Hopeful Monsters

by Hiromi Goto

  “Mama, you had miscarriages. Lots of women do.” To be on the safe side Hisa crossed her fingers, knocked on the kitchen cabinet, and silently offered a quick prayer to God for the well-being of her child.

  “And didn’t you turn out soft in the head?” Junko continued. “Not a backbone in you, it’s a wonder you had sense enough to get married.”

  Hisa sighed. But her mother, still talking, didn’t hear her.

  By the beginning of her third trimester, she was retaining quite a bit of water. Not to worry, her family physician said. Blood pressure’s fine and your weight gain within normal range. Lots of women retained water. Something about cells and amniotic fluid. Hisa didn’t care as long as it wasn’t dangerous and went away after the delivery. She was thirty-one years old.

  “We’re mostly water anyway,” he chuckled. The hairs on his hands distracted her so she closed her eyes.

  “Mmmm,” she said.

  “A little more won’t do you harm and when the water breaks, down will come baby, cradle and all, ha, ha, ha.”

  Was that a joke? Hisa wondered. It wasn’t funny. She must have frowned because Dr Armstrong cleared his throat. “There. All done. You’re looking great. Have you been doing your pelvic exercises? I’ll see you in two weeks. If you have any prolonged pain that goes beyond Braxton Hicks or any sign of bloody discharge, phone your symptoms to our nurse. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Should I be worried?” Hisa asked, opening her eyes.

  The fluorescent light buzzed around Dr Armstrong’s shiny head. His pale blue eyes were vague. Like the kind that Hisa had seen on some white horses. She’d never liked white horses. She wondered if milky eyes were one of those things that happened to men more than women, like that bleeding disease. She couldn’t remember. She had studied Restoration Literature at university, but she had been fond of biology when she was in high school.

  “Now what can there be to worry about? You’re about to embark on the most natural journey of life. A commonplace miracle. Ha, ha, ha.”

  Hisa closed her eyes again. Dr Armstrong was Bobby’s doctor. She kept her eyes shut through the last of his commentary and reopened them only after his shoes squeaked through the door. Hisa stared at the bulge that rose magnificently from her midriff. The baby churned, digging a knee or elbow. She could see her skin give, as if an alien was trying to burst out of her belly even while she watched: alive and horrified. Ridley Scott had a lot to answer for, she thought. She wondered if he ever had to fight a lawsuit for causing maternal psychological trauma. Americans, she knew, sued over things like spilled coffee and music videos with homosexual male police officers. She used to think male doctors were so dependable and fatherly. Maybe it was those shows she watched as a child. Trapper John, M.D. Marcus Welby. Quincy. No, he was a coroner. She’d never go to a midwife, though. Midwifery sounded like something out of the Middle Ages. As Hisa shrugged into her clothes she decided she would look for a new doctor if she had another baby.

  Hisa wasn’t entirely certain when she went into labour. The small twinges of pain might have been gas or wishful thinking. Brow furrowed, she stared at the island of her belly. She just wanted to have her body back, thank you very much, and begin being a mother. She’d grown her hair long for the occasion. She would pin it up in a bun.

  “Do you think it’s started?” Bobby asked her belly. He was kneeling on the floor and when he raised his head to look earnestly at Hisa’s face, his wetly beaded forehead shone with worry and excitement. They’d met at a wine-tasting workshop for singles. They dated for seven months before having sex.

  Well. . . .” Hisa rubbed her stomach. That little twinge came again. A little muscle spasm. Or a gurgle of gas. Please, God, let it all be okay, she prayed silently. Hisa breathed deeply through her nose.

  “I’m gonna call Mama,” Bobby said, lurching to his feet. “Mama will know.”

  “Ohhh, Bobby. Mama might get it into her head to come over.” “Then she could help us!” Bobby thumped to the telephone in the kitchen, then thumped back. He stood in front of Hisa, clutching his teddy bear tummy. He was wearing his yukata again. The dark blue one he had taken from the hot spring hotel in Tō-yama.

  Hisa bit her lip. She used to think he was so cute for wanting to wear it. Bobby wore his yukata so much the cloth was starting to unravel. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that he reminded her of, who was it in that Clavell novel, turned into a tv miniseries? Richard Chamberlain! Hisa shuddered delicately. Though she didn’t mind Bobby’s beard so much. It hid his receding chin.

