The Feasting Virgin Read online

  There was just one thing amiss, and that was the expression on Gus’s face. She had had to convince him to go along with the home birth and midwife, the birthing tub, having all of her friends present, and saving the placenta. But this expression was something she hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t the incredulous expression that he reserved for her birth plan, or the blank expression that he exhibited when discussing paint colors for the baby’s room. It wasn’t fear, exactly, and she didn’t flatter herself that he was scared for her or impressed by her process of giving birth. Instead, he seemed preoccupied. Callie had grown to anticipate Gus’s resistance to her ideas, especially when her hippie ideas clashed with his traditional Greek ethos. The clash arose in every discussion, every decision, from circumcision to baby-naming.

  Just a few short days ago, a very pregnant Callie had sat in bed reading from a stack of baby-naming books while Gus sat by her side reading The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It’s Not About the Money . . . It’s About Being the Best You Can Be! Callie caressed her belly, amazed that the baby she could feel moving inside her womb would soon be born, and she could finally look at him and hold him.

  She turned to Gus. “Hey, honey . . . have you thought any more about baby names?” she asked hopefully while flipping through the pages of her book.

  “There is only one name. Manoli,” he said with a flourish. “That was my father’s name and that will be the name of my son. That is how we do it.”

  “But there are so many interesting and beautiful names in the world. Why limit yourself?”

  “I’m not limiting myself. I’m fulfilling something. It’s a cultural thing. You know. You know? I’m Greek.”

  “Yeah, I know. I know you feel an obligation to name the baby for your father. That’s the way you do it. But I thought you guys weren’t that close . . .” Callie paused, not sure whether to continue her question. “Gus, didn’t he leave when you were a kid?”

  “Callie, don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Gus said gruffly.

  “Ouch.”

  “Listen. Of course I wanted my Dad to stay. It was complicated. But I didn’t get a choice.”

  “But don’t you want to have a choice now for your son? There are thousands—maybe even millions—of names to pick from. Why not pick a name with a positive association?”

  “Well how about we narrow it down to Manoli—or Manoli?” He closed his book. “Sometimes too many choices is a bad thing. Whatever my father did, right or wrong . . . it doesn’t matter now that he is dead.”

  “What about Marley? That starts with the letter M just like Manoli. We could honor your father that way.”

  “You want to honor a stoned Rastafarian instead of my father?”

  “Hey! Bob Marley was a great musician who wasn’t afraid to speak his truth about politics and religion. He spread a message of love throughout the world. He was also very spiritual.”

  “He was still a stoner. And by the way, my father wasn’t afraid to speak his truth about politics and religion either.” He laughed, mimicking his father pounding his fist on the table while arguing politics with his friends.

  “Did you know that cannabis is a sacred sacrament in the Rastafarian tradition?” she asked.

  “Well then, why don’t we name him Cannabis?” He turned toward her and fixed a tangled red curl. “What’s wrong with a good Greek name?”

  “Okay. Okay. We can narrow it down to a Greek name.” She closed the Pick a Pretty Indian Name for Your Baby book and picked up The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever. “There are so many Greek names with interesting meanings. How about Kosmo? It means ‘perfect order, harmony.’”

  “You like harmony? Then pick Manoli. Why do you have to make this so hard?” he grunted.

  “It is hard. There are so many choices. And he’ll have to live with this name the rest of his life. I want him to like it. I want it to be special.”

  “Picking a name isn’t about making choices. It’s about honoring the people that raised you,” he harrumphed, giving her New Age Baby Name Book a little kick with his foot, both annoying and bewildering Callie.

  She kicked it back, and taking a deep breath said, “Manoli rhymes with cannoli. There. I said it.”

  “What’s Cannoli?” he asked incredulously.

