Chapter 29
29
Hunger felt like a dull ache. Then sometimes, it came on as a cramp, and I would tighten my fists until it passed. At first, I did not realize that these were birth pains. Only gradually, when they increased, did I understand my time had come.
“You are in God’s hands,” Damienne said as I lay on our poor bed.
Cramping gutted me. Pain clawed until, with a gush, my waters broke, and I was wet and bloody, wounded from within. My body ripped; my muscles tore. I had heard of women suffering like this, but I had not seen any, so I could not tell if I was laboring right. My body shook; my teeth were chattering.
Pain seized and knotted up my back, crushing my spine, and then suddenly, the knot released. I felt this moment like a trough between the waves. In that instant, I was calm, but pain returned, tightening, and tightening. Then I understood what it meant to say that women had been cursed with childbirth.
I felt a chill and a strange thirst. “Please,” I begged Damienne.
“What is it?”
“Bring me a drink.”
Damienne brought me snow and touched it to my lips, but the crystals dissolved and could not quench me. She tried to lift my back to ease the pain, but like the doe flailing in drifts, I could not right myself and sank again. In troughs between, I wanted sleep, but the next wave came too soon, and I saw no end to struggling.
Convulsing, I pushed, trying to expel the child inside me—and yet it seemed to me the infant would not move, and I was trapped and bound.
“I see his head,” said Damienne, trying to encourage me. “I see his hair.”
“Is he fair?” I asked.
“His hair is brown,” she said. “Like yours.”
Then even in my pain, I longed to see the child—and yet I feared it was misshapen or already dead.
Damienne told me, “Push again.” Then she said, “Again. Again.”
I tried to push the child out—but I could not. I fell back until the next wave came.
“Once more,” said Damienne.
Now gently, she took hold of the infant’s crowning head, and with her hands delivered me. She caught my child in a slather and said it was a son.
With a piece of cloth, my nurse cleaned his ashen face and wiped his eyes, and my son opened his mouth and began to cry. Small as he was, he was perfectly formed, and his voice was strong. Indeed, he cried piteously to enter our dark world.
With her sewing scissors, Damienne cut his cord. With our knife, she cut a piece of the bear’s skin and wrapped the infant. I held him to my breast in wonder that he was alive.
My condition was less certain, for I was shuddering, and Damienne said I had not expelled the afterbirth. She rubbed my belly up and down until, at last, this bloody mass emerged. Then Damienne threw it outside and covered it with snow.
My nurse tried her best to clean me, and she did not forget to thank the Virgin for delivering me so quickly.
Quickly? I thought. But I said nothing. I had no words for what had passed and for the sudden absence of that crushing pain. The weight was gone, and I held an infant in its place.
His fingers were delicate as thread, his ears soft, his eyes dark and wondering as though he did not understand where he had arrived. “Well you might ask,” I told him.
“You have fever,” said Damienne when she heard me speaking to a newborn babe. “You are delirious.”
But I said, “I name you Auguste for your father, and I promise I will keep you warm.” I held my child to my breast, and when he wailed, I tried to nurse him, although no milk came.
“You must eat,” Damienne said, and she gathered all the oats we had left and boiled them in snow to make a gruel, which I devoured. Because I was so hungry and the infant’s need so great, Damienne took almost nothing for herself.
Alas, even after I ate this porridge, I had scant milk. For two days, my poor child suckled desperately, but I could not nourish him. My body was so tired and so thin.
“I cannot let him die,” I told Damienne.
“We must pray,” she said.
“No,” I told her. “I must hunt.” I gave my son to Damienne and wrapped myself in Auguste’s cloak and took the knife and gun.
“You cannot go out now,” said Damienne. “You have lost too much blood, and you are bleeding still.” But I went anyway.
The snow was softening, and it was slushy where I waded through. My gown was sodden, my body torn, but I pressed on, my hunger sharper because it was not only for myself.
I searched but found no deer. Nor were there birds. The rookery was barren. The sea was still covered with ice, but there were jagged places where water seeped through—and I thought that I might fish.
I hurried back to Damienne, who held the sleeping baby. I dared not touch him because my fingers were so cold, but I watched closely, and I saw that he was breathing. Then I gathered the rod, twine and hook and net. But what would I take for bait? I had no offal as Auguste had used, nor grubs, nor smaller fish, and so I dug in the snow and took my child’s afterbirth. I rushed to the shore and baited my hook with bloody fragments.
