The Birthing House Page 28

  He was light, floating down the stairway to meet her. Would she be cold? Would she tell him what to do when he got there?

  He watched through the spindles under the banister, looking back and low now as he descended, until, tilting his head sideways, he could just make out the top of her head, her hair fanned out behind her.

  The final slide down to the floor was painful, but the pain kept him awake a while longer. When he reached the foyer he collapsed, and the pain sharpened as if the blade were still in him, twisting and carving out the important parts, burning him in a fever that left him wet and chilled until all he could think of was that witch in that movie, melting.

  Now he lay in the foyer, looking up at the stairway, counting spindles under the banister until he forgot how to count. Now he lay here thinking of his father. Now he lay here waiting to die.

  His dogs came around once, sniffing him, whining, and then ran off. Time passed. He hadn’t seen them for a long time. He hoped they would be able to escape. Find a new home.

  The bleeding worsened for a spell and then slowed to a trickle. He wanted to die next to her. But even this was not enough to carry him further. He was stuck on the floor, and his head fell sideways so that she would be the last thing he would see. He reached a hand out. He wanted to touch her before she became cold.

  ‘Jo . . . Baby.’ He could feel the words but not hear the sound of them.

  He stared at her. The fact of her death brought its full weight on him, and he would have endured this pain burning him inside every day for a hundred years if doing so would bring her back. He was shivering. He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them one more time.

  Jo’s hair moved over the floor.

  He blinked, forcing his eyes to stay open.

  Her body tensed almost imperceptibly. He watched, fascinated, certain that he had imagined it. A minute passed. Then her spine jerked, arching her off the floor, and her neck began to crack as her head swiveled. She rolled to one side and took hold of her leg, pulling it like a dead weight log across the floor.

  She sat up.

  Oh, thank God. Jo . . .

  She grunted, and got to her knees. She fixed upon him with her black eyes and smiled. Her teeth were red and broken and she was drooling blood on to her shirt. When she stood above him another of her bones popped. Her lip was split open along her ancient scar, and her mouth curled inward with her first inhalation, twitching like an epileptic’s. When she coughed her blood rained down on him. He was still trying to scream when she leaned over, scooped him up like a doll, and began to climb the stairs.

  39

  He was nothing.

  He was a blank slate of consciousness. The night was full upon him and he could no longer see or hear. A freezing cold enveloped him, seeped into every fiber, every pore, until his bones became ice. Something responding to his need was entering his body now, and she had a need of her own. His deadened perceptions were being fed, ignited by the smallest sparks of memory. He tried to name his thoughts with words but clasped only sliding images both fundamental and meaningless. At last he succumbed and let her thoughts flow into him. They wrapped around the tent poles of his imagination and stalled the heavy canvas of enshrouding death to stage a play, filling the tent with objects and performers to weave the history he had been hiding from since the night he burned the album.

  The first objects came in a blur, things between words and images.

  It’s as if someone has screamed this particular word in his mind, and in doing so left an exploding pain behind his eyes. His eyes open now, seeing a world unlike this one and yet eerily familiar, for it is at once artificial and historic, a private vision granted in sepia. While he is still not sure where or when he is - or even who he is - he understands, slowly but with gathering force, that she has made it this way for him. She is constructing a way for him to share her mind, transporting him back through time a century or more, using a muted palate and jumping, impossible Super 8 home movie-like segments to help him to bear witness.

  He is in one of the smaller bedrooms of the birthing house, standing before a mirror. He knows he is here, but he does not see himself in the mirror. The reflection staring back at him belongs to a girl. She is four or five years old, thin, with blonde hair the gold of honey, a yellow ribbon laced through the gold in a bow. She is wearing a black dress that falls to her ankles, and small pointed leather shoes. She watches him, confused. She is saddened by something just beyond the reach of their shared thoughts.

  Then he understands. His eyes are now her eyes. He is with her, a guest or a prisoner, he does not yet know.

  Behind him - behind her - there is a heavy knock on a wooden door.

  ‘Come now, Alma.’ The voice is deep.

  At this intrusion, the girl in the mirror startles and turns, her hard shoes clocking on the wood floors as she runs from the room. The floors of the house tilt beneath him and the front stairs become a blur as the vertigo returns. He loses sight.

  The Doctor. Again this word that is more than a word, a formidable presence that cloaks her every thought like a god. It is all he hears in the blackness, and perhaps it is the blackness. He feels as if he is holding his breath for a long time.

  When the sun sends streaks of peach and gold over his eyes, he opens them again and sees a large hand holding her hand, feels its heavy grip.

  The Doctor’s hand.

  The Doctor is pulling her along the worn path in the backyard. Conrad, what is left of Conrad and what has now become child Alma, is filled with her emotions - fear, hope, the oblique sadness. They are walking over the wet green grass of the magical place, the once forested land the Doctor calls in his tall strong voice Our Eden, where the slope of the land rides like the ocean swell down lower to the garden and, off to one side, the place he thinks of as his garage but which she knows only as the forbidden place.

  Speaking either to herself or to him, her voice comes to him again.

