Pretty face
by Zdravka Evtimova
[ fiction - october 03 ]
I had to wait about thirty-five days more. It was important to take good care of my teeth and avoid eating too much meat and eggs. I hoped that everything would turn out all right, the baby would be born healthy and normal and would start whining like a little puppy. I hoped it would be a boy and I would have the chance of glancing at its tiny purple face before the nurses wrapped him in clean white swaddling clothes. Usually, doctors discharged me from hospital three days after delivery.
Anastasia and her husband would take the baby from the clinic. I was sure they would have bought the best baby's cot and clothes, blankets, toys etc. After the three of them got home they'd avoid passing by the big block of flats where I lived. I rented a one-room apartment there, a narrow room with a window to the south and nine flowerpots on the windowsill. Anastasia had bought them for me: a different flower dedicated to each month of my pregnancy.
Perhaps I'd stumble across her and her husband and they both would be embarrassed; even I would feel awkward although I shouldn't. Anastasia could spare an hour and drop in to see me while the little one dozed. I hoped she might stay for an hour in my well-lit room and I knew she'd have to pause for breath many times till she reached the sixth floor. Her heart was no good and she could die in the street if she hurried too much. But she would visit me all the same; she'd kiss my cheek blushing, and would start babbling about the baby. She wouldn't be sure if it was hers or mine and I'd be at a loss what to do next.
I liked her small face, which looked grayish on account of her poor health. She was shy and soft and felt like enveloping you in the summer cloud of affection that reassured you and wished you well. I hated her because of Meto, her husband. I knew that if I wanted, he'd come back to me; after all I'd give birth to his child and I loved him, but it was a very peculiar sort of love and I was a very peculiar sort of case. I wanted Meto and I constantly thought about him and about the baby I was going to have. But I knew too well: I wouldn't ask him to come back to me. I'd imagine her small face, her translucent fingers that had touched my big belly trying to feel the baby kick inside me. I'd be thirty-five this autumn.
I had given birth to three children so far, but of course they didn't live with me. I had seen only the third one, the only girl; a nice kid, light-footed, slim and blonde who didn't look much like me.
It was quite an unpleasant story, and sometimes you got fed up with things and people around you, and felt like telling a stranger about it. I met somebody who made a mess of my life and instead of doing something normal: finding a job, studying at a college or getting married, I quarreled with your parents. I was the black sheep of the family and my relatives were embarrassed to mention my name before their friends.
I was single when my first son was born.
I didn't have a job, I didn't have money and I lived in a small town where everybody knew me. A friend of mine helped me: she adopted the child. Rumour had it I had tried to kill the baby, I had tortured it, I had kept it bawling with hunger and what not, so I had to pack all my belongings and try my luck somewhere else. The baby's father was married to a wonderful woman and everything in his garden was lovely.
My friend, who had adopted my first son and didn't want to see me for a long time after that, unexpectedly came to my rescue: she introduced me to another childless couple, forty-year-old philologists. The wife was called Magda, a big, heavy, and pale woman who had an oval face and warm dark eyes. I negotiated a contract with her and her husband: they were to provide a generous sum of money plus full board and lodging for me in the course of nine months while I carried Magda's husband's baby. It went without saying that after the moment of conception I had no right to meet her husband.
Magda wanted to see me once a week in the cozy flat they had rented where she brought packages of delicacies for me. Of course, she agreed to leave me money so I could go shopping by myself if I wanted. All this might sound quite appalling, but practically it was quite fine.
Magda's husband, a tall, bony closemouthed fellow, with black hair, black eyes and a swarthy complexion, was desperately shy. It seemed he had never in his life touched another woman or at least one less skinny than his plump wife. I had to do everything and after we had sex he did not dare to look at me as he put on his clothes blushing desperately. It was evident he had never felt so embarrassed before. I was sorry for him; I wondered what sort of a baby would be born after that humiliating experience, but it turned out to be a healthy boy with a small nose, short black hair and a high-pitched wail.
In the beginning, Magda visited me once a week carrying several bags full of fruits and sweets. She usually flopped down into the only chair where she gasped for air and sat immobile for a couple of minutes to get her breath back after the efforts she had made. After a month she started coming more often. She always examined my face, asked me why I puckered my brow or why I frowned and went out of her way to please me. She brought me everything that was hard to find at that time in Sofia - bananas, apples, raspberries, lamb stew, everything one could dream of. She rose from the chair, slowly and laboriously, although she didn't have to, careful not to stumble or bump into my stool and she combed my hair.
