinets and cupboards; but the doctor’s instructions had gotten jumbled in my head. I began to search through each drawer and cupboard, desperately seeking the mouthlike spoons. I found scissors, packets of cotton, odd glasses, strange instruments of polished steel; and, at the bottom of one drawer, a small magazine whose cover pictured a dreamy-eyed woman wrapped in a shroud of translucent gauze. But no mouth-like spoons. Finally, using a small step-ladder I found wedged in a corner, I climbed up onto a counter to check the cupboards above it. Here were all manner of bottles and metal containers, arranged in wooden racks that held them in place; but no spoons. But with the third cupboard I opened a loose bottle came rolling off a shelf; it struck the edge of the counter and then shattered finally on the white-tiled floor, splattering a reddish-brown liquid that filled the room with a strong sickly-sweet smell.

In a panic, I scrambled to the floor and ran back down to room 213.

‘I can’t find it!’ I cried as I opened the door, bursting into tears. But another cry answered my own from the bathroom, small but strong. The doctor looked over at me from where he still knelt between my mother’s legs.

‘Some assistant you are, eh? You’re lucky your mother was only playing with us. She gave an extra push, and that was that.’

Luisa came out of the bathroom carrying a small bundle swaddled in a sheet.

‘Say hello to your sister.’ She leaned towards me, and I started back. Only the bundle’s face was showing, small and ugly, the skin sickly blue and wrinkled like a dried olive; but I was flooded with relief to see that all its features were human, the tiny nose and eyes and ears, that it was not the snake-headed child that Alfredo Girasole had warned me about.

When Luisa brought the face up closer to me so I could have a better look it screwed up into a grimace and let out a cry. Luisa laughed.

‘She doesn’t like you,’ she said. ‘Brothers and sisters never get along.’

‘Bring it upstairs and make up a bed for it,’ the doctor said. ‘And bring down some new sheets.’

My mother was lying peacefully now: she seemed asleep, her eyes closed, her head rolled to one side on her pillow. The doctor was still crouched between her legs, holding a dark tube that coiled down inside her, his gloves stained with brownish blood and with a white substance that looked like soft cheese. Beneath his hands sat the metal basin Luisa had brought.

‘
Che spettacolo
, eh?’ the doctor said. ‘Now we’re just waiting for the dessert.’

We waited for a few long moments without speaking or moving, my mother lying peacefully on the floor, her breathing now calm and steady, the doctor on his knees with his fist closed around the dark cord. Finally, as if he could bear waiting no longer, the doctor gave a small tug, as slight as a twitch; immediately a fleshy mass, dark and bloody, flowed out from between my mother’s legs into the waiting basin. I turned away,
my stomach churning.

‘It’s done,’ the doctor said. ‘She might bleed a little, but it’s nothing to worry about.’

Luisa came in now with the sheets.

‘
Madonna
, what a mess you made up there! He spilled iodine all over the floor—I’ll never get those stains out.’

Luisa made the beds, then helped the doctor lift my mother, who was still sleeping peacefully, into the lower one. It seemed a long time had passed; but outside the portholes the sky was still night-dark. The storm, though, seemed to have passed completely, a thousand stars glinting again overhead. It all seemed a dream now, the storm, the few terrible minutes I’d spent on the deck; but my skin still itched under my damp pyjamas, as if tiny worms were crawling beneath it.

‘For the last time, get out of those clothes,’ the doctor said. ‘Take a hot bath and then go to bed. I’ll come in the morning to check on your mother.’

He turned to pick up his coat from where he’d draped it, but stooped suddenly to pick something off the floor: my mother’s orange.

‘Breakfast,’ he said, peeling into it. A gush of juice squirted up at his shirt and he wiped at it with a curse. When he’d finished peeling he portioned the orange out among us; for a moment the three of us stood silently eating in the centre of the room, like farmers taking a rest in the fields.

‘A good night’s work,’ the doctor said, on his way out. As the door swung shut I saw his hand go to Luisa’s behind for a quick pinch.

In the bathtub, lulled by the water’s warmth, I twice nodded off; now that I could finally go to bed a great tiredness had overtaken me. Afterwards I pulled on a pair of long underwear
and a thick long-sleeved undershirt. But before I had climbed up to bed my mother called out to me softly.

‘Is it done?’ she whispered.

‘
Sí
.’

‘A boy or a girl?’

‘A girl.’

‘Lie down beside me.’

My mother’s belly felt soft and flabby now, and her hair was still dank with sweat; but I nestled close against her, drawing myself into her warmth. She kissed me on the forehead.

‘
Figlio mio
,’ she whispered.

Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, I was asleep. I slept for what seemed a long time in an utter darkness, without thoughts or dreams; then I dreamt that I was lying in a pool of warm water and I awoke with a start, afraid that I had fallen asleep again in the bath. But no, I was still in bed with my mother—I was conscious of her lying warm and still beside me in the darkness, her breathing so calm and faint now it was barely audible. I thought at first that I was back in my mother’s room in Valle del Sole, then remembered the ship, then thought that I was somehow on the ship and in Valle del Sole at the same time; but the effort of piecing out the truth seemed too great. I wanted only to go back to sleep; but though I felt a heavy tiredness closing over me again, I could not sink under it, felt suddenly as if the whole night a hand had been constantly nudging my shoulder. My body now was making a hundred claims on me—my limbs were stiff and sore, as if covered with bruises; my bladder ached; and all along my back and thighs I felt a warm stickiness, as if I had forgotten to change out of my sea-soaked pyjamas, or I had wet the bed. Still thinking I was back in Valle del Sole, I rose out of bed to go behind the stable
to pee. I had already turned on the bathroom light before my mind clicked with a little shock and I realized where I was, and that the warm stickiness I’d felt was blood—all along one side my clothes were soaked in it, some of it already beginning to dry and crust.

Mr. D’Amico was just stepping out his door when I came into the hall. His face paled when he saw me.

‘For God’s sake what’s happened?’ Then through the open door of the cabin he saw my mother still lying in bed, and he went in quickly and pulled back her covers.

‘
Gesu Crist’ e Maria.
’

He took my mother’s wrist in his hand briefly and then hurried back into the hall, closing the door behind him.

‘Are you all right?’

‘
Sí.
’

‘Go wait in my room. I’ll get the doctor.’

From Mr. D’Amico’s room I saw the doctor come, still in his pyjama top, Luisa behind him with his bag. A few minutes later Mr. D’Amico returned with Antonio.

‘Look after the boy,’ Antonio said. He went into my mother’s room and closed the door.

In silence Mr. D’Amico poured a bath for me. When I had gotten out of my clothes he bundled them into a tight ball and set them in a plastic bag he pulled from one of his suitcases. For several minutes he left me alone in the bathtub; I heard Antonio come into the room and talk briefly with him in a low voice. When Antonio had gone, Mr. D’Amico came into the bathroom and lowered himself with a grimace onto his knees in front of the bathtub, his eyes clouded behind his spectacles. He took the washcloth from me and began to scrub my back, dipping the cloth continually into the water to clean it, the water crimsoning gradually with blood. Finally he pulled up the tub’s plug and
the water swirled slowly down into the drain. He wrapped a towel around my shoulders, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with one hand as if he were tired. But I saw that he had started to cry.