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Authors: Sheila Kohler
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quiet and the dark, these kind hands on my body, to be able to return to a state of innocence. If only this could go on forever. If only this woman could immerse me completely in warm water. Water. Holy water. I am anointed. My cup runneth over. I know that my Redeemer liveth.
A christening. How many babies has he held over the font? “I name thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” It continues to be a moment of joy, exhilaration, and hope for him, this entrance into the community of the blessed, though the christenings are so often followed fast by the death knell in his unsanitary parish. For a moment he is filled again with rage at the authorities who allow this to continue, who have ignored his repeated letters of complaint about the tainted water that runs down from the rotting bodies in the graves.
He feels a sort of tickling on his chest, so many places all at once. “What is it?” he cries. The image of worms in the grave comes to him. He is being consumed. “Help me!” he cries out.
“Leeches,” the nurse explains, “to prevent swelling. Be still. It will be brief.”
“How many?” He wants, oddly, to know.
“Just six of them, to draw the blood,” she says.
Compared to the operation, this experience is nothing, surely, the nurse says to him in her calm, reasonable voice. When she removes the leeches, she scrapes at the wounds to make them bleed further.
“Where is my daughter? Where is Charlotte?” he cries. How could she leave him at such a moment!
Charlotte comes and sits beside her father, taking his hand. “I am beside you, dear Papa,” she murmurs.
“Don’t leave me please, darling girl,” he stammers. “My dear, my dear, how glad I am you are there,” he says, and holds her hand tightly to his drumming heart. He reaches out to hold her close. “I hardly wish to gain my sight, that I may keep you beside me, always, always.”
Now he hears the rustle of skirts and would like to reach out his hand to stroke them, to cling to them. He would like to cry out once again, as he would have liked to during the operation, as his poor wife once did, “Help me for I cannot bear it!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Origins
H e asks her to read aloud from his Bible. She opens it to the collect for the day and runs her fingers over the fine page. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,” she reads. She imagines him swallowing the holy words like wine. Indeed, he opens his lips like a child on the Words of the Lord. The candlelight flickers on her page and on his face. The room disappears into shadow. The brown leather armchair in the corner crouches down ominously like an Unholy Beast. Regions of sorrow, doleful wastes. At two in the morning, they are both awake and breathe in tandem.
She remembers the moment when he had suddenly entered their small room while they were playing their game with the toy soldiers. He had another game for them, he said, bringing forth something they had seen hanging on the back of his door, a mask he had kept from his days at Cambridge. He told them to put it on, allowing them to disguise themselves, becoming anonymous. What careful answers the girls gave to his questions; only the boy dared speak his mind. He spoke proudly of the differences in their bodies. Now she has no need for a mask. She can see her father faintly in the flickering candlelight, but he cannot see her. He no longer frightens her. Entirely at my mercy , she thinks, and smiles slightly. Now she can speak and write freely. He is no longer watching over her; she watches over him. He is in her panopticon. She likes this reversal of roles.
She is absorbed by her task, driven onward here and now by her desire to succeed, to conquer. She will vanquish all those arrogant fools, all those hateful asses, who have passed her by without a glance. How they have humiliated her, again and again. Let the great poet eat his words! Let her employers get down on
A christening. How many babies has he held over the font? “I name thee in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.” It continues to be a moment of joy, exhilaration, and hope for him, this entrance into the community of the blessed, though the christenings are so often followed fast by the death knell in his unsanitary parish. For a moment he is filled again with rage at the authorities who allow this to continue, who have ignored his repeated letters of complaint about the tainted water that runs down from the rotting bodies in the graves.
He feels a sort of tickling on his chest, so many places all at once. “What is it?” he cries. The image of worms in the grave comes to him. He is being consumed. “Help me!” he cries out.
“Leeches,” the nurse explains, “to prevent swelling. Be still. It will be brief.”
“How many?” He wants, oddly, to know.
“Just six of them, to draw the blood,” she says.
Compared to the operation, this experience is nothing, surely, the nurse says to him in her calm, reasonable voice. When she removes the leeches, she scrapes at the wounds to make them bleed further.
“Where is my daughter? Where is Charlotte?” he cries. How could she leave him at such a moment!
Charlotte comes and sits beside her father, taking his hand. “I am beside you, dear Papa,” she murmurs.
“Don’t leave me please, darling girl,” he stammers. “My dear, my dear, how glad I am you are there,” he says, and holds her hand tightly to his drumming heart. He reaches out to hold her close. “I hardly wish to gain my sight, that I may keep you beside me, always, always.”
Now he hears the rustle of skirts and would like to reach out his hand to stroke them, to cling to them. He would like to cry out once again, as he would have liked to during the operation, as his poor wife once did, “Help me for I cannot bear it!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Origins
H e asks her to read aloud from his Bible. She opens it to the collect for the day and runs her fingers over the fine page. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,” she reads. She imagines him swallowing the holy words like wine. Indeed, he opens his lips like a child on the Words of the Lord. The candlelight flickers on her page and on his face. The room disappears into shadow. The brown leather armchair in the corner crouches down ominously like an Unholy Beast. Regions of sorrow, doleful wastes. At two in the morning, they are both awake and breathe in tandem.
She remembers the moment when he had suddenly entered their small room while they were playing their game with the toy soldiers. He had another game for them, he said, bringing forth something they had seen hanging on the back of his door, a mask he had kept from his days at Cambridge. He told them to put it on, allowing them to disguise themselves, becoming anonymous. What careful answers the girls gave to his questions; only the boy dared speak his mind. He spoke proudly of the differences in their bodies. Now she has no need for a mask. She can see her father faintly in the flickering candlelight, but he cannot see her. He no longer frightens her. Entirely at my mercy , she thinks, and smiles slightly. Now she can speak and write freely. He is no longer watching over her; she watches over him. He is in her panopticon. She likes this reversal of roles.
She is absorbed by her task, driven onward here and now by her desire to succeed, to conquer. She will vanquish all those arrogant fools, all those hateful asses, who have passed her by without a glance. How they have humiliated her, again and again. Let the great poet eat his words! Let her employers get down on
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