Under the Influence

The bag stood by the bed. Ready. I had prepared it a month ago, following the recommendations. They suggest soothing music, something optimistic, energy bars, and sheets scented with the comforting smell of home. Recommendations. Into the bag, I placed a tracksuit and disposable underwear. Heavy-duty maternity pads for maximum absorption. What else was needed? I had lists, but half of it was nonsense. What does a woman about to give birth really need? Crystals and an updated birth plan? Merciless pain mocks such a list, and I too joined in the mockery with a kind of inner honesty. Facing such pain, one needs substances more potent than scented body lotions and fleeting feminine delights.

Before the contractions had started, I harbored a fear of being torn apart during birth, of my body being shredded into bleeding pieces of flesh. But now, as waves of pain surged and receded within me, fear became a guiding force, brutal but decisive and clear. A blazing sun in a gloomy room. Everything uncertain became clear and resolute. 

House keys, phone, wallet, sweater. Only a few minor items remained, and there was still time. I’d forgotten a hair tie. Yes, a hair tie is very important. Even now, my damp hair was irritating the sweaty nape of my neck.

The pressing need of my bladder forced me to rise and waddle to the toilet. Again with the wiping, the flushing. Yesterday’s greasy Chinese food didn’t help. What do you think about when you’re about to give birth? Not grand thoughts of the universe. Quite the opposite. It’s the earthly, mundane aspects of life that come to the forefront. And it’s strange. All my life I’ve tried to ascend, and now, when the moment has become transcendent, I am the one weighing myself down. Instead of engaging in the unification of twin souls as I had in recent months, I found myself dreading my unpredictable, bestial body. Did the medium see all this? High above, did the angels tell her how many times I would rush to the bathroom?

*

It was already time to call a taxi. I hated taking taxis, those meaningless chats with the drivers. Hated the silences just as much, and the songs on the radio. The time spent in traffic. What I loved was using my own two feet, but I could not possibly walk to the hospital now, and there were no buses to take. It was Shabbat. The mere thought of a bus made me sick. Months had passed in which I’d endured the unique torment of a blend of nausea and fear. Sleepless nights were followed by the malodorous mingling of sweat and food, wafting between the seats, making my stomach turn. I would get off the bus and run  to the edge of the sidewalk, finally allowing myself to release that pent-up disgust. Days teeming with sickness, filled with the sensation of something yearning to burst out of my body. Something despicable, filling with faintness and discomfort. That was the dirty stench I would stand in, by the edges of a vomit puddle, among buses heaving the dirty breaths straight into my face. Out of the muck, I had to tidy myself up. Hurry to the public restrooms, purify my face with lukewarm tap water, and spit some back into the dirty sink. Try to wipe off the traces on my face in the murky mirrors.

When I ordered the taxi, it said it would be five minutes. The hair tie was around my wrist, so I would not forget it. With my hospital bag in hand, I locked my door and stepped into the day outside. Everything looked the same as usual, yet there was an air of festivity enveloping this moment. The taxi arrived in seconds. It stopped. I approached with hesitant steps. “To the emergency room,” I said.

*

Children were walking by the side of the road, their gait slow and cautious. Each held a popsicle, guarding it carefully. How devoted we are to things that easily melt in our hands. I felt confused. Have I even said where I’m going? Did the driver even know my destination, or was he taking me to God knows where? Had I said “emergency room” out loud, or merely thought it? I was sitting in a taxi, yes, but had no recollection of ever entering it. “Emergency room,” I said out loud, just in case.

“Are you having a baby?” The driver turned his head towards me, and I nodded.

“Congratulations. Come, let me move your bag upfront to make it more comfortable for you. Are you okay? You need the women’s emergency room, right?”

I did not reply; the children had disappeared from my window. Had their popsicles melted yet? How long had it been since we started driving? It was hard for me to try and measure the time. Impossible.

