The Saint's Mistress (12 page)

a scholar, I kept these thoughts to myself.

The priest turned to another topic. “We will speak today of so-called miracles.” He paused.

“What is a miracle? It is whatever the poor human mind, imprisoned in matter, cannot explain.

And so they believe that these phenomena they can’t explain are caused by invisible spirits,

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either good or evil. But Mani tells us it is knowledge which will save us. It is knowledge which

will free our inner light from the dark matter wherein it is imprisoned. It is for knowledge that

we must strive. Mani was the perfect student. Through study and self-denial, he found wisdom,

and explained for us the composition of the universe, how it was made, of what it was made,

who made it and its inevitable future. These are not stories, such as the pagans told. This is

science. Would you like to know what causes the moon to wax and wane?”

We all leaned forward slightly.

The priest went on, “It’s simply caused by the influx and outflow of light particles from the

world. No miracle. No spirits. Light, freed from matter and light trapped by matter again. That’s

all.”

“How do we come to understand these things?” he went on. “How do we purify ourselves so

the light particles within us can absorb Mani’s wisdom? Through self-denial. Who can tell me

our only two duties?”

“Prayer and fasting,” Quintus called out.

“Prayer and fasting,” the priest agreed. “Exactly right. Through self-denial, we free the

particles of light within. When all the particles of light are finally gathered together, then the

Messenger will appear. Soon may he come.”

“Soon may he come,” repeated the hearers, lifting their hands to the heavens.

The priest blessed the bread and shared it with us, and then the service was over. But, the

priest beckoned to Quintus as the rest of us filed out. Amicus whispered to us, “He’s been chosen

to prepare the priest’s supper. It’s an honor.” As we emerged into the amber light of evening, he

went on, explaining to me and Aurelius, “This is one of the privileges of being a hearer. We

serve the bodily needs of the elect so they are free to concentrate on the world of the spirit.”

“How is that any different from the same old class system everywhere in the Empire? With

some serving others?” I blurted.

The men stared at me blankly for a second, and then they all started to argue at once. “It’s not

the same at all,” Aurelius said.

“No, not the same at all,” Nebridius agreed.

“What do you mean?” Amicus asked. His brown eyes settled patiently on me.

I felt myself flush. “Nothing. I don’t know why I said that. Of course it isn’t the same.”

“No, definitely not,” Aurelius went on, “because, after all, we give willingly to the elect, and

their focus is on the spirit not on matter. They’re ascetics.”

Nebridius nodded, and he and Aurelius started into a conversation about the moral value of

asceticism. Amicus smiled at me and patted my shoulder, and I felt a little less stupid. We

emerged into the rush-lit Carthaginian night, and started towards home, the cobbled street under

our feet still holding some of the day’s warmth

“I’d like to be able to ignore the needs of the flesh,” Aurelius was boasting, “but not yet. I’m

not ready yet. But someday.”

Nebridius and Amicus murmured assent. Perhaps not right now, they all agreed, but, yes,

definitely, the ideal eventually was to give up all of the pleasures of the flesh. I was smart

enough, this time, not to voice my thoughts, but I wondered, if Aurelius ever found the

willpower to do that, where that would leave me.

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I dreamed of the sea and woke in a puddle, feeling like my swollen belly was a boulder

twisting against my spine. I didn’t know at first what was happening. Still half asleep, I reached

down to confirm that I was lying in a puddle of sticky fluid. Then the rock twisted harder against

my back, as if pressed down by a giant vise, and I knew.

I nudged Aurelius. “Run for the midwife.”

He kept snoring and barely stirred, frowning in his sleep.

I nudged him harder and shook him. “Aurelius. Aurelius. The baby’s coming. Go for Aleia.”

His eyes flipped open and he stared at me as if trying to figure out who I was.

“The baby,” I reminded him, and then gripped his hand and went silent as the vise bore down

again.

He was sitting on the edge of our bed strapping on his sandals, babbling something about how

I shouldn’t worry, that Amicus – or someone else with no reason to know – had assured him that

first babies always took a long time, but he’d be back in just a few minutes, which was the only

part I cared about.

The time while I waited for him to return with Aleia felt endless, and I was beginning to feel

sorry I’d sent him when he finally came slapping back up the stairs well ahead of the crippled

woman who delivered babies in our neighborhood. Although not old, she labored up the stairs on

legs of uneven lengths. Her face, too, was uneven, one eye cocked permanently shut, one side of

the face hanging lower than the other.

She took a second to pant at the top of the stairs, and then approached. “Well, let’s see what

we’ve got,” she said, and her ugly face looked kind, the one visible eye brown and gently

compassionate. Her hands, too, were small and gentle, as she examined with one hand on my

belly and one inside, her brown eye turned to the ceiling modestly.

She frowned when she withdrew her hand. “The labor is well along but the baby is turned

sideways.”

This didn’t sound like good news. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“He may turn yet,” she replied. “If not, we’ll have to try to force him.”

“What happens if it doesn’t work?” Why had I not listened when the village women gossiped

about childbirth? It had seemed at the time not to concern me at all, a topic for old women with

sagging breasts and slack bellies.

Her compassionate eye met mine and she patted my hand. “Let’s not talk about that right

now. Let’s give him a little time and see what happens.”

I knew then she meant the baby and I would likely die if he failed to turn. My blood turned to

iron and I felt my eyes widen, and still she held my gaze.

Aurelius, though, demanded to know, “But, you’re a midwife. Surely you must know how to

make the baby turn. How is it done?”

She turned to him slowly, as if he were an annoying child who shouldn’t be in the room.

