Christopher Ransom - The Birthing House

When Docca Gunree returns, the women of the house step away from him and disappear into the corners, leaving him to drink beside the fire. When his tired grey eyes fall on Alma it is as if he has never seen her before. He tilts his head and blinks. Slowly, a recognition fills his eyes and he sneers at her, showing Alma a naked hatred she has not seen on any face.

- You carry the eyes of your mother

Alma's eyes brighten at the mention of Mother.

- She understood sometimes a woman must give a life to have a life

Alma is too frightened to speak or move.

- Your mother gave a life to have a life, for you to have a brother

This is the first Alma has heard of a brother.

- But these are cold times and the Lord cannot always provide for so many mouths

Alma thinks of the women feeding the lil'uns in their basinets.

- He took your mother away from us, and he had to be sent away

Alma blinks at Docca Gunree.

- It is inviting evil to keep the lil'uns who bring death upon their arrival

Alma does not understand, but she is more frightened than ever by the strange light in Docca Gunree's eyes. She turns and walks slowly down the stairs to the basement, crawling into her cool cot, pulling the single wool blanket over her shivering body.

When she awakens later he is standing over her bed. He is a huge figure dressed in black, his suspenders dangling at his sides, his enormous head leaning over her, his body swaying. Alma can smell the medicine coming from his open mouth from more than four feet away. She closes her eyes and pretends to sleep as he looks her over.

When he awakens next within her she is on the floor, deep in the basement, digging at the mortar around a rock the size of a small pig. She is using a steel trowel of some sort, patiently scraping at the chalky dust, humming as it falls away in a hissing cascade.

She is standing before the mirror again, in the guest room upstairs. But now the little girl is as tall and lithe as a willow, and her once golden hair has taken on the wash of brown that goes unnoticed until it is much too late. Her black dress is different, a handover from one of the other women of the house.

Mother has been gone four winters now , she says to no one.

She turns from the mirror and begins to wander, following the women of the house here and there, but when she attempts to help string clothes from the line over the path outside of the kitchen, woman of the house Big Helen shoos Alma away.

She wanders into the basement and looks over the lil'uns in basinets, counting how there are only three now out of twelve, and she knows that since the Great War has ended there are fewer and fewer Other Mothers and therefore less work to share. Alma knows that the women of the house wish her away now, and she must be careful not to upset the order lest he shoo her out of the house for good. She walks silently, in many ways already a ghost, into the deep corner of the basement and uses her thin but strong fingers to remove the piggy from the wall to open her lair.

Inside, she clutches her doll and dreams of Mother.

When she awakens next her body is sore all over from curling upon itself in the tiny space which grows smaller with each year. She is shivering and when she places a hand on the rock wall she knows the fire upstairs has gone out and that she has slept through supper again. She pushes the piggy loose and crawls out, her large feet cold upon the basement floor. She climbs the stairs in search of sustenance. In the kitchen she finds a pot of cold soup and a scrap of hard bread, which she breaks. Alma carries her bowl to the front parlor and prepares to load the fire, but a thump from upstairs startles her. She thinks perhaps the fire is still burning in the belly stove upstairs and she carries her bowl up, up and into the library.

The fire in the library is also cold. Alma hears the thumping sound again and forgets her soup and eats only one more bite of the hard bread before she turns to the room Mother made so pretty. Alma walks down the hall and around the black wooden banister at the front stairs for the patrons. Alma hears a woman in Mother's room and her heart jumps as a rabbit. Though she knows it cannot be possible, for a moment she dares hope it is Mother come home and that the weeping sounds are Mother crying tears of happiness.

Alma opens the door and sees three women of the house who have grown cold to her standing in the corner, heads bowed to the leather table in the center of the room with candles burning from every sill. The Other Mother on the table is tall and her lustrous black hair is strong, but she is not Mother. The Other Mother on the table is crying in soft rhythms and sweating all over her stripped bare body. Even though the winter is deep on the house, the room is very warm and full of the woman scents Alma knows from the house but stronger than ever before.

Docca Gunree is kneeling before the Other Mother in her time of need and his glasses are almost falling off his large red nose. His thick black hair and gray-streaked beard are oily and dripping from his labors as he speaks in mumbled commands. The Other Mother screams louder in three short peaks and then begins to howl. None of the women in the corner turn to see Alma, and Docca Gunree is concentrating so that he is unaware Alma has entered.

- the Lord has blessed Our Eden

Alma draws near, called to the table as if she might at last understand an important piece of Mother's history. Docca Gunree's face turns red as he pulls and shifts his black boots and becomes impatient the way Alma has seen Farmer Mitchell with the foals in spring in the field beyond Black Earth. The howl goes on for minutes and Alma must cover her ears it hurts so much until Docca Gunree jumps back and the streams of black spatter his arms and face. As if by magic the behbee is in his arms and the women of the house run from the room. Alma thinks of the doll the way the Other Mother's legs collapse. Docca Gunree pays them no mind as he takes the tiny behbee in his rough hands. Alma thinks the lil'un needs a bath so that he - Alma cannot see to know if he is a boy or a girl, but she knows he is a boy - can be swaddled and set in one of the basinets to await the women of the house come to feed him. Alma's heart hurts when he cries, which are somehow small and very loud in the hot room.

- forgive us dear Lord our humanly trespass

Alma sees the blue cord that runs from the lil'un's belly to the unseen dark between the Other Mother's legs and Alma follows it up and back down, marveling at the connection. Docca Gunree's other hand moves with the silver blade over the lil'un's small round belly and he cuts and cuts. Alma sees the cord and Docca Gunree shakes his head, fighting something inside of him Alma cannot see, and Docca Gunree curses, weeping as his large hand moves.

The world cuts. But the world does not cut away.

Already the cord is wrapped around the neck and Docca Gunree is pulling until the small crying sounds gurgle and stop. Alma does not know how she knows, but at last she knows about all the behbees Docca Gunree has made and how though he says sometimes a woman must give a life to have a life, this is his choice, not His choice.

Alma falls back on her bare feet and bumps against the wall.

Docca Gunree's face turns to her and his tears are flowing with the sweat and the black down his cheeks. His tongue pushes over his cracked lips. The Other Mother is not moving or screaming any longer and Docca Gunree's red eyes are seeing into Alma until he knows what she has seen, what she knows. She screams and runs back and around and down the front stairs and deeper into the house, into her secret hiding place grown cold. Alma pulls the piggy in place and flattens her body against the wool blanket and holds the doll Mother made for her close to her chest and closes her eyes as tight as she can. She is careful not to sing but she knows the words and Mother's sweet voice is here in the dark and her warm breath is on Alma's cheek. She pushes away the memory of Docca Gunree's face and the black and the little face and lips when he stopped and cut - and through the song Alma is with Mother and no longer frightened, even when his boots come thudding down the stairs and over the floor and the piggy is loose and the cold comes in and his hot wet hands are pulling her out. Even when he is tearing her dress on the piggy and lifting Alma high and throwing her down on the bed and screaming over her and pressing his wet lips and the salt penny blood and black beard against her young skin and his heavy hands are scratching are touching are shaking Alma for the first time in many months as he will again for many nights in the next six winters which are for Alma the longest seasons.