“What have you done? What have you done to her?”
He didn’t deign to answer me; instead he asked in a shaken voice what was wrong with her.
“It’s her time, you fool!” I was beyond caring what I said. I didn’t know anything about childbirth, but it looked wrong to me, and I didn’t know what to do. “What do you think is wrong?”
Lina heard me and twisted on the bed, calling my name, so that I ran to her and took her hand. She grasped it blindly; her eyelids were shut tight, although tears escaped from beneath them and coursed down her face. “Anna, it hurts! It hurts so! Ah, I’ve never felt anything like that. . . .” Her heart was pounding so fast I could see its pulse in her breast, and her hand was cold as ice and slick with sweat. I murmured some words of comfort and wiped her forehead, and she grimaced and then sighed.
“It’s gone now,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked up at me, and I cried out and almost snatched back my hand in my shock: for the eyes that blazed out of her white face were the violet eyes of a witch. In that moment I thought that she wasn’t Lina at all but some hellish apparition sent to torment me. Then I recollected myself and tried to think what to do.
“You’re bleeding, Lina,” I said as firmly as I was able. “I am going to get the doctor.”
She gripped my hand even tighter. “Don’t leave me!” she said. “Don’t go away!”
I stroked her hair and told her to be calm, but she wouldn’t let go of my hand until I promised that I would stay with her. I gave my promise and then persuaded her that I had to organize some help.
Damek was standing still as stone by the door, watching us. I went up and talked to him in an undertone, because I did not wish Lina to overhear.
“God rot that man in hell,” he said. “He’s killing her with his brat.”
“No, it’s you killing her,” I said. “I told you she was near her time! I told you to take care! What have you done? Her eyes . . .”
“She is Lina again, Anna.” He grasped my shoulders and stared intently into my face. “She is herself at last. Do you not see? I could burst with the joy of it! But now . . .”
“But now she will die, if you do not help. Get out of here — this is no place for you. If you value Lina’s life, you will ride for the doctor this instant.”
He stared at me a moment longer, then thrust me aside and rushed to Lina’s bedside and snatched her violently in his arms, kissing her wildly all over her face. She wound her arms around his neck, and I saw that she was sobbing.
“It has stopped hurting, my dear,” she said. “My dear, dear Damek.”
Damek did not answer; he gathered her greedily in his arms, and I saw that his shoulders were shaking. Then he mastered himself and raised himself up so he could see her face.
“By God, Lina, how could you do this to us?” he said in a low voice. “How could you? What if you die? What would I do without you?”
Lina laughed shakily, but it was a poor imitation of her usual mockery. “Dying? Who’s talking about dying? I told you I would live forever. . . . I’m only having a baby. Life, not death . . .”
“But you’re so pale,” he whispered. “And why all this blood, Lina?”
“There’s always blood,” she said.
“So much?” he said, lifting her sodden gown. “Surely not so much?” He kissed the cloth and then kissed her face, so that her mouth and cheeks were smudged with the bloody prints of his lips.
I stood irresolute — I felt I should stop them but didn’t know how. Then there was a timid knock on the door. It was Irli, who was come to see what the fuss was about. She craned her neck to see into the room, but I would not let her look and shut the door behind me; then I hurriedly gave her instructions, telling her to send for the doctor and the midwife, as quickly as she was able, if she valued the life of her mistress.
I paused on the landing a short time, to catch my breath, and then returned to the chamber. Lina and Damek were no longer embracing; Lina lay on her side, her hair scattered over her pillow. Her belly seemed enormous, almost as if it were not part of her body. Damek was seated next to her on the bed, stroking her face. Even as I neared them, Lina’s belly rippled, like the earth during a quake, and she groaned, and her back arched violently, so that Damek was pushed off the bed. I saw that she was still clutching his hand, but by then she was in such a state she knew not what she was doing.
I wrenched their hands apart, and she clutched at mine instead, as if she were drowning. Damek stood like a man stunned, until I screamed at him that he had done harm enough, and that he should go. I was then too busy dealing with Lina to see what he did: but when I next was able to look, he was gone.
That was the first childbed I attended. If it had been my last, I would say that childbirth was the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman and bless my childless state. Since then I have seen many women in travail and learned that, while birth is a great labor for every woman and never without pain, for most it is not the ordeal that it was for Lina. I have sometimes marveled at the strength of women, whom men so lightly claim are the weaker sex: they only can claim so who have never seen how stoically women endure the toil and anguish of their bodies, and with what gladness, when at last they hold in their arms the child they have given to the world.
Lina was not one of those women. It seemed that her body was at war with itself: she thrashed about in her pain and panic, crying out that she had never suffered such agony, that she was being ripped by a monster, that claws and teeth were rending her in two. I thought she must be right, for I could not stop the blood: I had soaked a blanket before the doctor arrived, and he arrived quickly, for by luck he was in the village. He assessed her condition swiftly and immediately administered a tincture, which took the edge off her suffering and stemmed the bleeding. I lost all sense of time, and in truth do not remember the following hours very well; I just did what I was told, and prayed. The child was born just as the sun set. As the doctor took the tiny scrap in his arms and cut the cord, a ray of the westering sun shafted through the window and gilded the scene with an unreal brilliance. I remember being surprised: if anyone had asked me, I would have said it was deepest night. All that day seemed like a dark tunnel.
