Pamela Morsi (36 page)

"It's so easy for you," she told him. "You
just put the baby in my belly and then get out of the way. Oh, you
ask me if I'm fine and you tell me not to work too hard. But do you
massage my back and rub my feet at night? Do you take on any of the
work that is so hard for me? Do you just snuggle in bed and hold me
close and kiss me without trying to get that thing inside again?
No, you don't, Jean Baptiste, you never have and I guess I know
that you never will. You lie up in that loft, dreaming of being a
free man, dreaming of other women."

"I have never been unfaithful," he
declared.

"Oh no, you wouldn't do that," she growled
back. "You wouldn't openly bring shame upon me or lower yourself to
indecency. But what you do is just as evil. You are irresolute in
your heart."

"Felicite, I love you. I have always loved
you."

She shook her head, but her tone softened.
"You married me to be my lover. Having a lover is a great pleasure,
but it is not a necessity. A woman doesn't need a lover, but a
woman needs a husband. I need a husband. I need a husband this
night and if you can't be one ... If you can't ..." Another pain
commenced and it brought her to her knees.

"Oh God!"

Jean Baptiste ran to her rescue. He squatted
on the floor with her, holding her in his arms. She was screaming
as he rubbed the spasms in her belly and whispered words of
comfort.

"It will be fine," he heard himself
whispering to her. "We ... we can do this, we will do this and we
will have a beautiful, beautiful baby. We love babies, Felicite.
Remember how they are, T amie, they are so tiny and helpless and
just so sweet that you can't look away from them. All this pain is
going to bring us a sweet little baby."

As the pain passed, he helped her to her
feet, still whispering words of comfort and kissing her brow
tenderly.

"Can you stand right here?" he asked her,
propping her up in the doorframe. "Or would you rather sit?"

"I'll stand."

"Let me get the bed made up. Where is that
oilcloth table cover?"

"In the cedar chest," she answered.

Jean Baptiste hurried to it and opened the
lid. When he bent over to search it out, his stomach revolted once
more and he had to race to the window. He did a half-dozen
wrenching dry heaves before his insides settled once more. Little
stars spangled around the edges of his vision but he didn't believe
that he was going to faint again. He returned to the chest to find
the table cover.

"You're so pale, Jean Baptiste," Felicite
said. He noted that she was not looking quite herself either.

"Just something I ate," he told her, smiling
more bravely than he felt.

He immediately began to work, trying to do
those things that had to be done. He had not, in his lifetime, ever
made up the bed and had to learn the mystery of it as he went
along. Once he got the oilcloth securely tucked in, he turned with
some pride to his wife, only to realize that she was beginning
another contraction. He rushed to take her in his arms. He held and
stroked her and encouraged her. She gnashed her teeth together and
screamed.

"It's coming, Jean Baptiste," she told him,
even before the spasm was completely past. "It's coming now."

He helped her remove her skirts and get into
the bed. Her body looked huge, distended without its modest
covering. The reality of what her body was capable of somehow
became more real to him than ever before.

Quickly he harnessed the straps as she
directed, one to the head and one to the foot of the bed. She would
need them to pull against as she delivered.

"Get the hot water and rags," she told
him.

Jean Baptiste left her and hurried to the
fire. The water was just beginning to boil and using a mitt on the
handle, he carried it into the bedroom.

Felicite was moaning and writhing on the
bed.

"Have you got your knife?" she asked.

He pulled it out of his pocket.

"Drop it in the water, that's what Madame
Landry always does."

Jean Baptiste hesitated a moment—water would
rust a blade—then he dropped it with a splash into the pot. If his
wife wanted a wet knife, then a wet knife was what she would
get.

"Soak some of the rags in the water," she
told him.

"And wring them out good, they should be hot
rather than wet. And get that cotton cord out of the cupboard and
bring that dishpan I threw at you."

