Mona in Three Acts

by Griet Op de Beeck

  It was very nice of Marie to let me go. All she does is lie there all the time, worried something will go wrong with the baby. She needs help fetching stuff and so on, and here I am, off to have a nice time with my best friend. But Marie said that she always puts the happiness of others above her own, so she was genuinely happy I was going.

  I think Ellen’s dad is really funny. He can wiggle his ears, which not very many people can do. Ellen and I and her mom tried it and we couldn’t do it. I’ll have to ask Alexander and Daddy when I get home. Her dad can also do tricks with their dog, Banjo, a fluffy little white thing. It’s a bit silly naming your pet after a musical instrument, but that doesn’t really matter. Her dad can make him turn in circles and stand on his back legs for a long time. And he howls like he’s singing a song. Banjo is a sweet dog. He always wants to stay close to Ellen. That must be nice, having someone close by like that, even if it’s an animal.

  We leave the movie theater. The film really was excellent, the kids weren’t exaggerating. And we had praline ice cream during intermission and it was divine. Divine is a nice word, I think, but you should only use it for things that really deserve it. Like ice cream and amazing movies and when someone does something really nice for you.

  We walk along the wide sidewalk toward the car and then suddenly Ellen takes her dad’s hand and mine, and then Ellen’s mom gives me her hand and the four of us walk along the street like that. Like nobody can break our chain.

  “And now skip,” Ellen says. She giggles and looks at her mother and then her father.

  “Go on, then,” her dad says. He counts and, on three, we all skip, the four of us, two of whom are adults. It must make a ridiculous sight, but we all think it’s funny. Then Ellen gives her dad’s hand to her mom and the two of them walk along, hand in hand. I’ve never seen Daddy and Marie like that.

  It’s late when we get back to Ellen’s. We’re allowed to talk a bit in bed, Ellen’s mom says, but we have to go upstairs right away. In the bathroom I discover I’ve forgotten my toothbrush. Ellen’s mom has a spare, still in its packaging, a pretty blue one. I can keep it, she says.

  When we’re in bed, she comes to wish us good night. She gives Ellen and me a kiss and makes the sign of the cross on our foreheads with her thumb. Her hand is warm.

  “What’s the cross for?” I ask.

  “To protect you,” her mom says.

  I like to be protected.

  She goes to the door. “Sleep well, sweet girls, and don’t talk for too long, OK?”

  “We won’t,” Ellen replies.

  I ask whether her mom came upstairs with us just because there was someone staying over. Alexander and I have to put ourselves to bed.

  “Oh no, it was just normal,” Ellen says, as though it really is the most normal thing in the world.

  23

  Daddy is wallpapering Alexander’s bedroom. Not for Alexander but for the new baby, who hasn’t been born yet. This house was built when Daddy and my mommy had two children, so there are only three bedrooms. Since the baby needs to sleep a lot and can wake up easily, which could wake us up, he or she is getting their own room. It’s the only option, Marie says. I don’t want to share my room with my brother. But Marie says that my bedroom is very big, which is true, and they could put a wardrobe or something in the middle to make it feel like two separate rooms. I don’t really understand how they’re going to do that.

  I asked whether I could help Daddy, and I was allowed to. Daddy hates wallpapering, he’d rather paint, to be honest, but Marie thinks wallpaper is prettier. They picked out a cute pattern. White, but not bright white, with big pale-blue stars.

  I’m allowed to put the paste on the paper, and then Daddy hangs the strips. He curses as he does it because often he sticks it crooked, or there are air bubbles, and then he has to take it off and do it again. You need a lot of patience for wallpapering and you need to be handy. You’d think that a dentist would be handy, but Daddy says teeth are very different from walls. I can’t argue with that, of course.

  “Have you already decided what to call the new baby?” I’m waiting with the next strip, but Daddy is still struggling with the previous one.

  “Marie’s thinking Jean-Philippe for a boy and she can’t decide between Anne-Cathérine and Anne-Sophie for a girl.”

