Senza Mamma
When you tell the world that you want to become a doctor, they gawk at you. They blink. They stare. They clear their throats. They flutter their fans and try to find something polite to say in response.
Once you are a doctor, they take you aside in dark corners, tuck up close to you in closets dark and cramped enough that they have enough room to draw up their sleeves, and show the bruises.
On that frigid, musty night, under the light of a waning crescent and cloud masked stars, she gave birth to a twisted, red sack of too small, brittle bones and streaking blood.
Marion lay on the verge of consciousness, chest heaving as soft whimpers whispered out with each labored breath. Anne held the tiny, unearthly creature in her cupped palms, and prayed that Marion had fallen unconscious.
"Madam?"
Anne jolted roughly and turned to look down at Marion. The girl was shuddering beneath the blanket, sweat soaking her brow and hair. But she was awake. Her eyes fluttered to stay open, and the pupils beneath faded in and out of focus, but she was awake.
"Is she okay?" Marion breathed. "Is she—where is she—my daughter—did she make it?"
The walls of fear that might have spurred Anne to hesitate had long since been torn down. Lightly, with heavy arms, she proffered the tiny, fetal creature to her black haired friend. Marion reached out, and took the figure from Anne's hands. The wail that escaped her as the jelly like creature touched her palms tore at the walls. It was nowhere near the volume of the screams of agony that had been torn from her throat just minutes before. But it bore the thousand sharp edges of a shattered soul.
Marion clutched her miscarried child to her breast, and moaned with hopeless, heart wrenching sobs.
Anne moved to clean the bloodied sheets from beneath Marion's body, and Marion screamed with savage rage and tried to slap her away. Anne let her blows hit. She allowed the anger to release. She absorbed it in bruises on her arms, fingernail bites from her cheeks, and great, big, gnawing cuts in her heart.
And she wiped the blood from Marion's legs anyway. She pulled the screaming woman into her chest so she could tug the bloody sheets from beneath her and replace them with fresh ones. Because one life was enough to lose in one day. And the world had to go on. That was Anne's job.
When that was done, Anne sat with Marion for the hours it took for her sobbing screams to fade away, and sleep to descend upon her in a heavy, dark shroud.
Mr. Hardy didn't turn from the window as Anne stood in the doorway, grey eyed and worn, and delivered the news of the miscarriage.
They stood in silence for long, ticking moments. Finally, Mr. Hardy asked his question.
"Do you think… the miscarriage was a result of the fall, Madam Red?" he asked.
"Medically, there can almost never be absolute certainty," Anne replied in a voice numbed five times over. "And yet, in this instance I am as certain as I can ever be that if the impact did not cause it, the emotional trauma did."
"I see," replied Mr. Hardy. "Thank you for the services you have provided this night. I don't endeavor to keep you here. I can have Alfred show you out."
"There is no need, I can show myself," Anne replied, with only the tiniest, curtest of nods. She turned to leave. The door had almost entirely shut behind her, when it paused, and her voices wafted back through the sliver of an opening. "I should advise you to have a carpenter in."
"Excuse me?" Mr. Hardy asked, looking up from his pipe.
"A carpenter. To have a look at your staircase. It seems to have been most terribly designed. It's a rare situation where a tumble down the stairs manages to strike both the abdomen, and the cheek in such a direct fashion."
Mr. Hardy stepped from the smoke filled warmth of the tavern into the damp clarity of the street. It was late, and the sun had long since set into darkness, leaving the streets illuminated by the light of the lamps. There was too much soot and cloud to make out the stars, but the lamplight caught the clouds which and reflected it back, painting the sky a greenish half yellow that was reminiscent of a coming storm.
Mr. Hardy tucked his top hat down over his eyes, and shrugged his shoulders up to protect his neck from the drizzle, and took off down the street. The door to the parlor vanished behind him in the thin layer of drizzling rain, and twisting streets.
He was halfway to the main street, when a sharp, loud female laugh burst from behind him.
Mr. Hardy whirled, expecting to see a loose woman, early to the prowl. To his surprise, it wasn't a prostitute at all, but Madam Red who stood a few paces away, leaning heavily against the wall, and giggling to herself.
"Madam Red?" Mr. Hardy asked, taking a step forward. "Good lord, that was never you, was it?"
Madam Red giggled all the harder.
"My dear Mister Hardy!" she exclaimed, pushing herself off the wall and tumbling forward, all giggles, crisscrossed legs and tangled skirts.
"Madam, this is no place for a woman of your standing. Not even a lady as extravagant as yourself."
"Oh, but- hic- you won't tell, will you?" Madam Red cooed, grinning from behind a white-gloved hand.
"Madam, I perceive that you are quite thoroughly drunk," Mr. Hardy commented with some distaste as Madam Red stumbled up to his side, almost collapsing on him. As it was, her body brushed lightly against him.
"An indulgence I beg you to permit me," Madam Red slurred out. "A profession such as mine. Usually held by a man, it requires some more…mmmm… masculine methods of relaxation. To come down from the pressure of it, you see." Madam Red's legs seemed to become tangled beneath her then, and she stumbled. Mr. Hardy impulsively reached out to catch her, and she collapsed heavily against him. Her body was unattractively heavy, and stank of sweat, smoke, and whiskey, which she seemed to have managed to spill actively down her blouse.
"Madam, this is absolutely no state for a woman to be in," he chastised her. "All sorts of men wander about London at this time of night."
The energy seemed to fade from Madam Red's body for a moment.
"You're right…" she muttered softly against his lapel. "God, please tell me you won't tell anyone…"
"I won't." Mr. Hardy gave a heavy sigh, all hopes of getting home with enough time to catalog his earnings dashed. "Allow me to escort you back to your house, madam." If he failed to disguise the bitterness in his tone, she wouldn't remember it the next day.