  “Sweetheart, are you cold?” Bobby threw an afghan over her midriff and rubbed her hands. She was actually quite warm, but Bobby was sweet. Sweet as cotton candy. She would keep him even if he wore yukatas for the rest of his life. Bobby was forty-three.

  “I’m fine,” Hisa decided. “I’m going to go check my panties for any bloody discharge.” She turned to her side and managed to get on to all fours. Crawled off the side of the bed. Bobby cupped her elbow. She felt mildly annoyed. Cupping her elbow didn’t support any weight and she knew where the bathroom was. She lurched from side to side, her great belly leading the way.

  While she was sitting on the toilet, Hisa heard the phone ring. “Don’t answer it!” she called out. But Bobby was already murmuring. He trotted over with the phone in hand. The cord pulled taut from the hallway.

  “You’re in labour, aren’t you?” Junko demanded.

  “Mama, I’m on the toilet.”

  “I know you’re in labour,” Junko continued. “I was just laying down on the couch for a bit of relax when I felt a contraction. It started in my lower back and rippled across my belly. A mother never forgets. It’s the umbilical tube,” she whispered hoarsely. “Even though the doctors cut it at birth, the psychic tube is still intact. I can even feel my other babies. Not like I feel you,” she added hurriedly. As if Hisa might be jealous. “But I feel all of my babies. I know.”

  Hisa tried to push away the image of dead babies floating in the ether around her mama’s axis. Attached by lengths of milky tubing. “Goodness, Mama,” she managed to laugh. “All the innocents go to heaven. They’re not haunting you.” Though she wasn’t sure what happened to unblessed Catholic babies. . . .

  “You’re right,” Junko said, smartly. “Nice thoughts. Nice words. I’ll be right over.”

  “Mama, I –”

  The line was dead.

  “Baw-beeeeeee!” Hisa wailed. She lurched to her feet and pulled up her panties. Bloodless. She trundled through the hallway, dropped the phone into the cradle, then trudged into the living room where her husband was biting his fingernails. “Now Mama’s coming over. I didn’t w –”

  Liquid gooshed between her legs, as if someone had burst a giant water balloon. Dousing her chubby thighs and streaming down the insides of her calves, a rich moist aroma filled the air. Hisa stared at the huge puddle.

  “Oh, god,” Bobby groaned. “Are you okay? Do you need to lie down?” His face was the colour of bathroom putty.

  Hisa tapped one blue sock in the puddle, testing the temperature and consistency. “Goodness,” she said. “There’s so much! I wonder what colour that is.” The hue was hard to make out on the hard wood floor.

  A knife spasmed in her lower back then ricocheted in her uterus, right below her protruding belly button. So sudden. And the scale. Nothing in her life had prepared her for such pain. She screamed. As the lightning spasm dissipated, tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

  “Mama’s right,” she bawled.

  “Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go!” Bobby threw the afghan around Hisa’s shoulders and bustled her into slippers. He snatched up her clutch purse with one paw, the keys with the other, and crammed a pillow into his armpit. He rushed her outside, the summer sun stabbing pupils into pinpricks. Hisa groped for the door of their two-door Toyota hatchback. They couldn’t afford a second-hand Volvo, though they had wanted one for the safety of the baby. Bobby eased Hisa
into the seat and crammed the pillow in front of her belly so that the baby wouldn’t be crushed in a car accident.

  Just as Bobby backed out of their driveway, the second contraction came lapping toward Hisa like the waves of an irrepressible ocean.

  Hisa started wailing.

  They had forgotten to bring everything they were supposed to bring. Most importantly, the hospital card.

  “My water broke,” Hisa cried.

  “How far apart are your contractions?” the nurse asked. She inflected some of her words. Hisa didn’t know if the nurse did it because she didn’t think Hisa understood English or because people in the labour and delivery unit had trouble listening.

  “My water broke,” Hisa repeated.

  “Maybe five minutes apart?” Bobby guessed. He wiped his shiny forehead with the back of his hand. He was still in his indigo yukata.

  “Are you her husband?” the nurse asked.

  “I’m the father.” Bobby said sternly.