I climbed over the rocks. I stood out in the wind and found a fissure in the ice. There I cast my line and prayed. Not for myself, I murmured. I don’t deserve your favor—but save my child, who is innocent.
The water surged, lifting the cracked ice, and I kept hoping for those cod we had feasted on before. When none came, I did not retreat but cast again and found another rock to stand on and another until I had clambered far along the shore. I slipped once, and then I fell. I nearly tumbled into the water, but I clawed at the slick granite to struggle up again. Thinking only of my line and hook, I did not realize that I had slashed my sleeve and cut my arm.
I do not know how long I fished in the icy sea, but while it was still light, I would not stop. When my hook caught on rock or ice, I freed it. With numb fingers, I lifted my rod, checked my bait, and tried again.
My hook caught so often that I mistook my first hit for a snag, but I felt a tug, and my line tightened. With cramping fingers, I held on, even as a fish pulled hard against me. I glimpsed my silvery captive. I saw his flashing back but the next instant, my twine snapped. I lost fish and hook—one of only three we owned.
For a moment I stood, uncertain what to do. Numbly I stared into the water, but I scarcely registered the disappointment. I was so anxious to try again. Retreating to the cave, I saw my infant sucking Damienne’s finger, moistened with snow.
“Your arm!” said Damienne, seeing my torn, blood-soaked sleeve, but I did not wait for her to tend me. I cut another length of twine and tied on a second hook.
In fading light, I walked back to the shore, baited my new hook, and cast again and then again. I stood and tried until I could scarcely stand. Why did you spare us, I asked God, if we are to starve?
At that moment, a cod struck. I felt him tugging, and new strength surged through me. Firmly I pulled and prayed my twine would hold. The fish fought and jumped. He tried to rip himself away, but I was even more desperate. I took the cod thrashing in my net and killed him with a stone.
In triumph, I brought this fish home, and Damienne cleaned and roasted its white flesh. We ate some and saved some for the next day. And now I lay under the bearskin, and Damienne warmed my feet with heated stones. That night I slept well, but even then, I had scant milk.
Damienne said, “You will have none if you do not lie still.”
The next day, I rested, holding my child to my breast to keep him warm. We ate our fish, and Damienne knelt before our altar. She prayed for health and better weather. She bowed her head and asked that we might live. As always, the Virgin looked upon us tenderly, but the next morning, it began to hail.
After this squall, I set out again. The rocks were icy, but the wind was not as bitter as it had been. I fished every day while Damienne stayed home with the baby swaddled in bearskin. In this way, we kept him warm and never set him down. Either Damienne or I would hold him.
Alas, despite our care, my son grew quieter and sleepier. His dark eyes closed. His cries were less insistent—and then he scarcely cried at all. It was as if he understood I could not provide for him.
I spoke to him. “Spring is coming. The snow is softening, and the ice is breaking on the sea. In just a few weeks, I will take you out of this dark place, and you will feel the sun.” My child opened his eyes and looked at me intently. “Please,” I begged. “I promised.” Then I whispered, “What will I live for if you are gone?”
I held him close against my skin. I warmed and spoke to him. I said, “You have your father’s eyes. You watch and understand like him.”
But my child was too small and now too weak, One night his breathing stopped, and he grew cold. Then, even as I cradled him, my baby died like a fledgling fallen from his nest.
“Christ, have mercy. He was not meant to live,” said Damienne.
But I looked at my son and touched his threadlike fingers, and I knew it wasn’t true. He had been born to live and grow. Why, then, would God take him? My child with his wondering eyes.
“He was an angel,” Damienne murmured.
But I said, “No. He was flesh and blood, and because of that, he starved.”
And I took Auguste’s cittern and stamped on its long stem to break its neck. Then, with our axe’s edge, I pried the soundboard from the rounded back. Into this bowl, I laid my infant, curled into himself. The child rested in his father’s instrument.
I opened the second buried trunk and placed our son inside. I covered the lid with rocks and held vigil with my gun to watch for animals. I stood guard all day, and then I crept inside the cave and slept.
“You must eat,” Damienne said. But I had no reason. I did not go out to fish, nor did I gather wood. I sat near the entrance of the cave and watched snow dripping from the trees.
“You did all you could,” Damienne said. “And it is better so. How could a child live in such a place?”
“It is not better,” I told her.
“He is with the angels now,” she said, “and with his father.”
Such was her goodness, but I cried out, “Why was he born, if he is happier in heaven? Why was he? Can you tell me that?” And I would not change my clothes, or eat, or even drink. Nor would I allow Damienne to touch me—not even to comb my hair, as she had always done.