If I Told You Once: A Novel (32 page)

Perhaps babies were desirable assets, and perhaps I was beginning to want one for myself; but this particular one I did
not
like, she was too much like Chloe, it turned my stomach to look at her.

My grandmother hushed her, rocked and rocked her, dimmed the lights and rocked the cradle like the rocking rise and fall of ocean waves.

The chores began: the cries in the middle of the night, the diapers, the formula to be heated and the bottles sterilized, the attentive baths, the burping, the descent into baby talk, the murmured discussions about reflexes, fontanels, sleeping positions.

My mother and grandmother shared the duties, did not ask for my help.

How is the navel healing? they asked each other. How does her breathing sound to you?

As she did on all significant occasions, my grandmother busied herself with her herbs, crushed and brewed them, made us all drink the bitter tea, even a sip for the baby, who squalled. She snipped bits of the downy baby hair for some private ceremony, and tied a red string around the little wrist.

It was impossible to ignore the baby. She dominated the apartment. I hated her cries, and her bleary, half-closed eyes; she seemed to be watching me slyly, as if she knew all about me.

At night as I lay in bed I thought of Jonathan, wondered where he was, when he would return. I remembered our games. One night I could not sleep for hours. I rose quietly and went to his room.

A night-light cast an orange glow. I sat softly on the bed. Then I lay, sniffed the pillow and the coverlet for traces of him. Of course I smelled only soap and cleanness. He had been gone for so long. The cradle rocked softly all by itself.

I knelt by the cradle and studied her. She lay on her back, head to one side, hands curled in little fists. She heaved a sigh, a sigh as deep and world-weary as an old woman’s. The brows puckered in a frown, then smoothed themselves. I touched one of her balled-up fists, and she immediately clutched my finger. So tightly, a monkey grip. My heart twisted. Yes, I knew it was only a reflex. I knew. And yet.

I looked at her, and with a start I saw Jonathan there. Unmistakably, I saw my beautiful brother in that round baby face. I saw, and I knew that she was his daughter. I knew. Without a doubt.

I lifted her and held her, I expected her to scream out since I had never held a baby in my life, but she didn’t, merely settled herself against my shoulder and lapsed back into sleep. How comforting and right her weight felt against my chest, her breath in my ear. She fit so perfectly in my arms, as if she were made for them. I supported her head with one hand, her padded bottom with the other; I stroked and joggled and rocked; I found myself humming under my breath a tune I’d never heard before.

The moon drifted free of the clouds just then and the room was flooded with silver light. I pressed my cheek against the downy head and then I knew, as abruptly as I had realized that this was Jonathan’s child, I now knew that she was also mine.

I knew. Any fool would be able to tell, from the way the baby settled into my arms, that I was this child’s mother. She belonged to me.

I would tell her so. As soon as she was old enough to understand. And she would have no reason to believe anything different.

*   *   *

Chloe died in the hospital, her burnt-out shell crumbling to dust.

Finally.

I felt my grandmother’s eyes on me when we heard the news. I struggled not to smile.

My grandmother mourned for the girl, but then she had never stopped her mourning; as long as I had known her she had worn black and thought more about the dead than the living.

Ilana

There was a new baby in the house.

Sometimes when her crying woke me in the night, I started up from sleep thinking: Eli? Wolf?

So many babies had passed through my arms that I could not always distinguish among them. I thought of other girl babies I had held, tiny girls just like this one with the heavy brows marring the soft baby features.

I remembered Sashie struggling discontentedly in my arms, Mara spitting up on my shoulder. I forgot, sometimes, which came first. It did not matter.

In spite of all that had come before, this new baby gave me hope. I wanted to mold the soft plates of her skull, rub her gums as the teeth burst forth, tell her all the things I had never been able to articulate before.

Mara

It became more and more clear to me as time went on.

This daughter was mine. Perhaps not in flesh but in spirit.

She was the child we might have had, Jonathan and I, if circumstances had been different.

