Because this woman is perilously stupid, she believes nothing can happen the first time you do it. And then, of course, it happens. As I enter the world, I want to tell her: Do something clever for the first time in your life and keep me, I’m pretty smart, I can give a little of that to you. I’m trying my damndest to make her hear me, I’m screaming. But she’s too dumb. She thinks screaming is nothing but noise. And dumber stilclass="underline" she believes that if she runs away, she won’t hear that screaming anymore.
Or: This woman thinks a mother’s role is overrated because she didn’t have one of her own, and after all, in the end she made something of herself, didn’t she?
Or: According to this woman, “pregnancy denial” is nonsense, how could there be such a thing, every woman knows when she has a bun in the oven! No, in her opinion it’s just indigestion. Until, suddenly, there I am. And what does she do then? She says thanks a lot, washes herself off, gets dressed, and marches out of the hospital without me, glad that the indigestion has finally faded.
Or: For this woman, getting pregnant is simply part of life, like brushing her teeth. She can’t explain why it keeps happening to her of all people, miscounting now and then while taking the pill isn’t such a big deal, and it isn’t as if she’s entirely renounced condoms simply because it feels better for women, too, without them, she makes a genuine effort, hand on heart, in her opinion none of her girlfriends are as careful as she is, but then, none of them are so fertile. If she’d been around in the early forties, they would have awarded her the golden Mother’s Cross, at the very least. Can anyone really hold it against her that sometimes she loses sight of the big picture and forgets where exactly she’s scattered her genes?
Or: Somehow this woman understood it differently, when her man told her he wanted only the best for her. Many big, expensive things were what occurred to her, not a wizened parcel of flesh that shrieks reproachfully at you when you give it away.
Or: This woman thinks it’s a shame when pregnant women don’t take responsibility for themselves, but I’m not, strictly speaking, her child yet. In her opinion, a child isn’t automatically your child just because you’ve been pregnant with him, no, it takes much more than that, a child only becomes your child when the mother and the baby have properly bonded, that is, established a rapport, and if that doesn’t occur — which, regrettable as it may be, can happen — then the child is indeed related to you, it has a place on the family tree, but really, what does that mean, and anyhow, you can’t love everybody, our social behavior is selective, and if that holds for friendships and life partners, it would be backward to claim that it’s heartless for the same principle to apply to children. Mothers should finally buck the idea that they have to accept supinely everything that life sets before them!
“So there aren’t ninety thousand minutes left?” asked Fred.
“Maybe a few less,” Albert added now, trying to keep the peace.
Violet smiled into the rearview mirror.
Klondi rolled her eyes, then said, “Fred’s told me about the two of you. How long have you been together?”
For a fraction of a second, the Beetle crossed the road’s center line.
Albert looked Klondi in the eye, and shook his head.
She raised both eyebrows. “Oh. What happened?”
Albert didn’t answer that, and to his great relief, Violet kept silent as well.
Fred said, “My nose is tickling.”
Albert was grateful to him for the distraction.
Klondi and Violet answered at the same time: “Then scratch it.”
Albert looked straight ahead, and was reminded once again that Fred was one of those very few people the back of whose skull he could make neither head nor tail of. A pair of hair whorls twisting in opposing directions lent it an aristocratic note, which otherwise never came to the fore.
Violet shifted to a higher gear. “Have you ever been to Saint Helena?”
“Me?” asked Klondi.
“You,” said Violet.
“Never so far,” answered Klondi, and presented her teeth to the rearview mirror, which Violet quickly twisted to the right without looking, removing Klondi from the reflection.
“Do you have children?” Violet asked.
The way Klondi’s chin trembled for a moment before she answered in the negative didn’t escape Albert, and it made him think of her ex-husband, the bus driver Ludwig, and her daughter in the moon-white dress.
Violet glanced over her shoulder: “Something wrong?”
“No,” said Klondi. “No, no.”
“How’s your internship going?” Albert interjected.
Violet nudged the rearview mirror back into position, and cleared her throat. “Totally great.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Yeah, me, too. I’ve gotten to know so many exciting people. It’s cool.”
“My nose tickles,” said Fred.
Albert: “Then scratch it.”
The car left the woods, and Violet didn’t slow down when they passed a highway sign, so Albert could make out only the second half of the name of the town they were going through. He’d always made the trip to Saint Helena by train, plus a couple of miles on the bus. He felt as though they weren’t traveling toward Saint Helena at all, but some other, unfamiliar place. Reason urged him to remain calm; two or three hours more, then they’d arrive. He’d find Sister Alfonsa, and she’d share what she had to share, and after that they’d head home. That was all.
“My nose …,” said Fred, and his head fell sideways.
A Stranger
Violet slammed on the brakes in the middle of the street. Albert, like Klondi, was thrown back in his seat; they had both leaned forward to look at Fred, whose taut seat belt had held him upright. Violet went to open her door without checking the oncoming lane, and Klondi screamed to stop her from stepping out into the path of a minivan that blew past them, honking. Albert had trouble unfastening his seat belt, and Klondi had to help him. One after another they leapt from the driver’s-side door. The last one out, Albert ran around the Beetle, shoved Violet aside, tore the door open, and saw the blood streaming from Fred’s nose, flowing over his lip, his chin, down his throat, staining his shirt rust-red.
“Fred?” said Albert, and louder: “Frederick?”
No reaction.
Albert bent over him and undid his seat belt. Someone laid a hand on his back, and he heard whispering — but it was all far away. Here in his head his pulse was thudding, and the sweetish-metallic smell of blood filled his nose, and he knew that the time had come. Fred was dying.
Small, rough hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away, and he inhaled the fresh air. Klondi slapped him and spat a torrent of words into his face: “PullyourselftogetherAlbertpullyourselftogetherthisgod damnminute!” Then she turned away and, with Violet’s help, wrestled Fred from the car. Together they dragged him over to the curb, then laid him down on the sidewalk. Albert clutched his makeup compact, knelt beside Fred, and checked his pulse: weak. Klondi grabbed Albert by the collar and told him not to move, before hurrying off toward the next house on the street. Violet wiped tears from her face, ran back to the Beetle, and started the motor. Albert yelled, “Hey!”
“What is it?” asked Fred. His voice was muted, as if he were speaking from the far side of some thin membrane.
“Quiet.” Albert laid a hand on his chest, which felt warm and damp. “You shouldn’t talk.”