Galatea(5)

“I hope my husband comes today,” I said. “I miss him terribly.”

“He said he would,” the doctor said.

“How wonderful,” I said. “What wonderful news.”

The jingling came late, but I wasn’t impatient. I arranged myself just so. The door opened, and my husband sent the nurses away. I heard the lock catch.

“Ah, my beauty is asleep.”

And I said, “No, I’m not.”

He said, “For your sake, I tell you to lie down, and I will return in a moment when you have collected yourself.”

I said, “I am pregnant.”

He stared. “It is not possible.” Because ever since Paphos, he leaves his seed on my belly.

With the gods, all things are possible, I said. Look at my stomach. I had puffed it a little, so that it looked like a mound. And anyway, he did not know what women looked like. To him, if there was anything, it was strange.

He was pale then; almost as pale as me. “The doctor did not say so.”

“I did not show the doctor, I wanted you to be the first to know. Darling, I’m so happy, we shall have another child, and then another after that. And then—”

But the door had already closed. Later the doctor came, with a different kind of tea. He said, You have to drink this. And I said, Please, will you send the nurse to sit with me while I do?

He said, All right, for he saw that I would cry otherwise. It was amazing how easy it was.

The nurse came, and I said, Will it hurt? I fear it will hurt. And she said, It will hurt a little, and then the blood will come.

I am afraid, I said, and I hid my face in the pillow.

A moment passed, and then I felt her hand on my back. You will be all right, she said. I have done it, and look, I live.

But the baby doesn’t live, I said.

No, she said.

I wept, racking, into the cushions.

You must drink the tea, she said. But her voice was not so sharp as usual.

If only I could go outside, I said. I want to give the baby to the goddess.

The doctor doesn’t allow it.

I waited, and waited, and wept, and at last she said, But the doctor is not here at night.

I WANTED TO roll on the grass like a dog, but I was supposed to be pregnant and suffering so I limped, as though every part of me might break. She brought me the tea, and I held it, sipping. She said, Tell me when the cramping comes.

I sifted the dirt through my fingers. It was dark, and there was only a little moon, which I took to mean that the goddess, if she existed, smiled on me. I said, I think I feel something. Good, she said. We were in the garden, at the back of the house, away from the sea.

I said, I feel something.

Good, she said.

Then I doubled over, screaming. I fell to the ground and screamed again. She hesitated, afraid to touch me.

It hurts, it hurts! Get the doctor! She was trembling, and I felt a little sorry, but not sorry enough.

The doctor, yes. I will go for him. Just give me a moment, his house isn’t far.

As soon as she was gone, I ran. I did not worry about her catching me. She was clever with her fingers, but she was not fast. I smiled and slipped along the road towards the town.

I DID NOT try the door of the house—I knew it would be locked. But there was a tree behind it, an olive, that Paphos used to beg me to climb with her. I kicked off my sandals and stepped up the warm gray branches. I reached, and pulled myself into her window.

I had thought about it all day, if I would wake her or if I wouldn’t. But seeing her asleep, I could not. She was a child, only ten, and it would frighten her. So I found the pot of sand she liked to keep because it smelled of the sea and spilled a little on the floor. Paphos, I spelled. I would have said more, but that was most of what I knew.

I slipped from her room and went to the front door, which was bolted. I did not have to hurry, because no one would look for me here; had I not run from him before? I eased up the bolt and left the door open a little.

My husband’s workroom was in the far wing, where the light was best. I stood outside the door and though I wasn’t tired anymore from running, my breath was quick. The house was very quiet around me. There were no servants to worry about—my husband did not like them to sleep in the house.

I pushed open the door and saw the girl, glowing in the room’s center. Stone, I told myself, because I was shaking a little. She is stone and she will not wake.

I stepped closer and saw her face. It was pale and pearly, her mouth a soft bow. Her eyes were closed, and she was curled on a stone couch. She looked younger than Paphos because she was so small. She was perfection, every inch of her, from the sweet curls of her ribbons to her sandals painted gold. She had no scabs, and no sand beneath her fingernails. She did not chase the goats, and she did not disobey. You could almost see the flush on her cheeks.

There were silks on her, draped like blankets, and I slipped them off. There was a bracelet of flowers on her wrist, and I pulled it away. I kissed her forehead and whispered, “Daughter, I’m sorry.”

I went to my husband’s room and stood in the doorway. He was flung across the bed and rumpled.

“Ah, my beauty is asleep,” I said.

My husband’s eyes opened and he saw me. I turned and ran. I heard a crash as he tripped over the stool I had left for him in the hall, but then he was up again, almost on the stairs. I fled through the front door and onto the road, and his footsteps slapped behind me. He did not shout, because he didn’t want to waste his breath; it was just the night’s silence and the two of us running through the streets. My lungs ached a little but it didn’t matter, because I wouldn’t need them soon.