Swimmer in the Secret Sea, Page 2

  The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body. He'd thought that such a miraculous opening would somehow be performed in a more splendid fashion. But she was sweating like a lumberjack's horse after a summer morning of hauling logs.

  He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse—puzzled, frustrated, and enslaved. He could see the strain pulsing in her reddened temples, just as he'd seen it in the workhorses when he thought they would surely die of a heart attack, racing as they did through the woods with huge logs behind them, jamming suddenly on a stump, the reins almost snapping and their mighty muscles knotting against the obstacle. Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward.

  He felt the supremacy of life, its power greater than his will. I just wanted to be with you, Diane, the two of us living easily together and here we are, with your life on the line.

  She was coming down the staircase of a brownstone building. She wore a long purple cape with a high collar turned up around her neck. The cape flared out as she touched the sidewalk and he stood rooted and stupid, struggling to speak. She must have felt it, for she turned and looked his way.

  Her face contracted again, her eyes closing tightly and her mouth bending into a mask formed by the pain that came on her again. He held her up, feeling the strain in her muscles and the fever in her skin. The short ringlets of hair at her neck were soaked and glistening. A wet spot was spreading across her back.

  The intern and the nurse returned while they, were out upon the waves, struggling together, pushing together, sweating together to bring the thing to completion, and when the contraction ended the intern did not ask Laski to leave while he made his examination. 'You're showing some progress now.'

  'You can see the baby,' said the nurse.

  Laski looked down, and in the shaved and sweating crack he saw something pink and strange, a little patch of flesh he could not comprehend. All he knew were the waves that took them out again, where they were alone in love and sadness that none else could share, alone and clinging to each other in the reality they had long prepared for, for which no preparation was ever enough.

  'I've seen you before,' he said, stopping her on Broadway.

  'Have you?' she said, the slightest touch of flirtation in her voice, just enough to keep him coming toward her, out of his deep embarrassed nature.

  Back they drifted, to the green room in the sleeping hospital.

  Hardly had they rested when the waves carried them out again, like a nightmare that repeats itself over and over through the night, and over and over again through the years. Back and forth they went and he feared that her strength could not hold. He had no confidence, not in himself, nor in her. He felt like a helpless child, and Diane seemed helpless too, their long struggle getting them nowhere, only repeating itself—contraction, release, con-traction again. But the nurse and the intern seemed unconcerned by it all, were cheerful and confident. And the doctor is down the hall, sleeping. He's not worried. If there were anything wrong he'd be here.

  She dressed by the window of his tiny room, slipping slowly into tight knit slacks and sweater. Her short hair needed no combing or fixing, and she was the most natural thing he'd ever seen unlike his previous loves, who'd always thrown him out of the room while they dressed and primped or put curlers in their hair.

  Her gown was wringing wet, her hair plastered down, as if the sea had broken over her. She closed her eyes and crows-feet came there, linen he'd never seen before, lines of age, and he knew that ages had passed. 'Again,' she said, her voice almost a sob now, but not a sob, too tired for tears. And he lifted her up as the tide carried them out again, into the wild uncharted waters.

  He held her, his love for her expanding with every tremor of her body. It seemed he'd never loved her before, that all of their past was just rehearsal for this moment in which he felt resounding inside him all the days of her life, days before he'd known her, days from the frightened child's face he saw before him, and days from the wise woman's ancient life that came calling now to give her unknown strength. All the frustration of Diane's thirty years was present, and she seemed to be making a wish in the well of time, that everything should finally come out all right, that finally something she was doing would be just as it should be.

  'I can't have a baby,' she said, 'because of the shape of my womb.'

  'Bullshit.'

  'He's a Park Avenue gynecologist.'

  Well, thought Laski, it took us ten years but we finally made one. He lowered her back to the bed, wiping her brow with the washcloth. She smiled, but it again was a mask, formed by momentary release from her anguish. In it was none of the flirtation, none of the peace, none of the things he usually saw in her smiles. But he knew she'd made this smile for him, to ease his worry. She's seeing into me too; maybe she sees all the care of my days, as I am seeing her. He felt them together, then, on a new level, older, wiser, with pain as the binder in their union. We came more than fifty miles tonight; we've crossed the ocean.

  Her smile suddenly drew itself up beyond the limits of smiling, became a grimace, and he lifted her up. We're not across the ocean yet.

  'Gee-yup, Bob!' The great horse pulled, his hooves scraping on the forest floor, sending moss and sticks flying. The tree creaked and swayed and fell and Bob-horse ran with it, dragging branches and all.

  'I guess we can get Doctor Barker now,' said the intern.

  The nurse went out of the room. Laski wiped Diane's brow and the intern stood at the foot of the bed, watching. 'You've been pushing for nearly three hours,' he said.

  'That's too long, isn't it?' she asked.

  'It's because the baby's weight is up instead of down.'

  And suddenly they were out again, in the tempest. Laski held her up, pouring himself through his fingertips into her, as she lifted her legs and pushed.