  Oh no, I think, nothing with Sophie in it, the kid might stink, but I don’t say it. “And you?”

  “What do you mean, me?”

  “You said ‘Marie’s thinking.’”

  “Well, what Marie wants—” Then he stops. There’s a big crease in the strip he’s just hung up.

  “There’s a—”

  “Yes, I can see it,” Daddy grumbles, pulls the strip off, and balls it up. He looks at me and then throws it at my head, laughing. “Think we should call in a professional?”

  I twist my mouth to the left, open my eyes wide, and shrug. Maybe not such a bad plan.

  “Oh, you’ve got that much faith in your father, huh?”

  “No, I—”

  “Joke, Mona.” Daddy takes the new strip of paper from me and tries again. “Maybe we should sing or whistle, that might help.”

  “I can’t whistle,” I say. I purse my lips and blow air through them, but nothing happens. “See?”

  “You need to relax your cheeks, purse your lips properly, and blow the air from the back of your throat,” Daddy says. And very loudly, he whistles the beginning of “Oh When the Saints,” a song he sings sometimes when he’s in a good mood. Like his explanation is going to help, I think, but I try again to prove that I’m doing my best to listen. It sounds just as stupid as before.

  “Keep practicing.” He climbs one rung higher on the ladder to be able to reach better. It wobbles a little, it’s not very stable.

  “Babies are always sweet, aren’t they?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. When they cry and their diapers are full, they’re not that sweet,” Daddy says.

  “Babies are sweeter than big kids, though, right?”

  Daddy admires his new strip. “Hey, look how good this one is.”

  “Yes,” I say, nodding energetically to show how much I mean it.

  “Oops, I don’t have a new one ready,” I say as I go get one from the table. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Mona.”

  I approach with the new strip. He takes it.

  “Nothing. That strip looks really good.”

  24

  She was already like that when I got home. I’d walked home happy on the last day of school because I had a really good report card. I would bet it was even better than Alexander’s. My brother kept on kicking a can along the street, which makes an awful sound, but instead of telling him to stop, I joined in, I was that happy.

  When I opened the front door, I could already hear the sobbing. My brother looked at me and said, “I’m going to play upstairs.” I didn’t mind, he’s only eight. I went into the living room and she was lying there with lots of pillows against her back, crying her eyes out. I asked what the matter was but she couldn’t reply because all the tears and the sobs got in the way.

  “Hush now,” I said. “Hush.”

  But it only got worse. I asked if she was in pain, but she shook her head. I asked whether something was wrong with the baby, she shook her head again. I fetched water and a hanky and a nice snack, but that didn’t help. I checked that she still had cigarettes and she did. Just to be sure, I emptied her ashtray. I didn’t know what else to do then.

  Now I’ve been standing here for I don’t know how long. I haven’t been able to mention my good report card, even though I considered it because it might make her happy. She’s probably upset about something I’ve done. I think and think and think, I rack my brain for something I could have said or done, or forgotten to ask, or something like that, but I can’t come up with anything. But I often make mistakes without realizing. She seems to be panicking, she’s having trouble breathing.

  “Should I get Daddy?”

>   She doesn’t respond, tears run down her cheeks, and she cries like wolves in the movies. High-pitched and very loud.

  “I’ll be right back.” I go into his office, and I see three people sitting in the waiting room, so I can’t bother Daddy now. I go back to the living room.

  “He’s very busy.” She still can’t speak. I don’t know what else to do. If I’m not careful, I’m going to start crying too. “Lovely Mommy,” I whisper, and again.

  Eventually the sobbing gets slower and quieter. I hope it’s going to stop completely now. Just to make sure, I say “Lovely Mommy” a few more times. Then there’s a really big sob, and her whole body jerks a bit, and then she stops. Her eyes are red, her face looks terrible, her makeup has been washed off by the tears, or she didn’t put any on this morning, which would be highly unusual. I’ve sat down at the dining room table. I look at her, she looks at the wall. When she turns to me after a while, I ask if she wants to see my report card. She doesn’t reply.

