you. We failed. I failed. I just don’t know how this happened.” The belief in his failure as a father began the decay of his physical self that signaled the first signs of Gravity Disease.
Dad had a talk with Teumer. I bet he did more than talk. Teumer left town. I didn’t want him to be the father of my child.
Hilda wanted me to hide my pregnancy. I refused. And Dad agreed. I always stood up for my actions. I began making drawings of
Petra Sansluv, Pearl Diver by the Black Sea
, the story of an abandoned boy who formed special bonds with the creatures in the Black Sea.
When the time came, Bickley arranged to send the doctor. He strutted into my room dressed in a navy blue suit, with hissquare jaw and comic-book-black hair. He looked and sounded like an actor playing a defrocked doctor on a soap opera. He gave me drugs and then I don’t remember much at all … The baby … Stillborn … Strangled by his own umbilical cord. I never saw him. That loss was over sixty years ago, but it was also only a second ago …
We buried the baby in the cemetery about a mile from the house. I burned the Sansluv drawings. I sleepwalked around becausethat week I was dying, too. I can still feel it in my ancient, dried up uterus—like I have this empty hole inside me—a bloody, ulcerous hole still seeping with babydeath. I can see it when I close my eyes.
I kept slapping my tummy, because I just couldn’t believe my body betrayed me.
Greta never wrote or called. She knew. I found out later that she knew all.
8
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2001)
Future Shock
Moses flew to Newark and rented a car. He thought about calling a Stuy Town friend who now lived in Paramus, but he didn’t want to try to explain what he didn’t yet understand. He spent the night at the airport Marriott and headed out at 7 A.M. He exited Route 80 at Red Gap, New Jersey, where a sign greeted all visitors HOME TO OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION B&B CHOCOLATE BARS. From there he drove ten miles to the Collier Layne Health Facility.
Dr. Barnard Ruggles, a small, balding, puckish man in his midfifties, with black-framed glasses and overgrown gray eyebrows, greeted Moses with extreme recalcitrance in his cluttered office. Ruggles explained that he had been treating Salome off and on since 1979 and fully grasped the intricacies of her disorder. Ruggles informed Moses that he needed to take a DNA test and that until he received the results, he wouldn’t discuss any details with him. “Get a room at the DoubleTree in Red Gap. Take a tour of the B&B factory. Eat some chocolate.” He wrinkled up his forehead and rubbed the small mole on the right side of his cheek, which seemed to usher in a complete change of mind. “I may be out of bounds here. I believe youare Salome’s son. I can hear it in your voice. Without qualification I can say it bears an unmistakable similarity to Alchemy’s. What?” Moses’s face must have revealed both his annoyance and surprise. “Did I say something wrong?”
Moses chose to make it easy for Ruggles. “Second time I’ve heard that in twenty-four hours. Go on, please.”
“If, as we presume, this is true, we will need to talk with serious purpose and you will have even more decisions to make.” Ruggles sighed through his nose and looked askance at his diploma from Dartmouth on the wall to his left, as if it could supply an answer. “This, I am sure, has come as a shock to you, but you will come as a, a”—he paused—“a potentially world-shattering shift to Salome.”
“I expected something like that.”
He nodded. “She had been at Alchemy’s compound in Topanga in California, but she’s back now because she managed to ‘escape’ and get down to the main road, where the police found her shining her flashlight at oncoming cars, throwing rocks at their windshields. She violently resisted them, saying she had a mission to accomplish. Which now, she does not remember.” He shook his head almost
Dad had a talk with Teumer. I bet he did more than talk. Teumer left town. I didn’t want him to be the father of my child.
Hilda wanted me to hide my pregnancy. I refused. And Dad agreed. I always stood up for my actions. I began making drawings of
Petra Sansluv, Pearl Diver by the Black Sea
, the story of an abandoned boy who formed special bonds with the creatures in the Black Sea.
When the time came, Bickley arranged to send the doctor. He strutted into my room dressed in a navy blue suit, with hissquare jaw and comic-book-black hair. He looked and sounded like an actor playing a defrocked doctor on a soap opera. He gave me drugs and then I don’t remember much at all … The baby … Stillborn … Strangled by his own umbilical cord. I never saw him. That loss was over sixty years ago, but it was also only a second ago …
We buried the baby in the cemetery about a mile from the house. I burned the Sansluv drawings. I sleepwalked around becausethat week I was dying, too. I can still feel it in my ancient, dried up uterus—like I have this empty hole inside me—a bloody, ulcerous hole still seeping with babydeath. I can see it when I close my eyes.
I kept slapping my tummy, because I just couldn’t believe my body betrayed me.
Greta never wrote or called. She knew. I found out later that she knew all.
8
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2001)
Future Shock
Moses flew to Newark and rented a car. He thought about calling a Stuy Town friend who now lived in Paramus, but he didn’t want to try to explain what he didn’t yet understand. He spent the night at the airport Marriott and headed out at 7 A.M. He exited Route 80 at Red Gap, New Jersey, where a sign greeted all visitors HOME TO OVER ONE HUNDRED MILLION B&B CHOCOLATE BARS. From there he drove ten miles to the Collier Layne Health Facility.
Dr. Barnard Ruggles, a small, balding, puckish man in his midfifties, with black-framed glasses and overgrown gray eyebrows, greeted Moses with extreme recalcitrance in his cluttered office. Ruggles explained that he had been treating Salome off and on since 1979 and fully grasped the intricacies of her disorder. Ruggles informed Moses that he needed to take a DNA test and that until he received the results, he wouldn’t discuss any details with him. “Get a room at the DoubleTree in Red Gap. Take a tour of the B&B factory. Eat some chocolate.” He wrinkled up his forehead and rubbed the small mole on the right side of his cheek, which seemed to usher in a complete change of mind. “I may be out of bounds here. I believe youare Salome’s son. I can hear it in your voice. Without qualification I can say it bears an unmistakable similarity to Alchemy’s. What?” Moses’s face must have revealed both his annoyance and surprise. “Did I say something wrong?”
Moses chose to make it easy for Ruggles. “Second time I’ve heard that in twenty-four hours. Go on, please.”
“If, as we presume, this is true, we will need to talk with serious purpose and you will have even more decisions to make.” Ruggles sighed through his nose and looked askance at his diploma from Dartmouth on the wall to his left, as if it could supply an answer. “This, I am sure, has come as a shock to you, but you will come as a, a”—he paused—“a potentially world-shattering shift to Salome.”
“I expected something like that.”
He nodded. “She had been at Alchemy’s compound in Topanga in California, but she’s back now because she managed to ‘escape’ and get down to the main road, where the police found her shining her flashlight at oncoming cars, throwing rocks at their windshields. She violently resisted them, saying she had a mission to accomplish. Which now, she does not remember.” He shook his head almost