  “Fill in these forms.” The nurse turned to Hisa. “You’re not going to have the baby, yet, sweetie. Your cervix has to be dilated ten centimetres, and that’ll take some time if this is your first baby. Just breathe like you learned at prenatal class. Some women find that walking helps with the pain.”

  Hisa couldn’t remember a thing she’d learned in the prenatal class. All she could remember was the lesbian couple. Maggie was the one who was pregnant. Hisa had wondered how they had decided who would carry. She would have thought Julia with her feminine looks and soft voice would have been the obvious choice. Maggie was curt and, well, she had hairy arms. But after one of the husbands had made a joke about turkey basters and bulls, Hisa had made a point of being extra nice to the lesbian couple. Hisa no longer went to church religiously, but she had taken the New Testament to heart and abided with its loving philosophy. When Hisa phoned after the classes had concluded, however, the lesbians didn’t return the call. Hisa supposed they weren’t Christians.

  Hisa huffed and puffed like the little engine that could. She didn’t want to walk, but she didn’t want the nurse to think she was a baby. She tottered a few steps away from the nurse’s station. Her right foot felt sticky inside her slipper.

  A contraction keened into her belly, twisted through her abdomen, and breached her mouth. Her piercing scream filled the delivery unit.

  The nurse hustled over with a wheelchair. Hisa didn’t want to sit. She clutched the arms of the wheelchair, trying to keep her bottom off the seat. The nurse whisked her down long halls the colour of cream mints. Hisa screamed the whole way. Mouth wide open, her voice trailing behind her like a red banner, Hisa careened down the long hallways, astonished faces popping in and out of her sight, the fluorescent lights brief bright rectangular glares.

  A tiny portion of Hisa’s brain observed the scene dispassionately. You’re overreacting. Women have given birth before. Do you want to look like an idiot?

  “When I was going through labour,” Mama had said, “I clamped down on a towel with my teeth and didn’t scream at all. My eyes, though,” her mother had conceded, “almost popped out of my head.”

  Hisa screamed even louder.

  “I want to push!” she sobbed. “I want to push!”

  “No!” the nurse snapped. “You must not push yet.”

  “Mmmmphh! Unnnnhhhhh!” Hisa swallowed her contractions until they ebbed away. Her body flopped in the wheelchair like a sack of rice.

  “Baby,” Bobby patted her with his sweat-damp hand. Hisa didn’t know if he meant her or the one trying to come out of her. She jerked her arm away.

  “I want my mama,” Hisa sobbed.

  Bobby was hurt. And his legs were getting chilled because his yukata was too short.

  “We’re just going to get you into a birthing room,” the nurse chirped. She turned smartly on her rubber-soled white shoes and parked the wheelchair next to a table with stirrups. She helped Hisa onto the delivery table. Hisa obediently positioned her body, her feet in the padded foot-rests, her knees raised and parted. She looked a like fowl ready for basting. The contractions started lapping toward her again, faster, quicker, the pain punching one on top of the other.

  “Lord Jesus! I wanna push!” Hisa screamed.

  The nurse held Hisa’s face still with both hands. Eyes blazing, her voice was as sharp as slaps. “You must not push. You’ll rip yourself. You’ll hurt the baby. Breathe until it passes!”

  Bobby was beside her. He leaned close to whisper encouragement into her ear, telling her to breathe, two, three, four, and Hisa threw her right arm over his shoulder and around his neck. Squeezed him in a headlock as she bore the pain. Bobby’s face purpled as she clamped harder and harder.

  “Nnnnnnnnnnnnphhhhh,” Hisa writhed and moaned. It felt like the biggest poop in her life was bursting to come out, but she was being told to hold it in. “Gimme the drugs!” she gasped. “I want the drugs now!” Suddenly there were more people in the room. A clear plastic mask was placed over her nose and mouth. Hisa released her death grip on Bobby’s neck and he nearly fell to his knees. Hisa clutched the mask desperately with both hands and greedily sucked and sucked.

  Only oxygen!

  “Breathe slowly!” someone snapped. “You’re going to hyperventilate and lose consciousness.”

  Hisa breathed as slowly as she could. Another contraction started pummeling her again. Tears ran down her face. Stars burst inside the spotlight that hung from the ceiling. The glare burned closer, closer, and as Hisa turned her face away, the light receded to a pinprick in a long hollow room. Voices muddied fast and loud.

