One day they took me to exercise and left Clara alone in her room. I couldn’t help but turn my head in worry as I left her. If they had taken her out of exercise, soon they would be taking her from me. Selfishly, I was concerned about being on my own.
When I returned, I relaxed in relief to see her still sitting in her bed, eyes on the wall. She winked at me, as my attendant roughly ‘helped’ me onto my bed. This one was old and huge, her uniform barely stopping bits and pieces of her from billowing out. The staff kept changing now. When the large woman left, Clara started rubbing her belly again, a habit that disgusted me.
“You know they won’t let you keep that thing, right?” I spat. She seemed so naive sometimes. Or caught up in her own world and I felt the cruel need to dent it, since I couldn’t join her there. She couldn’t be as strong as she seemed.
“I know,” she said and, for a moment, a small crack opened in her positive armor. But then that light appeared from within, and she beamed at me. “I’ve thought of a name.”
I pursed my lips. A name? That was insane! I couldn’t comprehend her love for this child. I couldn’t stand it. Why name it? I knew the name I would give mine. Leech. This thing that had intruded into my body was as unwelcome as it was detested.
She ignored my incredulous look. “Hessa after my father, if it’s a boy. Rosa if it’s a girl.”
“Don’t name that thing after me,” I snapped. I turned and looked at the wall. I felt wretched and angry. Most of the time I felt like Clara was crazy, that she floated around on a cloud that I couldn’t puncture or dissipate despite my attempts. Other times, she made me feel deficient, like there was something wrong with me for not feeling affection for this thing I was carrying.
She snapped back at me, her face seeming older, worn. She slammed her fist down on her thigh. “I know you don’t understand it, Rosa, but I love this baby. I am her mother. That is a strong bond. My love is MY choice, don’t ruin it.” Her voice ran out at the end of her sentence and she started to pant, struggling to catch her breath. Each word seemed harder and harder to expel, like she was pushing them out and they were backing up in her throat.
I was taken aback, my body stiffening from the short attack. Over the last few weeks, I had snapped at her many times, mocked her even. But she had always been this impenetrable source of hope, a light shining from inside her. She never stooped to my level, no matter how much I pushed her. I felt terrible for upsetting her, but for me, I didn’t feel anything other than the need to escape this nightmare. I was about to open my mouth and say something else rude when she screamed—a scream that tore through me, rumbling and echoing throughout the room and into the hall. Something was not right. Panic penetrated me, and something else, guilt. I prayed it was not my taunting that had brought her here.
“Rosa, something’s wrong, something’s wrong,” she said in short, expelled bursts like hiccups. “Ahhhh!” She was holding her stomach and retching. She was in so much pain I could almost feel it myself. Beads of sweat crowned her forehead, her hands searching for something to hold onto. Her face was contorted into a grimace that didn’t sit well on her usually serene face. I was about to jump up when I saw the doors swing open.
The white coats were swarming around her. Completely ignoring my presence. Clara turned towards me, her eyes wide with fear and adrenalin.
Harsh Voice appeared, looking displeased but not panicked, and said, “This is not right, she’s only thirty-six weeks. It won’t do, we haven’t prepared her yet. Take her to theatre five. I’ll meet you there.” She adeptly unhooked Clara from her various machines and ripped a sheet of paper from the frantic, scribbling machine they’d wrapped around her stomach. As she studied it, the other people wheeled her out of the room. Clara screamed again. “Do something about the noise,” Harsh Voice called after them. Mid-scream there was silence. She stormed after them.
I felt pure terror. For my friend and for myself. The pain she was in seemed unnatural. She looked sick. Was she sick or was this normal? What were they going to do with her? What did they mean when they said she wasn’t ‘prepared’ yet? I held the edge of the sheets tightly in my balled-up fists, as if I could pull them over my head and shut the horror out. Clara, I prayed, please, please, please, be ok.
I felt a hand touch my own. I snapped my head around wildly. I hadn’t noticed that Apella had stayed behind. She stepped back a little and said, “It’s ok, Rosa. They won’t hurt her, she’s too important.” This was the first time Apella had spoken to me and I knew she was taking a big risk talking to me now.
“What will they do?” I asked, the pitch of my voice escalating, feeling desperate and unhinged with every passing second that I didn’t know where Clara was.
“I don’t know.” Apella looked at her feet. She looked to be close to my mother’s age. Her neat, blonde hair swung at her shoulders as she stared down at the ground, avoiding my gaze. She seemed to be bracing herself for a tirade. But I wasn’t angry. She wasn’t the culprit. Like me, like Clara, she was probably here against her will, recruited after the Classes and brought to this place. She had already risked too much for us.
A man popped his head in the doorway. Apella quickly withdrew her hand. If he saw it, he overlooked it.
“Semmez is asking for you.”
“Ok. I’m coming.” Apella left the room, her timid footsteps barely seeming to touch the floor as she padded quietly away.
So that was Harsh Voice’s name. I think I preferred Harsh Voice to Semmez.
For two days I waited. Apella never came to check on me and I didn’t hear what had happened to Clara. I hoped Apella hadn’t been reported or discovered. Clara must have gone into labor that morning. Had she delivered the baby? What would they do with her after it was out? I started to think about the possibilities and shut myself down. These people were capable of horrible deeds. Clara could be, no. I wasn’t even going to think it.
I felt the fog rising but it was a fog of my own making, a cloud of fear and hopelessness, blanketing my brain. The problem was there was too much time to think. I kept staring over at her side of the room. I was like one of her dolls, a perfect facade on the outside, wooden and dead on the inside. I wondered how Clara was feeling, if she was even alive. If they had taken the baby away from her, what grief she must be feeling right now. Her spirit seemed so tied to that thing. It nourished her in this hell of a place. Without it, I wondered what would be left of the girl I had come to love.
At night, I felt the leech writhing inside me. I came to think of it as a monster. I dreamed it was tearing its way out of me. Claws scratching at my skin, pulling me apart as I screamed in pain. I woke up in the middle of the night with someone’s hand over my mouth, a hand that smelled vaguely of earth and smashed herbs. “Shhh!” the dark figure whispered. “You can’t be dreaming in here. The others don’t dream.” I nodded my head and he removed his hand. “Who are you?” I whispered into the dark, but he was already gone.
The next morning, they wheeled her in. She was alive, drugged up to her eyeballs, but definitely alive and still very, very pregnant.
I waited eagerly for the people in white to leave so I could ask her what had happened and it seemed like forever. They were fussing over every detail, making sure everything was in order. They brought me my dinner but brought her nothing. It was then that I noticed the new tube coming out of her arm. One woman disconnected the tube and syringed a yellow-tinted liquid into it. I watched it track up the tube and into my friend. She looked so tiny, so weak lying on that bed, her head propped up with a boulder sitting on top of her, her eyes closed. Maybe that’s what they did, drugged her to stop the labor. I had heard that was possible. We didn’t have those kinds of facilities in Pau. Anyone who had the misfortune of going into labor early was generally in big trouble. The baby usually died.