Mrs. Saul the wanderer’s wife, with her pinched face and tart tongue, is not whom Amanda would have chosen to perform the ritual, but she was available and Amanda was impatient. They step into the birthing building, Amanda’s candle flickering and dancing lightly over the tightly hewn walls. The wood is swollen with the stale, metallic smell of dried blood, the leavings of hundreds of squalling infants and wailing mothers. Amanda wrinkles her nose; Mrs. Saul notices and snaps, “Haven’t you been to a birthing before?”
Amanda doesn’t answer. She has, one time. Mother took her in order to show that she was doing her maternal duty, although Amanda suspects she didn’t fool anybody. They sat silent and morose as Dina Joseph, the goat farmer’s wife, screamed and thrashed and delivered a dead infant, deep blue streaked with scarlet and white slime. Dina sobbed, and Amanda felt irritated that she was forced to witness this raw, bloody grief. She glanced at Mother, who looked bored, and suddenly thought, We are utter defectives. At least, when we’re together. As if reading her mind, Mother glared at her, and Amanda glumly returned to staring at the blue pile of flesh and gore in Dina’s heaving arms.
Mrs. Saul sighs. “Do you know the ritual?”
Amanda has heard the stories at school, about babies being sliced out of screaming women, examined, and placed back inside, but she doesn’t trust her informants. “Not really,” she says.
“Well, no matter,” Mrs. Saul says briskly. “It won’t kill you, and then you’ll know. But take care it is kept secret. Men do not know of this, nor should they. This is women’s business. We are the ones who need to prepare ourselves.”
Amanda nods. “Mrs. Saul?” she asks.
“You’re an adult now,” Mrs. Saul replies, “and you can call me Pamela.”
“Um,” says Amanda. The idea of calling Mrs. Saul by her first name seems blasphemous. “Why does it have to be a wanderer’s wife?”
“You would prefer someone else?” inquires Mrs. Saul icily.
“No, no, it’s not that,” lies Amanda. “I’m just wondering. Why.”
“Because as wanderers’ wives, we hold power, and we are as wanderers among the women,” says Mrs. Saul grandly, and Amanda nods, although she’s doubtful about the accuracy of this comparison.
They are silent, breathing in the bloody air, and then Mrs. Saul says, “Are you sure you want to do it? Many don’t. There’s nothing wrong with waiting until the birth.”
“Yes. I’m sure.” Amanda pauses. “What do I do?”
“First, take off your dress.”
Amanda grabs the hem of her skirt and pulls it over her head, then for good measure unties the cloth binding her swollen breasts, so she stands naked. Mrs. Saul squints at her and says, “About four months along?”
“About,” says Amanda.
“You are thirteen? Fourteen?”
“Almost fifteen.”
“A good age for your first child. Lie here, let me get some straw.” Mrs. Saul scoops up a pile of hay in the center of the room. “Lie back, legs straight.” Amanda obeys, peering at the dim ceiling. “This will be painful.”
“I can handle pain,” replies Amanda stiffly.
“I believe you can,” says Mrs. Saul, and Amanda stares at her, suspicious. Is Mrs. Saul paying her a compliment?
Reaching into the pocket of her dress, Mrs. Saul pulls out a small knife, instantly ablaze with candled reflections that leap and twist in the rippled metal. Bringing it to Amanda’s breastbone, she begins singing.
She doesn’t sing words, but rather a tune with nonsense syllables, a melody that wavers like the candlelight. She has a low, husky, beautiful voice that Amanda never dreamed could emerge from Mrs. Saul’s sour throat. The knife lightly traces downward from Amanda’s sternum to where the swell of her belly curves upward. Taking a deep breath, Mrs. Saul begins cutting. She doesn’t cut to muscle, but enough to break through layers of skin, and blood begins to bead and swell in glossy vermilion spheres. Amanda is mesmerized by the slow incision, the freezing-cold line on her skin that turns boiling and steams with agony in the knife’s wake.
“Breathe,” says Mrs. Saul, breaking off midsong, and Amanda does.
Once Mrs. Saul is done, Amanda gazes down at herself. Mrs. Saul has cut an impossibly neat, straight line down her rounded stomach, all the way to her pubis. The song lulls her, carries her to and fro, toward and away from the pain. Cool blood trickles down either side of her belly, striping her ribs and turning her into some strange animal in shadow.
Mrs. Saul pauses in her tune, and Amanda takes the opportunity to whisper, “Now what?” But Mrs. Saul only glares at her and resumes singing. She opens a small, thick cloth bag and takes a breath as if to steel herself. Her ropy hand rises with a handful of something white and crystalline, and she quickly, violently smears and pushes it into Amanda’s wound.
Screaming, Amanda arches, feeling cracked open, the torment burrowing deeper and deeper into her flesh. The line of pain blossoms, a searing crimson flower, sheds arcane patterns on her belly that burn bone-deep. She can’t get enough breath to wail all her agony, and she pants, sobs, chokes.
“Breathe,” says Mrs. Saul.
Amanda tries to turn, but Mrs. Saul’s hands are firmly on her abdomen, pressing on each side. She’s not sure how long she lies there, writhing and gasping like a beached and gutted fish. As the pain begins to recede, wave upon wave softening and retreating, her attention fixes on Mrs. Saul’s hands.
“What do you feel?” she whispers.
She can tell from Mrs. Saul’s face. Clenching her eyes shut, she tries to move something inside her gut, shove her baby into life. After a few minutes she opens her eyes once more and sees that Mrs. Saul has tears streaming down her face.
“It’s a girl,” Amanda says accusingly.
“It’s a girl,” says Mrs. Saul, nodding, her song done. “She didn’t move at all. She just stayed silent and still, despite the pain. It’s a girl, may the ancestors help her.”
“The ancestors don’t help anyone!” shouts Amanda, and can tell by Mrs. Saul’s face she’s gone too far.
“May they forgive you,” Mrs. Saul says loudly, punctuating each word.
“May they forgive me,” repeats Amanda meekly. Her blood-smeared belly aches and twinges, and she bursts into tears. Mrs. Saul moves to her head and strokes her hair soothingly.
“It’s all right, Amanda,” she whispers. “We were girls. We are here now. Our daughters will endure. Think of the summers, think of the love you will have for her.”
All Amanda can think of is a filthy winter, time spent trapped in her bed by bonds of flesh, clenching her teeth against a scream, over and over and over.
I won’t do it, she thinks. I won’t do it. And then, By the ancestors, I have to do it all over again. She weeps with a grief so strong it flows through her veins like a sickness. Mrs. Saul puts her arms around the recumbent Amanda and lays her head against Amanda’s throat. Her hair smells comfortingly of goat’s milk and dust and salt.
“Weep now,” whispers Mrs. Saul. “Weep deep. When you are through, rise and return to your husband with a cheerful face. Endure. I have done it and so can you.”
Amanda’s daughter, too late, kicks and circles in her womb.
Chapter Four
Caitlin