“There are no woman relatives who can come?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Then,” the midwife continued, “you will be my assistant. We will press on the baby from the

outside, just as I show you, and we will try to persuade him that his head should be born first.”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry. It usually works.”

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“And if it doesn’t?” he demanded.

She stared at him for a few seconds, and finally he understood, too, and was silent.

The rest of the night passed, marked not by hours but by waves of pain, increasing in intensity

and increasingly close together. Each time, it felt again like my womb was a boulder, as large as

the world, being twisted and pressed by a giant hand against my spine. I felt the pain of both my

own back and of the rock being pressed against it, and it was relentless, twist, twist, twist, until

finally it abated for a few moments and I drifted out of consciousness, only to be wakened…

moments? hours? days? …later by another wave of pain.

With gray-and-yellow dawn leaking through the small windows of our apartment, I faded

after an intense contraction, to find Aleia’s crooked face close to mine, her lips to my ear.

“Leona,” she whispered, “your baby will not turn and is soon to be born. Your man and I must

try to turn him for you. Do you understand?”

I tried to nod. I thought I nodded. I must have, for she continued, “I want to warn you it will

be painful, but you must be brave. Your labor is nearly behind you, dear. Your child will be born

very soon after we turn him. Don’t be afraid.” She placed a small, soft hand on my forehead, and

I felt tears of gratitude prickling behind my cheeks.

The next wave of agony was the worst yet, and I dimly felt Aleia’s hands inside me again as –

her voice suddenly harsh – she commanded Aurelius to press down on my belly. “There! No,

there, where I showed you the last time! Harder! Harder!”

I felt like I was in a dark hallway, where a giant was crushing me with an iron hand while a

sword twisted deep within me. For the first time, I let out a shriek.

“Don’t stop pushing or she’ll die! Push! Push! Harder! If you love her, don’t be afraid to hurt

her!”

Suddenly something released within me. The pain was lessened, but a great force bore down

on my pelvis and I felt an irresistible compulsion to expel something.

“He’s turned!” I heard Aleia announce. “That’s it, dear, push down, push with all your

strength. Your baby’s on his way now.”

I grunted and squeezed my eyes shut and bore down with a might I hadn’t known I had. I felt

my arms and my spread legs shaking, and then I shrieked again and the compulsion abated, like

waves ebbing from the shore.

I collapsed onto my back, panting, noticing now that I was covered with sweat.

Aleia pushed my hair back from my forehead and cooed at me, “You’re a very brave girl, and

your child will be born soon. The next time you feel the urge to bear down, do exactly what you

did this time: push with all your might.”

I barely had time to nod before another wave rolled over me. I gripped the sides of the bed,

shrieked like a lunatic and pressed down with all the strength I had in me. There was nothing in

the universe except the force crushing my torso and the irresistible urge to bear down, and Aleia

exhorting me, “Push, push, push, push, harder, harder, harder.” And then I felt a great sense of

release, as if all the pain and all the urgency in the world had been swept away by the hand of

some great god, and something large and slippery slid out of me. I lay back, exhausted, until I

heard a weak mewing.

I lifted my shoulders with a jerk. “Is that my baby? Is that my baby?”

“Yes, it’s your baby.” Aleia was busy doing something to it.

I thought of Aurelius for the first time in an eternity and spun my head to find him. He was

sitting in the corner with his head in his hands. “Our baby, Aurelius, our baby. Is it a girl?” I

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finally thought to ask. I knew Aurelius hoped for a son, but in my own heart I had imagined the

baby to be a chubby, pink little girl.

“It’s a boy, a fine boy for all he’s been through,” Aleia assured me.

And then Aurelius looked up and hesitated over to my feet where Aleia held our son. “Hand

me that knife,” she ordered, without looking at him, and he did it without taking his eyes from

our son. She laid the baby in the warm bath that had been prepared for him ahead of time and cut

the cord that had held him to the inside of my womb for so long. I started to cry, thinking how I

had tried to destroy him, who was already so precious to me.

“When can I hold him?” I pleaded.

“In a minute when I get him washed. Here, tie this string around the cord,” she ordered

Aurelius. “Tight, tight, as tight as you can,” as if he were an incompetent child who would surely

make a mistake if not directed in every movement. And he did look incompetent to me then,

fumbling the string with his those big hands of his.

Finally, Aleia handed my child to me, and I was lifted by a wave of joy the like of which I had

never experienced before and have never experienced since, not in the arms of a man nor even in

communion with my Lord. Nothing else before or since has compared with the bliss of first

laying eyes on the face of my son, my beloved, he who was given by God.

“What shall we name him?” Aurelius whispered, brushing a tentative hand over our child’s

scalp, furred with dark hair already.

I thought of Monnica’s request, felt filled with the power to grant or subvert any desire, and

smiled to myself. “Adeodonatus,” I said, “given by God.”

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THE BELOVED

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Carthage, Anno Domini 373

Adeodonatus. The center of my world. As small and as brown as a nut he was, and he nursed

greedily and grew into a chubby little creature with a halo of straight black hair surrounding his

head like a nimbus. His arms and legs were in constant motion, and his cheeks grew so plump

that when he laughed his eyes shrunk to tiny black seeds. I loved to tickle his little drum of a

belly and see those fat cheeks rise up to his eyes and hear his deep-throated chortle. Soon he was

crawling on the stone floor of our apartment, getting dark calluses on his dimpled little knees.

I took him with me to the baths every afternoon during the women’s hour, when the pools

were crowded with other mothers and their noisy young children. I oiled our naked bodies and