I held her in my arms hour after hour. The small mouth sought out my breast, came away disappointed. That gave me a peculiar feeling.

Her face always puckered up when I held her.

Maybe I gripped her a bit too tightly. Perhaps.

But I had to.

Those other two were always trying to snatch her away.

My mother and grandmother were battling me for the baby. Couldn’t they see that she was mine?

It was a constant, subtle thing. A silent war the three of us waged. One would sterilize and prepare a bottle, and then another would pluck it from her hand and run to the nursery. We all hovered over the cradle as she slept, all wanting to be the first face she saw when she awoke. We elbowed each other aside at the changing table. Even my mother, usually so fastidious, dipped her hand in.

We all wanted her.

It was not fair. My grandmother had given birth to a daughter she hadn’t wanted, my mother borne a daughter she hadn’t wanted. Now it was my turn. Why did they want to take this one from me?

This was my last chance.

It was the last chance for all of us.

The last chance for what?

To make a connection, perhaps.

To fill these empty arms.

We named her Naomi. I chose it and the other two consented. We all thought of the old story: Ruth and Orpah and Naomi standing on the open road, Orpah the coward going home weak and sniveling, and then Ruth turning to Naomi and promising her devotion with words like a song:
Entreat me not to leave thee … for where thou goest I will go, and there will I be buried.

A promise to lay down one’s life for another, and to do it gladly.

That was exactly what we offered this child. That kind of devotion was what we felt for her, though we could not articulate it.

None of us I admit are particularly eloquent.

We all held her, we passed her from hand to hand, each of us crooning in her ear: Know that I will never leave you. Know that I am here forever. I will teach you everything.

We passed her along, from hand to hand. It made me think of disasters, of long lines of men passing buckets of water from hand to hand at a fire, or men heaving along sacks of sand during a flood.

Naomi soon became Nomie on our lazy tongues.

Nomie, we called her.

*   *   *

She brightened the apartment. We watched her grow. All three of us tried to mother her.

I thought, surely once she starts to walk and talk, she will point out her rightful mother, she will call my name, run to me, and those two will be forced to retreat.

But she did not. She was a grave, quiet child and she treated us all equally, held us all at a distance. As she grew older she withdrew even more. Her hair grew long, she would not let us cut it, she hid behind it like a veil.

I knew she favored me over the others but did not want to hurt the feelings of the other two. She was a considerate child.

She liked to play in the dark maze of furniture in the front room, just as her father and I had once played there.

That had to mean something.

Sometimes she vanished in the jumble for hours; I would plow through the cobwebs and stacked chairs looking for her but I could never find her until she wanted to be found. Sometimes she vanished for hours. I did not like that.

Her looks developed into a familiar pattern, the long black hair and dark eyes and lips a shade too wide for her face. Just like me. Just like all of us, in fact, though my mother’s hair was now touched with gray, and my grandmother’s was an unnatural metallic black.

My mother and grandmother noted that Nomie did not have her father’s blue eyes, blue like the remarkable eyes of my grandfather.

I was sick of hearing about those eyes.

I thought Nomie was beautiful. She could not be improved.

But then mothers always want to think their children are perfect.

There! You see what I said, without even thinking? This was further proof that Nomie was my child.

I thought that once she was old enough she would declare her loyalties. I would wait until she was ready. I dreamt sometimes of taking her away from the other two, leaving this apartment where I had spent my entire life, leaving this city. But I could not think how, or where to go.

And then of course I had to wait for Jonathan. I couldn’t leave. He would be coming back here sometime. I needed to be here when he did.

When he came I would bring Nomie to him and say: Isn’t she beautiful? Haven’t I done a fine job with her? Can’t you see how there is not a trace of Chloe in her? Haven’t I suffered long enough for you? And he would agree, and we would go away together, with Nomie, and build our castles in the dust.

So I would wait.

Until then there was so much to do. I had to choke out any hint of Chloe that bubbled to the surface of Nomie’s skin. I had to shield her from my grandmother’s grisly incoherent tales, my mother’s delusions of grandeur. I needed to keep her on the true path.