  “Cannoli! Cannoli. You know. It’s a long tube filled with cream, and it has a big cherry on the end. I don’t want him getting teased because he sounds like an Italian dessert that looks like a penis!” Her face was red and she was rubbing her forehead. “I mean, no offense to Italian people. Cannoli are delicious. I just don’t want our son to sound like one.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” He laughed and pulled her in close to him. “We wouldn’t use Manoli at school. We’d use the American version. You know, how my Greek name is Constantino, but I go by the American version, Gus?”

  “Oh.” She paused. “How do you get Gus from Constantino?”

  “Good question!” Gus laughed. “But I don’t think they sell the Greek Immigrant Name Translation Logic Book at Barnes and Noble.”

  Callie smiled. “Well, what’s the American version of Manoli?”

  “Emmanuel. Manny for short.”

  “Emmanuel . . . I like that. But what does it mean?”

  “Don’t ask me. Look it up in one of your books here.” He picked up the Millionaire Real Estate Agent book and resumed reading.

  Callie riffled through The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever until she found Emmanuel. “Emmanuel. Emmanuel means . . . God is with us. God is with us.” She thought about their sweet baby and the miracle of him growing in her womb, and the feeling of peace she’d experienced as he nestled within her. With his conception she’d experienced a love that came from the inside out, perfect and complete. No doubts, no conditions. Just pure love.

  “Yes. Emmanuel. Yes. It’s perfect.”

  He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. He looked into her eyes and said, “I told you so.”

  • • •

  They had settled that debate without too much pain, but now Callie was seeing that familiar distance in Gus’s eyes, and she wanted to feel completely connected to him as she labored to birth their child.

  “Hey, Daddy. What’s on your mind?” she managed to pant, emerging from her labor trance long enough to whisper across the surface of the splashing water. He looked at her intently and just shook his head.

  A laboring woman is not in her right mind. She enters a different dimension of existence and perception. And because of the extreme nature of her task patience is in short supply. Callie didn’t have the time to tease it out of him. “NOW! Tell me now!” With that she lunged forward and gripped the sides of the tub and let out a scream inches from his face.

  “Uh. Okay. Well, it’s just that . . .”

  “Not NOW! Not NOW! Not NOW!” she spat as she began pushing out their child.

  Between contractions Callie could see that Gus was clearly rattled. She saw him desperately reaching for the cigarette he had hidden in his swim trunks. She could tell Gus wanted to turn his back on her as she labored and press the cigarette to his lips, smell the tobacco, and deeply inhale its smoke.

  Callie felt the next big wave hit and she went into a full squat, unleashing all of her energy into a push, and screaming “Gus!” She was birthing his baby, and the least he could do was watch. She could hear the midwife saying, “You’re doing great, you’re doing great, keep pushing, keep pushing.”

  Callie let out a huge breath and relaxed back from her squatting stance, putting her weight onto the side of the birthing tub. The doula wiped the sweat from her forehead and wrung cool water from a fresh washcloth over her chest. The midwife was quietly giving her instructions on the next big push. Her friends hovered around the perimeter of the tub with varying expressions of joy, wonder, and fear. Some were crying from the intensity of the experience while others looked around the room for something to keep their minds occupied between pushes.

  “O
kay. Tell me now. Tell me now before the next contraction.” She had a glazed, yet piercing look in her eyes. “I want my giving birth to be just right. It can’t be just right with you sitting there looking . . . looking . . .” The doula helped her back up into a squatting position and she pushed, hard. The women hummed a low vibrating tone, and it filled the air with a buzzing sensation. Gus rose from his crouching position and started to pace the room. Callie watched him start for the door, then turn back toward her, rubbing his forehead. He looked as if he wanted to bolt from the room. Gus started to fan himself.

  “Gus, you look like you’re about to faint.” Callie gestured for him to come closer. “Are you okay?” Callie felt a lump rising in her throat. Maybe Gus didn’t want any of this, or maybe he just didn’t want her. Her face started to crumple with pain as the next contraction gripped her. The midwife reminded her to relax and breathe through the pain. Callie grimaced and asked Gus again, “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, yes. It’s okay. Okay?” Gus managed to spit the words out, and while Callie wasn’t convinced, she had more important things to deal with.

