The Retreat
October 4, 2000
Parvaneh sat at Eszter’s bedside, holding the now-cold bowl of soup she’d brought from the kitchen. Basir had made Eszter’s favorite, split pea with ham, but Eszter had taken one look at it and turned over again.
She still held the tiny infant in her arms. Darius had told them all that she should be allowed to cradle it for as long as she needed to.
It was a girl.
Eszter had seemed in shock when Darius announced she would be placed on the altar. This time, it was Kazem who suggested a hospital, but Darius had been confident Eszter could birth the child right there, with all of them to witness the miracle. Kazem had argued that it was dangerous for Eszter, that all the blood meant something was wrong, that the baby might not live if it didn’t have medical support; it was too fragile, born too soon. Eszter hadn’t been able to speak for herself, had only been able to groan and cry as the pain stretched beyond her ability to bear it. But Darius had been so certain. He’d said it was all a sign—the consciousness had taken Octavia back to the source, but it was offering them an exchange. The new baby would be a powerful symbol of how close they’d come to enlightenment, because of their commitment to the journey.
Instead, after twelve long hours and too much blood, the tiny creature had been born without life, blue and still but perfect in every other way. Ladonna had cut the cord and placed the little body on Eszter’s chest.
Eszter had tried to nurse her, and Parvaneh had wanted to cry. The only thing that had stopped her was an exhaustion that had hammered at her until she’d become numb. First Octavia, now Eszter and her baby. Even Darius had seemed in shock. He’d told them to clean up the meeting hall to get it ready for the night session. Then he’d trudged to the front, gone into his office alone, and hadn’t emerged.
Parvaneh needed to sleep, but she hadn’t wanted to leave Eszter, who hadn’t said a word since the birth. They’d spent weeks barely speaking, and that was Parvaneh’s fault. She’d allowed her insecurity to suffocate the best friendship she’d ever had. Pathetic. And now her friend needed her, and she was determined not to let her down.
Eszter had lost so much blood; her skin was frighteningly, sickeningly white. Make sure she eats, Kazem had told Parvaneh. She needs food and fluids, or she may die too.
And then he’d said, very quietly, She might die anyway. We won’t know about infection for another day or two.
Parvaneh looked Eszter over, a big slug wrapped in blankets, the body of the baby, the size and weight of a footlong bun, pressed to her chest. “Kazem said he’d be in soon to check your pad,” she said to Eszter, if only to remind her that she wasn’t alone. “He wants to make sure you’re not bleeding too much.”
“You don’t need to be here,” Eszter muttered. “I’m sure you need some sleep.” She turned onto her back, gazing at the ceiling. The brown fuzz of the baby’s hair tickling her chin.
“I’m not leaving you in here alone,” Parvaneh said.
“I’m not alone. She’s here too.”
Parvaneh let her head hang back, taking in the same view as Eszter, the drop ceiling, the squares neat, perfect, predictable. The opposite of the last twenty-four hours. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
“Do you think she would have lived if they’d taken me to a hospital?”
It was said flatly, blandly. But every phrase felt like a trap. “I’m not a doctor,” Parvaneh said. “Kazem said it was too early.”
“Premature babies survive all the time. When they’re in the hospital.”
This conversation was dangerous, not just for the questions but for its path. If they followed it all the way, it led straight to who they were, what they were doing. “We can’t know,” Parvaneh said.
“Darius used me. He used her. And that was more important to him than we were.”
“Don’t say that,” Parvaneh pleaded. “He loves all of us.”
“Did he love Octavia?”
“You know he did.”
“So that’s what he does to people he loves.”
The nausea that had been nagging Parvaneh lately reawakened. “He didn’t do it. And Ladonna said what happened with Octavia was an accident.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
She didn’t. But admitting that wouldn’t help anyone, including Eszter. Did she want to end up like Octavia? Even if Eszter simply got whipped like Fabia had, it was more than Parvaneh could bear. Parvaneh reached for Eszter’s hand. Cold and clammy and limp. She squeezed Eszter’s fingers. “You’re my best friend here,” Parvaneh said. “And you always seemed so wise. You’ve helped me so much.”
“Or maybe I hurt you.”
Parvaneh shook her head. “I’d rather be here than anywhere else because we’re together, and we’re seeking something wonderful.”
Eszter turned her head. “Is this wonderful?” she whispered, then looked down at her baby. “Do you want to hold her?”
