19
He gets home and goes straight to Jasmine’s room. He hasn’t looked at his phone once to see if she’s okay. It’s the first time since he installed the cameras that he’s forgotten to check on her.
When he opens the door, he sees that Jasmine is lying down and looks to be in pain. She’s touching her belly and her nightgown is stained. He runs up to her and sees that the mattress is soaked with a brownish-green fluid. “No!” he yells.
He knows, because of all he’s read, that if the amniotic fluid is green or brown, there’s a problem with the baby. He doesn’t know what to do other than pick Jasmine up and take her to his bed so she’s more comfortable. Then he grabs his phone and calls Cecilia.
“I need you to come over now.”
“Marcos?”
“Get in your mum’s car and drive here.”
“But Marcos, what’s going on?”
“Just come over now, Cecilia. I need you here now.”
“But I don’t understand. You sound different, I don’t recognize you.”
“I can’t explain over the phone, just know that I need you to come
now.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
He knows she’ll be a while. Her mother’s house isn’t in the city, but it’s not close either.
When he hangs up, he runs to the kitchen, grabs some dish towels and wets them. He puts the cold cloth to Jasmine’s forehead. Then he tries to give her an ultrasound, but he doesn’t detect a problem. He touches her belly and says, “Everything’s gonna be just fine, little one, just fine, your birth’s gonna go well, everything’s gonna be just fine.”
He gives Jasmine some water. Over and over he says these words, he can’t stop, though he knows his child might die. He can’t bring himself to get up and take care of the things that need to be done for labour, like boil water. Instead, he doesn’t move and clings to Jasmine, who’s becoming paler by the minute.
He looks at the print hanging above his bed, at the Chagall his mother loved so much. It’s then that he prays, in a way. He asks his
mother for help, wherever she is.
That’s when he hears a car engine and runs outside. He hugs Cecilia. She steps back and looks at him with surprise. He puts his hand on her arm, but before he takes her inside, he says, “I need you to have an open mind. I need you to set aside whatever you might feel and be the professional nurse I know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marcos.”
“Come and I’ll show you. Please help me.”
When they enter the room, Cecilia sees a woman lying on the bed, pregnant. Cecilia looks at him with sadness in her eyes, and a bit of surprise, and confusion. But then she moves closer and sees the mark on the woman’s forehead.
“Why is there a female in my bed? Why didn’t you call a
specialist?”
“The baby is mine.”
She looks at him with disgust. Then she takes a few steps back, crouches down and puts her head between her hands, as though her blood pressure has dropped.
“Are you crazy? Do you want to end up in the Municipal Slaughterhouse? How could you have been with a female? You’re sick.”
He goes to her, slowly lifts her to her feet and hugs her. Then he says, “The amniotic fluid is green, Cecilia, the baby’s going to die.”
As though his words were magical, she begins to move and tells him to start boiling water, to bring clean towels, alcohol, more pillows.
He runs through the house looking for these things while she examines Jasmine and tries to calm her down.
The labour lasts several hours. Jasmine pushes instinctively, but Cecilia can’t make herself understood. He tries to help, but feels Jasmine’s fear and it paralyses him. All he can do is say, “It’s gonna be fine, everything’s gonna be just fine,” until Cecilia shouts that she can see a foot. He panics. Cecilia tells him to leave, she says he’s making both her and Jasmine nervous, and that the birth could be complicated.
She tells him to wait outside.
He waits behind the door to the room, his ear pressed against the wood. There are no shouts, just Cecilia’s voice saying, “Come on, honey, push, push, that’s it, come on, you can do this, harder, it’s on its
way now, come on, love, that’s it, that’s it,” as though Jasmine could understand her. Then there’s complete silence. The minutes pass and he hears Cecilia yell, “No! Come on, little one, turn around, come on, honey, push, come on, it’s almost there, almost there. Please God, help me. You are not going to die on me, no fucking way, not while I’m here. Come on, love, that’s it, you can do this.” For a few minutes he doesn’t hear anything, and then he hears a cry, and goes in.
His child is in Cecilia’s arms. She’s covered in sweat, her hair is a mess, but she’s smiling, and it lights up her face.
“It’s a boy.”
He goes up to her and takes the baby in his arms, rocks him, kisses him. The baby cries. Cecilia says that the umbilical cord needs to be cut, and the baby cleaned and wrapped up. She says this between tears, she’s emotional, happy.
Once she’s taken care of these things, Cecilia hands back the baby, who’s now calmed down. He looks at his son in disbelief. “He’s beautiful,” he says, “he’s just beautiful.” He feels the shards of stone shrink, lose their hold.
Jasmine is in bed and she stretches out her arms. They ignore her, but she opens her mouth and moves her hands. She tries to get up, and then she does, and bumps into the night table with her hips, and knocks
over the lamp.
They look at her silently.
“Go get some more towels and water to clean her before you take her out to the barn,” Cecilia tells him.
He gets up and gives his son to Cecilia, who begins to rock and sing to him. “He’s ours now,” he tells her, and she looks at him, unable to respond, emotional, confused.
All Cecilia can do is look at the baby and cry silently. She cuddles him and says, “What a beautiful baby, you’re the most adorable baby boy. What are we going to call you?”
He goes to the kitchen and returns with something in his right hand.
Jasmine is only able to stretch out her arms desperately towards her son. She tries to get up again but is cut by the pieces of glass from the broken lamp.
He sits down behind Jasmine. She looks back at him in despair.
First he puts his arms around her and kisses the mark on her forehead.
He tries to calm her down. Then he gets onto his knees on the floor, and says, “Easy does it, everything’s gonna be just fine, take it easy.”
With a wet rag he wipes the sweat from her forehead. He sings “Summertime” into her ear.
When she calms down a little, he stands up and grabs her by the hair. Jasmine is only able to move her hands, is trying to reach her son.
She wants to speak, to scream, but there are no sounds. He picks up the club he brought from the kitchen and hits her on the forehead, right where she’s been branded. Jasmine falls to the floor, stunned, unconscious.
Cecilia jumps when she hears the thud and looks at him without understanding. “Why?” she yells. “She could have given us more children.”
As he drags the body of the female to the barn to slaughter it, he says to Cecilia, his voice radiant, so pure it wounds: “She had the human look of a domesticated animal.”