He nodded and did as she asked. The nausea
had eased somewhat. He laid the items he'd retrieved in easy reach
on the floor by the bed, then he bent to check the cotton rags in
the water.

They were hot, almost to scalding. He tossed
the wet rag from hand to hand for a moment until it had cooled
enough to hold.

Another pain gripped her.

Jean Baptiste used one of the warm rags to
wipe her brow.

"Not there!" she growled. "A cool cloth for
my forehead. The hot ones go down there."

He didn't ask her to elaborate but hurried to
dip a cool cloth for her. Once more he talked to her through the
pain, caressing her back and belly and urging her onward.

When the contraction subsided she turned
sideways in the bed, hanging her feet off the side, and spread her
legs so that he could stand between them.

"The hot rags go down there," she said. "On
my . . . on my yum-yum."

Jean Baptiste raised a surprised eyebrow.

"They loosen up the flesh," she explained.
"Help it give without tearing so badly."

He dipped his hand into the hot water and
brought one out. It was almost too hot to wring.

"I'm afraid I'll scald you," he said.

Felicite shook her head. "It's better to
scald than tear," she assured him.

He didn't scald her. He packed the hot rags
around the opening of her body. Jean Baptiste barely had time to
complete the task before the next pain was upon her.

This time she reached for the straps. He put
them into her hands and she pulled against them. She threw her head
back and the sound that came from her clenched teeth was almost a
howl.

Jean Baptiste felt frightened, helpless. What
if something was wrong? How would he know? What if this baby ripped
her apart? How could he stop it? He was her husband, the only
husband that she had. He had brought this pain, this danger to her,
and he had no idea how to take it away.

He dropped to his knees in front of her,
massaging her legs and thighs and talking, endlessly talking,
reminding her of their three beautiful babies. Reminding her of
their life together. Reminding her that no matter how he acted or
how foolishly he had treated her, he loved her. He completely,
totally, truly, and eternally loved her.

"It's time!" she hollered at him.

Jean Baptiste removed the hot rags that
covered her and the truth of her words was revealed. His brow
furrowed in momentary confusion as her intimate body appeared
changed. There were tufts of hair inside?

Realization dawned with wonder.

"I can see him, T amie," he told her. "I can
see his little head."

Felicite didn't answer. She was gripping the
harness straps with such force that the bed was shuddering with
her effort. She was growling and snarling like an animal as she
bore down heavily and pushed, pushed, pushed.

"Here he comes," Jean Baptiste told her.

The tiny head eased out of her and he held it
in his hands. Felicite was grunting and puffing. The baby turned
slightly to let its shoulder pass and then, with a startling
whoosh, it was in Jean Baptiste's hands.

Immediately, unbelievably, it set up an angry
wail.

"It's here, it's alive," Jean Baptiste said,
his voice filled with wonder and incredulity. "It's . . . it's . .
." He glanced down to the baby's genitals. "It's a girl!"

"A girl?" Felicite's first words were weak
and near breathless. "I thought it was a boy."

"It's a girl," he told her with
certainty.

"You must tie the cord and cut it," she
said.

He lay the slippery new little creature on
Felicite's abdomen and used the cotton string to tie two knots a
handspread apart. Then he fished the knife out of the hot water pot
and forever separated his wife from his new daughter.

Helga and Laron sat up all night. It was,
they knew, their last few hours alone together. Those couldn't be
wasted with sleep. They gave little thought to Armand and Aida
except to momentarily rue their own thoughtlessness.

"This is their wedding night," Helga said.
"We should have let them have the shelter and the fire."

Laron nodded. "Or you would have thought that
he and I were bright enough to know that we would need two fires
and two shelters!"

"Do you think that they are truly happy?" she
asked. "It was all so surprising and hurried."

Laron shrugged. "I don't know how it
happened, but he says that he loves her. I have never known him to
be a liar."

"She must love him, too," Helga said. "When
she looks at him her face nearly glows."

They shrugged at each other at the
unfathomable mismatch and then smiled. Laron wrapped his arm around
her shoulder, pulling her closer.