No, Parvaneh wanted to shout. But Eszter hadn’t let the baby go for hours, and this was the first indication she might be willing to. “Can I?”
Eszter carefully handed the child over: terrifyingly tiny, unspeakably perfect, closed eyes with eyelashes, the shells of her ears, the bow of her mouth. The moment Parvaneh took in all those features, she felt it, the possibility of this little person, the hope and potential, the thoughts she’d never think, the mother she’d never lay eyes on. Parvaneh had thought she was too numb to cry, but now the tears came. She grimaced trying to hold in the pain and held the child to her chest, rocking it gently. She’d have to reel it all in, convince herself that it was all for the best, all the intention of the consciousness. But she couldn’t do that with Eszter’s dead child in her arms.
Eszter began to hum a lullaby, singing words to a song no one had ever sung to Parvaneh, at least not that she knew. Maybe, long before memories could take root, her mother had been able to love her. Maybe she’d looked at Parvaneh the way that Parvaneh could see this child now, as a precious but fragile gift. Or maybe, as she’d told Parvaneh so many times, she’d simply been a mistake, a broken condom and way too much booze, and there had been no lullabies, only Hank Williams Jr. and Sawyer Brown on in the background while her mom entertained her latest loser, while Parvaneh scrounged what she could from the pizza boxes on the table, the chips her mother left out so she wouldn’t have to cook her kids a meal.
This baby’s life would have been different. Eszter would have been a wonderful mother; she was softer and sweeter than anyone Parvaneh had ever met, except for maybe Octavia. She could maybe still have kids. She could move on from this, like they all would. Parvaneh would stay by her side and help her with every step, just like Eszter had helped her at the beginning.
“Thank you,” Eszter said when she finished. “Will you help me with something?”
“Anything.”
“I want to bury her.”
The nausea rose again, but Parvaneh swallowed it back. “Do you want to have a little more time with her while I get what we need?”
Eszter nodded, and Parvaneh rose and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be back in a little bit.” She cupped the baby’s head in her palm for a moment, then left. Pulling her numbness around her like a cloak, she walked out into a breezy, sunlit world, bright and warm and wrong. She skirted the dining hall and followed the path to the barns and pastures. The round, earthy smell of manure and the deep grunts of the pigs reached her after a few minutes, and when the barns came into view, Kazem was already striding toward her. “How is she?” he asked.
“She wants to bury the baby,” Parvaneh replied. “Can you give me a shovel? And maybe…I don’t know, a box? It feels wrong to just put a body in the ground.”
“Tadeas,” he called over his shoulder. “I need the shovel.” He turned back to Parvaneh. “We can wrap her in cloth, like a shroud. She’ll…return to the earth more easily that way. Better than a box.”
“Is that what you did with the others?” Parvaneh asked. “Octavia and Shirin and Ziba.”
Kazem couldn’t meet her eyes. “No.” He glanced at the large pigsty next to the barn. “But for this little one, it seems right.”
Tadeas came running out of the barn with a shovel. Kazem explained its purpose as Parvaneh took it from him. “Does she want us to be there?” Tadeas asked.
Parvaneh thought back to what Eszter had said, the way she’d begun to question everything. “She asked that it just be her and me.” Until Eszter’s mind was in the right place, she shouldn’t be speaking to anyone except someone who’d protect her, who wouldn’t let those doubts be known.
Tadeas nodded. “Tell her we love her, and we’re here.”
“Tell her to drink and eat too,” said Kazem. His nostrils flared. “Or she’ll be on that altar again soon.”
The urge to vomit was rising again. Shovel in hand, Parvaneh ran to the shed next to the dining hall where they stored fabric Beetah used to make the robes. She cut a big square from one of the big rolls of cloth and then returned to the dorm. Eszter had combed her hair and tied a scrap of fabric torn from her robe around the baby’s head, making a little bow. It was one of the saddest things Parvaneh had ever seen, but she smiled and said, “That’s so nice.” She gave Eszter a once-over. “Are you sure you’re up for this? I could—”
“I need to be there when she goes into the ground,” Eszter said. “I want her to know I was there.”
Parvaneh led them out to the woods. “Should I run back and ask someone where we should—”
“Over there,” Eszter said dreamily. She looked ghoulish in the sunlight, like the beams avoided her round, white face instead of caressing it with warmth. She was pointing to the base of a slender pine surrounded by golden needles. “It’s a nice spot. Last summer, I liked to sit there when I had a break, just to meditate in the quiet.”