  “I got ninety-five-point-two percent.”

  She smiles. I’m about to go and get my report card out of my bag, because the Beaver wrote something nice, because even she had to admit I did well, despite talking in class, when all of a sudden Marie says, very quietly, “That Daddy, eh? He’s destroying me. Just destroying me.”

  25

  We hadn’t been to Granny’s for a long time because we had to be around to help Marie on Wednesday afternoons. But now Daddy has brought us, on a Saturday, since he can stay with Marie. Granny hurt her foot, just a sprain, did it on her way to the store, she says. There’s a bandage around it and she’s using a walking stick she says used to belong to Grandpa. It looks both funny and a bit pathetic.

  Today Granny smells even worse than usual. It’s mainly her breath, but the clothes she’s wearing, I think, are smellier than Sophie’s. I try to keep my distance, but it’s not that easy, because all the rooms in her house are small. I’ve asked whether we can sit in the garden so the smell can blow away a bit, but Granny doesn’t like to sit in the sun, she says, when it’s so hot. Alexander stands close to her a few times, he doesn’t seem to notice such things as much.

  My brother and I have shown her our report cards. Alexander worked hard too, he got 92.1 percent. His teacher hadn’t worked it out, so Daddy did it for him. I asked where he ranked in his class but he didn’t know. I thought it odd the teacher hadn’t told him. Where you rank is the most important. Daddy and Marie think so too. They’d rather you ranked first with, say, 92.1 percent then second with 95.2. They don’t say so, but I know they think it.

  Granny put on her glasses and looked at our report cards for a long time, like she was studying them for a test. “Well done,” she said at last, and gave us each a little money. I didn’t mind Alexander getting the same amount as me with his 92.1 percent, because you should put the happiness of others above your own.

  We’re sitting at the kitchen table playing cards.

  During the game, Granny asks a lot of questions about “her”—which means Marie—and about Daddy, and our house, and the baby on its way. Mostly I pretend not to really understand what she means, and I only tell her stupid, unimportant things. She probably thinks I don’t realize she only wants to hear bad stories, but of course I do. People think that when you’re a kid you don’t understand a lot of things. I don’t understand why, to be honest. They were kids too once, right?

  Alexander takes forever to choose his next move. I notice a new picture on the sideboard, with Auntie Emma and Auntie Rose and the boys and Emilie. Emilie looks older. I’ve seen them twice since that one Christmas, when they came to visit at Granny’s on a Wednesday, but the last time was ages ago. They said Alexander and I should come to their house to play or for a sleepover, but I didn’t hear anything more about it. Everyone goes away, sooner or later.

  “I won!” Alexander cries triumphantly.

  “Another round?” Granny asks.

  “Yes!” my brother shouts.

  It’s not the best card game there is, but I agree to play again anyway, and I tell Granny it’s always so lovely spending time in her company.

  26

  “Shit!”

  Marie says we’re not allowed to curse, but now she herself is cursing. It was supposed to be three more weeks until the baby came, but she’s having contractions already and they look painful.

  She just came back from taking a shower and I heard her cry, “My water has broken.” Water that breaks, who ever thought of calling it that? I can’t help thinking. I saw a puddle on the floor in the hall and Marie made a face like she’d just seen a live woolly mammoth.

  “It’s started!”

  “What should I do?”

  “Tell Daddy, tell him he has to come now, right away.”

  Alexander was the closest to the telephone, so he called Uncle Artie right away because Daddy was at his house. “He’s coming as fast as possible,” Alexander said in his most worried voice.

  We stand next to her, she moans softly.

  “Does it hurt?” Alexander asks.

  “No,” Marie says, “it’s great fun.” Marie’s face looks a bit white. She holds the edge of the table with both hands, sticks out her bottom, and pants. I don’t know how to help. “Fuck . . . ing . . . shit,” she wails, pausing after each syllable.

  “Can I do anything?”

  “Pray that Daddy hurries.”

