Mighty Fine Equine

Spanish Bow, a book excerpt

I was almost born Happy.

Literally, Feliz was the Spanish name my mother wanted to me. Not a family name, not a local name, just a hope, stated in the farthest-reaching language she knew - a language which, once succeeded in the world, the Netherlands, Africa, the Americas, the Philippines. Only music has reached farther and penetrated more deeply.

I say "almost born Feliz," because the name that joins me instead, thanks to a sloppy bureaucrat's bias in favor of names of saints Catalan "Was Feliu. Just one letter changed my death - yes, death - certificate.

My father was abroad this year working as a customs officer in colonial Cuba. The afternoon my mother's pain began, the elder sister of my father changed in a dress better for the church. Mamá bent over a chair near the entrance to the kitchen, legs apart, ankles turned inward, as the weight of my body falling from the basin floor. Then she prayed Tía not go, Mom knuckles white against the chair straw-plaited back.

"I'll light candles for you," Tia said.

"I do not need prayers. I Need - "My mother moaned, angling her hips from side to side, trying to find a position where the pain eased. Water cool? A chamber pot? . . . help, "was all she could say.

"I'll send Enrique to get the midwife. Tía pushed rays ebony in its thick masses of gray-streaked hair. "No, I will go myself, on the way. Where Percival are?

My elder brother had slipped outside minutes earlier, bound for the bridge and the dry cleaning underneath along which the shepherds drove their flocks. He and his friends often hidden there, playing cards in the middle of orange peels and sticks barrel vault that reeked of vinegar.

Percival was old enough to remember the previous disasters in fine detail, and he does not attend another. Mama's Last baby died within minutes after birth. The pre survived only a few days, while my mother herself hovered near death, suffering from infection-induced fever. At Campo Seco, it was not the only one unhappy.

My mother blamed the midwife who had moved into the village four years earlier, accompanied by her husband, a butcher.

"They do not wash their hands," Mama panting. "The last time I saw the clips she used. Broken hinge. Flakes "- She squirmed and jammed the heel of his hand in his back -" flakes of rust. "

"Ridiculous! Tía drew the mantle lace on her head. "You're worrying for nothing. You should pray, instead."

My two other siblings, Enrique and Luisa, remained stoic face the backyard of my mother's moans, the slick straw colored amniotic fluid on the floor, five years, Luisa dried, the smear of blood on the wet towels, which seven years, Enrique wrung and dipped in a bowl porcelain wide. By the third dip, the blue flowers on painted background the bowl is gone, hidden under a layer of smoke rose water.

Thirty minutes after taking off Tia, the midwife arrived. Mamá panted and strained his marriage bed, pushing with all her strength as she struggled to keep his eyes open. She scrutinized the growing dirt under the nails one midwife. She twisted her neck to follow every step of the midwife took in fleeting glimpse of tools displayed on a square of calico covering the table bedside, and coil cord gray cotton that made me think about fleeing the slaughter, net-covered roasted. When the hands of the midwife came, Mamá tried to close his knees to protect me from the curse. But the urge to push could not be stopped. I came from.

And then - just as suddenly - I stopped coming. What had moved too quickly stopped moving at all. Mom's tummy and curved corrugated one last time then dipped in a long and constant contraction. His jaw went slack. A blue vein bulging in his temple. Enrique, lingering in the door open, tried not to look between his legs, where the combination of taut, pearly flesh and wet hair made him think of washing-up jellyfish, collapsed on the shore of weeds. The midwife caught watching and snapping the sheet back up on mother's legs and above the belly round. This gesture hid a disturbing point of view, but it only drew more attention to what remained visible red face of my mother Beads of sweat and contorted with pain.

"Here," Mama said later, telling the story of my birth, "is where you decided to rebel. Every time someone pushes you too hard, you do the opposite. "

In fact, I was stuck: feet twisted around my neck, the back facing the only exit. A churro life connected to an arc.

