The Celestial Gate by Avital Dicker (red white royal blue txt) 📗

her when she stretched her legs out, feeling for her slippers in the dark.

She touched her belly with its new flaps of skins. Today, in the shower, she’d been able to see herself in the mirror and had been shocked. Nobody had prepared her for this flabby mess. The women in the room said it would go away in a few months, but she wasn’t sure. In any case, she had more pressing matters to deal with. Someone opened the door and Sual, embarrassed, hurried to wrap herself in her robe, thanking God she’d remembered to pull the privacy curtain around her bed. She peeked out past its edge to see nurses rolling a fourth bed into the room.

As if it’s not crowded enough already, she thought with exasperation. The new woman wouldn’t stop crying. Sual heard a man’s voice speaking softly in a foreign language in an attempt to comfort her. Just what we need right now, she thought. Her whole body was in pain, she hadn’t slept the last two nights, and after Mahmud’s family saw the baby tomorrow, she couldn’t be sure she’d be allowed to live. She covered her head with her kufiyah and shuffled down to the nursery.

Theo looked at the Arab woman walking past him, her eyes cast down, and decided to speak with the department head tomorrow. Claudia has suffered enough, he thought. She shouldn’t have to lie in a room with three other women.

Claudia had stopped her sighing; maybe she’d fallen asleep. Theo breathed in relief and decided to take the opportunity to visit the cafeteria and grab a sandwich. He hadn’t eaten all day long and his belly was definitely rumbling. He bent low to kiss Claudia but then noticed the blood-soaked sheet. Frightened, he ran out of the room, shouting for help.

Doctors were on the scene within seconds. The urged him to remain outside and drew the curtain around Claudia’s bed.

Theo sat in the waiting room, the neon tubes burning his eyes. Only seven hours had passed since the first contraction on the plane. Seven hours of eternity.

At first, everything had seemed fine. An ambulance had been waiting for them at the airport and from the moment Claudia had been wheeled into the delivery room, everything had been done professionally and efficiently. When Mor was finally out and breathing on his own, the nurse gave Theo the scissors and, profoundly moved, he cut his son’s umbilical cord. As another nurse put the infant in his arms, he felt enveloped by bliss.

When did it all start to go wrong? he wondered, anxiously waiting outside. He’d never forgive himself for having given in to Claudia and allowed her to fly in the ninth month.

A doctor finally came out of the room to speak with him. “Everything is fine,” he said. “This sort of thing happens sometimes. She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s weak, but she’s in no danger.” Rubbing his weary eyes, the doctor left Theo standing there, deeply relieved.

Theo hurried in to Claudia’s side. Against the green hospital sheets, her pallor was striking. Softly, he stroked her hair. “I want to see my baby,” she whispered.

Sual had just finished feeding Anise when Theo entered the nursery. Anise had fallen asleep on her breast, so Sual carefully put her back in the transparent crib and rolled it back to its place in the middle of the row on the left. A few cribs away, Theo was lifting Mor into his arms. He looked at his son’s long, black eyelashes. They look as if they’d been painted, exactly like his beautiful mother’s eyelashes, Theo thought. His eyes locked with Sual’s, and he smiled with joy. It seemed she knew exactly what he was feeling because she returned a similar smile.

Theo rolled the crib down the corridor to Claudia’s room. “Mommy’s resting,” he whispered in his infant’s ear, kissing the tiny hand. “She worked very hard today.” Raising his voice a bit, he said, “I’ve brought you your son, my darling,” he said, stroking his wife’s head. But something didn’t feel right. He touched Claudia’s cheek. It was cold. He shook her lightly, and when she didn’t move, he screamed “Nurse!” as loudly as he could.

A few minutes later, the doctors covered Claudia’s body with a sheet and rolled her out of the room.

At five in the morning, when Sual again got up to nurse, he was still sitting there.

She looked at the handsome Italian in the elegant suit. His gaze was hollow and the newborn in his arms was crying without him paying the slightest attention.

Sual hesitated for a moment but overcame her shyness and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I think your baby is hungry,” she said gently.

For a moment, Theo came out of his stupor and looked at her in fright. It was obvious that he had no idea what was happening.

“I can feed him. I’m breastfeeding my daughter, and I have plenty of milk,” Sual offered.

She didn’t know if he heard her, because he was again staring at the same spot somewhere in middle space. Gently, she took the baby out of his arms. He didn’t object; he seemed to not even notice. Sual found a quiet spot where she could feed the motherless newborn.

Sual was thinking how, just a few hours ago, Mahmud had stared at the little girl with the single blonde curl who’d opened her big blue eyes to look at him.

When Sual had realized she was pregnant, she’d decided to speak with her husband. She promised him she’d keep his secret if he agreed to give her child his name. She’d raise the child; he wouldn’t have to do a thing, and all the whispers behind their backs would stop. This way, he’d have a family and be free to do whatever he wanted. Mahmud had agreed. In fact, he’d been relieved. But that was when neither of them had expected a blonde, blue-eyed baby.

“If you come back home, we’re all dead,” Mahmud said,