She grew so quickly.

It seemed to happen in an afternoon.

She staggered into the furniture maze as a babe in training pants, and then an hour later out came this long-legged scowling girl asking about the blood in her underwear.

I swear it seemed to happen that fast.

I needed to hold her tightly, tightly.

Ilana

They have followed me here, those three.

I left them behind long ago and they have found me again.

No one else seems to notice them, they have disguised themselves so cleverly. But I can see through their little ruse.

I tried to tell my daughter and my granddaughter: Look. Them. You see. There.

I used the simplest terms so they would be sure to understand. I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. They only patted my hands, nodded and smiled like idiots.

I am living in a madhouse.

At least the sky knows something is amiss. It is gray, overcast, sagging down low to be propped up by the tips of buildings like a water-soaked tent. The city is full of sour pockets of air that you walk into unsuspecting and suddenly find yourself choking and vaguely embarrassed as if you had somehow caused it.

There is dust everywhere in this room. I sweep it into little piles with the side of my hand, then leave them there for someone else to deal with. Such a tangle of hair there is in the dust: black and brown and gray. A stranger would wonder what kind of piebald molting creature lived here.

This girl sits near me sometimes, her face looks so familiar it might be my own. I looked like that once; I still do when I close my eyes. Mirrors are a cruel trick, they show you only one point in time when the truth lies elsewhere.

Talking to her is like talking to myself.

She crouches near me, this girl with my face which she twists into bitter shapes around the gum she chews. Never speaks. Sometimes she has the portable radio and sits with the earpieces burrowed deep in her ears and her eyes far away. Other times she looks at me in such a knowing way that it frightens me. She reminds me of babies born in the village where I grew up, babies whom people said were born old, babies who did not cry and watched us all with world-weary eyes and died within days.

This girl is like that. She looks as if she might understand if I tried to warn her, tried to explain, tried to tell her about the three of them.

*   *   *

Those three.

You see, I traveled so far to escape them. I traveled to this place, where their kind do not exist, where the world obeys different rules. Here where the future is uncertain and the past is far away and you can make both up as you go along if you want.

I thought I had left them far behind. I stopped hearing them in my head, I had not even dreamt about them for years.

But now suddenly after all this time they have found me. I have begun seeing them again.

They have changed, certainly. They are crafty. But I can see through their disguises, I recognize their voices. The trouble is that this city is so full of noise I cannot hear their words clearly.

I saw them first in the Laundromat. Three women, gossiping nonstop, sorting socks. They had smooth black skin and lush hair; one had three gold teeth, one had gold earrings, one had a gold loop in her nose. I watched them through the window, between the letters painted on the glass, and I heard their voices drifting through the open door on clouds of sweet detergent.

I could not understand most of what they said; their voices were soft and thick, velvety and low. But I heard a few words that made me start, words in a language I had not heard in years; and one of them turned and looked at me, a sly unblinking stare, so that I knew, beyond a doubt.

I saw them a second time; three women, waiting for the bus, shopping bags at their feet. The bags reeked of fish, wetness leaked from them and crept into the pavement making ancient designs. Their mouths, constantly talking. Their hands never still. The roar of the bus drowned out their words. But I knew it was them; they did not board the bus when it came, they were waiting there for something else. They held their bench and watched the oblivious people passing by.

I wanted to be sure. I edged close to the back of their bench, I bent low, I sniffed softly and caught their smell, that distinctive smell, the sweetness and rot. No one else in the world had that smell.

Their ears twitched; I knew they had sensed me. I turned, I wanted to run, to fly away as I had long ago, but now I could not, I was earthbound, I could only put one foot in front of the other, with nightmarish slowness, fearing their breath on my neck at every step. With the clarity of vision that comes with panic I watched a golden beetle scuttle past my feet on the pavement, traveling faster than I. I saw my shadow change with the incremental movement of the sun, cringing in anticipation of a blow.