“That sounds like the place.” Parvaneh marched over to it and began to dig, her thoughts on the slice and whisper of the shovel through needles and earth, the stark smell of the dirt, the hole that grew bigger with each passing moment. Eszter stood next to her, humming as she gazed down at her daughter. After a few minutes, Parvaneh was panting and aching and worried she was going to throw up right into the hole she’d worked so hard to dig. Eszter was busy wrapping the baby in the cloth, still singing. She looked broken and clumsy and beautiful, all at the same time.
“Do you think that’s enough?” she finally asked Eszter. The hole was about two feet wide and just as deep, and she knew it wasn’t good enough for a grave, but she wasn’t sure she could do much more without falling over in exhaustion.
“It’s fine,” Eszter whispered. She hugged her daughter to her chest one more time, which was when Parvaneh noticed the wet blotches on Eszter’s chest. Milk, she realized. She leaned against the tree as the raw pain and the scent of it sunk in, as Eszter laid her baby in the ground and whispered words that Parvaneh knew she’d never forget for as long as she lived, in such contrast to her own childhood, her own mother. Eszter murmured about the adventures they could have had together, the way they would have loved each other, the secrets they could have shared. After a long moment, Eszter sat back. “Go ahead,” she said, folding her arms over her damp chest.
“Kazem told me you were burying it” came a voice from behind them. Darius was standing near a tree maybe twenty feet away. Parvaneh had no idea how long he’d been there. A shiver ran through her; he looked drawn and sad and eerily still. Fear tingled in her chest; she hadn’t told him they were doing this, and she had no idea what he was thinking.
Eszter turned to him. “She’s gone now,” she said simply.
Darius watched them for a moment, his gaze flitting between them. Then he opened his arms wide, offering a hug. Parvaneh stepped toward him, relieved to have the comfort, but he shook his head. “Eszter needs me.” He focused on her. “Come here. You’ve been so brave. So committed. You are a treasure to us. And to me.”
Eszter looked down at the milk blotches on her chest. Then she raised her head and stared at Darius with a blank, unreadable expression.
Darius made a sorrowful, comforting sound and closed the distance between them. He pulled her against him, letting the wetness reach him. “I feel it too,” he whispered. “We made her, and she would have held a beautiful soul. I feel it too.”
Eszter pressed her face to his chest and sobbed. Darius dismissed Parvaneh with a jerk of his head, and so she left them there next to the open grave, shovel lying next to the pile of dirt she’d pulled from the ground. Dizzy now, unable to hold on to a single coherent thought, she trudged back to the women’s dorm, one feeling finally rising above the rest.
She lurched into the bathroom and dove into a stall just in time. It felt like someone had reached inside her and clenched a fist around her stomach, squeezing until there was nothing left. When she finally got to her feet, flushed, hoping for the stars floating in front of her to fade, she heard running water in the sink beyond the stall. She emerged, feeling like a trapped animal.
Ladonna stood by a sink, holding a cup of water. She offered it to Parvaneh, who accepted it gratefully. After she’d rinsed out her mouth, she straightened and met Ladonna’s piercing gaze. “You’re sick?” Ladonna asked.
Parvaneh shrugged. “It’s been a stressful few days.”
Ladonna tilted her head. “When was the last time you had a period?”
Another shrug. “They’ve never been regular. A few months, I guess.”
“And now you’re feeling nauseated.”
Parvaneh leaned on the sink. “A little?”
Ladonna walked from the room, leaving Parvaneh to refill her water glass. Ladonna came back a second later carrying a small rectangular box, which she handed to Parvaneh.
“A pregnancy test?”
“We keep some on hand.” Ladonna’s mouth twisted. “You didn’t think you were special, did you? It was only a matter of time.”
Her head buzzing, Parvaneh went back into a stall. Read the instructions on the package. Peed on the stick. Waited, snatches of worry and hope tangling in her skull like a nest of snakes. She had wondered if this might happen, had known it could; it wasn’t as if Darius ever used a condom. But for some reason, she hadn’t spent much time thinking about it—there had been too many other things to think about lately, so much work, so many chores, so much meditation. And as she watched the little lines form on the test wand, first one, then another, all she could think about was Eszter and her baby. The awful vulnerability, the soggy, aching sorrow.
She was going to have a child, and all she could feel was terror.