“First one, eh?” The driver continued to chatter about his five children from two different ex-wives. I fluctuated between the torment of listening to him and the grip of the contractions’  squeezing tighter each time. Recurring every two minutes. I gave out a sigh. Outside, the scenery repeatedly changed. Now, the fiery hues of sunset blazed. The rocks dried by the  heat of the day.

The most recent contraction had passed. I closed my eyes, giving vent to the air that had been trapped in me.

Always, as Yom Kippur looms closer, something changes. There are the arid, stifling days, followed by cool breezes in the evenings, and a chill at the door in the dead of night. But the days are more lethargic than in the summer. The season’s latter days are always more languid than the season itself.

*

Each year, as the memorial service approaches, a mixture of softness and firmness grows within me, like a dome of rocks. The death anniversary. Although he wasn’t a casualty of war, it ambushed the waysides of his life like a stealthy killer, until he took his own life for its sake. Neither my mother nor the people on our kibbutz have ever acknowledged the day he took his life. That event was seen as a scourge, fraught with volatile undertones. The war, however, they remembered. As Yom Kippur neared every year, my mother would withdraw inwardly. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. The newspapers always celebrated the battle heritage, revealing more information to the public about what had really happened behind the scenes, who the real villains and heroes were. They strained to revive long-forgotten headlines, to stretch tendons and skin over the same rotted meat clinging to the old skeleton.

The grave belonged to the kibbutz. The memories to my mother. The war to everyone. I used to dwell on my mother’s stories, adding little details of my own. Like the large flowers Dad used to pick for her on each of his wooing mornings, or the sapphire necklace he’d bought her, for which he was reprimanded by the kibbutz secretariat for spending too much communal money. I used to mourn through visions of love.

As for anger, I was never able to feel it, or perhaps I didn’t want to. It’s hard to say. It’s easier to believe it was not he who fastened the rope around his neck, but the ravages of war. And yet for several years he had managed, somehow, to live. Why then hadn’t he wanted me enough?           

*

As the taxi wound its way up the road, taking bend after bend, the pain intensified. Another contraction gripped me, washing me in anguish. The driver continued his chatter, and I tried to keep my mouth shut. Bloodied memories had haunted his nights. He’d had nowhere to run. He felt he could never be a good enough father. He hated himself. I’m always quick to pardon him, regardless of the cost. Yet the mind never rests. How could he have given up on me? How can anyone leave a baby?

“It’ll be fine, kiddo,” he said warmly, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. “These are good pains. Soon it will all pass and, God willing, you’ll remember nothing when it’s all over. I’ve had two wives, and both screamed like crazy. I promise you, kapara, you end up forgetting it all.”

In the end, I always return to the same question, no matter where or when. What was it about me that wasn’t good enough? What piece was missing in me that could not make him stay?

A flutter of excitement distracted me as the hospital’s guard opened the gate for the taxi. The entrance to the maternity ward drew closer, the pain both exhausting and arousing. He had suffered, I knew, and a screaming baby was no help. The crying mixed with screaming, and the scents of charred flesh wouldn’t stop. In the few hours each day that I spent with my parents, he would slam his head against the wall. For him, the war  never ended. He spent his nights shivering, trying in despair to sleep under a beam of light. I know this because, ever since, my mother cannot tolerate even the faintest beam of the tiniest night light. From her insistent clinging to plastic I learned that in his rageful moments, he angrily smashed everything around him. Or perhaps I know nothing? Because what I knew, I gleaned from my mother’s words and silences, piecing together fragments with fragments in my mind’s eye.

*

The taxi driver took me under his wing. It wasn’t for nothing that he’d been married twice; he seemed the type eager to settle down. With my bag on his shoulder, he led me to the right desk.

“Will you be all right, kiddo?” he asked.

“Thank you!” I managed a strained smile, even now, as I sat and waited my turn.

The motion within me had grown sharp edges. I clung to the armrests. Though I’d  sworn to let go of you, you kept flickering in me. An old bulb refusing to give light, but occasionally igniting on its own.