After an early supper of millet and lentils cooked in beef juice, I nursed Charlotte and put her on a pile of clothes to sleep. There were several hours till Peter would return. Johan and I lay together on the mattress; I rested my head on his chest, relishing the steady beating of his heart, until our touching turned to passion. And although some fleeting images of Albert interfered, I was able to accept my lover’s skin on mine, to turn my pliant lips to his. Within cautious bounds, we explored a realm of tenderness that desperate Albert might never know.
Afterward, my body vibrating, I listened to Johan read his newest poem. It was a tiny prescription, really, for how this bond of ours could last. He envisioned it—like metal—as being formed in the heat of our trials, pounded into shape on an anvil of awareness, and cooled and strengthened by the waters of time.
So his time at the steel mill had come to something.
We agreed that our wedding should be in five days, by which time we’ll have made our simple arrangements. Sated by our closeness, we dozed. Peter returned; we all retired.
It’s near dawn, and I’ve risen with Charlotte to nurse. My wedding day is planned. So I’ll read Mother’s letter before the street sounds rise to a cacophony and wake the men. Then, no matter how it may disassemble me, I’ll transcribe the letter here.
My dearest Lillian,
In marriage as in all, moderation is key. Thee has a self-righteous disposition, not unlike thy mother’s; but let it not loose against thy husband, who means thee well. Remain temperate with him in all things earthly.
Hold tight to the reins of thy disposition, but not to the reins of thy spirit. Let it roam to perceive God’s wisdom. Know that to love thy husband truly, thee must remain sensible of thy Inward Light and share the knowledge that it brings. For secrets will corrode thy bonds.
Know, too, that no matter how dearly thee loves thy husband—and I hope it will be very dearly—it is as a mother that thee shapes the world to come.
Do not be surprised, when thee has children, to find what I have found: of all the kinds of love that bind, a mother’s love for her offspring is the strongest imperative on earth. It is as common as sunlight, as all-penetrating, as necessary to life. Its strength will fill thee, and in time will grow large enough to extend to many others, friend and stranger.
Dearest daughter, my firstborn child, thee and thy brother gave me this knowledge. I hope at times thee saw my gratitude and joy.
Treasure thy days on earth, as I have treasured mine.
I love thy soul.
With all blessings on thy coming union,
Mother
I won’t write another word till the twelfth. I want her words to echo in me.
Seventh Month 12
Dawn brings pink and yellow to our windows. Beyond them, a continual sheet of rain touches the street. Bending forward, I see a city worker extinguishing the lamps. Early-rising laborers pass, mostly hidden by umbrellas, and sodden rats and dogs run along the bricks, sniffing for tidbits dropped by the street cleaners. In my lap Charlotte is taking nourishment, while Johan and Peter sleep, their bodies stretched across the painted planks.
In several hours, Johan and I will wed at a justice of the peace. Besides Peter, Johan has no one attending; he wants to contact his family only after Charlotte’s untimely birth is covered over by some months of marriage. Father declined my invitation, writing that Patience is too near delivery. But Margaret and Miss Baker have gotten leave on some pretext and will be with us; Margaret will hold Charlotte. After a civil ceremony, we’ll come back to this room for tea and sweets. Then Peter will leave the apartment, as he’s going home to work again in Father’s shop.
Therefore we face an urgent need of funds. Johan will find work better than selling pencils, I’m sure of it, though his missing fingers and his melancholy do impede him. But I already have a plan for how we’ll survive. It came to me while reading Margaret’s reply to our invitation, which was written in her blockish letters. When Hannah Purdes gave me lessons in geometry ten years back, she’d charged twenty-five cents per lesson. I went to a newspaper office and placed this advertisement to run weekly:
Experienced teacher available to teach reading and writing to adults and children. 35 cents per lesson. Also, letters read and written. Inquire at 21xx Montpelier Street, 3rd Floor Left, Phila.
Even as I waited in line, speaking in a friendly way with others, a woman and a man said they would come to me for help with legal letters they need written, and pay a dollar each. It seems my former teaching of persuasion will find new purpose.
Then, taking two of the four dollars in Johan’s letter, I found a rag-seller’s shop and chose a pale yellow gown and cap, as well as a straw hat. At a jeweler’s, I allowed myself a new clasp for my locket’s chain. So the gold locket with its tintype of Mother rests once more above my heart.
In my silence since recording Mother’s letter here, I’ve wondered why she knew the corrosive force of secrets—if her marriage, too, had a hidden rock at its center. Did she go to the grave with painful secrets? Must every woman? Will I?
Which brings me to this moment. My tenth notebook is nearly filled. I don’t know what will become of the many pages I’ve covered with scrawling. Perhaps I’ll burn them, or bury them, or hide them beneath the floorboards. Perhaps I’ll let some dear person read them, in time. I know only this for certain: Words come to me.
I hope one day to have a voice as strong as a hand on a drum, a hand that pounds its urgent messages across a distance.
Johan says I’ve changed. He says I’ve grown less youthful in my spirit.
Of course I have. I’m no longer innocent—nor am I any longer ashamed of not being so.
For of what use is innocence? It delivers us to danger.
I think of innocence; I think of Eve, how she chose knowledge; and there I linger.
It’s said that every woman’s painful labor is God’s punishment. Eve ate an apple, and God pours wrath on every mother. So the Bible tells it.
Yet in the quiet as my baby sucks, across the boundaries of time, Eve’s story reaches like a hammer. It strikes the bedrock of my heart and cracks it in two. Up leaps a fountain of refreshment—of other meanings.
That the apple is the world of pleasure that impregnates us.
That a woman in labor is drenched in two worlds simultaneously—on the border of the eternal garden and the living-dying world.
That from this suffering she emerges far more knowing, holding the new life in her arms and her own changed self—delivered of her baby and her innocence.
That by passing through this suffering and furthering our human race, she crosses to a land where pain and joy are ever mingled and where her every move has consequence.
That every mother follows Eve.
This knowledge is not a curse. Separation from the garden’s innocence is not a sin.
It is a beginning.
Johan stirs; he lifts his head and sends a warming glance across the room.
My baby nestles in my arms.
The sun now shoots its rays above the buildings opposite and brings my wedding day.
Life holds so much and moves so quickly. One can at best convey a pinprick of its darkness, and of its light.
AUTHOR’S NOTE