feared most was my mother’s reproach, she would be terrible.
Not suspecting the contents, someone had removed the carton to the cloakroom. Shimon found it under a pile of coats. Terrified that Ronit had suffocated under the heavy garments, I panicked. Unable to breathe in symbiotic empathy, I leapt at the carton and pulled Ronit out gasping to fill my lungs, fighting a thick barrier like a plastic wedge jammed into my mouth, preventing air reaching my lungs. Ronit was fast asleep and breathing quietly. Rocking her in my arms and slowly regaining my breath and composure, I made a silent vow to be a more careful mother in future. After all, if I hadn’t asked for her to be born, neither had she. But being born gave her rights and I had to respect those rights. Only Shimon ever knew of the near calamity. He shared the blame and spared me the full guilt. But, in defending the charge of irresponsible mother, I can’t help remembering the cardboard carton.
In retrospect, it seems to me incomprehensible that motherhood requires no special qualification or training — no course, no degree, no certificate, no screening, no short list, not even a form to fill in, or a whisper of advice. Anyone can do it, no questions asked, no skill necessary. Parenthood must be the only job in this category. Even the most menial occupation requires some interview to determine potential and suitability. Yet parenthood is the only job one can’t quit. It’s a permanent occupation. I soon discovered that motherhood would never go away. Ronit was there forever. I found this relentless permanence especially hard to accept. At times I longed to say, “well that was nice, I did it, I had this child, but now it’s time the job was finished, it’s time for her to go.” But she never went, the job was never finished, there was never an end in sight, not even a break.
Motherhood was not only a full-time job, it was a lifetime commitment. No one had ever mentioned this to me before. It came as an unwelcome revelation, and learning to cope with it was a long and lonely process. I had no peer group to help or console me. My closest friends were involved with love, romance, careers and university; babies were an irrelevance, even a bore. The few new mothers I met basked in motherhood. It was an eternal sun bestowing life upon them. At every opportunity they would dwell upon its joys. No detail was too small to fascinate, to savour — disposable nappies, formulas, burping, teething — the involvement was total, connecting them with grand purposes, cosmic designs. They were part of the universal, timeless unfolding. My pathetic attempts to confide my conflict and distress were seen as injections of discord into the harmony of creation. My unhappy confessions were greeted with shock and aversion. No decent mother entertained ideas of wanting out, of wanting to be rid of her offspring, or at least never admitted to them. No decent mother felt shackled by motherhood; it was unnatural, perverse. I could feel the turning away as from a shameful contagion. And so I was forced to work things out on my own, find my own solutions. Perhaps I lacked the gene of motherhood other females were born with and would therefore have to work harder at being a mother. My only assistance came from the printed word. I turned to the bookshelves for understanding and advice.
When she was three months old, Ronit’s crying ceased as dramatically as it began. The doctor explained that her digestive system had matured and she would no longer suffer gastric disturbances. Whatever the reason, she became pleasant and compliant. Without the constant background of wailing, I stopped thinking of giving her away. Gradually pleasant sensations crept back into my life. I smelled the beginning of Spring, I tasted my mother’s Friday night dinners, I saw colours and felt textures. On occasion I even laughed. It was like banging one’s head against the wall — it felt so good to stop.
I even began to enjoy Ronit. She was alert and responsive and the constant changes in her were exciting. The first time I found her sitting up, her eyes meeting mine head-on instead of from a supine posture, I was thrilled by the wonder of it all and even called my mother to report. The books I was reading informed me that Ronit was consistently advanced for her age. Besides, she was pretty, and complete strangers would stop to admire her. Still, new acquaintances, and even many people I had known for a long time, never knew I had a child. I didn’t easily admit to motherhood, although I was forced to resign myself to it. With great regret my travel plans were put on hold, although I never ceased to contemplate them.
Shimon and I found our own small flat. We slept in the livingroom, Ronit in the bedroom. This arrangement made it possible for us to close the bedroom door and put Ronit out of our lives. Shimon would play the guitar and sing in his rich, plaintive voice, and I would dream about travelling. I made endless lists — lists of the countries I would visit, lists of travel agencies specialising in those countries, lists of travel and guide books, even lists of what I would take. I made and revised my lists, consulting maps, charts and books, while he sang about freight trains and lonesome highways. Shimon much preferred singing about “that long ribbon of highway” to travelling it. The road for him was a precarious place requiring constant vigilance, fraught with unreliability. He had suffered my passion for travel as something which had to be endured, my wild seed which had to be sown before we could settle. But with as much enthusiasm as I anticipated the next adventure, he anticipated the end of adventure, the beginning of stability. And now he had it.
Shimon was wonderful with Ronit. He could do everything I could and more. Whereas I was happy to dress Ronit in a tee shirt and nappy, he liked to see her in the frilly panties South Africans call “brookies” and a short dress from which the brookies protruded daintily. Not fully recovered from hepatitis, he often looked after her while I earned money teaching dancing. I had studied dance since childhood and taught it before I took to the road; it was easy getting back into it. When he did recover he worked as a sign writer and practised guitar and I took university courses and continued teaching dance, eventually forming my own performance group. Life, if not as I wanted to live it, was at least becoming liveable and, with compromises and concessions, I was coming to terms with motherhood, although these terms were often incomprehensible to others.
One of the things I resented most about being a mother was having to rise at the crack of dawn. I hated getting up early in the cold grey days of winter, uninspired by the score of routine duties awaiting me. So, as soon as Ronit was able to eat solids, I would leave a selection of food in her cot at night — crackers, celery and carrot sticks, bits of apple, slivers of cheese — so that she would find them in the morning and not disturb me. I also left toys so she could entertain herself.
The system worked beautifully. She would wake up, talk to herself, eat the food she found and play with her toys, while I slept. By the time I got to her she was wet but otherwise content. Everyone was happy with the arrangement until one day when I seriously overslept and my mother paid an unexpected visit. She entered Ronit’s room to find her soaking wet, her cot strewn with limp carrots, slimy cheese and soggy crackers, and her arms and legs sticky, anointed with apple juice leaked from her bottle.
“You leave food overnight in the baby’s bed?” she accused in killer tones.
“I don’t want her to wake me up early in the morning,” I confessed, bowing my head to the knife.
“You don’t want her to wake you up early in the morning?” she mocked, scornfully.
“What kind of a mother are you?… I’ll tell you what kind of mother you are. You’re lazy and selfish.… That’s the kind of mother you are. People will think you’re an animal. Only an animal takes better care of its children.” Her voice was thick with derision.
I was crushed. Hunched against the pitiless onslaught, I made feeble attempts to gather the bits of food and tidy the cot, while my mother changed Ronit with thrust after thrust of guilt.
“Some mother you have. She doesn’t deserve you. Thank goodness you have a grandmother.” She was merciless.
I didn’t blame my mother, she loved Ronit as only a grandmother could. My behaviour was inconceivable to her. For her the baby’s needs always came first. And feeding was the paramount need. I still remember her cackling like a chicken to tempt me into consuming