  The nurse entered with a tall young man in white uniform. He stood at the foot of the bed with the intern as Laski and Diane held on, out upon the sea, love-blown sailors lost in fathomless depths of time and destiny, coming now slowly back to a room of strangers who seemed eternal too, in a never-ending play. 'If you'll just step outside a minute,' said Doctor Barker.

  Laski went into the hallway and gathered himself together in a single prayer without words, offered to the ocean.

  The door swung open. The young doctor stepped out and said, 'Things are developing now. We'll be taking her down to the delivery room.'

  Laski went back to Diane. She was bent up, contracting alone, and he went to her.

  'You're baby's on the way now,' said the nurse, smiling cheerfully at Laski.

  He suddenly remembered the baby, the little swimmer in the secret sea. He's struggling too, struggling to be with us, struggling just like we are.

  Laski's heart became an ocean of love, as nine months of memories flooded him, and the baby was real again, real as in the night when Laski felt tiny feet kicking inside Diane. Our baby, our little friend, is being born!

  And this, thought Laski, is why we labor, so that love might come into the world.

  The contraction passed, and he and Diane were washed back, limp like sea-plants when the waves abandon them on the shore. 'It looks very good,' said the intern.

  The nurse came in, wheeling a stretcher. 'All set?'

  'Yes,' said Diane. They slid her from the bed onto the stretcher and they all walked beside it down the hallway toward the delivery room. Doctor Barker was being put into a white gown. Laski leaned over and kissed Diane.

  'Aren't you coming in?' she asked, her voice filled with longing.

  The nurse co
ntinued wheeling her into the delivery room and Laski stood in the hall outside. His will, his speech, his guts were gone. Barker stepped over to him. 'The nurse will give you a cap and gown and you can watch from behind the table.'

  Laski's strength came back in a whirlwind as a great smile crossed his face. We're going all the way together! He stood, watching the doctor and the intern wash their hands in a nearby sink, washing them again and again, in slow methodical manner. The nurse came to him and held up a gown. He slipped his arms into it and she tied it in back. She gave him a white cap which he fastened over his ears. Then he and the intern went into the delivery room, where Diane lay on the central table, her legs in stirrups, her wrists strapped down.

  'You can sit here,' said the nurse, setting a stool behind the table. Another nurse fixed the mirror that was above the table, so that Laski could see the area of birth.

  'A clear picture?'

  'Perfect.'

  One of the nurses then brought a little sponge soaked with surgical soap, and wiped Diane's vaginal area.

  'Oh, that feels good.'

  'Has she had any anesthetic?' asked the other nurse.

  'No.'

  'Well, now, isn't she wonderful?'

  Doctor Barker came and sat on a stool at the other end of the table. 'I'm going to drain your bladder.'

  He inserted a tube into her urethra and a moment later her urine ran out of it, into a bucket at Barker's feet.

  'I have a contraction,' said Diane.

  'Go ahead and push.'

  Laski could not reach her, and she lifted herself, working alone. When the contraction subsided, Barker said, 'I'm going to make a small cut. First, I'll give you something to numb it.' He inserted a needle at the edge of her vagina, making three injections. Then he pinched her skin with a tweezers. 'Do you feel that?'

  'No.'

  He made an incision, cutting sideways toward her thigh. 'Check the heartbeat.'

  The nurse laid her stethoscope on Diane's lower belly and listened, timing the baby's heartbeat with her watch.

  'Normal.'

  'All right—push again.' Barker inserted his linger into Diane's vagina, feeling for the baby. When the finger came out, Laski saw more of the strange pink skin, and a thick dark substance.

  'Don't let that worry you,' said the nurse to Laski. 'The baby's just had a bowel movement.'

  'Push,' said Barker. Diane pushed and Laski could see the baby's rear end, at the doorway of the world, ass-backwards, thought Laski, but coming!

  'All right, dear, push again,' said Barker.

  She pushed and he put his long fingers into her vagina, moving them around and spreading her lips. Suddenly a foot appeared, followed by a long limp leg. Barker quickly brought the other leg down and Laski looked at it in wonder, at the tiny toenails and the perfectly formed little feet that had been developing all along within her about which he had dreamed so often, envisioning them in countless ways, and now the first step of those little feet into life had come before his eyes.

  'It's a boy!' exclaimed the nurse.

  Laski's heart filled with joy. Staring at the entranceway, he saw the tiny penis and a second later it squirted a jet of urine.

  'I felt him pee on me!' cried Diane in wonder.

  'Push,' said Barker. 'Push with all you've got.'

  As she pushed he guided the tiny body out, all but the head, which remained inside. Laski stares in fascination at the dangling little creature, the skin gray and wet—his little son, coming at last.

  Barker inserted the forceps. 'Once again.'

  Diane pushed and Laski tensed as he watched Barker forcefully pulling with the forceps to release the head. My God, thought Laski, they handle them hard. And sudden-ly the head popped out and the child was free.

  Barker's hands moved with incredible grace and swiftness, turning the baby in the air, holding him up like a red rose. Laski saw a face filled with rage, yet triumph-ant, the god of time and men, whose closed eyes looked straight into Laski's and said, See, see, this!

  'Cut the cord!'