  “Welcome!” she screamed to the baby. It was the word she had decided to focus on during labor, as she felt the baby kicking and fishing its way through the birth canal. “Welcome!” With that she collapsed again against the side of the tub.

  As if seeking to reassure himself, Gus repeated, “It’s going to be okay.” The midwife turned to the women surrounding the tub and asked them to please sing a supportive phrase for the father. She led them through it, and they were soon singing,

  “It’s okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

  It’s okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

  It’s okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

  It’s okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

  Callie was breathing hard from the exertion of pushing. Her eyes were puffy, and her red hair was hanging in sweaty strings. The tub water was tinged with her blood. Callie prepared for the next big push and started to sing with the women, “It’s OKAAAAAAAAAAAY!” The midwife took a medium-sized green fish net and started dragging it through the water, fishing out a couplet of small turds before the next big contraction. Callie turned her head in time to see Gus drop to the floor in a dead faint. And before she could say a word the midwife reminded her it was time to push. Callie moved into a full squat and, while Gus lay unconscious, pushed their son out into the world, a glorious little boy with a full head of red hair and his father’s eyes. Callie leaned back in the tub of water, holding her son to her breast, her red hair a halo of electricity framing her face, looking like a modern-day Madonna with her child.

  Into the Pot

  Gus groped in the dark as if he were fighting his way out of a wet burlap sack. The shrill screams had startled him awake.

  “Callie . . . Callie . . . the baby is crying.” He reached his arm over to nudge her awake but found the bed empty. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, wishing the baby would magically stop crying. “Callie!” he yelled, and the baby screamed louder. Where is she?

  “Argh!” Gus reluctantly swung his bare legs over the side of the bed and stumbled over to the co-sleeper. Picking the baby up always scared him a little. What if he accidentally snapped his neck or dropped him? He gently wedged his hand under Manoli’s back until he was cradling his neck in his hand, and carefully lifted the baby’s bottom with the other hand. The baby continued his crying, shaking the house with his desire.

  “Okay, little guy. Calm down . . . calm down. Manoli, are you hungry?” He looked around for something to calm him with, but Callie refused to use pacifiers or bottles, preferring to deftly lift Manoli to her breast for comfort whenever necessary. Manoli was always content to suckle her breast, his mouth moving rhythmically, his gulps just audible. Gus had watched them so many times, relaxing into each other and at peace. Gus felt a sudden panic rise up his chest.

  “Where’s your mama, huh?” He walked toward the door to search for Callie, but Manoli was crying so hard his little body was shaking, and his cries had become hoarse with fury. His need was immediate. “Oh crap.” Gus tried to bounce the baby and pat his back. He tried walking back and forth across the room, all the while wondering where Callie was. Finally, he wiped his hand on his pajama bottoms and placed his pinkie in the baby’s mouth. The baby voraciously sucked Gus’s finger, and Gus marveled that a being so tiny and fragile could have such strength in its mouth. “Shhh . . .”

  Gus was so relieved that Manoli was no longer crying he nearly wanted to cry himself. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and pushed his breath through his lips. The house was silent except for the suck and whimper of the baby. When he looked back at Manoli, he realized that the baby was gazing up at him, and the look in Manoli’s eyes could not be mistaken for anything but love.

  Gus inhaled, almost gasping, as if he couldn’t take breath in fast enough. He realized that his whole life was now about that moment. His son loved him, trusted him, and relied on him. It was no longer about reaching over to Callie’s side of the bed when he was feeling amorous, grasping her breasts greedily. It was no longer about staying out late drinking a good scotch and smoking cigars with his buddies at the Middle Eastern bar. It was no longer just about him. It was all about his son now, and the thought was strangely terrifying and comforting at the same time.

