Escalators
The escalators leading to the third floor rise steeply between a set of descending ones, the steps above us disappear into the overhead lights, and a dense crowd circulates slowly below on the receding walkways.
“Do you like it?” I lean forward and ask, my face close to his ear.
“Yes,” he replies, without looking back.
Gripping the rubber handrail with his left hand, he lets his body lean back into my arms, which he can feel are open behind him. I shift my weight forward to support his. When we reach the top, where the metal steps recede into a dark fissure, he loses his balance and stumbles forward.
“Dont worry, Ive got you!” I say, reaching out for him.
He doesnt fall. He positions himself on the carpet just beyond the landing, his legs and feet stiff with tension. He takes a few steps. I look around and wipe my brow with my hand. A woman is staring at us coldly. Shes standing next to a yellow beach umbrella that has been planted in a square of sand meant to simulate a beach scene. I stare back at her. Im tired of people staring. But then she gasps, her hand goes to her mouth, and I hear a heavy thud. Its Paolo. Hes fallen on his side. He rolled over onto his back, the way they taught him to do at school, but too late. His face is twisted in pain, the palms of his hands flat on the floor.
“Are you hurt?” I whisper, crouching down beside him.
He shakes his head. I position his feet against mine and pull him up. A small crowd of curious and alarmed onlookers has formed. They retreat to let us by.
“Everythings fine,” I say.
I help him along for a few steps.
“Do you feel better now?”
“Yes.”
I point out a nearby stand covered with palm fronds. Its surrounded by small tropical plants and set against a blue cardboard backdrop.
“Do you feel like getting something to drink?”
“Yes.”
We sit down on benches at a rustic wooden table. A giant plastic shark next to us displays an array of fishing gear in its jaws. I look at its sharp, crooked teeth. Im exhausted and unhappy.
“Do you want a Coke?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I hold his glass for him while he drinks from it. Then we get up to leave.
“Go slowly now. Pay attention,” I say gently.
I watch him walk off, reeling like a drunken sailor. No, like a spastic.
Suddenly he turns and says in that labored way of his, “If youre embarrassed you dont have to walk next to me. Ill be all right.”
Coming into the World
Im at school when hes about to be born. Ive already started teaching my class. The ordinarily grumpy custodian comes into the room with a wide smile on her face. She walks over to the lectern and whispers in my ear.
“Professore, your wife is at the hospital. Her mother called. She asked me to tell you. She said theres no hurry.”
I look at the class calmly.
“Her water broke,” she adds.
I nod dispassionately. What does that mean? How does water break? Maybe its the placenta. I visualize torn membranes and dripping fluids.
“You can cancel class if you want,” she suggests.
“No, Ill keep going.”
What an idiot. You want to show everyone, yourself above all, just how strong you are. How courageous when faced with danger. Only youre not the one whos in danger. I didnt think about that then. How calm we are when faced with dangers that are not our own.
Above all, show no emotion. Millennia of male-dominated education encapsulated in a millisecond. I look at the class. They must have guessed by now. A girl in the front row overheard a few words the custodian said and turned to tell a friend. I smile. Everythings under control.
“Lets go on with the lesson,” I say.
“Breech birth,” the doctor says in the hospital corridor, without looking at me. Fat, beady-eyed, and out of breath, he looks like a large trapped mouse.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning hes breech.” He looks up to make sure I dont understand.
“What complications are there, exactly?”
“Its hard to say. The greatest danger is anoxia.”
“You mean the baby wont be able to breathe?”
“Something like that,” he concedes, annoyed. “His heartbeat is regular; theres no need to intervene yet.”
“What do you mean by intervene?”
“Cesarean section. But your gynecologist doesnt want to. Hes against them.”
Against them? I can see his face in front of me, larger than life—his thinning white hair, an air of fatigue and ruin about him.
“Wed like to avoid a cesarean. Doctors perform them these days at the drop of a hat.”
I listened with an intent expression on my face, but all the while I was thinking not about Franca but of the woman I had met again after so many years, the woman I would be seeing in only a few hours, even as I asked, “Is the baby in any danger?”
“Naturally,” he replied. “How did Leopardi put it? ‘A man comes struggling into the world; /His birth is in the shadow of death. But lets wait on the cesarean. Trust me.”
He looked at me compassionately, with that mask of wisdom that some people acquire when they age but which is actually the final, definitive, and eternal stamp of stupidity. I had expressed my doubts about him, once, to my wife. We were on the escalators at the time.
“Are you sure hes a good gynecologist?” I had asked.
“Hes the best,” she had replied.
Hes coming toward me with small hurried steps, rocking from side to side like a penguin.