In no time at all, or so it seemed, the midwife had bathed the baby, and Lina was washed, and the bloodied sheets tidied away for the laundry and new linen brought, so the room no longer looked like a slaughterhouse. Lina, dressed in a fresh nightgown, lay back on her pillow. She was white to her lips, like a corpse: the only part of her that seemed alive was her eyes, and they blazed unnaturally, like giant violet orbs in her haggard face.
I showed her the swaddled babe, and she smiled faintly. “Is that mine?” she whispered.
“It’s a little girl,” I said.
“Lina,” she said. “A little Lina. Damek should be pleased.”
Even in my exhaustion, I was disturbed by what she said. “What has this to do with Mr. Damek?” I said. “He’s not the babe’s father. I should think that Mr. Tibor is the one most nearly concerned.”
“Tibor?” she said, as if she didn’t know whom I meant. She shut her eyes and turned her face to the wall. When I offered her the child and told her it needed to be fed, she shook her head irritably and waved me away.
The doctor drew me aside and said that we would need a wet nurse, since he didn’t believe that my mistress would be able to suckle the babe. I stared at him and asked him straight out if Lina was going to die. Now that she had had the baby, I had thought in my innocence that the worst was over. He looked grave and told me that she was weakened by the birth and had lost a lot of blood and that much depended on the next few days.
Tibor was finally permitted to see his wife and child. I was conscience-stricken that he was the last person I had thought of alerting, but perhaps it had been as well that no one had remembered to get him until Damek was out of the house. He timidly entered the chamber, as if he were not sure that he was allowed in. His face was
almost as white as Lina’s; I realized that he must have been sitting downstairs for hours, listening to Lina’s screams and the bustle of people running up and down with bowls of water and cloths. God alone knows what he had been imagining.
I handed him his daughter, and he looked down at her wrinkled, red face with speechless astonishment, as if a babe were the last thing he expected. He smiled crookedly and then looked anxiously toward his wife.
“Mistress Lina is very tired,” I said.
“It was a hard birth,” said the doctor, who was wiping his hands. “I suggest you ask in the village for a wet nurse.”
Tibor nodded — though I’m not sure he had heard a word either of us said — and went to Lina. She stirred when he perched on the edge of her bed, and rolled over toward him. He flinched when he saw how her eyes had changed, but he said nothing. Lina frowned slightly, as if attempting to remember who he was, and then she smiled.
“It’s all over,” she said. “I’m so glad.”
She spoke so softly that he had to lean close to hear what she said.
“Do you like her?” asked Lina.
“Like her?” Tibor glanced down at the baby. “I — I suppose I do.”
“She’s a little Lina. Look, she has black hair, like me.”
Tibor nodded and sat in silence until Lina whispered that she wished to sleep. He kissed her brow and, handing the baby back to me, left the room. I didn’t know what to say to him: he looked dazed and ill. I think that somehow he already knew that, whatever happened, he had lost Lina.
Twilight had now turned to deep night. Lina fell fast asleep, which eased my heart, and I told Irli to watch her while I had something to eat in the kitchen. I was ravenously hungry, although I was so tired that it was an effort to chew. The doctor had a private conference with Tibor and then told me that he knew of a village woman who had lately given birth and who could be trusted to wet-nurse the baby. He took me down to the village in his carriage with the child. Once the proper arrangements had been made, we went to the Red House and asked my mother to come up to the manse to help with Lina’s care. Masko gave her reluctant permission; the doctor made it difficult for him to refuse. While my mother was packing some essentials, the doctor offered to drive me home. I declined, despite my exhaustion; it was a clear, moonlit night, and I knew the path well. I was longing, with all my soul, for some time to myself, away from the endless demands of other people.
I don’t think I had a single thought as I walked home. I could hear the night birds crying in the distance and the occasional hoot of an owl, and the plains lay serene and still under the moonlight. I soaked the silence in through my very pores, wondering at this peace without when there had been such terrible struggle within. When I reached the pines near the manse, Damek stepped out of their shadows and accosted me. I was too tired to be startled, but I was annoyed that my precious solitude was broken, and by Damek, of all people.
“Anna, tell me, is she dead?” he said.
“No, and no thanks to you,” I said, snatching back my arm from his grasp. “She had a little girl.”
Damek said nothing, but I heard his breath catch in a sob. Then he stepped into the moonlight, and I saw his expression. Despite myself, I was moved to pity. I am not sure that I have ever pitied another human being more than I did Damek in that moment. He had told me that morning — was it really that morning? — that he lived in hell. I had thought that he was exaggerating, out of self-pity, but when I saw his face that night, I believed him.
“Thank God,” he said. “I have been standing here these hours, since I can’t be with her, and when everything went quiet, and I saw you leaving in the carriage with the baby, I was sure she must have died. I could hear her screaming from here.”
“It wasn’t an easy time,” I said, more gently. “She’s sleeping now. Damek, you should go home and sleep yourself. You look wretched.”
