Hopeful Monsters Read online

  “Mama, there’s something w-wrong with the baby,” Hisa blubbered.

  Junko’s more subtle emotions, masked with eye-liner and sky-blue shadow, were indistinguishable. But her expressive lips, a brilliant shade of orange-red, turned downward, two long creases etching from the corners to her jaw. She looked like a ventriloquist’s doll. Her mouth flapped open, then shut. Nothing came out.

  “Mama, what –”

  Two large female nurses gently but firmly gripped Junko’s upper arms.

  “Let me go,” she sprayed. “This is my daughter. I gave birth to her! What do you know about what she needs! I know her like I know my own body. Let me go! Hisa! Hisa!”

  Junko’s voice muffled as the door swung shut.

  Bobby stepped back to his place beside Hisa. He smiled wanly. Hisa turned away. “I want to see my baby,” she said numbly.

  The doctor, smiling, brought the newborn to Hisa. The baby had a stretchy white toque on her head and was wrapped in cloth. “Seven pounds, three ounces,” the doctor said. “Her face was slightly bruised as she came through the birth canal. But she’s fine.”

  Hisa awkwardly clutched the bundle of baby to her chest. Her eyes darted frantically over the infant’s face. Her complexion a mottled reddish purple, the baby’s flat nose was covered with white-heads. It was hard to discern the true shape of her eyes. They were squinting tightly against the bright lights. Hisa didn’t know what to feel. She’s very ugly, she thought. But maybe she’s not retarded. Hisa glanced around anxiously, then tugged the toque off the baby’s head so that she could see the shape of the skull. The infant had thin, dark brown hair. No betraying lumps. Then she noticed. A fluttering on the baby’s head. As large as a circle made by thumb and forefinger. The circle of skin was beating up and down. The baby had a hole in her head. . . .

  “Ohmygod,” Hisa gasped. “Her head!” Hisa’s heart. It clenched, spasmodic. She couldn’t breathe.

  The doctor peered. “There’s nothing wrong with this child’s head,” she said impatiently.

  “That! The skin, there,” Hisa pointed with her chin, both hands clutching the baby. “It’s moving!”

  “My dear,” the doctor smiled. “That’s the fontanelle. It’s perfectly normal, though this fontanelle is a little bigger than usual. The bones of the skull don’t completely fuse until up to eighteen months. But there’s no cause for alarm. I would have thought you learned about this in your prenatal class.”

  Hisa sagged. Exhausted. “Then where’s the abnormality?” she asked dully.

  The doctor started to unbundle the infant. “It’s very superficial,” she said briskly. “Your daughter was born with a caudal appendage.” The doctor expertly lifted the purplish squirming infant and held her face down in her capable hands. The baby feebly moved her legs.

  Right where the crack of her buttocks began was a tail.

  It was covered in skin and tapered at the tip.

  It was about eight centimetres long.

  Hisa stared. What moisture left in her mouth withered: a bitter dust on her tongue. Her heart boomed inside her ears.

  The doctor flipped the baby right side up and rebundled her in the hospital cloth. “It looks like a tail, but it’s not. A caudal appendage is mostly skin and either fatty substance or gristle-like material. It’s not a true tail. It’s more like a skin abnormality. Like a wen, if you will.”

  “Kobutori Jī-san,” Hisa giggled. “Like the Japanese folk tale. ‘The Old Man and His Wen.’”

  “Precisely.” The doctor handed the baby back to Hisa’s reluctant arms. “You can try nursing if you like.”

  The baby’s eyes were open. Glassy. Dark, with a bluish sheen. Hisa couldn’t tell where the irises ended and the pupils began. The white pimples dotting her pug nose were unattractive. The baby’s lips started working. Pinching, puckering, like she was just learning movement.

  “When can you cut it off?” Hisa asked dully. Exhausted.

  Bobby smiled wanly. Patted the baby’s head with the back of his fingers.

  The doctor’s smile slipped into a quick frown. “We’ll have to check scheduling. We might be able to complete the procedure before you’re discharged.” The doctor murmured something to the nurse and left the room. Just as she was leaving, Dr Armstrong burst through, his pale blue eyes blinking in the light.

  “Aren’t you the fast one,” he enthused. “So where’s your commonplace miracle?”

  Hisa started weeping again.