"I can say that I envy my friend Armand this
night," he told Helga.

She nodded. "Aida is most beautiful," she
agreed.

"No, I don't envy him the possession of her.
I envy that this is his first night with the woman he loves. For me
and the woman I love, it is the last night."

Helga nodded, understanding. They kissed,
almost dispassionately, storing a memory of taste and texture and
feeling.

"We should not make love," she told him with
firm conviction. "We have too many memories together already."

He agreed.

"It would be too bittersweet to claim you
this night," he said. "And I need your words and your voice to
soothe me as much as the feel of your body."

They lay together side by side, chastely, as
friends. Talking, sharing, regretting the past, fearing the
future. The hours passed.

As the night waned and the reality of their
time together drew short, things changed between them. Over and
over each cast anxious glances toward the eastern sky, fearful,
apprehensive. Their kisses became more sensuous, more daring, more
urgent. Suddenly and simultaneously they both became almost
desperate for the touch of the other.

Laron ripped her drawers getting them off and
she cursed their existence in expressive German. They made love
forcefully, passionately, rashly. Biting. Scratching. Pleading. It
was a frenzied coupling. Full of fire and lust and recklessness. As
if the physicality of their love could drive away the reality of
their lives.

Helga moaned his name as she shuddered with
release. Laron moaned in agony as he was barely able to remove
himself from her body in time.

They lay in each other's arms, quaking,
shaking, humbled by the power their bodies could create in tune.
But as the sweet ecstasy stole away from them, misery took its
place.

Helga cried then. She cried wrenching, bitter
tears. Laron held her close and whispered his love to her. He
cried, too, his strong, solid chest heaving in grief.

Afterward, in the quiet of the storm's wake,
they dried each other's eyes and kissed each other's cheeks. They
joined their bodies again. There was no wildness this time, no
primal insistence, only the sweet swell of love expressed, bodies
connected. They moved slowly and languidly together, tiptoeing to
the brink of passion and retreating again and again, until finally
exhaustion alone spurred them to fulfill the climax.

Spent and sleepy, they lay wrapped together
in a blanket sheltered by the windbreak of poles and brush. She
rested her head on his chest. And he toyed with the sweet-smelling
wildness of her loosened hair. As they faced the end of their time
together, they reminisced about the beginning.

"I couldn't believe it," Laron admitted. "I
was green and ignorant and just plain scared. I thought that it
couldn't be true. You weren't really going to touch me, of that I
was certain."

"You didn't make it easy for me," she told
him.

"How could I?" he asked. "When you knelt down
in front of me, I thought you were going to pray."

"I was praying. Praying I could go through
with it," she said.

Laron shook his head, fondly recalling the
night so long ago.

"When you took me in your hand I closed my
eyes and convinced myself that I was imagining the whole
thing."

"And I thought you closed your eyes because
you liked it so much!"

"I liked it too much. I told myself that I
was back in my own sleeping cot, dreaming of you and holding
myself."

She chuckled. "Perhaps had it been your own
hand, monsieur," she said with feigning complaint, "you would have
comported yourself more ably."

Laron growled and pulled her closer to him.
"You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

She shook her head.

"Oh Helga, my sweet Helga," he said. "After
three years I am still embarrassed and ashamed. Right in your face!
One touch of your lips and I go off right in your face."

She began to giggle, remembering.

"You're laughing at me!" he complained and
pointed an accusing finger. "You were laughing at me then."

She admitted as much.

"In truth, I think it was good that you were
obviously so unfamiliar with the carnal," she told him.

"Why is that? Because you enjoyed being my
teacher?"

Helga was thoughtful for a moment. "The years
of my marriage I . . . well, I didn't enjoy sex. Helmut was often
drunk and he was never . . . never tender. I had never initiated
the act, not ever."

Laron rubbed her arms to ward off the chill
he knew she always felt when she spoke of her husband.