“Nay, what if she died in her sleep, and I was not here?”
“The doctor says she will be fine,” I said.
He studied my face. “I know you’re lying. What did the doctor really say?”
I hesitated and then told him what the doctor had told me. He was silent and then took my hand.
“You’re a good friend,” he said with unexpected warmth. “You reassure me. God’s truth, I have been standing here since sundown, sure that she was dead and not daring to ask a soul if it were true. You don’t know the demons in my head — I was making sure to hang myself. That would be a rebuke to her murderer, a corpse grinning from his tree, a gift from my broken life! But what would be the point? There would be no point even in that. Such blackness in my heart, Anna! Not one glimmer of light to guide me! Do you know, I prayed. I prayed to God. Me! And my prayer went out in the empty universe among all those dead stars, and nothing came back, nothing. There was nothing there. I’ve always known it, but I’ve never felt before how big that nothing is, and I alone in the darkness with nothing to comfort me. . . .”
I drew my hand away from his. His words frightened me, but his face frightened me more. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight as he spoke, and his eyes glared out of his harrowed face. I was sure that he was mad.
“She is sleeping now,” I repeated. “And so should you.”
He laughed shortly. “Sleep? If only I could. I cannot sleep. I thank you for caring, you alone of all creatures in this godforsaken world. No, I’ll stay here and watch over her. You needn’t fear: no one will see me. You go back to Lina.”
I wished him God’s blessing, though I’m sure I didn’t know how it would do him any good, and walked slowly back to the house. When I reached the doorway, I looked back; if I searched, I could just see his dim figure standing straight against the trunk of the pine, holding his senseless vigil in the shadows.
Clouds gathered during the night, and by the time the sun rose, it was raining steadily. Before I began my morning tasks, I checked on Lina, who was still sleeping. My mother had sat with her, and she told me that Lina had suffered some bouts of restlessness. I noticed there was a flush in her cheeks and returned to the kitchen feeling troubled. I looked outside to see if Damek was still there. He had gone, but underneath the tree where he had stood, the grass was flattened and churned from his pacing about. It looked as if cattle had stood there.
The events of the previous day had left me with a heavy weariness in my body and a melancholy in my soul. The rain, which continued all day, gray and unremitting, matched my mood: I felt dull and slow and wished I was back at the palace, where my duties were clear and undemanding. I missed Zef and out of sheer loneliness considered writing him a letter. I thought better of it; he had not spoken, and it would have been a forward act. I was not Lina, after all.
With all this in my mind, I was glad of my mother’s quiet, practical help. It lifted a weight of responsibility off my shoulders. After a brief visit to his wife, Tibor spent most of the day in the kitchen cleaning his guns. He got under our feet, but no one complained, since he so clearly needed the comfort of womanly bustle. Not one of us said a word about the sudden transformation in Lina’s eyes, but we all knew about it, in the way that knowledge is mysteriously transmitted without any visible conversation. I was sure that it must have reached the village by now and lived in hourly dread of a visit from the Wizard Ezra.
The doctor arrived as he had promised, checked her temperature, and looked serious. By then Lina was awake, demanding something to drink and refusing, against all our persuasion, to eat any food, although she had scarcely eaten the day before. We forbore to press her when she became agitated. She complained that her breasts were hot and painful. It was because she was not suckling the baby, and the doctor showed me how to ease her, which was difficult because she flinched at my touch. It was the worst of several unpleasant tasks I now had beyond my usual duties. The doctor said her milk should dry in a few days and that we had to watch for milk fever.
Lina slept most of the day and deigned to take some broth for su
pper. That evening she seemed merely tired, and her skin remained cool, but there were moments of irrationality that disturbed me. I had to change her sheets again and sat her carefully on the chair by the bed. She made no protest and at first seemed quite herself, but then she turned to me, her eyes shining.
“Anna, how beautiful the birds are!”
I answered that birds were indeed beautiful, and she smiled radiantly and reached out her arms. “See, they even perch on my hand! Oh, I never knew their feathers were so bright!”
I stared at her in alarm, but in the next moment her eyes had clouded, and she seemed to have forgotten that she had seen any birds at all. She then asked irritably where Damek was. Grateful that Tibor wasn’t present, I said that Damek could not come, and tears welled in her eyes, just as they do in a small child denied a sweetmeat.
“He cannot come! But he promised! And he never breaks his promises. He said he’d come to me even if I were at the ends of the earth, even to hell!”
I made soothing noises and helped her back into her bed, saying that I was sure that Damek would be along presently. She lay down obediently and then started up, as if an ugly thought had struck her.
“Anna, is it that I am in heaven and the angels won’t let him in? He is too black-hearted, Anna; he has too many mortal sins on his head, and he says that God has cursed him — but surely he could come to get me, if I was in heaven? I’m sure it’s a mistake —”
I told her that she was not in heaven, but in her own bedroom at the manse, and at last that seemed to calm her, and after a while she was speaking rationally again. I gave her a dose of laudanum, and at last she drifted off to sleep. I watched her eyelashes fluttering on her cheek and reflected that not once during the whole day had she asked after her baby, or Tibor.