"That's absolutely unnecessary!" Madam Red exclaimed. "I am—" Pushing off him she swayed dangerously before catching herself on the wall again. "—perfectly capable of- of making my own way back to- to my…" she trailed off, as if she'd forgotten she was speaking. Mr. Hardy sighed and took her by the arm more roughly than was strictly polite.
"Come along, Madam Red. This way. There's a good girl."
"No!" Madam Red exclaimed. "No! Not that way! Not the main street! Can't go home on the main street! People will see! Mr. Hardy, if people see me like this—" She hiccupped grossely. "I'll be ruined."
Mr. Hardly had half a mind to haul the mental woman off her feet, hail the nearest cabbie, and get her off his hands as quickly as possible. But such a noble woman, no matter how disgraceful, being indebted to him could easily prove useful.
"Luckily for you, madam, I just so happen to know a path through the backstreets."
Madam Red turned vibrant, glowing eyes up to him, her face red with drink.
"Mr. Hardy, you are a servant of God!" she cooed.
"Senza mamma, o bimbo, tu sei morto! Le tue labbra, senza i baci miei, scoloriron fredde, fredde. E chiudesti, o bimbo, gli occhi belli."
For all the drunken lilt of her tone, Madam Red was quite a well-trained mezzo.
"Madam, I do implore you to be quiet. It is very late."
"Non potendo carezzarmi, le manine componesti in croce!"
Madam Red finished the line with passionate gusto, and let herself fall limply on Mr. Hardy's support.
"That was the first piece I ever learned as a girl."
"Was it really?"
"It's from Suor Angelica."
"How lovely."
"It's sung by a mother. Mourning the death of her son, who she only ever held once."
"How interesting."
Madam Red carried on humming the tune for minutes after her singing had ended.
"Mr. Hardy?" she finally spoke.
"Yes, Madam?" Mr. Hardy snapped, no long taking pains to mask his irritation. There was no way she would remember an ounce of this night the next morning. And at this point, even if she did he wouldn't care.
"There's one thing I keep wondering."
"Is there really?"
"There is."
"How fascinating."
"About your wife's miscarriage."
"…A tragic affair."
"Indeed. And yet… I can't stop from wondering… How a staircase with no banisters… managed to leave a circular bruise on your wife's abdomen… Or how on earth the stair case managed to catch her hair, and pull it out from the very roots…" Madam Red trailed off into a silence deeper than anything that Mr. Hardy had ever experienced. He swallowed to keep his nerves, but his step had slowed.
"What, exactly are you insinuating?" he asked, voice low.
"Nothing," Madam Red hummed against his collar. "I'm only wondering… It comes to mind, a lot… I see her face. You look down at it, and you wonder what skilled of a sculptor it takes to carve that much detail into so tiny a space…"
"You need more sleep, Madam. And less drink."
"Perhaps…" Her feet scuffed clumsily over an uneven stone set in the path. "Do you believe unbaptized children go to heaven, Mr. Hardy?"
"That's not my place to decide."
"No… I suppose it isn't…"
Madam Red drew in a breath, and began singing, softly now, the same, mourning Italian tune.
"E tu sei morto senza sapere quanto t'amava questa tua mamma…"
Mr. Hardy relaxed, and kept walking.
"Ora che sei un angelo del cielo, ora tu puoi vederla la tua mamma…"
Madam Red shifted lightly against Mr. Hardy. Her voice turned down into his shoulder.
"Tu puoi scendere giù pel firmamente ed aleggiare intorno a me,… ti sento…"
Madam Red's fingers traced their way up Mr. Hardy's back, light, well guided touches mapping out the curves of his skeleton, and the cushions of his muscles beneath layers of cotton and wool.
"Sei qui… mi baci… m'accarezzi. Ah, dimmi quando in cielo potrò vederti, quando potrò baciarti…"
Mr. Hardy couldn't tell at this point whether she was attempting to make advances on him, or was simply so drunk that her hands had forgotten to communicate with her senses.
"Oh, dolce fine di ogni mio dolore! Quando in cielo con te potrò salire? Quando potrò morire?"
Her fingers tracked up the bumpy path of his spine and paused for a moment at the exact place where his neck and skull met.
"Dillo alla mamma, creatura bella, con un leggero scintillar di stella."
This groping was no longer acceptable behavior. No matter how drunk the harlot was.
Mr. Hardy opened his mouth to chastise her once more.
The words never left his lips.
Madam Red stood, steadily, over the grey figure of David Hardy. And watched his blood trace the lines between the cobblestones in red.
"Parlami, amore… amore…"
Without thy mother,
Dearest, thou didst die
Thy sweet lips
Without my fond kisses
Grew white and
Cold as snow
And thine eyes
Thou didst close, my darling
Then, unable
To caress me,
Thy tiny hands
Were crossed on thy chest
And thou didst die
Without e'er knowing
With what wild passion
Thy mother loved thee!
Now that thou art an angel of the heavens
Thou wilt at last behold thy mother's face.
Thou canst descend to me from up above
And I seem to hear thy flight through the space.
I feel thy kisses and thy caresses!
Oh tell me, when may I see thee in heaven?
When will I know thy kisses?
Oh sweetest end of all my bitter sorrows,
Tell me when I may hope to fly to thee
When will death o'ertake me?
Do tell your mother, sweetest of all children,
With the bright light of yonder flickering stars,
Speak, oh speak, my sweetheart
A/N
Thank you for taking the time to read this. This will be a series of one-shots. I do not yet know how many there will be.
Reviews are always an invigorating, and appreciated kindness.
Be well.