  The intern severed the cord and Barker carried the child with utmost delicacy in his two hands, moving quickly over to a table by the wall.

  'The aspirator,' he said, sharply.

  The nurse handed him an instrument that looked like an old car horn, a rubber bulb fitted on the end of it. He put it to the baby's face and squeezed.

  The child lay perfectly still. Barker worked the pump, then touched the limp wrist, lifting it for a moment and laying it back down. One nurse massaged the feet, and the other handed Barker a length of fine hose which he inserted into the baby's mouth. He breathed into it, and Laski watched his son's chest rise and fall with the breath of the doctor moving inside him.

  Barker stopped for a moment, wiped his brow, returned to the blowing-tube. Laski looked on, watching the lungs rise and fall again. The rest of the body lay perfectly still. How long his legs are, thought Laski—just like his mother's.

  Barker removed the tube and put his mouth to the child's blowing into it with his lips pressed against the tiny mouth. The nurse continued to massage the feet. Laski looked at the clock on the wall: Four-thirty-five.

  Barker stepped back, wiped his brow again, and Laski remembered moments from his own life, when he'd worked on things, and found them puzzling, and unyielding, and he'd wiped his brow that way. Barker put the aspirator back on the still little body, and pumped it, a little sighing noise coming from the rubber bulb.

  'Is that the baby?' asked Diane.

  Laski looked at her, and looked away, drawn back to his little son, to the little arm that rose and fell so limply in Barker's hand.

  'Where's the baby?' asked Diane.

  'He's over there,' said Laski softly.

  Barker removed the aspirator and put his mouth to the child's again, blowing in and out, gently, evenly. He stepped back, wiped his brow, turned to Laski, and shook his head from side to side.

  Laski nodded.

  It was over.

  He turned and sat down on the little stool beside the table. The intern was stitching Diane's opened vagina.

  'Does that hurt?'

  'No, she said, laughing nervously.

  Laski looked at her flat stomach. How can she possibly hold together in the face of this? How do we tell her?

  He turned to the table by the wall. The baby had been lowered into a glass case and he was on his side, eyes closed. Laski saw resignation in the little face, the express-ion of work completely done, like a man who has rolled over to sleep at the end of the day.

  'Are you all right?' asked Barker.

  'Yes,' said Laski.

  Barker stepped over to the maternity table and looked down at Diane.

  She raised her eyes to his. 'I know,' she said. 'I'm sorry.'

  'It's not your fault,' she said, a sob breaking from her throat.

  'The baby looks perfectly normal,' said Barker. 'There's no reason why you can't have another child.'

  Laski listened numbly. He thinks that's what has been at stake, our wish for a child, any child, not this particular child who swung down the road between us. They can't know how special he is. They point to the future. But we're here, forever, now.

  The nurse slipped Diane onto the wheeled table. 'I have a needle for you,' said the nurse.

  'No,' said Diane, still refusing any anesthetic.

  'It's to dry up your milk,' said the nurse, gently.

  'There are no private rooms,' said the other nurse. 'We can put you in a semiprivate.'

  'I can go to a ward,' said Diane. 'I only wanted a priv-ate room so I could keep the baby with me.'

  'It would be better for you in a semiprivate. All the other babies will be brought into the ward for feeding, and they'll make you feel bad.'

  'I wouldn't mind the babies,' said Diane, crying softly. 'But I'd probably make all the other mothers feel bad.'

  They wheeled her through the dimly lit hallway and Laski walked beside her, to a room with two
beds, both of them empty. They helped her into the bed and drew the covers over her.

  'May I stay?' asked Laski.

  'Yes, certainly,' said the nurse. 'Do you want to sleep on the other bed?'

  'No, I'm not tired.'

  'If you want to,' she said, 'just flop down on it. The nurse leaned over to Diane. 'These things happen. I'm sure you'll have better luck next time.'

  Laski looked at the little handbag beside the bed, in which Diane had packed two baby wash-cloths, one pink, one blue, and he saw that it was the blue one he'd been using to mop her brow.

  She looked quietly at him, and stroked his hair with her hand. He laid his head down on the bed beside her, as the full weight of his own weariness took him. The nurse came in again and said, 'Are you sure you won't lie down?'

  'All right,' he said, and walked over to the other bed.

  'Let me slip this sheet over it. I'm lazy. I don’t want to have to make it again.'

  He crawled onto the top sheet and lay looking at the ceiling. Beneath his head he felt cement blocks. He drifted, into kaleidoscopic sleep, so filled with images he could not sort them into any recognizable dream, and they rushed over him like water.

  He woke and saw Diane, looking at the ceiling. He got up and sat beside her again. The dawn was breaking. Through the window he saw another wing of the hospital, and beyond that the street, on which the gray light was falling. He watched the street as the sunlight fell upon it.

  In the hallway the sound of dishes began. 'They're bringing breakfast,' she said.

  The breakfast carts came closer, and an elderly woman entered, carrying a tray. She smiled at Laski. 'Well, it's a lovely day, isn't it?'

  Diane ate cereal and toast, and sunlight found the room.

  'They'll want me out of here soon,' said Laski

  'Yes, the mothers will be feeding their babies.'