13
Come and get me, I pleaded to R on the telephone, ringing him from the box outside the clinic. I want someone to come and get me.
Really? he said. Didn’t you drive yourself there? It’s not up to me to make you helpless.
His voice was very pleasant, reasonable.
But I need you, I said. Right now, I need you.
I’m really tied up, he said, and so I drove the car myself to his apartment through the packed-out city traffic. I leaned against the mirrored wall of the lift all the way up, eyes closed. Nobody else got in.
It took a while for him to open the door. He was in a pale linen shirt, no tie, and did not kiss me on the cheek or stroke my forehead or look me in the eye or ask if I felt any better, but he did hand me a glass of water with ice.
Rough session?
I drank the water in one go with my fist curled against my chest.
Do you ever want to be a father? I asked him, which was as close as I could get to broaching the dark feeling, how it pulsed in me, what it had made me do.
He leaned against the counter thoughtfully. Oh, is this what this is about, he said, and I was scared for a second, but then he said, You think I’m going to go after a white-ticket?
Well, maybe, I said. One day.
I don’t think we should have that conversation right now, he said. Come on.
He smiled, kissed me on the temple and then led me to his room, where he tucked me up in the grey sheets of his bed. Take a nap, everything feels better after a nap, he said, running his hand chastely over the covered lump of my torso. I fell into a hard, clean sleep, a sleep of emotional nothingness, and when I woke up he was gone. I stared at the ceiling for a while, trying to keep hold of the feeling of being emptied out. Afterwards I checked every room, then I let myself out and drove with the radio playing loudly so I didn’t have to be alone.
I parked in the city centre and walked around, hoping to see one of the large prams bearing through the crowd. My legs were staggering beneath me. I wanted to see the face of a child, wrinkled and natural as an apple, and the father nodding at the wave of people stepping aside. I wanted proof that it could be done. But no proof was forthcoming.
We all liked to see a baby sometimes. It was traditional to press small offerings upon the father. Coins, sweets, handkerchiefs. The father put them all into a net bag but we knew that they would be vetted later, weeding out anything that could cause damage to the baby. There were people who might wish to hurt a baby. We could only indirectly acknowledge this. Some women would stare and stare and try to touch the pram for luck. Others were more ambivalent, and some actively avoided being caught up in the knot of people watching, offering, trailing behind. Some did not want to see it.
The first time I saw a baby in the city it was just a curiosity, like something that had come from outer space. But as I got older, babies seemed to become malevolent with their power. They had the ability to undo me. If I saw a pram and gave whatever silver coin I had in my pocket to the father, and he nodded at me graciously, I would have to retreat to the nearest private space and hold myself until the urge to howl subsided.
I went into a shop full of baby things, empty except for the woman behind the counter, who stared at me but didn’t say anything. I ran my hands over absurdly small socks, stuffed toys. I picked up a hat with cat ears attached. The blood was hot and rushing in my head.
Excuse me, the woman said, coming towards me. I think you should leave.
But I’m buying something for a friend! I said to her, outraged. I can look, can’t I?
You don’t have friends like that, she said, so I threw the hat down and walked out of the shop and back into the crowd of people as fast as I could. Stupid bitch! I shouted behind me and everybody looked at me, then looked away.
You think that you are doing the natural thing, but you are wrong, Doctor A had warned me. You think that it’s for you but I promise you, it’s not.
The streets were clean and grey as I walked, and it was cold. The blossom was not yet out but I knew it wouldn’t be long, that there was clockwork ticking inside the sour green buds, because that was what time did. Meanwhile there were no babies in the city today and everybody was going somewhere, sleek and easy as water. I could picture R pushing one of the prams around my neighbourhood, around the streets of the city, while our neighbours tried to get a proper look at the baby. The thought of it made me sit down on a bench and put my head between my knees.
Are you all right? a voice asked.
I looked up at the man and wondered if he was a father. I couldn’t look at any man without wondering it. What made a father? What made a mother? What was the thing I was lacking? R was holding out for somebody who would not crawl around on the floor, for someone who would not heap dirt upon themselves. I was like a baby myself, all sensation, no discipline. A broken engine thrumming with need. I didn’t even love him, I didn’t love anything.
But also maybe I did love him and just didn’t want to admit it. How could I be a mother when even simple human emotions were beyond me, when they were just waves crashing on the shore of my body—this body which at once felt distant as the moon and uncomfortably close? I had not realized it would be like this. I had been stupid not to realize it.
Are you all right? he asked again.
Yes, I said, but I had forgotten the question. The man moved on without comment. I caught the shine of a wedding ring on his hand. My mouth filled with bile. I got up very carefully and walked to the car.
14
The pack came to my door three days after I had spoken to Doctor A.
An emissary rang my bell very early. I saw him through the window and almost bolted, but when I plucked up the courage to open the door he did not arrest me or say anything at all, just handed over the pack and nodded. In the light, the grass looked flat as paint. The deal had been broken. I understood for perhaps the first time that there was no going back, that there was no halting whatever I had put in motion.
I unpacked everything on the floor of the living room and observed it for a while without moving. One small tent, a magic-trick tent, the type you shake out rather than assemble with ropes and pegs. A rudimentary map, eight packets of noodles and four of dehydrated meat, iodine tablets, a small knife, and a pistol that looked very old, antique even. Implements of basic survival. I repacked it all and placed the rucksack in the spare bedroom, on top of the covers, where it lay bright and wrapped in red nylon. Four times on that first day, I checked on it to make sure it had not been a dream.
At least they gave me a tent this time, even if the other objects seemed mostly tokens.
I am going once more on a journey, I told myself. I am going on a great adventure.
15
Nobody has ever done this to me before! R exclaimed in the restaurant where I broke the news to him. It had been over a fortnight since we had seen each other. I chewed my steak neatly and didn’t respond right away. I was craving heavy foods, iron-rich, things that bled.