The woman begged for more chloroform. She had been in labor for so many hours. George was so tired, her body kept trying to escape her and drop to sleep somewhere. She began hallucinating. There was a moment when she was quite sure that she saw a goat sitting on a chair in the corner. It was a white goat. It had the body of a young girl and the head of a goat. It sat there knitting. She kept blinking, waiting for it to disappear. And when it did, she turned to the woman, and rather thoughtlessly, almost as though she were in a trance, administered more chloroform. The woman then fell unconscious and there was nothing George could do to rouse her.
George was panicking, thinking she had murdered the young woman. But she had to deliver the baby at least. George pulled the baby out with forceps. Its head looked like it was trying to fit through the neck of a sweater that was too small. The baby was small and dark blue and clearly never had any intention of having anything to do with this world. George looked at the umbilical cord. We are all born with the rope for our own hanging, George thought.
George was seated with the baby in her arms, feeling culpable. But then at last the mother began to rouse herself. George considered that this woman had so narrowly skirted death. But it had taken her baby instead.
While the mother was fastening her coat over her still-plump belly, she announced it had all turned out surprisingly for the best. It was natural. In the spring there were purple baby birds that had been tossed out of their nests by their mothers. Perhaps their wings didn’t match. Or they sang out of tune. They were the color of the painted eyelids of young women who had been thrown out of their houses and had become prostitutes.
She stumbled over a chair on her way out because she was still groggy from the chloroform. George ran to help her, but she put her hand out to object. “Don’t mind me. I’m simply still in a dream.” She smiled sadly and walked out the front door.
* * *
George went into the kitchen the next morning. She had had a rough night, but the girls always seemed to have rough nights. They were seated around the table that morning looking worse for wear. One girl’s hair was in such a tangled nest above her head, it looked like it would be impossible to pull the knots out of it. The lower half of another girl’s face was covered in smudged red lipstick. A girl had dark circles under her eyes. It was strange to see them under the eyes of a thirteen-year-old. It was as though she had been kept up from nightmares about monsters and witches living in the shadows, not from men making love to her.
One girl with no pants on had a visible handprint on one of her buttocks. A girl was holding up a hand mirror to look at the size of a hickey on her neck. Another girl came over with a chunk of ice and put it on the hickey. Their crotches were all sore from sex.
They were like soldiers after the night of a battle.
“I’m all out of chloroform,” George announced. “Would anyone like me to pick something up for them at Marat’s pharmacy?”
“I would never touch anything from that pharmacy,” Ramona said. “The woman is a murderer. That’s clear. She has so many poisons on her shelf, she’s liable to give you the wrong one. And you’ll wake up as a corpse.”
“Don’t be stupid,” George said. “Jeanne-Pauline knows what she is doing. She’s a genius.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t a genius. I said she was wicked. And she loves revenge. It gives her pleasure. So she’s waiting for anyone to cross her path.”
“She’s a witch,” said another girl. “She gives me the creeps every time I look at her.”
* * *
George had a completely different opinion of Jeanne-Pauline. She was an excellent pharmacist.
George would list the symptoms of a girl at the brothel, and Jeanne-Pauline would have the cure.
She also sold condoms. And suppositories and thermometers. All sorts of items the girls needed all the time.
Jeanne-Pauline had cures for ailments male doctors did not believe in. She had a tea made out of dandelions that would cure period cramps. There was a tea that treated the deep depression some women sunk into after they gave birth. She had a cream that treated the unbearable and inscrutable itch some women got on their private parts. There was a bottle that helped with hot flashes. There was an elixir that you rubbed on to cracked nipples to ease breastfeeding.
She had a series of miniature bottles that were meant to treat the spiritual condition of being a baby. Or, put more simply, to make the baby stop crying. They were filled with cocaine and gin and that type of thing.
Women came to the pharmacy because they felt much better talking to Jeanne-Pauline about their conditions than doctors. She never made them blush. She made them feel as though the most embarrassing condition was normal, because, of course, it was. There were other legitimate reasons to avoid male doctors. So many women’s ailments were seen as being symptoms of hysteria. The doctor might, at any moment, determine the women should be locked up.
* * *
George headed to the Marat pharmacy to pick up more chloroform. A dog passed by her. It looked troubled by its own hardships as it walked down the street. It had perhaps just read Darwin’s essays and was wondering how its desire for love had led it out of the woods and to this. George still felt as though death were hanging around her. Hadn’t it taken enough? George was especially superstitious that day, purchasing chloroform. She had almost killed a woman with it. So, like any child of the Squalid Mile, she looked about her for signs of impending doom.
* * *
As George was about to enter the shop, another figure swished out of it, leaving the door open for her. George looked back to see who it was. For the very briefest of moments, George believed she got a glimpse of Death. It was wearing a black coat. She couldn’t make out Death’s face, as it was wearing a heavy fur hat and a scarf around the lower half of its head. But she saw the gloved hands hold up the ends of the coat as it neared a puddle, and then leap over it. Death was a girl. She could tell one thing from the shape of Death’s feet, and the daintiness of the leap it took: Death was a girl.
George shuddered and considered turning back. But without the chloroform, the women in labor were always threatening to jump out the window. She didn’t have the energy to pull them off the ledge.
* * *
The bells on the door jingled and Jeanne-Pauline’s eyes perked up when she saw George.
“Ah! I was just thinking of you. Would you like to come in the back and have some tea? We have to finish our conversation about class warfare.”
“I’m in a hurry. I need some chloroform. I’m all out. The Suffragist Society is having a salon next Tuesday. Everyone would be happy to see you.”
“I don’t know about that. Last time, I had the distinct impression everyone found my ideas too extreme.”
“Of course not.”
“What will be the topic of discussion?”
“We’re campaigning to have Mrs. Parkhurst from the English society of suffragettes come give a speech in Montreal.”
“I have no interest in the vote, my love.”
“What? I can’t believe you would think that.”