Three Women in a Mirror (16 page)

“And yet I have heard that—”

“Yes, Hanna, I know what you have heard. To be sure, my colleague and friend Dr. Nikisch practices Cesareans successfully, because our era has made great advances in asepsis and anesthesia. However—”

“A Cesarean, doctor! Call your colleague Nikisch. Let him put me to sleep, take out the child, and sew me back up.”

“There is a great risk of infection of the abdomen. And if peritonitis takes hold—”

“Oh dear Lord.”

“One woman out of five dies of it.”

“The child will remain stuck inside me, we will both die!”

He placed his palm on my forehead. Above his gentle, serene eyes he knitted his brows.

“Calm down, Hanna, and hear me out. I don't believe the child weighs all of twelve pounds. There must be another explanation for your weight . . . your waters are taking up more room than the child.”

“Why?”

“It's obvious! When I examine you, I can hardly reach the fetus.”

I gave a sigh of relief.

“I am in your hands, doctor.”

Teitelman palpated my back and my thin arms, then added, “Your labor will be just like that of centuries of women before you. If you have made it through your pregnancy without difficulty, why should the birth be any different?”

I had to admit he was right. Thus far, compared with others, I had not suffered greatly from morning sickness, and I had avoided both varicose veins and stomach upsets.

Franz was waiting downstairs in the carriage.

I relayed our conversation, hiding my moments of weakness, even exaggerating the doctor's praise. Yes, I needed to boast! It is pointless, when Franz idolizes me so much, and yet ever since I began hauling the Waldberg heir I had not passed up any opportunities for compliments.

As usual, Franz covered me in kisses, treating me like a precious treasure. Oh, Gretchen, the moment I see myself in his eyes, I become a magician, a creature endowed with a rare gift of making life spicier and more intense.

With tears in his eyes, Franz asked, “So when are you due?”

“In the days or even hours to come.”

“He could not be more precise?”

“Franz! You were making love to me every night, even several times a night!”

He burst out laughing, almost blushing. I went on, “I'm always surprised when a woman claims to know the exact day she fell pregnant: it's not clairvoyance, it's merely proof that her husband's visits have become so rare that she can put a date on them.”

Then we went to visit Aunt Vivi, who was waiting for us with a mountain of cakes. I confess I could resist neither the marbled
kouglof
nor the Mandarin tart.

“Be careful once you've given birth, my dear, you'll have to stop stuffing yourself. Otherwise you'll end up like my sister Clémence.”

I burst out laughing. Franz led out a comical cry of horror: “Have mercy! I didn't marry Aunt Clémence.”

To fill you in, aunt Clémence has . . . how shall I put it? . . . simplified her figure. Not only is she as wide as she is tall, but she has neither neck nor waist; she is a sack with a head on top. Fortunately this sack wears the latest fashions and, given her vast surface, there is no lack of ribbons.

Aunt Vivi pretended to be angry: “What? You don't think my sister is ravishing? A woman who has dined for decades on Sacher torte cannot be all bad.”

“Of course not, Aunt Vivi. Although there are few men who would be tempted to taste her.”

She smiled, as if Franz, instead of taking a jibe at her sister, had paid her a compliment.

Then she took something from the folds of her dress, and rolled her eyes like a fairground magician.

“My little Hanna, do you want to know the sex of your child? My pendulum predicts that sort of thing.”

She was dangling a silver chain from which a green stone was hanging. She pointed to the oddly shaped jewel.

I instinctively turned in on myself.

Franz interjected, “Hanna, please. Aunt Vivi's pendulum never gets it wrong.”

Vivi blushed—which was surprising for a woman with such self-control—and she confirmed, nodding her head from side to side, “Indeed, it never has. The oracles of my pendulum have always been exact.”

Franz insisted, “It will be easier to think of names.”

With this last argument, I accepted.

Aunt Vivi explained that she would hold her pendulum above my stomach with her right hand; if it went around in circles, it meant a girl; if it swung backwards and forwards, it meant a boy.