“Dont worry,” he says, which is the best way to make someone do precisely that. “Youve got to be patient.”
“But why isnt he born yet?”
“Hes a big baby,” he says with a sigh. “He doesnt want to come into the world.” Then, with a wink and a smile, he adds, “Maybe he has a point.”
I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake the hell out of him, but I cant bring myself to be hostile to the one person I suddenly perceive as my most feared enemy.
“Oh, thank goodness youre here, Dr. Merini!” my mother-in-law exclaims, rushing up to greet him, taking both his hands in hers. “Everything will be all right, wont it, Doctor?”
“But of course, Signora! Its just more complicated than usual. Lets give nature a chance.”
“Just what I needed to hear!” she says, clasping his hands in hers. Shes elegant, melodramatic, and arrogant. Always on the verge of a breakdown. Always seeking out anxieties to flaunt and fears to have quelled. “So long as nothing happens to my little girl!”
“Or to the baby,” my own mother adds coldly, joining the group. She has been following the conversation from her post by the window, glancing over occasionally to remind us of her presence. Her face has assumed the stony gaze that used to frighten me as a child. “Lets not forget hes the one being born.”
“Well, hello! I didnt know you were here!” my mother-in-law says, addressing her in the tone she reserves for unwelcome guests. “The baby, of course! Both of them, obviously!”
“Youre the ones who ruled out a cesarean, after all,” my mother says.
My mother-in-law turns sharply toward her. “What on earth are you saying? We didnt rule out anything. Wed just like to avoid an operation, if possible. And who is this you, anyway?”
“You and your daughter, with your theories on natural childbirth,” my mother replies. Then she points at me. “Him too. It might look like hes listening, but who really knows whats going on in that head of his?”
“Why do you always have to be so sinister?” I ask, trying to hurt her.
I succeed. The insult seems to have hit home. She goes back to the window in a state of furious isolation. She was an amateur actress in her youth and has never forgotten it. Neither have I.
I remember isolated events, like movie stills, that I cant quite piece together.
The nun, walking out of the birthing room at the end of the corridor, passing me by, pretending not to see me. I catch up with her.
“Whats going on in there?”
“Ask your doctor,” she says.
Dr. Merini, ever more bewildered, saying, “I never thought it would come to this.” Seeing an idiot in distress is far more disturbing than seeing a blissful one.
“What do you mean you never thought?” I ask, finally grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him, doing what I ought to have done twelve hours ago. Twelve whole hours have gone by and theres been no delivery, just excruciating agony. “What the hell is going on in there?”
“Were going to use forceps,” he announces, extricating himself from my grasp.
“Why not a cesarean?”
“Its too late. The baby is already crowning.”
Me, making my way to the hospital chapel through a haze of colored lights, kneeling down to pray, feeling like an actor reluctantly playing his part. What am I doing here? This is not my role.
But it is. The comedy is over; the tragedy is about to begin. Youve been through tough times before and now youre finally being called to account. You knew it would come to this. Be strong, youre dealing with God. Dont see her for a month. No, thats too long: three weeks. You shut your eyes. Its not only the doctors fault, its your fault too. What on earth could you have been thinking? Never see her again. No, thats not whats being asked of you. Anyway, youd be unhappy and that would just make things worse for everyone.
You hear a silent voice in your head. Yes. Its as if someones head were nodding. Yes, you dont deserve it, but this is how it is. You cross yourself and murmur your thanks.
I cant remember now who mentioned that the baby didnt cry right away. What does that mean? Is it serious? Yes, very serious. He was cyanotic. I remember one word: catatonic. The surgeon said it on his way out. The only question you want to ask is the one they dont want to hear: What are the consequences? Its too early to tell. Maybe nothing. Take care of your wife.
Shes lying in bed, staring out the window, pale, exhausted, troubled, and silent. Drops of rain slither down the glass. I take her limp hand in mine.
“You were amazing.”
She shakes her head.
“Dont worry, everything will be all right.”
She doesnt reply.
She tries to speak but her voice is hoarse. I lean down. My cheek brushes against her cold damp forehead.
“Have you seen the baby?” she asks.
“No.”
“Go see him.”
Whoever mentioned the joys of childbirth?
Ill never forget that tiny purple face. Ill never forget that fixed half-smile or his cone-shaped head. The image of a Mesopotamian divinity comes to mind. Hes frightening and homely at the same time. The nurse approaches with him in her arms.
“Were going to place him in the incubator now,” she says.
“But his head!”
“Oh, thats nothing,” she replies, leaning over the bed to show him to his mother.
From the Hardcover edition.