  Hisa’s privates ached. As if she had been pounded with a bat. The blinds were drawn so she had no way of knowing if it was day or night, but some reptilian part of her brain suggested pre-dawn. The night-light cast a dim orange glow inside the room. A gurgling squeak. Tiredly, Hisa turned toward the sound.

  The baby’s clear plastic bassinet was at the foot of her bed. Hisa had breastfed the infant three times already. She didn’t take very much. Hisa wished it was kept in the nursery. They had given her a choice, but she hadn’t wanted the nursing staff to think she was cold and heartless, an abnormal woman who didn’t want her own baby.

  The infant snuffled and squawked. Maybe it would fall back asleep if she left it alone, Hisa thought hopefully. She clutched the thin hospital blankets to her chin, as if warding off bedtime monsters.

  The baby snuffled, snorted. “Hhhhngha, hhhhngha, hhhhhhngha,” she warmed up. And cracked into a long and nasal wail.

  Hisa struggled to her side and carefully eased her body off the bed. She shuffled to the baby and stared at the infant’s face.

  They hadn’t named her yet. The names they had chosen before she was born tasted like ashes inside of Hisa’s mouth now. Her eyes burned dry. The Rat. It was the year of the Rat, wasn’t it?

  The baby feebly batted her tiny fists in the dim light. The toque skewed sideways, covering one tightly squeezed eye. The thin nasal wail pierced Hisa through to her core. When she clasped her heart she could feel the damp of her breast.

  The Lord has a reason for all things, Hisa thought dully. Doesn’t He?

  A nurse stuck her head through the doorway. “Do you need a hand?” she asked.

  Hisa stared at her silhouette. Shook her head and tried to smile.

  “Would you like me to change the diaper?” the nurse said gently.

  Hisa had thought she had cried all of her tears. But her lashes were suddenly wet and she batted them fiercely, the light from the hallway refracting.

  “I should start practicing,” Hisa said bravely. “Don’t you think?”

  “If it feels right,” the nurse nodded. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to book a visit with the counsellor? You might have the baby blues. A lot of new mothers get that, you know. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Hisa stepped back. As if she had been slapped. “I feel fine,” she said. Suddenly, she wished Bobby had stayed. But he had gone home to get some rest and Mama had to be told not to visit until the next day. Hisa took a new diaper from the shelf below the bassinet. The baby had managed to unbundle herself from the swaddling cloth. Her small feet punctuated each raspy cry with sharp little kicks. Her toes so long they looked out of place. Hisa tentatively picked at the small tab of adhesive that kept the diaper shut.

  The nurse still stood in the doorway.

  “Go away!” Hisa snapped. “There must be other people who are more sick than I am.” She couldn’t see the nurse’s face. Her voice had sounded young.

  “There’s no need,” the nurse said slowly, “to take that kind of tone. We’re here to protect the welfare of you and your baby.” The nurse stood there. A dark shadow. The light from the hallway revealing Hisa’s face. The nurse stared for as long as she wanted, then turned away. The soft squeaks of her shoes receded.

  Hisa’s eyes darted about. What did the nurse think of her? Was that the same nurse as before or a new one? Why were they hanging around her? Hisa covered her mouth with her fingers, horrified. Did they think she’d do something to the baby? Hisa vigorously shook her head
. No! She wasn’t like that.

  Was she?

  Maybe the nursing station was awash with the news of the baby with a tail. Each new shift bringing in new spectators. Maybe they all wanted to see it. Like the poor Elephant Man. . . .

  Meanwhile, the baby had cried herself well beyond nasal wails into a heart-piercing rasp.

  “Oh, oh!” Hisa flustered. “Shhhh, babygirl. Shhhhhh.” She clasped the infant to her chest and hobbled to the chair by the window. She had to shush her fast. Before another spy nurse came by. She opened the flap on her mint-green gown and awkwardly juggled one breast out of the bra. The baby, smelling the milk, rooted around for the source. Hisa crammed the nipple into the baby’s open mouth like she’d been taught. It was a bad latch. The baby was sucking voraciously on the tip instead of firmly around the whole nipple. Hisa let her be. Bore the pain.

  The baby was cushioned on the loose bag of her stomach. The infant’s right hand rested on Hisa’s full breast and with each suck, her tiny fingers squeezed against the skin. Her hand was so graceful. The nurse had cut the baby’s fingernails because they were so long at birth.

