In a tone wavering between the solemn and the cheerful, he lifted a sheet of paper and said: “Congratulations, Madam.” Automatically I corrected him: “Miss.” It was as though I’d given him a slap. Solemnity and cheerfulness disappeared, and staring at me with calculated indifference, he replied, “Ah!” Then he took his pen, crossed out Mrs., and wrote Miss. Thus, in a cold, white room, through the voice of a man coldly dressed in white, Science gave me its official announcement that you existed. It made no impression on me, since I’d already known long before it did. But I was surprised that my marital status should be emphasized and that a correction had to be made on a sheet of paper. It smacked of a warning, a complication for the future. Even the way Science then told me to undress and lie down on the table was anything but cordial. Both the doctor and the nurse behaved as though I were somehow disagreeable to them. They didn’t look me in the face. On the other hand, they exchanged meaningful looks. Once I was on the table, the nurse became upset because I hadn’t spread my legs or put them in the two metal stirrups. Irritably she did it herself, saying, “Here, here!” I felt ridiculous and vaguely obscene. I was grateful to her when she covered my naked body with a towel. But the worst was when the doctor put on a rubber glove and angrily stuck his finger inside me. With his finger he pressed, he pried, he pressed again. Not only was he hurting me, I was afraid he wanted to crush you because I wasn’t married. Finally he took his finger out and announced: “All’s well, completely normal.” He also gave me some advice, telling me that pregnancy is not an illness, it’s a natural state; therefore, I should go on doing what I did before. It was important not to smoke too much, not to overexert myself, not to bathe in water that was too hot, not to consider any criminal decisions. “Criminal?” I asked, in astonishment. And he: “The law forbids it. Remember that!” To reinforce the threat he even prescribed some lutein pills and told me to come back every two weeks. He said it all without a smile, then told me to pay on the way out. As for the nurse, she didn’t even say good-bye. And as she was closing the door, I had the impression that she shook her head disapprovingly.
We’ll have to get used to such things, I’m afraid. In the world you’re about to enter, and despite all the talk about changing times, and unmarried woman expecting a child is most often looked on as irresponsible. At best, as an eccentric, a troublemaker. Or a heroine. Never as a mother like the others. The druggist from whom I bought the lutein pills knows me and is well aware that I have no husband. When I gave him the prescription, he raised his eyebrows and stared at me with dismay. After the druggist, I went to the tailor, to order an overcoat. Winter is coming, and I want to keep you warm. With his mouth full of pins to fasten the cloth, the tailor began taking measurements. When I explained that he should make them generous because I was pregnant and would have a big stomach by the time winter came, he blushed violently. His jaw dropped and I was afraid he’d swallowed dropped his tape measure, and I felt sorry to have caused him such embarrassment. The same with my boss. Whether we like it or not, my boss is the one who buys my work and gives us money to live on: it would have been dishonest not to tell him that in a little while I wouldn’t be able to work as before. So I went in his office and told him. He was speechless. Then he found his voice and stammered that he respected my decision, or rather admired me for it; he thought me very courageous, but it would by wiser not to talk about it to everyone. “It’s one thing to talk between ourselves, we’re worldly people, but another thing to say it to those who can’t understand. And anyway you might change your mind, right?” He kept dwelling on the possibility of my changing my mind. At least up until the third month I had plenty of time to think about it, he kept repeating, and it would be a good idea to think about it: I was so well launched on my career, why interrupt it for sentimental reasons? It isn’t a matter of interrupting my work for a few months or a year, it is a matter of changing the whole course of my life, he said. I’d no longer be so available, and I shouldn’t forget that it was on my availability that the company had counted in launching me. Also, he said, he had so many fine projects in store for me. