Читать книгу A Child is Born - Charles Yale Harrison - Страница 7

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The Island stands below Bronx Kills just off the shores of Harlem in Manhattan. It is an almost square piece of land washed by the slate-gray waters of the East River, which a few miles below empties into the Bay of New York.

Passengers on ships going up to Boston, Fall River and New Bedford sometimes look to the east as they pass the Island and see gray figures in uniforms drilling on a parade square. At one end of the Island there are long, dark buildings with an occasional tower here and there—and the passengers speculate idly what the name of the fort might be—but the buildings do not look formidable enough for modern warfare.

At the other end of the Island, and this, too, a passenger might know if the wind was blowing the right way, is a garbage dump fed by wagons which are carried across the river on ferries. Little by little the dump has crept closer and closer to the group of dark, long buildings at the northerly tip of the Island.

The city on the other side of the river sends its garbage and sordes here. Old clothes, no longer tempting even to the ragpicker, millions of broken bottles, refuse, the leavings of a million tables, rich and poor, ashes ...

Once a rich lady lost a diamond ring and it was suspected that the ring had found its way into the garbage. The can was traced and the exact spot where it was dumped was discovered; the lady’s servants poked around in the offal while newspaper reporters and photographers looked on. That was one day when everybody in the city across the river took notice of the dump—Little by little the dump grew and grew.

One day as the hot rays of the sun shot down on the glittering expanse of garbage, wisps of smoke began to appear on the surface of the refuse. Gradually a tongue of flame appeared here and there. Soon firemen from the city across the river came and put the fire out. The next day the fire broke out in another part of the Island.

For years, it seemed, a certain type of refuse had been deprived of air and slowly oxidation had taken place. The decaying matter formed methane gas. Finally it burst into flame. This sort of thing, the head of the fire department explained to the authorities, sometimes happened in coal mines; marsh gas it was called, he said.

A week or perhaps a month went by without a sign of the fire being visible and then suddenly the gases below exploded and sheets of flame leaped into the air and once more the fire force would be summoned.

Later four high-pressure pumps were installed, two at each end of the Island: these machines poured hundreds of gallons of water into the dump every minute but the intense heat of the underground fire consumed the water and turned it into a yellowish steam which clouded the air above.

The fire had been going on now for five years....

At noon Margaret Roberts was taken with labor pains.

When Miriam came home from school at lunch time a neighbor sent her down to the docks to fetch her father. For the first time in a long while Edward Roberts smiled when he saw his pigtailed daughter run toward him after he was pointed out to her. She saw him walk up to the foreman, say a few words to him, then the foreman smiled and then her father smiled too and then he walked toward her. He looked down into her shiny face and rested his heavy hand on her shoulder.

“So, ma’s sick?”

“Yeah, she’s sick, pa.”

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s gonna have a baby, I guess.”

The man smiled and walked with his girl out of the dock-gates into the cobblestoned street beyond, his hard, stiff boots heavily striking the stones as he walked.

“How do you know she’s gonna have a baby?” He smiled.

“I heard Mrs. Slovack say.”

“How’s your ma doin’?”

“When I lef’ they wuz bendin’ over her and wuz sayin’ they hoped it came soon an’ I said what and Mrs. Perkins said the baby.”

The man walked on looking straight ahead of him. He saw the whole scene as clearly as though it were happening before him—this was the third time he was to witness a child coming into the world and he thought of many things as he walked. Speaking a thought aloud he said:

“Well, I hope this one is a boy.”

“Why, pa?” the little girl walking at his side asked.

The man looked down at her with a start—he had nearly forgotten she was with him.

“Oh, I dunno,” he said after a while.

When Miriam and her father turned into Walker Street and the women looking out of the windows saw Roberts hurrying to his home with little Miriam running breathlessly at his heels they knew that the hour of the baby’s delivery had come.

Men came home from work in the middle of the day in Red Hook only for birth and death.

When Roberts climbed the three flights to his tenement and entered he saw several of the wives of his neighbors in possession of the house.

One woman, Mrs. Slovack, the wife of a Russian longshoreman brought some linen from her supply and was busy changing the bed; another, Mrs. Perkins, the wife of the foreman in the bag factory near by, the factory where Margaret worked before she married, was heating some water on the stove in the kitchen.

Two middle-aged women, Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Williams, had Margaret between them and were pacing her up and down the floor of the “parlor.”

“We’re walkin’ her up an’ down,” Mrs. Todd explained, “to keep the pains up. By the way they’re comin’ it won’t be long now.”

Margaret, her face drawn with pain and her body contracting with each spasm, walked up and down between the two women, groaning at each step.

Mrs. Todd had brought some preserves from her larder and told Edward to get himself into the kitchen and cut himself a slice of bread and try some of her crab-apple preserves and not stand there like a bull in a china shop or something. Mrs. Williams kept saying encouraging things to Margaret; stupid but well-meant words of courage.