  Really, Hisa thought, she looks so normal like this.

  The baby fed for about five minutes. Then she stopped. Her pucker of mouth still lipping Hisa’s nipple, the baby had fallen asleep again.

  Hisa gently rose and shuffled to the bassinet. She could just put her back without changing the diaper.

  Good thoughts, her mother had said. Psychically linked. Hisa didn’t believe in all that, but the Bible said love all of the creatures, great and small. Or was that from somewhere else? Hisa shook her head. Jesus had eaten with harlots and befriended lepers. This baby was of her own flesh and blood!

  Hisa pulled her lips tight with determination. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she peeled the tabs off the diaper and dropped the front open.

  A stump stuck from the baby’s belly! The colour of dried blood. Hisa’s stomach churned. When she realized it was the remains of the umbilical cord, she feebly laughed aloud.

  The baby’s labia were swollen, but normal. A gluey greenish poo was smeared in the diaper.

  Where was the tail?

  Hisa clasped the baby’s small ankles in one hand and lifted slowly.

  The baby’s bottom, smeared in the dark sticky fecal matter, was a mess.

  The tail. It had been positioned upward, along the baby’s back, the base pressed tightly against its natural resting position.

  “Oh,” Hisa gasped. It looked terribly uncomfortable! She supposed the last person to change the diaper had done that so the tail – the caudal appendage – wouldn’t be fouled by the feces. She knew people suggested that babies didn’t really have nerve endings like adults or even children. That’s why it was still okay for male babies to get the skin of their little penises ripped off with no anesthetic. But Hisa wasn’t so sure. Surely, if she pinched the infant, she would wake up and start bawling.

  Hisa wiped the dirty bum and remembered to swab the belly button stump with the alcohol and Q-tip. She did it as quickly as she could. Her hands icy. The baby squirmed in her half-sleep. Hisa didn’t want her to wake up.

  Hisa didn’t put on the clean diaper.

  She stared at the tail.

  It didn’t look very different from a thin finger. Finger, Hisa thought. Innocuous as a finger. If she looked at it long enough, would she lose this skin-crawling repulsion? Because she could admit it. To herself. The tail was horrible. A freak of nature that was wrong, wrong, wrong!

  Hisa’s hands shook. She loosed her hold on the baby’s ankles. Breathed slowly, deeply, her exhalations breaking up into shudders.

  “It’s Bobby’s fault,” Hisa whispered. Bobby and his old sperm.

  “My fault,” a voice croaked.

  She shrieked. Clasped the baby to her chest. The tail. She was touching the tail. . . . Warm. Firm. As thick as a pencil. Hisa’s skin crawled.

  Someone. In the doorway. A squat form and hair. Hair standing wild and uncombed like someone from a madhouse! Hisa backed slowly to the head of her bed. The nurse call button –

  “Hisa-chan. I had to come back.”

  “Mama?” Hisa said incredulously. “Mama?”

  “Can I come in?” she asked humbly.

  “Of course. Shut the door. Turn on the light. There’s no lock. Mama, what’s wrong?” Hisa’s lower lip started to wobble. She’d never seen her mama like this before. So – undone.

  The sudden buzz of fluorescent lights glared hideously on Junko’s face. Without make-up her mother was unrecognizable. Dark creases bagged her eyes and her eyelids were wrinkled like the skin of naked mole rats. Her pale lips were barely visible, an apparition of a mouth. She was lost in her own face. She must have brushed out her curls, but she hadn’t restyled them. Her mama looked like she had just jumped out of bed. And that was unheard of.

  “I had to tell you,” Junko managed. She took two faltering steps toward her daughter. Then stopped. “You have to know.”

  Hisa shook her head. This news. She didn’t want to hear it. Whatever it was that had ruined her mother, she didn’t want the knowledge. “No, Mama,” Hisa wobbled. “You said. Nice things. Nice thoughts. That’s what you said, Mama. I can’t bear anymore.”

  “You must!” Junko hissed. “You’re a mother now! You must listen!”

  Fat tears rolled down Hisa’s face. The salt burned her dry skin. She wept without sound. Shoulders dropping, she closed her eyes and gasped, shuddered for air. She wiped her nose with a corner of the baby’s swaddling cloth, then looked upon her mother’s old face. “Tell me, then,” Hisa said defeatedly.