  That is where he takes the Others like Mother when they are near their time.

  His instinct is to speak, but no sooner does the thought emerge than her much stronger thoughts clamp down on him from inside.

  No. Do not speak. Mind what he say, and mind what he do.

  He falls deeper into her, becoming only a spectator.

  They have stopped near the iron-gated garden where the raspberry branches and grape vines curl and form a lush green wall, and the Doctor’s hand releases her hand as he removes his black hat and places it against his broad chest, nodding at her with his sad gray eyes. He is hard-faced, with rosy cheeks and a rough black beard. There are red lines in his eyes and tight creases around his brow and grim mouth, and she is reminded that he harbors an intensity that can change from love to wrath in a blink of those sad gray eyes. She is hoping to do it right, always hoping to do it right for him. The April rain has come and the air is cool, cooling and wetting her dress as she kneels at his side while he says the words he says here. She can hear his heavy breath hitching through the words. She feels ashamed that she is not crying too, but she cannot bring the tears to flow as he invites her to the prayer he gives over the small cross planted before them:

  Aye, Lord above us the fallen

  Accept our humble offerings and bless us

  In His wisdom and the sacrificial blood

  Of our fallen family

  We shall bear this burden of the innocents

  Lost

  And give thanks for the life He brings

  To our blessed house

  Our place of commune and husbandry

  To rehabilitate and shepherd the mothers

  Daughters of Eve, the All Mother, all

  Though we welcome them into our blessed shelter

  And warm them by our hearth in their time of need

  Forgive us, Dear Lord, our humanly trespass

  Know thy heart remains true though these hands

  Sworn to heal and serve

  Remain yet frail and prone to the si
n of temptation

  We are committed to His path

  Forever and ever

  Amen

  He realizes he can do more than see; he also feels what she feels. His chest aches for her, with her now, as her throat tightens and her little voice emits this one word, understanding at last who has been buried here. It is not another lil’un from one of the Other Mothers.

  - Mother

  Alma’s cry pierces the morning. She is trying to pull away from the Doctor, but he will not release her small hand.

  - Do not cry for Mother, Alma

  The Doctor’s voice cracks but does not break.

  - Be still

  Alma is sobbing and swatting at the Doctor as he shushes her repeatedly, and unspools his lesson.

  - This is our burden. This is our light and our darkness and our duty. To have a life we must give a life, for life is a circle that begins and ends along the same sphere. In between the journey from one side to the other, the circle provides, and for that we each of us owe a life. The wool that keeps you warm at night is of the sheep, the roof over our home of the forest, the blood in your veins of your mother. On top of the circle is our Lord, and He commands us to take when we are in need, to give when our time has come. Mother’s time has come, and she is home now, Alma.

  Alma does not understand the circle now, but the time is coming when she will understand all.

  The world cuts. He sees only blackness.

  Then, as if she has blinked, as if the camera shutter has been reopened, they are back in the house and the Doctor - Mother called him Dr Justin Gundry - is calling her name from the front parlor where he sits near the hearth. The angles of the room jog as Alma comes, allowing his embrace, for that is all that remains to warm her since the end of the cold cold winter when Mother went away. Alma knows Mother was the biggest and most beautiful woman in the house and the Doctor’s favorite. Alma knows this because she saw the love in his eyes and the gifts he brought Mother when he returned from his travels to and fro a place he calls Redruth, the place he learned his first calling as a mason, where he learned to build a house on a God-proper stone foundation with his healing hands. Alma calls him Docca Gunree, but only sometimes, for her words are few and seldom heard. Docca Gunree has built a fire and now he offers her the doll Mother made for her.

  Playing with the doll is a way to bring Mother back, for a little while.

  But already Docca Gunree is rising and Alma pretends not to notice as he puts away his glass and takes her hand and leads her down into the basement. Here among the stone foundations and the cool floor are the beds. Alma is crying, but one quick jerk of her hand is enough to silence her. She crawls as bidden into one of the cots he has arranged next to the empty basinets. Docca Gunree pats her head and pushes the doll into her arms before turning back to climb the stairs. Alma makes the connection once again with the doll, recalling how playing with the doll is like singing the song Mother sang for her, back when Mother rocked Alma in her arms and said what a big strong girl Alma was going to be some day. Back when Mother promised she would watch over Alma, always.

  Mother is here now in spirit, warming her from inside, even though Alma knows Mother has gone away. Mother reminds Alma that she is a very brave girl and that one day Alma shall have a room of her own. Alma dreams of Mother’s voice in all its clarity and sweetness, and when Mother sings it is better than any feeling Alma knows.

