Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

She went on the day she had promised toward the bend of the road where she was to meet Fanny. It was a sullen day, the snow drifting from smooth, frigid gray clouds. She had brought some money. For the present she would bring a little money each week, but soon she must think of some way to earn more. She held it in her hand, the precious stuff. It could not be more precious to Fanny than it was to her. She would tell Fanny she had only a very little and her own child coming. But Fanny was not there. She waited a while, gazing over the bleak hills, not daring to leave too soon. She walked up and down until she was cold, so cold that the child within her felt still and cold, and she grew afraid for him. Troubled, she resolved she would come again the next week, on the same day. She searched the whitening landscape, the bitter wind tearing at her coat, at her hair. But there was no living creature in sight. The road wound emptily into the distance. She turned and went back to the house.

Before the week was gone, on Christmas Eve, her child was born. She had made this year no mockery of preparation for Christmas. Her mother was three years dead. She remembered and put away the memory. Another year there would be a reason for Christmas, a little child for whom to make gifts and cut a tree and trim it. And then in the twilight, the birth began.

But she had the child so easily that it was like a gift. She had been ready for any pain. She remembered scraps of whispers here and there through her years of girlhood — her mother, hurrying in sometimes in the early morning, pale but cheerful, to be at the breakfast table, “Yes, dear, I am a little tired. I was at the Watsons’ most of the night. They have a dear little baby girl.” Later, neighbors running in, she could hear, when she was dusting in the hall, her mother’s lowered voice. “Dr. Crabbe sent for me. No, things didn’t go just right, but she pulled through. It’s a miracle the child was saved. What? Yes, she suffered agonies ! If only the child is all right — you know what I mean. You never can tell—”

Once Hannah said primly, “I’ve never married, but there are rewards. I’ve been spared some agonies, anyway.”

She had been ready for agonies, though Dr. Crabbe had said, “You’re made for this job, Joan — measurements perfect! Don’t often see a woman like that these days — spindly lot, living off pineapple and spinach and looking like yellow wax beans!”

Yes, the child had come like a gift. In the afternoon of Christmas Eve she was in the attic, looking out of the gable window at a deep orange sunset sky. She had had the premonition of pain, and recognized it instantly. She laid herself upon the bed and waited and almost at once the rhythm of pain began. She went downstairs and called Bart.

“Go for Dr. Crabbe,” she said. To Bart’s mother she said quietly, “My time’s come. I’m going to be in the attic in my own bed.”

“You’re not going to give birth in the attic!” Bart’s mother cried. “Folks will talk! My son’s wife lying in the attic like hired help!”

“Who will know?” she answered quietly from the stairs. She wanted her baby born there among the tree-tops, high above the earth. She had been preparing for him there. His little clothes were there in the tray of the round-topped trunk, and the few things Dr. Crabbe had told her to have ready.

“The doctor will tell,” Bart’s mother cried up the stairs after her. “It will be a shame to us! And if I have to fetch and carry for you, it will be extra steps. There’s enough work as it is.”

“Bart will sleep better,” Joan answered, and heard no answer.

In the attic she made ready. She made everything ready to the measure of the rhythm of pain now quickening its swifter and swifter paces. When its beat brought the sweat upon her forehead and her upper lip, and the palms of her hands were wet, she laid herself upon her bed and stared straight into the rafters, gathering herself for each crisis of the pain. Soon Dr. Crabbe would be here. He had said, “Five hours, perhaps, since it is the first time.” Three hours were gone. He would be here at any moment. She could almost catch the rumble and racket of Bart’s old car. God send he would drive carefully! He was so absurdly proud of driving that he scorned to be careful. Like a child he boasted, “Look at me pass that fellow!”

Don’t think about Bart! This was something she was doing alone. She was having her own child, her first child, the first of many children. Children were to fill her life, all her little children. Now her life was really beginning. She had waited so long for her life to begin. The pain gathered in her, deep, immense, pulling every fiber of her body into a focus of bright pain. Why did people say pain was dark and dull? If one let pain come free — like this — like this — letting it possess the body, letting it gather and mount and soar, it was bright, a shape of edged beauty, acute and clear, rising, tingling, flying upward into purest feeling — a winged body, mounting, soaring into the sky. Above her was the sky, black, deep, soft, a blackness for pain to shine against, to pierce — to pierce and rend and tear.

Something broke in her, her very being gushed forth. She might have been terrified at this melting and flowing. But she was not afraid. By body’s sense she knew this was right. Then, almost immediately, the child was born. She gave one great involuntary cry, a cry mingled with the child’s first cry. There were footsteps and Dr. Crabbe’s voice roared up the steep stairs. She saw his curly grayish head rising at the door. “My God, Joan!” he rumbled, hurrying, stumbling. She was smiling, panting, saying over and over, “Dr. Crabbe — Dr. Crabbe—”

He was bustling, hurrying, cursing. But she had everything ready. He was there instantly at work, grumbling at her, grinning. “Had to be forehanded, didn’t you? Damn these capable women anyway! It’ll be a pretty kind of world for the profession if women go having their babies by themselves — and it’s about all that’s left for me to do nowadays — nobody getting sick much and old Mrs. Kinney, still hanging on. It’s a biggish baby, Joan — a boy!”

All Christmas day she lay upon her bed under the rafters in the deep quietness. Beside her lay the child. She would never be lonely again, never. Her body had divided and made this second self. She was contented as she had never known content. It was body content, content of instinct. Mind did not stir, heart slumbered. But the womb had fulfilled itself richly and she slept and the child slept. Twice she woke, once at Bart’s heavy tread, catching upon the stairs. “Dang these stairs — here’s your food, Jo.”

“Thank you, Bart.” She was hungry and she ate while he sat waiting, tipping back on his chair. He had stared curiously at the baby once. “Most as big as a calf,” he had said, grinning. She did not answer. He had nothing to do with her child.

“Looks like snow,” he remarked.

“Does it?” she said. She looked at the window. Yes, the sky was softly, deeply, evenly gray. He took her bowl and spoon and clattered heavily down the stairs. The clatter was scarcely gone before she slept again. She woke once to find Dr. Crabbe gazing down at her. “Sleep, girl,” he had murmured. “That’s right. Sleep deeply. Everything’s fine — nothing for me to do. I’ll be getting back before the snow gets any heavier. It’s six inches already.”

Snow — it was snowing, then. She was glad. Fanny wouldn’t come through the snow. She was safe. She and the baby were safe under this roof. The snow was covering them, warming them, giving them its shelter. She slipped deeper into her covers and felt the body of the child, warm, robust, sleeping. The child was here. She returned into her sleep.