  Junko raised her head. The folds of skin beneath her chin quivered.

  “You had a tail, too.”

  The room ballooned, a sudden vacuum. Captured. Then, every sound resonated as isolated overblown entities inside Hisa’s mind. The fluorescent light buzzed with frenetic electrons. Granules of dust slid across the glass window, one tiny mote after the other. The furnace clicked with the change of temperature, the pipes expanding atom by atom. The baby’s breathing split into air, heart, blood, hemoglobin. Hisa gasped. The world cracked. Then the shards slid back to create an entire picture once more.

  Hisa turned her head, leaned slightly sideways, and retched dryly. Junko held out her arms for the baby and Hisa quickly dropped the child as her stomach convulsed once more. All she brought up was bitter fluid. Her throat burned and she spat into the bedpan. When she could turn back to her mother, Junko had finished fixing the diaper and was staring into the baby’s sleeping face. Hisa couldn’t read her mama’s expression. Without the make-up, Junko was a stranger.

  Hisa sucked in her breath.

  Three miscarriages, her mother had always told her.

  And Hisa the only survivor.

  How could she know if her mother had told the truth? What if – what if her mother had borne living monsters and she had smothered them, one after the other. . . .

  Hisa snatched her baby out of her mother’s arms. “Why are you telling me now?”

  Junko blinked watery eyes. “So you don’t go through the same things I did.” She turned away.

  Hisa tried to gulp. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, clacked horribly. “What things,” she asked hoarsely. “What did you do to them?”

  Junko raised her trembling fingers. Toward her only daughter. Hisa stepped backward with her child, raising her shoulder slightly so that the infant was out of her mother’s reach. Junko’s wretched face fell open. “Noooo,” she wailed. “No!”

  “What’s going on?” Two nurses marched through the door, quickly assessing the situation. “Mrs Santos needs her rest right now. Please leave immediately and do not return until proper visiting hours. If you cannot follow regulations we will have to call security.” The nurses ushered Junko out of the room as efficiently as prison guards.

  Junko craned her neck over her shoulder. “Hisa-chan! Don’t make the same mistake I did!”
r />   By the time the nurses came back, Hisa had placed the sleeping infant in the bassinet and now lay in her narrow hospital bed, the thin blankets pulled over her head.

  “Are you okay?” A warm hand cupped her shoulder. Hisa flinched and the hand dropped away. Hisa shook her head.

  “Would you like us to take the baby to the nursery?”

  “Please,” Hisa’s voice cracked.

  Nurses murmuring, the slow squeaky wheels of the bassinet rattled to the door.

  “Wait,” Hisa jolted upright.

  The nurses stopped.

  “Don’t let her near the baby,” she said fiercely.

  “Someone will stay with your child,” a nurse soothed. “You sleep, now. You need your rest.”

  Hisa lay back down. An icy weight settled next to her heart. Dawn tried to breach her room, but Hisa turned away from the window and closed her eyes. She was waiting. Waiting for comfort from the Holy Spirit or Jesus Christ. But all she heard was her heart booming inside her eardrums. “God forgive you,” she whispered hoarsely.

  Bobby arrived with a huge vase of white lilies, her overnight bag, a mothering magazine, and her favourite pair of shoes. The perfume of the sweet cloying flowers filled the room. Hisa’s stomach rolled over itself, the half bowl of porridge she had managed to eat moiling toward gag reflex.

  “Sweetie pie,” Bobby bent to drop a kiss in Hisa’s matted hair. “Where’s our beautiful daughter?”

  “Lilies are for dead people,” Hisa blurted, then burst into tears. Bobby’s first-time-father’s face slipped askew. His lower lip drooped, but he valiantly erased his pout and managed to fix a smile in place as he set the flowers out of sight on the bathroom counter. He bustled to his sobbing wife and curled his hot arm around her shaking shoulders, nudging her with his belly. Hisa instinctively moved over though she could feel the small stitches keeping her vagina together tearing as she dragged her buttocks sideways across the mattress.

  Bobby’s thick arm under her neck, Hisa’s head was thrust out at an awkward angle. The smells particular to Bobby pooled thickly around her face.