  Sleep the dream sleep o’ sweet child

  Mother is here

  when the sun she rises and when she sets

  Mother is your home, the only home Alma needs

  remember Mother lives forever, forever in Alma’s heart

  remember every day, o’ sweet child

  no tears for me does child Alma shed

  thread through a needle cannot mend a young girl’s heart

  Mother is here o’ sweet child Alma even when

  thread through a needle cannot mend a young girl’s heart

  When next she opens her eyes, the basement of the house is full of Other Mothers who are not Mother, coming and going before Alma can learn their names. The women of the house, sturdy pale women in black dresses and boots and caps or bonnets, are growing in number, too, but they are always busy tending the lil’uns in the basinets while Docca Gunree works long days and late into the night to perform the Lord’s work. At night, Alma can hear Docca Gunree’s voice through the floor and the hearth-stone walls warmed by the fire all the way down to her bed. Sometimes the women of the house talk of the day with him, and sometimes, Alma knows, he talks only to himself and the spirits he carries inside.

  - More of the menfolk lost in battle

  - Filling the house faster than we can take them

  - They call it the Great War

  - Some of them don’t wish to see them behbees, rather to leave ’em behind

  - This is a healing place, we shall continue the Lord’s work

  - ’Tisn’t time in the day for me to take care of any of them, let alone dote on her

  - But Justin, Dr Gundry, have you considered, sir

  - What will I do? What can I do? I promised her mother

  - She must learn to take care of herself if she wishes to remain in this house

  Comes the night Alma wakes to screams. A commotion tramples above her head, shaking the floors and echoing down through the rock foundation. It is the middle of the night and the basement is so dark as to be black, but Alma knows the way and she scampers from her bed, up the stairs, passing the lil’uns in their basinets who have begun to cry.

  Upstairs she becomes entangled in a procession of the women of the house led by Docca Gunree, who is pushing a new Other Mother Alma does not recognize in a wooden chair with wheels. The Other Mother in the chair is thin and her eyes are ringed with black. She is the one screaming and in her lap is a blanket soaked in blood. The procession flows through the front parlor, into the kitchen, and out the back door to the yard, down the worn path to the forbidden place. Alma follows unnoticed until they reach the door and then she is shut out.

  She takes up her position by the window, trying once again to peer inside to see how Docca Gunree makes behbees from the Other Mothers. The night grows long and Alma grows frightened by the screams that do not end. When woman of the house Martha Marsten finally rips the door open and crying flees back to the house, Alma chases after her.

  Inside, Martha collapses into a chair beside the fire and clutches Alma to her bosom and sobs into her hair.

  - He says it has turned, the healing power has turned, but it is him what’s turned, turned to the drink and playing God

  Alma tries to comfort Martha but she is scared, trembling.

  - His hands, I saw his hands, so much blood on his hands, heaven help us, Alma

  Later, when the women of the house return, the Other Mother does not come with them, nor her child, and Alma never sees her again. She understands the Other Mother and her lil’un have gone to be with Mother, that now they are also doing the Lord’s work.

  When Docca Gunree returns, the women of the house step away from him and disappear into the corners, leaving him to drink beside the fire. When his tired grey eyes fall on Alma it is as if he has never seen her before. He tilts his head and blinks. Slowly, a recognition fills his eyes and he sneers at her, showing Alma a naked hatred she has not seen on any face.

  - You carry the eyes of your mother

  Alma’s eyes brighten at the mention of Mother.

  - She understood sometimes a woman must give a life to have a life

  Alma is too frightened to speak or move.

  - Your mother gave a life to have a life, for you to have a brother

  This is the first Alma has heard of a brother.

  - But these are cold times and the Lord cannot always provide for so many mouths

  Alma thinks of the women feeding the lil’uns in their basinets.

  - He took your mother away from us, and he had to be sent away

 
Alma blinks at Docca Gunree.

  - It is inviting evil to keep the lil’uns who bring death upon their arrival

  Alma does not understand, but she is more frightened than ever by the strange light in Docca Gunree’s eyes. She turns and walks slowly down the stairs to the basement, crawling into her cool cot, pulling the single wool blanket over her shivering body.

  When she awakens later he is standing over her bed. He is a huge figure dressed in black, his suspenders dangling at his sides, his enormous head leaning over her, his body swaying. Alma can smell the medicine coming from his open mouth from more than four feet away. She closes her eyes and pretends to sleep as he looks her over.

  When he awakens next within her she is on the floor, deep in the basement, digging at the mortar around a rock the size of a small pig. She is using a steel trowel of some sort, patiently scraping at the chalky dust, humming as it falls away in a hissing cascade.

  She is standing before the mirror again, in the guest room upstairs. But now the little girl is as tall and lithe as a willow, and her once golden hair has taken on the wash of brown that goes unnoticed until it is much too late. Her black dress is different, a handover from one of the other women of the house.

  Mother has been gone four winters now, she says to no one.

  She turns from the mirror and begins to wander, following the women of the house here and there, but when she attempts to help string clothes from the line over the path outside of the kitchen, woman of the house Big Helen shoos Alma away.

  She wanders into the basement and looks over the lil’uns in basinets, counting how there are only three now out of twelve, and she knows that since the Great War has ended there are fewer and fewer Other Mothers and therefore less work to share. Alma knows that the women of the house wish her away now, and she must be careful not to upset the order lest he shoo her out of the house for good. She walks silently, in many ways already a ghost, into the deep corner of the basement and uses her thin but strong fingers to remove the piggy from the wall to open her lair.