Chapter One
Day 274:
It's close now she thought to herself. "It's really close now" she repeated, whispering this time. She had been laying on her left side since she retired to bed that night and her left shoulder had begun to go numb. She rolled over laboriously on her back and then on to her right side. She felt heavier and clumsier with each passing day but she had gotten used to many facets of being pregnant. One being that she had to lie in very specific positions to feel comfortable enough to fall asleep. She had to gradually grow accustomed to laying on her sides.
She used her right arm, folded like a chicken wing, as a pillow pressed between her cheek and the mattress while she carressed her womb with her left. Carressing her womb had become a subconscious practice since her bump first became discernible. An aide-memoire of the new, budding life growing inside of her. She shifted her right shoulder upward for comfort as she mentally made note of the time.
She somehow always found herself awake an hour or two past midnight since the third month of her pregnancy. With nothing to do in the middle of the night, thoughts about the future filled her mind.
Would i be one of those women who dies while bringing a child into the world? What happens to the baby if i die? I know John will take care of the baby. Who's going to take care of John? He's barely doing okay as it is.
Weighty thoughts draped in even weightier questions congested her mind each night. She was accustomed to it now, just as she had grown accustomed to laying on her sides.
She clumsily slapped the air close to her ear with her open left palm where a mosquito had been buzzing around for a while. She missed the mosquito and thought to herself "always slap with your fingers together, John says the mosquitoes slip through your fingers if you swat with your fingers apart".
There were so many mosquitoes in the room. The wiry mesh on the window had worn and torn from age. It served more as a grand entry point for the mosquitoes now than any defensive wall.
We're going to need a mosquito net for the baby she thought to herself. I hope John hasn't forgotten. The baby would fall sick in this room if we don't get that net. John will get it before the baby arrives. She was distracted from her jouska by an ill tempered exchange that sounded just a few metres beyond the door.
"It was only once" a hoarse drunk voice slurred.
"It was three times you bastard!" a squawky female voice replied full of venom. "You only paid the first time, you went again two more times after that!" she yelled with no regard for the silence of the night.
"What? I don't remember all that" lied the drunk.
"You're a drunk, i bet you don't remember your own mother!" the woman retorted, her voice reverberating through the night air.
"I'm not drunk, i just.. Let me pay for twice not three, i need to buy a whiskey with the change"
"If you wanted to fuck three times, you should have had the money to pay three times, bastard!"
"Come, let's go back inside, let's talk and sit"
"I'm not sitting, i know you have the money, its salary day!"
"Come my darling come" The drunk begged.
The voices suddenly grew quiet and the silence of the night was all for pondering.
John says we're going to move to a bigger place soon, he's working on it. Can't raise a kid next to a whore house, its not good for children.
She felt her bladder contract and she knew she'd have to go to the toilet soon. As her womb got bigger, she needed the toilet more often. Her bladder couldn't hold it in for as long as it used to. She knew she'd have to get up, she had almost wet herself a few times before while overestimating the endurance of her bladder.
I hate that toilet she thought. The worms don't react to the salt anymore, they've grown used to it now. And the cement plastering keeps cracking and falling on the wet floor, giving wall geckos and cockroaches ideal nesting places.
The showerhead hadn't worked since she and John first rented the apartment. Water came from a short rusty pipe that jutted out the wall. It was mostly dry and and only pumped water for an hour each day at 6 in the morning. They had to store water in buckets and pitchers for cooking, bathing and washing.
I hate that toilet. John says we'll have a good one when we move, she thought. She was on her feet now, tiptoeing into the wet, humid toilet. She stood over the hole in the ground and placed a palm on the peeling wall, bending her knees a little in the process. The sound of the trickle in the hole came with relief for her.
I need to stop holding it so long, the doctor said it's bad, She remembered.