  Since her forehead is shiny with sweat, I fetch a cold washcloth. I come back from the kitchen with it and dab her forehead.

  “Don’t do that, Mona, no.”

  I’m even more nervous than I am before a school party.

  “Is this normal?” I ask. “Or is there something wrong with the baby?”

  Then she groans, quite loudly. Oops, now I’ve upset her. I remain silent and keep my distance. I gesture to Alexander to do the same. He looks quite pale too. He keeps running to the window to check whether Daddy’s arriving or not.

  The panting gets worse and worse. Marie stands there rocking gently back and forth, as though the baby’s already here and needs calming. Then all of a sudden, it gets better, apparently. She asks us to call Uncle Artie’s house again. Alexander rushes to the phone, but just as he picks it up, I hear the door.

  “He’s here, he’s here!” I’ve never been happier to see Daddy.

  Alexander goes into the hall. “Hurry, hurry.”

  Daddy comes in and goes straight to Marie. “How many minutes apart?” he asks. It sounds very doctorlike.

  “Now Daddy’s here, everything will be all right,” I say to Alexander, but to be honest, more to myself.

  “No idea! Like I can look at the clock while going through this hell.”

  “I’ll time it,” Daddy says.

  “Get rid of the children first. Those children have to get out of here.”

  Alexander looks both crestfallen and relieved when he hears this.

  “Mona, dear, give Uncle Olivier a call, he knows you’re supposed to go to his house when the time comes.”

  I call the number. He’ll come and get us, he says. Fifteen minutes.

  In the meantime, Marie is moaning again. Daddy rubs her back. “Keep it up. Everything’s good.”

  I don’t want to think about maybe having to give birth myself one day.

  Marie looks terrible, more terrible than I’ve ever seen anyone look, except maybe that lady on TV with bad burns everywhere, even on her face. I had to look away and it still keeps me up at night. There’d been a party with candles at her house and then everything had gone up in flames. She’d escaped just in time, otherwise she’d be dead. There are different ways of being lucky.

  I think I’ve decided that I never want to have children. The worst is still to come. The contractions are just the beginning. It doesn’t get really bad until the baby wants to come out. No doubt about that. I’ve looked at myself down there and I’ve thought, OK, I’m only eleven, but how much bigger can it get? And a massive baby has to get through it.
Ellen says that some women tear when they give birth. “And they sew it up again afterward, down there.” I never know how Ellen knows things like this. She says it’s because she can often hear her parents talking, and they forget she’s listening in.

  I look at Marie and imagine that happening to her. What’s she going to shout then? She’s already going crazy. Then Uncle Olivier pulls into the driveway. Alexander is already at the door, he can’t get out of here quickly enough, apparently.

  Late at night, past our bedtime, in fact, we’re allowed to go look at the baby. It’s lying in a little bed on wheels, and it’s wearing a hat, even though it’s summer. Alexander and I stand over its head to get a good look.

  “Is it a brother?” Alexander asks.

  “No, it’s a girl. Anne-Sophie.”

  “How pretty,” I lie.

  “Would you each like to hold her?” Daddy asks. “Sit on that chair there.”

  Alexander says, “She can go first.” He sounds disappointed.

  I get ready and Daddy hands me the baby with a blanket around it. “Hello, little girl,” I say because I don’t want to say her name. She makes a sound, a kind of tiny groan, but maybe out of happiness, I think. She keeps her eyes closed, her hands clenched into fists, her lips pursed like she’s expecting a kiss.

  “Careful,” Marie says. I nod. She turns her little head back and forth, making her hat crooked. When I try to fix it, I accidently pull it off. I almost die of fright, there’s something wrong with the baby. It’s got a very long head, like a massive Easter egg stuck on top, above her eyebrows.

  Daddy sees me looking. “That’ll go away. It was a vacuum delivery.”

  A vacuum? I don’t want to know.

  “Is she going to get a head like ours?” Alexander asks. “Or will she stay handicapped?”

  “She’s perfectly healthy, Alexander. It will all be all right.”