  And with that Gus knew there was no turning back. Even though he wasn’t sure if things would ever feel quite right with Callie. He felt guilty keeping secrets from her, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Callie about his mother and their phone conversation months earlier.

  “Mana, thelo na sou po kati. I’m not sure how to tell you.” Gus had clenched an unlit cigarette between his callused fingers. His mother didn’t want him smoking, but times like these begged for a good smoke. He put down the cigarette and pulled a humidor out of a mahogany cabinet in his home office.

  “Ti einai, pedi mou?” He could hear his mother’s voice crackling through the telephone line. He imagined her sitting on the veranda with a demitasse cup in front of her, turned upside down, drying the coffee grounds so she could read the future. “What is it, my child?” she asked in a familiar tone. It was one of motherly alarm, concern tinged with anger.

  It didn’t matter that Gus was forty-two. To his mother he would always be a child. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, you remember that girl I was dating? The redhead?”

  “E Amerikanitha? Asfalos. E Putana.”

  “Mana, she is not a whore. She’s just a girl I dated.” Gus didn’t tell his mother that the redhead was down the hall in his bedroom at that moment, asleep in a crumpled heap of sheets that smelled vaguely of vomit.

  “Listen, I just spoke with Effie Papadopoulou’s father. He is a very wealthy man you know. He can help you. He would be a good petheros.”

  Gus picked up the unlit cigarette again and squeezed until a small break formed in the wrapping paper. “Mana, I told you I don’t want to marry Effie Papadopoulou so I can have a rich father-in-law. I have my own business.”

  “Hah, real estate. One year up, one year down. There is no security. Effie is a good girl. She will take care of you the way a woman is supposed to.” Gus could hear her moving about in her apartment in Athens overlooking the Syndagma shopping district. After living in Oakland for nearly forty years, she’d repatriated to Greece four years earlier, leaving Gus to miss his mother.

  “Mana. I have to tell you something. I hope you’ll be happy.” Even as he said the words, he knew that she would not be happy. She would be furious. The cigarette lay in two pieces on his desk. He caressed the lid of the humidor before putting it back in the cabinet. He reached for the bottle of Johnnie Walker instead.

  “The only thing that will make me happy is to see you married to a good Greek girl and with children of your own. All of my sisters have grandchildren. I am the only one left. What are you waiting for?”

  Gus could hear her banging pots around in her kitchen. “Mana, I can barely hear you. What are you doin
g?”

  “I’m making lunch for the priest and his wife today. Avgolemono. Once he tastes it he will put you in his prayers so that you can start a family of your own.”

  Gus could picture his mother moving around her small kitchen, the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder while she prepared to drop a chicken into a pot of boiling water.

  “That’s the thing, Mana. I have news.” He was thinking now about the tiny being curled up tight inside of the redhead’s belly. He imagined it sucking its thumb, even though he knew it might not even have thumbs yet. And dark hair and dark eyes like his. Surely his mother would overcome her dislike for the mother of his child, would forgive the fact that Callie held long-forgotten roots from various Scandinavian countries. She was carrying his child and would soon give his mother the grandchild she so wanted. And he would have a child, maybe a son, God willing. He involuntarily smiled, even as his pulse found its way to his throat, constricting his speech.

  “Mana, I know you want me to marry Effie Papadopoulou, but I can’t do that right now. You see, there’s a problem. Well not a problem exactly. It’s a good thing. A wonderful thing! A very happy tiny thing . . .” He gulped down a shot of the Johnnie Walker. “. . . person.”

  “What are you talking about, pedi mou?” Her voice was growing harsh with irritation. She always became angry when she was afraid.

  Her tone of voice made Gus feel like the chicken she was wrestling out of its paper wrapper, pale, pink, and goose-bumped, with its legs up in the air. He took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I am going to be a father.”

  “Yes, I hope so. Once you are married to a good woman like Effie. But not now. You are not going to be a father now.”

  He imagined her plucking the last feathers off of his wings.