  “The baby’s crowning! Who was the one – Baby! Hisa. I’m right here – You’re in the way, please step – Push, now! Push!”

  Hisa pushed and pushed. She held her breath, pushing down with her abdominal muscles, a squirt of residual fecal matter forced along as well, she pushed, pain no longer a sensation but an entity, and the bulk of baby head squeezed out millimetre after millimetre, until once past the nose, the rest of the head came easily and stopped at the neck. The baby’s head collared by Hisa’s vagina. Hisa gave one more valiant push and the rest of the body came slithering out like a fish.

  Hisa gasped. Amazed. The pain had stopped and a baby! Out of her and into the world. “Thank you, God,” she whispered. She started laughing. Weakly, but laughter all the same.

  The flat sound rang in the silence.

  Hisa stared at the medical staff huddled between her splayed knees. The baby –

  Silent.

  “No –”

  A gurgle. Sound of suction. Squawk. A thin nasal wail.

  The baby was alive.

  Hisa sighed. Something maternal crept, bloomed in her heart and spread through her chest. “I want to see the baby,” she said hoarsely. Proudly. She finally noticed a mirror set up so she could see her privates. She watched as an enormous blood clot slithered out from between her legs. It felt almost erotic.

  “There’s the placenta,” someone said. It was slid into a silver dish. It looked like the cow livers sold in the markets.

  Bobby started crying. Hisa smiled bravely. He must be so moved. So very happy, she thought. She raised her chin, bestowing a loving gaze toward him. I am a mother, she thought proudly.

  Bobby turned away.

  Her heart lurched. Gasped. She clutched her left breast.

  “What’s wrong!” Dear God, she hadn’t checked for any defects. She was only thirty-one. She hadn’t been advised to get an amniocentesis and she hadn’t given it a second thought. But maybe it was Bobby. He was forty-three. Maybe his sperm was defective. And now it was too late. Oh, Lord, Hisa prayed, Lord let it be something minor. She just couldn’t bear it if the child was severely handicapped.

  “Let me see my baby,” Hisa said loudly.

  “It’s a girl,” the doctor said. She lowered her mask and smiled briskly. “She has to be weighed and measured and then you can see her. She’s healthy and strong. You needn’t worry.”

&nbs
p; “Baw-beeeeee,” Hisa wailed.

  Bobby dragged the back of his paw across his dripping nose. Rubbed the tears from his face with one shoulder, then the other. He pasted a smile on his face. “Baby,” he said brightly. “What are we going to name her, hmmm? Something really pretty.”

  Hisa grabbed the sleeve of his yukata and yanked him closer. She clutched the tattered blue threads of his collar and held his face to hers. “What’s wrong with it?” she whispered hoarsely. “Is its head misshapen? Does it – ?” Hisa gulped. “Does it have really slanted eyes?”

  Bobby stared at her, perplexed. Glanced at the corners of Hisa’s eyes.

  “No!” Hisa hissed. “Not slanted like mine!”

  Bobby’s gaze darted over Hisa’s features, looking for clues.

  “The other kind of slanted,” Hisa gritted. “The retarded kind!”

  “Mrs Santos,” the doctor said crisply. “There is nothing at this time which might suggest your baby is mentally or physically impaired. There is only a very minor superficial abnormality that can be rectified with a small surgical procedure.”

  All that Hisa retained was “abnormality.” Abnormality tolled in her head like a death knell.

  Hisa fell back on to the birthing table. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks. She covered her face with both hands. Hisa started sobbing.

  “Shhhh,” Bobby tried. “Sweetheart. It’s nothing, really. I was just a little surprised. But like the doctor says, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little surgery.”

  There was the sound of muffled raised voices. Banging doors and a waft of perfume ballooned in the room as someone entered on loud heels. As loud as a pony.

  “Hisa!” a woman bellowed. “I’m here! Hisa!”

  “Mama,” Hisa whimpered.

  Bobby was wrenched from his place and Junko’s eyes, ringed completely in black kohl, gazed down at her daughter with a fierce adoration. The cloying sweet scent of Poison saturated the air. “Hisachan,” she kissed her daughter’s matted forehead. “They didn’t want to let me in. I’m sorry I’m so late. Are you still in pain?”