She stood up straight again after a few moments and washed herself. She was always in a hurry to get out of the bathroom. She walked out into the dark room. With her right arm over her womb, she began to feel her way through darkness with her left hand outstretched. Her palm touched the chair piled with clothes on the side of the bed as she walked past it. She took another step, taking her hand off the chair and placing it where she knew the wardrobe stood. Memory served as her eyes in the darkness. The mattress was one step away from where she stood now. She turned toward it bending at the waist a little, her hand stretched outward as she felt for the spring mattress. She placed a palm on it for balance before sitting down gently on it.
Every movement of hers was instinctively deliberate now, to keep her foetus safe. She could not jump into bed as she used to eight months ago. Now, she had to sit first, then recline on one arm, then lift her feet off the ground and then settle on her side. It's all for the baby, she reminded herself. As she lifted her feet off the ground, she felt John's movement beside her.
I must have woken him up.
"Couldn't sleep again?" John asked as she lay on her side.
"I'm gonna get you and the baby a mattress" said John "we'll have a net over it for you and the baby."
"I know" she said and fell quiet.
"Work is coming one of these days, I asked around and everybody said something will come up."
"When?"
"I just have to keep asking, something will come up" he paused "Remember Jim, the guy i said owes me, who owns the wheat farm on the way to the quarry."
"I know Jim"
"Well Jim said he's gonna pay me half this week"
"Really?" she asked smiling "did he not say the same thing last week? He better mean it this time"
"He said the farmers are selling their farms to the government and getting paid in batches, i heard he might get paid next batch, and then he'd have the money."
"I hope so, we really need that net"
"I'll get the net and a mattress for you and the baby." he stopped and thought for a moment staring upward at the ceiling. He turned to face her then continued, "i will get you that grilled fish you've been craving"
"Really?! Will the money be enough?" she asked, excited.
"That's what money is for, besides you've been craving it for weeks now. I know you're tired of boiled potatoes."
"I can almost taste the fish in my mouth, that's how much I've craved it. The garlic sauce. I forgot what fish tastes like now. I can only imagine it".
"Well I'll remind you what it tastes like" he leaned forward and pecked her rosy cheek. "I'll get you some fish, soon as Jim pays me".
"It's been forever since we ate fish"
"I know"
"I hope Jim pays"
"I hope i get work, I'm looking everywhere"
"Something will come up"
"I ask for any work, I tell em pay me anything, just give me work" the pain in his voice cut through.
"What do they say" she asked.
"The same thing they always say" A hint of anger showed itself "'Come back in the summer'" he sighed. "I have a baby coming but they don't care. It's always 'come back in the summer'. "
"Something will come up" she reassured him, reaching out to flick his ear with her fingers as she had always done since they married.
"I'm tired" John said sighing resignedly.
"Let's get some sleep" she said "It'll be sunlight soon"
Without responding, John turned over, laying fully on his back, he stared at the ceiling for a moment then turned to his left side and faced the opposite wall. With his back to her, he fell quiet and tried to fall sleep. She withdrew her hand and placed it over her womb.
I know he'll get work. Something will come up. He's frustrated now but something will come up and then we can get a net for the baby. We'll eventually move to a bigger place and we'll get milk for the baby too. I can survive with the potatoes and cabbage soup, it's all I've had for months but the baby needs good food. John will find something. I can't wait till he gets me that fish. The crunchiness! It's been ages since i had fish.
Inches from her, John drew a long deep breath. It sounded like a deep sigh, a sign that he had finally fallen asleep. He let out a shorter, quicker sigh a second later which fully pulled her out of her reverie. She heard the 4am train blaring its angry horn in the cold foggy distance as it lurched and steamed over the tracks which cut through the middle of the slum in which they lived. It had become an alarm clock forced on the entire run down neighborhood. Religiously, at the same time every dark morning, the old train bleated from its mechanical throat, waking the entire sleeping ghetto. Some people who lived in the slum swore that the train driver blared the horn intentionally just to rile them up.
Its 4am, she thought. I have to sleep before sunrise. I have to make John some potatoes and cabbage soup. He needs to have something to eat while hes out looking for work, he looks thin now because he refuses to eat. She rubbed her round belly and then let her palm rest just below her belly button. It'll be bright soon, I better sleep she thought.
