As she became increasingly besotted with the baby, so she was more and more horrified at the changes to her body, even though Nathaniel assured her that she was radiant, more beautiful than ever, and increased her weight problems by bringing her orange-filled chocolates and other treats. Their happy relationship as brother and sister continued. Elegant and neat, he always used the bathroom near his study at the far end of the house and never undressed in front of her. Alma however lost all sense of shame with him and gave in to her misshapen state, sharing the prosaic details, her ailments, the nervous crises of maternity in a fulsome manner she had never demonstrated before. In these months she broke the fundamental rules her father had instilled in her of never complaining, never asking for favors, and never trusting anyone.
Nathaniel became the center of her existence; beneath his wing she felt happy, safe, and accepted. This created a lopsided intimacy between them that seemed natural as it fitted both their characters. If they ever spoke of this imbalance, it was to agree that once the baby was born and Alma had recovered they would try to live as a normal couple, although neither of them seemed in any great hurry to do so. Alma meanwhile had discovered the perfect place on his shoulder, just below the chin, where she could lay her head and doze.
“You’re free to go with other women, Nat. All I ask is that you’re discreet, I don’t want to be humiliated,” Alma often said.
He responded each time with a kiss and a joke. Even though she found it impossible to free herself from the impression Ichimei had made on her mind and body, she was jealous of Nathaniel; half a dozen women were pursuing him, and she guessed that seeing him married might not be a drawback, but for several of them could even be an incentive.
They were at the family house on Lake Tahoe, where the Belasco family went to ski, drinking hot cider at eleven in the morning while they waited for a snowstorm to subside so that they could go outside, when Alma came stumbling barefoot into the living room in her nightgown. Lillian rushed over to steady her, but Alma pushed her away, trying to focus.
“Tell my brother, Samuel, my head is exploding,” she murmured.
Isaac tried to lead her over to a sofa and called out to Nathaniel, but Alma seemed rooted to the spot, as heavy as a piece of furniture, clutching her head in her hands and muttering some nonsense about Samuel, Poland, and diamonds in the lining of a coat. Nathaniel arrived in time to see his wife collapse with convulsions.
This attack of eclampsia occurred in the twenty-second week of her pregnancy and lasted one minute fifteen seconds. None of the three other people in the room understood what it was: they all thought it was epilepsy. Nathaniel only managed to lay her on her side, hold her to stop her harming herself, and keep her mouth open with a spoon. The terrible shuddering soon calmed, leaving Alma exhausted and disoriented. She had no idea where she was or who was with her; she was groaning from her headache and the stomach spasms. They put her in the car wrapped in blankets and skidded along the icy track down to the local clinic, where the duty doctor, a specialist in skiers’ broken bones and bruises, could do little more than bring her blood pressure down. The ambulance took seven hours to get from Tahoe to San Francisco, battling the storm and obstacles along the highway. When at last an obstetrician examined Alma, he warned the family of the imminent risk of fresh convulsions or a brain seizure. At five and a half months, the child had no hope of surviving; they would have to wait six weeks before inducing the birth, but during that period both mother and child ran the risk of dying. As if hearing this, a few minutes later the baby’s heartbeat ceased in the womb, thus saving Nathaniel from a tragic decision. Alma was quickly wheeled to the surgical ward.
Nathaniel was the only one who saw the child. Shaking with exhaustion and sadness, he took him in his hands, pushed apart the folds of the toweling, and saw a tiny being, all shriveled and blue, the skin as fine and translucent as an onion, completely formed and with half-open eyes. He bent down and gave his head a long kiss. The cold shocked his lips, and he could feel the deep rumble of silent sobs rising from the soles of his feet, shaking his whole body and emerging as tears. He wept, thinking he was doing so for the dead child and for Alma, but in fact he was doing so for himself, for his constrained, conventional life, the weight of the responsibilities he could never free himself from, the loneliness that had oppressed him since birth, the love he longed for but would never know, the marked cards he had been dealt, all the underhanded tricks destiny had played on him.
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