“Never you mind, my dear,” she was saying, “you think this is hard. Well, when you’ve had thirteen as I have done—it’ll be as easy as taking sweet medicine.”

She laughed a well-meaning raucous laugh and Margaret twisted her face into a sympathetic smile.

As soon as Roberts came home, the little Roberts girls ran out into the street to play where they became the center of an admiring group of street children; but they drew away and walked to the corner with haughty disdain. After a while they tired of this aloofness and joined the children talking outside of the tenement house:

“... sure, I know how they come. The doctor feels ...”

“Teacher says a bird brings ’em.”

Titters greeted this remark.

Tony, the son of the Italian grocer, volunteered gratuitous information:

“I’ll tell yuh how it happens. I know, see.” His eyes twinkled. “I know ’cos one night I seen me mudder and fodder ...”

At five o’clock the women left Margaret to go home to prepare food for their men.

Up and down the room Margaret went leaning heavily on her husband’s arm, he with one arm encircling her waist. The husband said very little, only walking the length of the room to the table with the cheap knickknacks at one end and back to the black imitation leather sofa.

After a while Margaret began to grow tired, her knees sagged and Edward made tea. They sat in the kitchen drinking and talking quietly.

Before going home one of the women had run to Dr. Rosenbloom, a young Jewish doctor who had set up practice in Red Hook, to tell him of the impending event. The doctor came into the kitchen just as the couple were finishing tea.

“Hello everybody,” he said. “And how is my patient?”

He took a stethoscope from his breast-pocket and applied it to Margaret’s chest, then he felt her pulse and solemnly announced that she was in great shape. He inquired how often the pains recurred, when they had started, gave instructions about hot water, and the things he would need later: disinfectant, plenty of clean bedclothes, a basin, a douche bag—and in a whisper to Edward—“not quite so many women as we usually have.”

He promised to be back later.

Mrs. Williams came in and took a turn with Margaret pacing the floor. Every fifteen minutes or so a dragging feeling would seize Margaret.

First, an insignificant pain, then drag, drag, drag until it was almost unbearable—then it died down until she was free of it. They walked up and down to bring the pain on again.

At nine o’clock Mrs. Schmerer came in. She was a fat, tubby little woman, wore a gray shawl and was reputed to be the wise woman of the neighborhood.

She had come to America with her husband from a little German village in Transylvania some twenty years ago because of Magyar racial persecutions. Back home they were tenant truck farmers and the lure of free land and racial freedom brought them across Europe and the broad Atlantic until they landed at Ellis Island.

Somehow or other they never got beyond New York and never realized their dream of broad acres and their own home. Schmerer was now a dock worker with Roberts.

Mrs. Schmerer bustled into the room and immediately took charge of things.

“Ach, mein Gott,” she wheezed. “Vot foolishness.” She shook her finger at Margaret.

She began to open the doors and windows and to unscrew the locks from the doors.

“Und yo expect to haf ein easy time, foolish voman—mid vindows clost und locks on de doors—dis vill make for you de delifery hard—open de doors und take off de locks und you make de outgoing easy.”

But her activities were not confined to complying with Transylvanian peasant superstitions; from the depths of her bosom she pulled out a square bottle of lavender-scented smelling salts and gave Margaret a whiff when the laboring woman blanched with pain.

Near midnight the spells became sharper and sharper and increased in tempo.

Margaret’s hour of delivery had arrived.

All day long Roberts dodged swinging blocks and tackle, slipped from under monster bales of goods which swung up and out from the holds of ships at the docks, but now that Margaret was in labor and her eyes stared from her head, he began to grow sick at the pit of the stomach. The nervous movements of the women who had come in to aid her added to his nervousness—that incessant walking up and down and the increasing frequency of the groaning made him feel shaky.

The tenement was filled with neighboring men and women.

Miriam and Gladys stood in the hallway outside surrounded by two or three admiring girls of their own age.

Just before midnight Dr. Rosenbloom came into the tenement, he ordered the women out and had the girls put to bed. There was no door from the bedroom to the room in which they slept, only tawdry curtains separated the rooms, and the girls heard all the sounds of preparation.

“Out—all of you,” the doctor ordered.

Looking around he saw Mrs. Schmerer.

“You may stay,” he said.

“C’mon, Roberts,” the doctor said, “clear ’em out. What do you think this is, a circus?”

Slowly and with reluctance the women shuffled out of the bedroom into the hall where they stood for a while discussing the merits of delivery by midwife.

The intense dragging ache that presages the coming of the child had Margaret in its grip. Waves of pain swept over her leaving her bathed in sweat. The rooms grew quiet save for her dull moaning. In the street outside children played and the sound of their shouting floated in through the open windows.

Mrs. Schmerer helped Margaret lie down in the bed. She set the basin and antiseptics on a table. The doctor took two sheets and knotted them to the posts at the foot of the bed for Margaret to strain upon.

