Woman on the Edge of Time

“At least two of the three mothers agree to breast-feed. The way we do it, no one has enough alone, but two or three together share breast-feeding.”

“Why bother? Don’t tell me you couldn’t make formula?”

“But the intimacy of it! We suspect loving and sensual enjoyment are rooted in being held and sucking and cuddling.”

“Where are the babies from the empty cradles? Are they sick?”

“Outside with mothers or somebody! Oftentimes when we’re working, we take the baby in a backpack. They get fresh air. When breast-feeding ends, everybody who feels like it lugs them around.”

“Suppose you took Barbarossa’s baby and he wanted it. Wouldn’t he get sore?”

“What are kenners for? You ask.”

She stared at the room, blue and lemon and grass green. Sunlight melted through the circle of windows and a muted vegetable light passed through the dome. The windows stood open to the breezes now. The person in green was changing a diaper and wiping the cradle. Both diaper and wipe-up went down a chute.

“Well, at least you’re not so crazy about ecology that you wash diapers.”

“They’re made from cornhusks and cobs, and they compost. Very soft. Feel.” The diapers tore off a large roll hung from a stand in the form of a snake dancing, with many tinkling bells attached. Over the cradles mobiles turned and twittered. No pink and blue, no Disney animals prancing, no ugly cartoon pigs decked in human clothes. The nursery was airy, soothing, full of rustling and little bells and wind chimes and the sound of the stringed instrument, the cradles rocking. On the window seat, Barbarossa cuddled his baby to his breast, all the stern importance melted from his features. She could almost hate him in the peaceful joy to which he had no natural right; she could almost like him as he opened like a daisy to the baby’s sucking mouth.

The person in green was cuddling the baby just changed and singing a slightly mournful lullaby:

“Nobody knows

how it flows

as it goes.

Nobody goes

where it rose

where it flows.”

“Where’s Jackrabbit?” Connie asked, realizing that somewhere in the maze of rooms and courtyards he had slipped away.

“Gone to play. This house seduces you.”

“Nobody chose

how it grows

how it flows.

How it grows

how it glows

in the heart of the rose …”

As they went up a broad shallow stairway, that song, plaintive and endless, followed after them.

“Except in the nursery and among the very young, the kids don’t have toys,” she said suddenly.

“Most of what children must learn, they learn by doing. Under five, fasure they need toys to learn coordination, dexterity; they practice tenderness on dolls … . I’m looking for Magdalena.” Casually Luciente flicked her kenner. “Magdalena? Ah, person is coming. Magdalena is unusual. Person does not switch jobs but is permanent head of this house of children. It is per calling. Sometimes a gift expresses itself so strongly, like Jackrabbit’s need to create color and form, like Magdalena’s need to work with children, that it shapes a life. Person must not do what person cannot do—you have heard us say this a hundred times; but likewise, person must do what person has to do.”

A small figure with velvety black skin—she had to be a woman from the delicacy of her bones—a long neck, hair cut to her scalp in an austere tracery of curls, descended toward them, smiling slightly. She came drifting down, stooping to pick off dead leaves from the vine that grew over one side of the open stairs. She was no taller than a ten-or eleven-year-old.

“Magdalena has no family. Person wants this instead. Person is chaste and solitary among adults,” Luciente said as Magdalena came slowly toward them.

“You mean an old maid?”

“I don’t know this term. You speak it with contempt?”

“Yeah, it’s an insult. A woman who can’t get a man.”

“Connie, we don’t get each other. And we respect people who don’t want to couple. It’s per way: the way for Magdalena.”

In a high chirpy voice like a cricket, Magdalena greeted her. “Be guest, woman from the past.” She stuck out her tiny hand. Her grip was warm, sun-heated ebony. “I’m Magdalena.”

“You’re the only woman I met here who has a real name. I mean like somebody from my block.”

“It’s the name of a woman burned to death for witchcraft in Germany many centuries ago. A wisewoman who healed with herbs. I saw per in my naming trance.” Magdalena smiled, a blink of ivory in her quick face. Was she sixty? More? Maybe old people here retained an ongoing strength because they felt useful. When she thought of getting old it always made her feel scared and low in her mind, old age as grim as those witch masks kids bought in the candy store and wore in the streets of El Barrio at Halloween.