Shadows were heaving, their black liquid-flesh interlocking to rip apart. The wind had finally smothered the candle he kept on, as it screeched like some delirious wayward traveller. Whatever it was entered the house again; the shadow of a tree branch lighting cracks on my face, its shape the long hand of something other. It would start again, clawing at the flesh-threads of life with which I held onto Clara, the same way I held onto Damascus the responsible elder, Isabella ‘Bella’ and Rebecca ‘Becca’, the rivalling twins, Ruth the one we were sure would make it, and sweet little Elijah, before they were all torn off, leaving my womb in clustered, disconnected, burning threads. And when Clara lay instead in my palm, just a small, swollen, deep-purple body, dripping still with the thick black blood I lifted her from, the unseen hand kept teething at my womb while I breathed harder meaning to stay still.
When Darius returned with a relighted candle, its light was soon stifled again, so the blue light rose on his face as he entered,
“Petra… Petra I’ve been meaning to tell you that-”
“Tell it.”
“That… I can’t look after you anymore,”
“Bastard.”
“No, not when I knew the whole time that you put something in my drink to keep me here. I knew it, and I didn’t say, so as not to make you feel uncomfortable. And in all this waste of time, I tried to have you understand, that you didn’t need to. I would’ve wanted to stay anyway.”
“And now?”
“…Well, I did my best.”
That’s when I put Clara’s body to rest in the glass jar I had beside me, before standing, striding over, and striking him. His hand covered the side of his face from which his nose trickled blue-black in that decadent night, and for the first time, I attempted to caress the smooth unwavering face.
Still, he turned and silently moved down the narrow stairs towards the entrance. His shoes dragged in the murky waters. The door creaked long and hollow as he left our house, into the warring downpour. Equally drenched after rushing barefooted to the balcony, I watched him wading far in the rippling silver street, trying to make him think, I should go back, I should go back, I should go back, or else I’m a lowly bastard, all the way up until he finally infused with the night.
***
Someone gashed a red-orange wound in that sky, and under its pervading glow I hoped for warmth, only to get sore in the bright metallic air.
When I briefly retreated inside, to bring Clara to see the view, her jar had shattered and her flimsy body furred over by the carpet dust. And I went to wash her, crying ugly and sputtering mucus, explaining that I never meant to drop her and that she was never dropped anyway, that the bath was only to celebrate her living. And as I washed her, a part of my nail slipped, a slit in her warm flesh. And in silence, I pushed a scream like my throat could churn diamonds, while her limp body trembled along with my trembling hand.
Holding her with dedication I returned to the balcony to say, look Clara, this is the light, and I heard her crying with that raspy newborn wail, so I spilt, I love you Clara, I love you and all your brothers and sisters, I loved you as much as I loved Darius… I had to end the crying, knowing what would come.
So I carried her with me outside, to the bridge over the canal, where its green-blue waters received her in silence. My jaw and all my muscles were taut as I dug my nails into my scalp and dragged down the sides of my hot face with its temples burning. For a moment I knelt and laid my head against the stone barrier, gripping the bars of the bridge to imagine my nails biting into Darius again.
But what good is a life in a glass jar? It’s not my fault. None of them.
Soon after I rushed back home, as people began to wake in theirs, and the song of minor birds recalled, and so did the distant pair of wheels.
Slouching in the two chairs he first laid on, I stared at the cold lute in its corner while it stared back at me. We faced away from the light, as the shadows grew longer and darker and taller than I ever was or could’ve been.
With no reason to be awake, I felt my mind slip through the numb fingers interweaved in my scalp as the shadows began silently twisting and writhing into little boys and girls.
***
In some ways, it was worse that I could watch them play and play with them, but fail to clasp my arms around any one of the waiting children. Because children need hugging. And what a child also needs, is to be seen. But I couldn’t see them. They were still just the cold hollow of light, always shivering. And I couldn’t warm them with a hug. So I kept many candles lighted.
Soon the chance to see them came, when on Carnevale, ships arrived from the world to celebrate, and under the freedom of my mask and the carelessness of some inadequate mothers and fathers, I found them. I guided them by their little pink hands, warm and fleshy, through the trembling flood of embroidered ballgowns and heeled boots with the golden buckles, out of the whipping light and back to our damp home, which in their absence had begun to eat away at itself, where I then removed their masks with the same dedication in which I first carried their bodies.
Damascus, Bella, Becca, Ruth, Elijah and Clara all stood before me, watching while I knelt to meet them at eye level. And I embraced them all, exhaling, we’re finally home, then crying, this is home. And exactly as I had known them, they were all very beautiful children.
***
It was necessary for me to horde them away first. Otherwise, I would’ve lost them again too soon. So when the flood had crept in and swallowed back out enough times, we all stepped into the nipping air, holding hands tight. As we moved through the cobblestone street my vision blurred with the constant straining of my neck head and spine, to look more ways at a time than my useless body would allow.
I knew that anyone could assume I was as negligent, no, more negligent, incompetent, horrible, than whoever came before, yet I walked the dignity of a thousand noble women and trained myself to hold the same severity of the overseers, that with the triumph of a family I presented, I began to remind myself that the past should never be seen.
And so I proudly toured the children around the Bridge of Sighs, the Basilica, the Palace, then the square, no musicians that time. The empty space soon filled with the memories I poured into the children, of a strange man made of rock, with the exaggerated limbs and raw skill of aggravation that a wiry mosquito would possess. As I spoke further, Damascus held my hand looking sorry for me, Bella and Becca started to tug at each other’s hair and skirts, Ruth crouched to closely inspect the approaching myriad of white, blue, brown, pigeons, Elijah kept finding things to laugh about, and Clara poked my arm to ask, with her beaming ruddy face, and fingers coyly intertwining, whether the man I told them about was my “sweet one”, to which Damascus quickly shook his head, ordered her to “shush!”.
As I was about to correct him, and answer her, a man who had been sitting on the steps of one of the stone buildings surrounding us, stood up to make his way. The heavy sun poured onto his back so that he was overcast for some time, and all the while I hardened my nerves and firmed my teeth, as I commanded the children to gather behind.
Yet the man, when we were finally close enough, had been the red-eyed, dishevelled, gaunt-looking remains of the skin he wore before, like a scrap of leather worn too often, with white scratches visible in the tarnished brown. And it was easier then, to admit that I loved him.
***
“Petra…”
The rain of many nights before clung to him in the crevices of his weary joints. As I laid my head by his neck, the damp musk seemed to weigh on me too, and the rough cloth on his chest and back drained my warmth as I held on. Then with a slight tightening, and under a whisper, I told him,
“Again.”
And Darius breathed it out, before floating to the ground, and I descended with him to support his weight, to watch his half-lidded eyes close further. After they were fully closed, he went on,
“I heard, that you became a recluse, and it wasn’t enough just to hear about you. But on my way back, to our home, I couldn’t continue. Instead, I wasted away here, afraid, to see all the damage I left. I’m sorry…”, and he turned his heavy head away from the sun, using his wide palms to cover the abysmal sight of him crying in my lap.
“And Petra, I always knew you were a beautiful soul. The way you’ve taken these children in-”
“Taken them in?”, I interjected.
After he raised his brows, observing the children who gathered in a crescent shape around us, he sighed with a confused expression,
“…Well, alright, beautiful Signorina. You tell me.”
So I ensured he knew that their true mother was me, that these were our destined children, Damascus, Bella and Becca, Ruth, Elijah, Clara, all as they were meant to be. And to that he sat up on the step below mine, to kiss my hand, say nothing more, stare into the distance and sooth his thumbs over my upturned palm, us sitting all together on the big stone steps to face the sun.
***
When the sun finally froze over, hardened and white and fading into its equally pallid sky, the pieces could be seen descending on the cobblestones, infusing into the fog that settled over the darkening waters, and blanketing the curved domes and tiled roofs of all great and humble buildings within view of our balcony. With the glass door closed behind me the children still slept, scattered with their pink and peachy limbs in disarray all over the dishevelled bed, cushions and blankets spilled onto the carpet from its sides.
With Elijah and Clara on opposite sides about to fall, I opened the door; cool air entered with me, smothered the candlelight Darius had left for them the night before his return to work. And I knew there would still be much time before he could reappear, but I would sit every morning until then, to form his impressive silhouette, approaching from the expanding fog. After re-arranging and re-blanketing the children, the church bell rang, followed by the airy white notes of its choir.
That was when the door resounded from below. And I gathered my long velvet skirt in one hand to carefully descend the stairs. Yet when I answered, a dark child stood silent before me, with big black eyes staring under sparse brows, a wrinkly finger lightly itching its flat nose, and wild blue-black hair protruding from its ugly high forehead.
With its bare clothing and lack of shoes, I could have pitied it. I would have pitied it, if it weren’t that child. Something there sickened me and compelled me to slam the door. But as I retreated up the stairs, the door resounded heavily again. So I rushed back to scream at that disturbingly silent pest, to leave me and my children in peace, before slamming the door again, leaning against it and making myself breathe slow. Needing to lay in the warmth of my sleeping children, I made my way upstairs.
***
“If I could kill that child I would”.
She exhaled the words like a white death. Her eyes took in the children’s cooling bodies and their calm expressions surrounding her. I tried holding my breath longer but lost hold, and the covers were ripped from the mirrors to expose me to the light, her face stretched into disgust and rage as we took the beating that came, every fist a blooming warm.
Once she finally tired, I rushed to hang my arms around her, nestle my head by her heaving chest, to stop her for as long as possible. And I saw the woman’s arms bear the same bruises as mine, before I looked up to her melting, seething face. Her chest swells again when she knows. And I think our resemblance only hurts her more.
***
The child still remains. I look away, but the mirrors latch on to me with my reflection, forcing me to see her again, myself before the world of beauty.
In weary confusion, I stand still, slowly turning my head to mourn everything before us, a ghostly sheen descending like the holy spirit transforming into something real, washing over all the horrors under its vague light, and to the sound of nothing but the breathing canal, we wait for Darius to return home.
