Carole Maso - Mother and Child - A Novel

How very much I love you, the feathered mother says through her beak. And how very lucky I have been to see you twice in every year!

Later when the Girl takes off the ermine head, her hair is not matted anymore.

And they fly like that for some time until the mother grows large and white like a stork, and carries the Girl for a moment longer, then opens her beak, and allows her to drop.

THE JACKAL HAD returned. But it was okay, the mother said — it had not come for them this time. The activity that had once attended them had ceased. Perhaps they were no longer in transit. Perhaps they had now crossed the line, the line of accessibility; perhaps they were closed off now, the mother thought, sealed off — it was difficult to take in, but it was now how she felt. They had already been come for. Anubis had been the usher, the go-between, and had taken many shapes: coyote, jackal, bat. Silently he had walked between the shadows of life and death and lurked in the dark places. Perhaps they had crossed over, but if so, when, when had that happened?

Still, she could not help but think it — perhaps they were no longer in the in-between state.

IT WAS THE fluttering sound behind the walls of the house, or outside on a pure clear summer night — the flapping of unseen wings — that had once made it so hard to go on. Or the wing-beat that seemed to come from within her, and which she had always dreaded — that inward movement, that imperceptible fluttering. She wondered whether it was wrong to move without fear now, because anything could happen then.

ALL SHE COULD do was notice. Now the step into fearlessness was as easy as crossing the rabbit path. It was that absence of fear that would make it impossible to understand exactly what the bat exacted.

Sensate life was falling away. The mother could not help but notice and feel a tremendous gratitude. She was not far now.

TAKE THE CHILD, the mother whispers to the wolf, as you once took me. Ferry her across the divide now back into life. Initiate her into the world of grown up charms. How beautiful you are and how handsome; look at the stars in your fur!

The wolf’s eyes glistened sadly.

Help me. I’ve not much time.

THE BAT WAS an angel. The bat was a messenger. The bat, it is true, has an enormous capacity for poignancy — a marvelous creature — it has a true aptitude for geometry. All in all, it is a miraculous being.

The wind came up and they walked looking straight ahead and at no time from side to side. Behold, the bat says, and it begins its Annunciation. The mother is desperately trying to decipher what it says at this moment from the shape its mouth takes. And then, just like that and no one knows why, least of all the mother, she gives up trying and lets the bat sink back into its jibber and lets the revelation slip away.

Whatever metaphors the bat dragged and carried with it, it could no longer touch her. Whatever associations there might have once been slip from her as if off utterly smooth black wings.

EVERYTHING WAS HAPPENING so quickly and seemed now to be speeding up. The mother did not know why everything had to change; she just knew that it did. Things were changing even when they seemed not to be.

THE MOTHER PICTURES a wondrous girl. One day she will awake and the child, gigantic, beautiful beyond belief, will stand before her, a girl capable of anything, towering impossibly in just a few years’ time, surpassing even the height of the Spiegelpalais.

Pupa is from the Latin for puppet, and from puppet, or young girl, comes an animated doll-like puppet creature. Pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The Romans also noted that when you looked into the center of the eye, you saw a small doll-like image of yourself reflected, and this was called the pupil. Look, the child said, shining a light into the Grandmother’s eyes.

THE CHILD HAD a plan. She would place the Grandmother in salt for forty days. Then she would soak her in molten resin and preserve her in perfumed oils. Then she would wrap her in linen. After that, she would put her in her kayak and climb in beside her.

THE GRANDFATHER FROM the North Pole says that the ice is a dynamic, living entity. The Grandmother says mush , and eight huskies obey. Frosty Boy leads the pack. Visibility is so low you can’t see from flag to flag. Whiteout conditions, someone manages to call, above the snow!

From the gleaming depths, the Grandfather from the North Pole sits bolt upright and bellows in an arresting baritone:

Who has made me rise

unwillingly and slow,

from beds of everlasting snow?

He looks to his daughter. It’s beautiful here, Bibi.

But what about the child, Father?

He shakes his head.

What about the child, she repeats.

You already know Bibi. You already know it was always too late.

And with that he lay back down, and once more froze again to death.

HERE FROSTY BOY, the mother whispers, and her voice echoes in the room. She looks at her father, sunken back into splendor.

THE NATIONAL SNOW and Ice Data Center’s ice expert says that the cap of floating sea ice on the Arctic Ocean is shrinking at an unprecedented rate. This year’s ice retreat is unmatched by anything in the previous century.

Even though the Grandmother from the North Pole is a strong swimmer, the mother was grateful that when the ice waters come to be the size of six Californias, the Grandmother from the North Pole would no longer be alive.

THE TIME IS running out. The world in its present form is passing away. What Saint Paul had said was as true now as it was then.

She was neither here nor there, and like the infants stranded in Limbo, she felt such discomfort, and it seemed to propel her — but whether up or down, whether back or forth, and whether she was asleep or awake, she did not know.

Even in sleep, the body was accelerating because the earth was in rotation. Even the coffins spun under the ground, with the spinning of the earth. All she knew was that the child was there again, at her side. And she smiled.

IT’S FRANCE, SOMEONE shouted, and the child jumped up and down with glee and pulled at her mother’s sleeve. France had come to the Spiegelpalais: A four-dolphined fountain was brought in, a glass pyramid, a grotto, and gargoyles. Fragments of the river Seine arrived — it glistened in the mirrored walls and kept the great American river company. The Little Sparrow sang.

BY MOONLIGHT THE mother works tirelessly. If she had made a bargain and had, as a result, been allotted so many years so as to watch her child be born and grow, she could not remember. All she knew was that she could feel the Great Fading, and along with the fade, the desire to make the child a safe place.

See how hard the mother is trying to fend off a catastrophe that has already happened. See how desperately she is trying to save them — and see in this last effort how beautiful they have become.

THE CHILD POINTED to the burning sky in fear.

Look! she cried.

The mother and she stood high, high atop the towers, which were in flames. From there it was clear to the child that the mother, who appeared very pregnant, could never have survived. It was almost ten years ago now that the towers had fallen, taking the three thousand souls. The child gasped, for she knew what it meant for them.

ON HER BACK she felt a searing heat. Maybe she was on fire. Instinctively she rolled on the floor to smolder the flames. Still she was not burning. There was no fire yet, only heat, and more and more smoke. People broke windows. The mother told herself to breathe. Maybe if she had a wet towel and could place it over her face.