keeps him inside not because she knew the baby a he, not because she knew she’d be closer to the end of her life once his life begins. Not because she knew his eyes the last eyes to see her alive. Him silent on a hospital chair beside her hospital bed, book in his hands, monitor beep-beep-beeping, his eyes on a page the precise instant she’s no more, missing her last breath.
She’s determined to keep the baby inside longer not because longer might change the baby’s color or keep money always in her child’s pocket. Longer inside not because of things she knows or should or could or might not want to know. She holds him inside because she’s sure the day is Friday, June thirteen, and sure the child she carries already has two strikes against it—strike of poor, strike of colored—and no way she’s going to let a third strike— bad luck of being born on Friday the thirteenth—doom every day of her first child’s life on earth before it even gets here.
She will struggle till midnight. Then four or five minutes past midnight, she decides. For good measure. To be absolutely certain. Four or five minutes more of agony, bearable or not bearable.
Then okay . . . okay now, she will say to herself, no strength left to speak the words aloud. No one in the room but her anyway, so she thinks okay. Rolls her eyeballs up to the wall clock to be sure, an effort that almost kills her, and then okay now, she says. Lets go of all that scorching air hoarded inside her gut. Only a tiny hole for it to pass through. She gasps, hollers. Sighs and gulps. A dull pop then a pop-popping push, rush, and shit . . . oh, shit. Please, not shit. Let it be air, a fart, no, many rumbling humongous farts. And oh my, oh my, my she’s spewing water, blood, beans, those baked beans doctor and mother both had warned her not to eat. Beans, a baby, a nasty mess dirtying the bed, cleaning out her insides. A small voice in her head mutters feeble apologies, but she knows she’s smiling. Stinky. Wet. Warm. Not alone.
She struggled to hold him inside a little longer she tells him one day because on that miserable night of June 13, and with two strikes against him she had no power to change, she told herself to stop shuddering, squirming, moaning, and groaning. Wrapped herself in bonds of steel. Steel around thighs, knees. Steel tying her ankle bones together so no part of him leaks or peeks or sneaks out and gets struck by a bolt of Friday the Thirteenth’s evil lightning.
* * *
She struggled to keep the baby inside not because she feared losing her first one. Not because she feared it might be her last. Not because she understood what would happen or not happen to the boy or girl. She held on because six minutes of June 14, 1941, needed to pass before she’d let go, and now more than three-quarters of a century has passed, many, many June fourteens, and each one his birthday, him alive and breathing and her, too, he tells her, and won’t let go.
NEW START
We were in bed watching TV. My beautiful, scared wife and scared, colored me. Watching had become our nightly habit since treatments began that might save my life if they didn’t kill me. We’d pick a series recommended by somebody we liked, with, ideally, lots of seasons already under its belt, so depending on mood, degree of exhaustion, length and quality of episodes, we could choose to watch one, two, sometimes, rarely, three before sleep. Or watch, as was often the case, before a night of broken sleep. Restless, anxious. Waiting for morning. One day less in the countdown to my final treatment. One night less. Us closer to the next night we could start to watch again.
In one of Downton Abbey’s cavernous rooms, large enough to hold the entire house I grew up in, a room whose art and furnishings worth more money than you’d need to pay off all mortgages on every dwelling in the block of real estate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where my family had lived, the Abbey’s owners and present residents sit and stand, posed elegantly, drinks in hand or close enough at hand to reach easily or to be handed to them by an efficient servant. A cast of meticulously dressed and groomed
British aristocrats exhausted, a bit stunned by the financial success, announced only moments before, of the tour of Downton some of them had just finished conducting, ushering members of the public, willing to pay, through fabled inner sanctums of their ancestral home in order to raise funds for a war memorial to honor young men of the village who had gone off to fight the Kaiser’s legions and would never return.
So many visitors. So many strangers willing to buy a ticket. Such curiosity. The interest not unexpected, of course. Downton Abbey was Downton Abbey, wasn’t it. And always would be, would it not, thank you. Thank goodness. Long lines all afternoon. The endless questions. Adult villagers, farmers, laborers, trades-people wide-eyed as children stringing along beside and behind them, even people in service at other Great Houses streaming in, excited, cowed to speechlessness at certain moments, faces expressing awe or almost reverence of a sort. Like peasants in church. Or country folk at a traveling carnival delighted by an opportunity to be delighted, or delighted by the privilege of a few hours free to play at being delighted. A public, private treat. Or even treatment, you might call it. Church on Sunday morning. A day at a country fair. A slow amble through polished marvels of Downton Abbey led by one of its formidable denizens.
And, wasn’t that it. Wasn’t a guide, one of us close enough to touch, the touch that made a tour inside Downton utterly unforgettable for the dears.
No. No-no, Cousin. They flock to view us in our cages. A day at the zoological gardens to observe odd creatures through the bars.
* * *
What a perfectly disagreeable idea. Shame on you, you wicked girl. Surely you don’t believe that our guests entertain actual thoughts. Goodness gracious, dear. Why bother ourselves one tad about that lot or their notions. Except to recall that Mr. Bran-son reported money positively poured in today. More tours could produce useful revenue.
More tours. No-no-no. Please. Never again. Heavens, no . . .
In bed we watch and listen. Tourists, too. Paying, too. Watch a moment in a TV melodrama when a tour conducted by Down-ton Abbey’s owners surprises them into a sudden awareness of themselves as characters in a show being staged for an audience, watched by an audience. A moment characters did not see coming until the script demands a tour of their imaginary lives.
Downton Abbey’s characters slightly dismayed when they realize the roles they play consume, not save them. A show may be a long-running hit, yet remains temporary. Empires fall, individual lives, virtuous or villainous, collapse. Sooner or later, no matter how convincingly an actor renders a character, you can only fool some of the people some of the time. And even though a sucker born every minute and fools rush in and writers contrive sudden, unexpected exits and entrances to unsettle or entice viewers, everybody knows that sooner or later, all good things must come to an end.
After the scene I’m recalling, after tours had been dispensed at Downton Abbey and crowds had passed from room to room, all visitors finally led away, gate locked, big day over, we watch till the episode concludes. Reach this last room. Last scene. Just the two of us, alone, quiet, TV dark, watching ourselves watch an empty screen. Stuck here frightened in our bed. Tour dissolving and we have nowhere else to go. I try to imagine someone watching us, watching through eyes not ours, eyes present, attentive. We need eyes to watch us. Watching as if we are special and eternal as nobility. Eyes that imagine the show we perform worth more of their time.