I lay down on the couch, plumped cushions under my lower back and elbows, and Aunt Vivi came over to me.

In the beginning the pendulum was stationary. We stared for a long time at the motionless device. Vivi, with a finger on her lips, ordered me to be patient.

Then the pendulum began to move. For a few seconds it hesitated, irregular and chaotic; it could not decide.

Vivi looked surprised. So did Franz. Ordinarily the pendulum did not take so long. So I allowed myself to break the silence to tell Vivi what the doctor had told me, about how big the placenta was.

“Perhaps that is why it is having trouble finding the sex?”

Vivi nodded, smiled, motioned to me to be quiet and held the pendulum straight above my navel.

Now the object began to show more energy: it came alive. Its movements increased but their direction was still not clear. A circle? Was it swinging? It did both, one after the other, incoherently. Suddenly, the pendulum began to leap in every direction, the stone pulling on its chain as if it were going to come off. And yet there was no clear indication: not only were circles followed by swings, but the stone went now up, now down, turning and jumping. It looked as if it were trying to get away from an invisible power that was either furious or frightened. We watched the stone as it fought with the chain.

“What is going on?” cried Aunt Vivi.

When she saw the fear on our faces, she interrupted the session.

“This pendulum has gone mad,” she declared. “I'm going to throw it out.”

Her face had gone pale; she held the pendulum in her closed fist.

“What does it mean?” asked Franz.

“It has finished its time with me. Here we go, into the trash.” Aunt Vivi went to the back of the room I could not help but notice that she did not do what she said she would: instead of getting rid of the item, she carefully put it away in the drawer of her secretary. Afterward she came back to us, looking mischievous.

“The other ones finished their career in the same fashion. There comes a day when the pendulum rebels and refuses to work anymore. Yes, there are revolutions even among pendulums.”

She gave a carefree shrug, but I could see it was forced; she was still unsettled.

When the servant came to pour some more tea, Aunt Vivi took the opportunity to change the subject, and she delivered a brilliant monologue of drawing room stories, each one more amusing than the next—immensely entertaining. She was a sharp observer, capable of capturing a person's essence in a word, and she displayed a real genius for the biting remark. Her mockery seemed like a mere scratch, when in fact it was an assassination. Was she cruel simply for the pleasure of entertaining? Or was she naturally cruel? She performed her number with such brio that she left no room for us to judge her. She sparkled, she vamped her audience, we begged for more; between two laughs, while I struggled to get my breath, I thought it was better to be her friend than her enemy, and I was glad that we got along.

Franz laughed wholeheartedly. For once he no longer had to act the elegant Count von Waldberg in the presence of his venerable aunt; Vienna may have envied his relations with people in high places, but now he was like a soldier carousing with his comrades. Aunt Vivi actually behaved more like a man than a woman: she told jokes, she swore, she made spicy allusions, and came out with ribald jeers and barbs that would have been more appropriate in the mouth of an officer. Thanks to this unusual particularity—her ability to create an immediate familiarity with anyone she chose to speak to—Vivi was much sought-after.

When she went to see us off in the hall, she gave me a kiss and said, “Oh, Hanna dear, would you do me a favor?”

“Of course, Auntie.”

“May I be present at the birth?”

My mouth went round with surprise. Vivi fluttered her eyelashes and grabbed my hands, squeezing them between hers.

“Since you no longer have a mother to support you at this auspicious time, would you accept your Aunt Vivi?”

Not waiting for my reply, she turned and thrust her chin aggressively toward Franz.

“Nephew, please reassure me. You are not one of those fathers who goes into the delivery room? You will, I hope, go no further than pacing back and forth in the corridor and smoking a box of cigars?”

“Attend the birth?” exclaimed Franz, surprised. “I hadn't thought about it.”

“So much the better. I find a husband's presence is a lack of respect for the wife. What woman would dream of showing herself in this state, with her legs spread, and her waters breaking, and screaming with pain. It kills all desire.”

“Oh yes,” I confirmed.

