Not even to my mother, least of all to her.
My mother is the kind of woman, you can believe me, Erna, who gives everything, and I mean everything to her only son, and denies everything to her daughters.
If she could, she’d take the food out of my mouth.
To my mother, I couldn’t either, interrupted Erna vehemently, not a word, never. Imagine, my mother didn’t even tell me, listen, my little girl, there will come a time when you’ll bleed.
The deep resentment she had felt for her mother subsided as rapidly as it had awakened. Her vehemence had more to do with how much she understood Geerte, how closely she followed what she was saying about this difficult, painful matter. Not only did she want to identify with her, she was identical to her. No, this is indeed not simple, she added, a little confused. And quickly stopped talking because she did not want to catch herself in a lie.
She fell silent because until now she too had thought that it was a very simple matter. More precisely, she did not understand why it wasn’t as simple as it should be.
One feels, at least I always felt, that I could not be away from my child anymore, Geerte continued. And I don’t really like to put the blame only on my husband. The relationship between two people is difficult enough; how much more complicated are relations among three or four. Though I must say he behaved badly, what I’m saying is that he already became rough after the first one. He’d been rough before, but maybe I hadn’t noticed what kind of man he was.
The feeling that even when we were alone together, I wasn’t there by myself anymore, as he was, that is what he wanted to extinguish in me. As if he wanted if to be just the two of us again.
I’ve been ashamed ever since, or rather I’m ashamed for him. But the point is that one probably can’t break free of one’s child, not for a moment, because one is not a separate body. Or maybe one can’t break away from oneself, and the whole thing is nothing but terrible, animal selfishness. That you can’t give of yourself, or what you can give only your child deserves.
Perhaps one shouldn’t say this, but maybe I’m not a good enough mother, said Erna quietly after a little while, because I don’t feel anything like this.
She doesn’t.
Believe me, I do not. And my husband is not rough with me, he is patient, considerate, cautious, and likes to show his happiness. He strokes me, calls me pet names, and wants to pamper me. I feel and I know he isn’t thinking only about himself when he wants us to be together again, just the two of us. Sometimes he’s quite touching. Once, we even cried together.
They were both silent for a long time before Erna could speak again.
That’s not it, no.
It must be something else, then.
Something else.
I don’t know.
It’s as if we have been split, broken up, for I don’t know how long, as if we’ve been hacked apart. And then how could I wish him to come inside me again the way he used to long ago. No, I couldn’t. I’d rather never do it again, ever. I am not whole. Well, at first, one thinks it’s because of the torn perineum. When I had the little girl maybe it didn’t tear as much as it had with the boy, or maybe it healed faster. Or I just don’t know, really, that’s why I’m asking you, because I really don’t know what’s happening, and I’m beginning to be afraid. And to be honest, what sort of thing is this breastfeeding. Don’t be angry that I’m talking about things like this. Now, with the little boy, it didn’t hurt as much, or maybe I knew what to expect and that’s why it didn’t. But since then my whole body has been a wreck, my whole system, my everything, and no matter what I do, it does not pass. Everything. Maybe I’m just impatient, but I don’t know, compared with what should I be more patient — with him, or with myself, or with whom.
And you can see, I am literally flowing away, in all directions. All right, eventually that will stop, but sometimes it disgusts me so much. Is this what I have to put up with, every time.
While I feed the baby from one, she said, laughing a little and raising her breast, I’m dripping from the other. And there are other things one doesn’t talk about. The other things one must endure in the meantime.
Yes, I’m a wreck, I am devastated, all the time. And I don’t want to feel that it’s good to be like this. Yet it’s good to be this way, good, very good, this agitation, she cried out.
She had to get hold of herself.
Haven’t you felt, and this is what I want to ask, as if you’d been thrust out of your own body, that you can’t find your way back to the old one because in the meantime everything has changed. That’s what frightens me, that’s what I’m dreading. Where have I got to, where is the me I was before.
Or who am I.
That’s what I want to ask, is that what you feel.
No, I never felt anything like that, answered Geerte dryly. Everybody must feel it differently.
You probably never got as fat as I have.
No, I didn’t get fat at all. I was surprised by that myself, that I could breastfeed all right from these little breasts and that my child was very satisfied.
Because you’re a good mother. And not unlucky with your body the way I am.
Geerte did not reply, because she thought this sentence was offensive and unjustified. How can somebody so rich and beautiful be unlucky. It was hard for her to take her eyes off the other’s body, because she could not get enough of it. With a single movement of her wrist, she indicated that she was ready to take the blouse and camisole from Erna and have them washed.
She may have been saved; she could leave now.
For that to happen, Erna would first have to stand up, because while sitting she could not pull the blouse or camisole out from the waistband of her tight skirt. She knew she was pretending to get up to do just that, but that was not the reason. In her excitement, her knees were trembling a little, and, although she knew perfectly well what this excitement was all about, she could not believe it.
As if she had but one impersonal passion, and what was happening now was only another, hitherto unknown variety of the same passion.
Had she not been talking to this woman about how, in the absence of physical excitement, she could not give herself to her husband, how she did not even feel the urge to expose herself, how she did not understand why she didn’t; yet now, in its other variation, the urge alarmingly and powerfully made its appearance. It was shaking her knees, and it was impossible to tell whether it was joy or fear. Geerte stood up too, as if to follow Erna in everything, so as not to make her late for brunch at the university, which every month was an important event in the small town’s social life; at least that’s what she thought of her own helpful effort, as she sought, even more desperately than Erna did, to conceal her real intentions. A faint smile appeared on her heavy lips and began to spread, as if to signal the opposite of her thought.
Contempt.
Or something she disliked in Erna’s behavior.
She is rejecting her.
Perhaps the awkward trembling that Erna feels in her body and that is now visible.
What do I care whether it’s visible or not, Erna said to herself. She was definitely angry at Geerte von Groot, now ready to take her leave with that contemptuous smile of hers.
Well, in the end you haven’t told me anything, Geerte. You’ve given me only empty words. You’ve cleverly evaded all my questions, she said, and laughed openly at Geerte.
The laugh was indecent and alluring, because with her lips she broke through her own bashful trembling, even though the lips kept quivering.