Mrs. Schmerer looked with wide-open eyes at the doctor.

“No, no, doctor—do not tie de sheets op. Back home we say ‘tie knots; tie de vomb.’ ”

She untied the sheets and twisted them instead.

“Here,” she said to Margaret, “take dese und pull on dem ven you feel de young vun coming.”

Roberts poked his head through the curtains and saw the doctor roll his shirtsleeves up and sit down by the side of the bed. Margaret tossed from side to side; her nightgown had crept up so that her thighs showed.

The calm look of the young doctor reassured the husband.

He walked into the room where the girls lay. They were wide awake and looked at their father with large questioning eyes.

Outside in the hallway he heard the buzz of excited voices.

At once, from the bedroom came a long, drawn-out shriek. “Ah-h-h-h.” Slowly with a musical quality it died away to a soft moan.

The buzzing stopped in the hallway.

Roberts stood still; his heart hammering against his ribs.

Again the scream cut through the stillness of the rooms.

From the bed where the children lay he heard one of the girls whimper.

He heard the guttural accents of Mrs. Schmerer soothing the laboring woman. Once he heard the voice of the doctor but could not make out what he was saying. He walked back and stood near the doorway of the room whence his wife’s voice came. The cheap cotton curtain partly hid the scene from him.

Like the death-sighing of a man whom he once saw dying after he was crushed by a falling bale, the moaning in the room rose and fell.

Suddenly the doctor came through the parting of the curtain. He seemed surprised to see the husband. His hands were covered with blood.

“Water. I want some water.”

Roberts stood motionless.

“Where’s the water?”

“In there.” The husband pointed towards the kitchen.

The doctor walked away. From the kitchen came the shriek of the tap being turned on.

Roberts walked through the curtains and into the bedroom where his wife lay.

When the doctor returned from the kitchen he went back to work on Margaret. Roberts turned away.

What the doctor was doing seemed wrong to him somehow. The husband looked out of the window and saw boys and girls sitting on the stoops opposite. Those kids, he thought, will grow up and have children and have to feed ’em and the girls will lie on beds and toss around with blood-streaked thighs.... He groped around in his mind for some sort of answer to an unformed question which troubled him. But no answer came.

The doctor was speaking to him:

“I’m afraid we’re going to have a hard time with this one. It’s a dry birth. The water broke this afternoon. I guess I’ll be here all night. You look tired, you’d better go out and get yourself a drink. You’re no use here.”

The husband turned and walked out of the room glad to get away. He put his hat on and walked out into the street.

When he pushed his way past the swinging doors of the corner saloon the distracted husband saw Schmerer, Williams and Doyle standing up against the bar drinking.

“Here he iss,” Schmerer shouted. He was a tall, fair man with a ruddy face and watery blue eyes. “Here is de new fodder.”

Doyle held out his hand to Roberts.

“Put it there, me lad.”

Roberts held out his hand. He recognized the labor leader.

“Well, what is it, a boy or a girl?”

“It didn’t come yet.”

“How long?”

“About six hours already. Doctor says it’s a dry birth.”

“Well, I guess it’s going to be a dock worker. They’re stubborn as hell.”

“If he is I’ll make him a union man.”

“You’re damned right. Let’s have a drink.”

The bartender stood smiling behind the bar.

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, this one’s on the house,” the bartender said.

“What? Wid one of me men gonna be a poppa. No sir. It’s on me. C’mon—er—er—

“Roberts—”

“C’mon, Roberts, order up.”

The bartender put a bottle of rye on the bar and elaborately polished each glass before he set it down. The men drank. The smooth whisky slid down Roberts’ dry throat and burned pleasantly in his stomach.

“How’s that?”

“Hit’s the spot.”

“Yes, sir. Have another.”

“This one’s on me now,” Leo, the bartender, intervened.

The men opened their throats and poured the drinks down. Roberts felt that sick feeling at the pit of the stomach gradually leave him. His insides glowed. He walked to the free lunch counter and cut himself a piece of Dutch cheese and ate a salted biscuit with it.

“It’s five years since I’ve had a drink,” he shouted to the men at the bar. “Five years, by God, but I’m gonna have my fill tonight. C’mon. Leo, fill ’em up again. This is on me.”

“Not on your life,” Doyle shouted. His face was red and a little wet. “When one of my men is havin’ a kid, by Christ, I’m gonna pay fer his licker until it oozes out of his eyes.”

Two hours later when Roberts stumbled up the stairs and walked into his kitchen he found the doctor washing his hands at the sink.

“It’s a boy,” Dr. Rosenbloom said.

Roberts smiled.

Mrs. Schmerer, hearing his voice, bustled out of the bedroom. Her face beamed.

“It iss ein boy.”

The husband grinned drunkenly.

“Then, by Jeez, he’s gonna be a dock worker—like his old man.”

“Sh-h,” Mrs. Schmerer said, “Margaret iss sleeping.”