Jane, not convinced, thought that women probably used such self-delusions in order to face the repeated birthing that was their lot which, if she survived this one, she had definitely decided she would never do again.
“Vell, let’s see, me and Fritz. Ve come from a small village, not so high up like yours in mountains, we more rolling up and down mit fat cows all over pretty countryside mit churches—oy vey! Have we got churches! When de bells start ringing—a noise to get a headache from …” Jane laughed. “What? I make a funny?” Jane, panting, nodded. “Inside dose churches, you should see!! Everywhere gold and baby angels flying … and precious jewels. You tink everyone must be very rich up dere in dat special Heaven. Fritz’s papa, he is vood carver. Very fine. Downstairs, my dining room set? He made dat, for our vedding present. Dat’s why my Fritz so special wit his hands, de artistic is in him from his papa … untighten, Vifey … breathe, don’t be afraid, everyting going fine—normal. Now, where was I? … Oh, de papas. Mine, he is dead now. Vas shoemaker, very respected because he could read and write, so peoples came to him for letter writing and reading—not just for soles.”
Holding Jane’s hand, Hannah talked, led her through the waiting hours until she knew the time had come for her to run, fetch Missus-Schneider-eight-blocks-over.
Having been trotted the full eight blocks by a relentless Hannah, the midwife, bosom heaving, removed her summer hat adorned with trembling daisies, put down her basket, extracted silver scissors, threw them into the pot of boiling water, fished them out by the ribbon attached to them, washed her hands, put on a voluminous white apron and, picking up her basket, telling Hannah to follow with boiled water, went upstairs to deliver Jane’s baby with practiced efficiency. She smacked, it wailed, cord tied and cleaned, she handed the newborn fury over to Hannah, then concentrated on what she considered her most vital duty, to make every effort to save the mother from developing childbed fever and possible death because of an afterbirth not fully expelled.
“Good! Wunderbar. All clean.”
The midwife acknowledged Jane as a bona fide living mother, gave her a satisfied smile of approval for the excellent assist she had managed during delivery, washed her down, dried her off, turned to Hannah, who, entranced by the bundle in her hands wasn’t paying the slightest attention, startling her into action with “Well, what are you waiting for? Put the child in the cradle. Now, we change the sheets—then the mother can sleep before the husband comes home and wants his supper.”
And so, Jane’s son was born in the bed he had been conceived in.
When the men came home, Hannah, putting on a serious face, greeted them with “Tonight—no usual supper. Tonight only sandwiches you have.” And allowed them to register disappointment before breaking into a big smile and announcing, “Dat’s because today we got a new boarder! Vifey had her baby—A BOY!” And that’s how John got the news he was a father. “So go up already! New Papa!”
“Is it alright? Can I?” John asked, uncertain how one should behave at such a time.
“Up—up wit you! Go!” John sprinted upstairs. “Rest of you boys—wash up, but make no noise when come down for de eating!”
Later in the parlor, when John brought him down, the men were introduced to the new boarder. Carl got misty-eyed when the baby curled its tiny fingers around one of his, Zoltan asked if he might stroke the silken head and when he did, his hand had a tremor. Peter shook his head vehemently when offered the bundle to hold, saying he wasn’t clean enough, but it was obvious he was only frightened of dropping it. Having returned in time, Rumpelstiltskin had no such fear and cradled the baby cooing softly.
“Ah, the miracle of birth … the miracle of birth … divine!”
Jimmy said the boy was the spitting image of John. Stan disagreed, how could that be when he had Jane’s eyes! Everyone fussed and marveled, clapped John on the back, told him how proud he should be and to offer their heartfelt congratulations to the new mother. Hannah, her house having been honored by a first-generation American, was bursting with joy. Hugging Fritz, she declared, “We got our first real Yankee Doodle Dandy!”
The next day, Jane was ready to resume her wifely duties, relieved that, for a while at least, the ones expected in bed would not be included. What she would do after this reprieve, she wasn’t sure of yet but determined to find some way of escaping another pregnancy. Having once been told, by whom she couldn’t remember but thought it could have been Antonia, that suckling a child protected a woman from conceiving another, Jane threw herself into the feeding of her son with fierce dedication. This enraptured the baby as much as it startled Hannah.
With a son to carry on his name, John, for the first time, felt truly married. Anxiety followed close behind. The responsibility of a defenseless life, its precarious existence of his making, was reality not faced with ease—any regret now an impossibility. To be aware of a woman as a wife was one thing; to accept her status as mother of one’s son required an adjustment wholly apart, totally new. Somehow, the willing, interested girl that had begun to attract him, now was mother—its connotation of saintliness inescapable. When Jane nursed, visions of Madonnas kept superimposing themselves onto her face, making him uncomfortable, a sudden outsider. Neither John nor Jane being conformist parent material, this was a confusing time for both but, as neither knew why and marriage in their time was a state of being not an open forum for verbal communication, both made do—accepted what they had, without the slightest realization that either had the power to change their individual destiny.
John named his son Michael. Jane, relieved that the subject of an immediate church christening did not come up, hoped it might even be forgotten in time, but knew it probably wouldn’t. It had always puzzled her why everyone was in such a hurry, felt such religious zeal to bring a child to God, as the good Sisters insisted, when babies were constantly referred to as having come from God in the first place. Was Original Sin besmirching the miracle of birth? Somewhere there seemed a confusion of Christian dogma, one she had found often, as though pure belief was never good enough until sanctified by man-made interference of ritualized pomp.