“We are not heifers. And we don't marry veterinarians. Our charm must be surrounded with a bit of mystery, dash it. Well, Hanna, will you allow me to hold your hand and encourage you, help you?”

“I would be delighted, Aunt Vivi.”

Her eyes narrowed. At the time, I thought this was a sign of gratitude; today, I suppose it was something she wanted very badly, after the disconcerting behavior of the pendulum.

 

Oh Gretchen, I suspect you cannot see an ounce of common sense in what I'm telling you. Why should I burden you with this futile episode of black magic? Alas, you will find out soon enough how premonitory it was. Horribly premonitory. It makes me shiver just to think about it.

I wonder how much Aunt Vivi understood at the time. Everything, or just a fraction of the truth? I imagine that if I asked her now, she would say, “Nothing,” the witch . . .

In short, I'm getting there, despite my revulsion.

On the days that followed, I focused my attention on my womb. Every morning I woke up hopeful, every evening I went to bed wishing that the night would not end, until . . .

Unfortunately, my womb was taking its own sweet time. I begged Dr. Teitelman to come to the house; after a short exam, he placated me only philosophically:

“My sweet Hanna, you must stop fretting. No woman has ever forgotten her child in her womb. Believe me, nature does not make mistakes, you may keep your faith in her. No doubt at this moment you are simply in the process of polishing off the details—adding a nuance to the color of the infant's hair, curling his nostrils, or sculpting his eyelids. The birth will occur only once you have finished.”

“Can you not induce it?”

“No.”

“Stimulate it?”

“Not that either.”

“Your colleague, Dr. Nikisch—”

“You must not bank on scientific miracles, and above all not on my colleague and friend Dr. Nikisch. If you insist, I will send him to you. He will say the same thing as me:
patience
.”

After he left, I spent two hours feeling slightly calmer. Then the silence of my womb annoyed me, and I began moaning again.

Franz no longer knew what to do or say to calm me down or even distract me. In any case, I had decided that no one understood me anymore, and I was convinced I was the only one who grasped the full measure of the catastrophe: the child I carried was held prisoner in my womb, and I would be incapable of giving birth.

Who would die first? The infant, or me?

Only Aunt Vivi suspected how panicked I was. She came by twice a day for news and I could see the anticipation and consternation in her expression.

Sunday evening I went to bed at nine o'clock, convinced the birth was imminent.

Alas! At two o'clock in the morning, while Franz was sleeping blissfully I was wide awake and still waiting.

On the verge of a nervous breakdown, I left the bed and started to wander through the house. The darkness and the absence of servants really did give it the appearance of a palace. The moon made the suite of drawing rooms seem even longer in its gray light.

I came out into the marble hall. There, on a console, I found my sulfide paperweights.

Found? No, rediscovered. Yes, I had neglected them in recent months, my flowered globes, my daisies made of ice, my prairies under crystal. They caught the moonlight as eagerly as if it were sunlight. Their colors took on a dark veneer. They vied with each other, not with the acid colors of daylight, but with muted nuances, from a grayish yellow to an almost black blue.

I was enchanted to see them again. With them came a certain lack of concern, that of the young woman who had collected them, a young woman who was free, relaxed, who didn't care whether she was pregnant or not. I was suddenly aware of how my childhood had been wrenched from me.

I took a millefiori, the loveliest one of all, the one that used to be my favorite, and I began to cry. With neither illusions nor restraint, I was filled with self-pity, pity for the person I no longer was, and for the unfortunate woman I had become. Why had I gotten married? Why did I want children? The silence of my womb was proof: I was unable to accomplish what my peers did. If only I could have distinguished myself with some other talent! It was obvious I was good for nothing. And my efforts to improve myself had only made things worse.

I found relief in crying.

After half an hour of sobbing, it seemed I could see more clearly, and a sudden intuition left me thunderstruck.

It became obvious. To give birth, all I had to do was break one of the paperweights. Yes! The idea struck me like a flash of light: if I broke my favorite crystal, everything would be as it should.

I took a few seconds to savor the deed I was about to accomplish. I even almost called Franz so he could witness the miracle.