Magda touched me awkwardly and it seemed she was scared of the contact with my skin. When the baby began to move inside me she often asked, "Can I feel it?"
She put her hand on my bulging belly and if she sensed a note of tension in my voice or if the baby kicked her fingers trembled and her big white face lit up. It seemed to me life flowed from me to her making her delirious with joy.
"God,"she whispered once looking at me. "Let everything be okay! I hope you are okay!"
Magda reminded me of a good young grandmother who was anxious to see her grandchild as soon as possible. I loved the time she spent with me and when I occasionally looked out of the window I saw her tall dark husband pace impatiently up and down the alley in the park. Magda really was a kind-hearted woman. She adored telling me stories about famous poets, Shelly, Goethe, Pushkin, and many others whose names I had not even heard.
I loved listening to her tales of Plovdiv, the town where she attended the famous grammar school, and where Petko, her husband, God bless his soul, fell in love with her. At that time, she used to be the same big girl in spite of all diets and starvation, but Petko loved her and could I imagine what it was like when he gave her sweet little bouquets of violets? Then they married, on a Friday, and could I imagine their wedding day with all their friends and relatives? A man like Petko should have an heir and he'd be a wonderful father! I missed Magda, I missed her more than my mother and it was a pity that after their colicky black-haired baby was born I never saw them again.
Then I gave birth to a girl that had golden fluff on her head, small beautiful face and blue eyes. It was the lowest birth-weight baby I had ever had. The woman who adopted her was very pretty. She took me twice to a sandwich bar while I was pregnant. I had forgotten her name, I only remembered she turned heads as we walked talking about how busy and overworked she was. Men gawked at her as she moved her beautiful legs looking bored and pretending she didn't notice them. Every now and again, I glanced at her thinking that there could be no other woman in town as graceful as she was.
I was afraid of her, she looked stuffed-up, unapproachable, not a human being but a deity I was going to give my child to.
The memory of her husband sent a chill down my spine. He was a tall, curly-headed hunk who coped with the task of producing his heir in a grim, business like manner as if I was a chunk of frozen meat he had to chop up into small pieces. He had not even glanced at my face, his fair head thrown back, his eyes distant, haughty. The little baby girl was the spitting image of him: the golden fluff on her head, her delicate features, her high forehead, and her blue eyes.
The pretty ballerina, yes, she was a ballerina, but I had forgotten her name, brought me packages of food every now and then. In the beginning, her eyes roamed around my flat without noticing my presence. She usually settled into the only chair and waited for me to cook something for her pulling wry faces when her soup was not thick enough or her jam was not spread on the biscuit the way she liked it. Then she decided I was more intelligent than I looked and started smiling at me; not the haughty smile that distorted her face when men gaped at her. She beamed with joy the way a woman did when she was happy and knew no one was watching.
She, too, wanted to feel the baby kick inside me. One day, some years later, she brought the girl to my flat. The kid was three years old and you couldn't imagine how pretty the two of them looked: the little curly-headed princess and the big one walked in exactly the same exquisite manner, their voices trailed off in disappointment in the same way and their laughter was similar, quiet, knowing, supercilious. They took me to the same sandwich bar. Men and women stared at the ballerina and the little girl and I was aware she was not my daughter. I thought fretfully, 'She could have inherited at least the color of my eyes... her lips look like mine. There she is, the beautiful blonde-haired fairy that doesn't even know me.'
I was thirty-four and after about a month I was going to have another baby. I had to do gymnastics from time to time, go for leisurely walks and eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Anastasia would get the baby right from the clinic. She had a weak heart and I was not sure if she could take care of it but she told me that she might hire a nurse.
I liked her husband Meto.
He was the only man who had asked what my name was. Then he had looked at me, his gray eyes sad and warm, and had blurted out, "It must be very hard for you."After that he asked, "Is your heart strong enough for another childbirth?"
"Yes, it is,"I answered.
I had been thinking what I should do. It would be better if I gave them back their money and took the baby. After all I'd be its mother. I'd give Anastasia the money without looking her in the eye. I knew she'd blanch and slump down into the chair. I wouldn't look at her. I'd give the money back to her and I'd leave the flat she had rented for me. I wouldn't look her in the eye.
I... I couldn't do that. I'd give them back their money.
Then I'd go away and the three of them would remain - Meto, the baby, and Anastasia.