The midwife grunted as her hands pushed, pushed, and massed under the sheet loosely tent, a matter obscuring his face. Forgetting Enrique, she tore the paper and groaned at the sight of a small purple scrotum appear to where a head should have been crowned. She looked this up for ten minutes, twisting the cloth of her apron with red fingers. Then she panicked. Ignoring the face of Enrique, incredulous and upset eyed Luisa, she pushed past the two and down stairs, missing the bottom step altogether.

The midwife had left to fetch her husband, who was two blocks, wiping his own stained hands. It could send my brother or called from the balcony at one of the fleets of our neighbor to the feet of children. But it was not a clever woman. And she knew that infant mortality in a third family invite Gossip expensive. Already, she could not imagine the sea of shawls black greeted From that day --- the back of his head turned away each neighbor's wife and shoulders rounded, snubbing her if I died, and my mother with me.

Left without help, my mother called his determination and tried to breathe more deeply. She felt safer with the midwife went, ready to accept what happened. She asked Luisa to retrieve a bottle from the cellar to keep his lips, Although nausea allowed him to drink only a little. She called Enrique to come and take the forceps, to soak and rub them in a bowl of water as hot to be ready.

"They do not open very well," he said, struggling with oval handles. They were fashioned from twisted metal and stuffed with small pieces of black leather sewn Enrique reminiscent of a sweat-stained saddle. "The supposed parts come from the other? "

"Forget it. Put them down. Use your hands."

He blanched.

Mamá heard Luisa begin to cry and told him to sing - something, a popular song, or "Vamos a la mar," a happy turn, they all sang with traveling Picnic at the Mediterranean coast.

. . . eating fish in an ovenproof timber. . . "Luisa sang, again and again, and then:" I see something! It's a foot! "

Another thrust. A narrow ridge. Enrique With help, a shoulder. My mother lost consciousness. I was told that I stayed for some time, the image of indecision blind, with my head to refuse to follow my pasty body. Until Enrique decisive for us, walked and pushed a little hand in the darkness, hooking a finger around my chin.

Following my final emergence slippery, I put on my mother's womb, still attached by cord to the inside of her afterbirth. There were not a spanking, no yelling cries. Mamá briefly resurfaced in the consciousness once again with instructions on how Enrique to tie the cord with the gray line in two places, and how to cut the purple wire flattened between the two.

He moved to the chest my mother, but I'm not root. One of my legs hung limply over the other, hip flask disturbing. No one authorized the white residue plugging my tiny nostrils. Mama's Arms was at his side, too tired to kiss me. It is hardly useful. My eyes do not twitch. My chest does not swell.

"It's cold," said Luisa. "We should roll.

"It was cold," Enrique corrected.

"A boy." My mom sounded both pleased and resigned, her wet cheeks as she relived what had happened before and again occur: an increase in pain that her adrenaline ebbed, debilitating fever, plunge them into sleep from which she confused could not return. "Tell the midwife was not his fault. The notary will come to the door. There is a blank card with an envelope in the drawer with the money. Write the name down for him, so there is no error: Aníbal Feliz Delargo Domenech. "

She clenched her teeth, waiting for a spasm subside. "East - it's cold here, Luisa?

"It's hot, Mom.

"The notary informs the priest" - She sucked in a breath of air, then bit down on his lower lip - "and the recorder."

"The writer?" Luisa asked, but mom did not explain.

"Enrique - you know how to spell Aníbal like your great-uncle."

Enrique shook his head.

"As the winner of Carthage, the man with the elephants. "

"I do not know how my brother protested, more alarmed by the request to write my name he had been in the drama to draw a reluctant baby from the uterus.

But the long list of future tasks imagined - a letter to Dad, a visit to a funeral - had exhausted the last of the endurance of mother. She closed eyes and rocked his head from side to side, trying to catch an elusive breeze. It began, "ANIB..." Then again lost consciousness.

Copyright © 2007 Andromeda Romano-Lax

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher.

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The above is an excerpt from the book The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax
Published by Harcourt, Inc., September 2007; 25.00US $ 978-0-15-101542-9 Copyright © 2007 Andromeda Romano-Lax

Author
Andromeda Romano-Lax has been a journalist, travel writer and a serious amateur cellist. The Spanish Bow is his first novel. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska with his family.

About the Author

Visit www.RomanoLax.com.

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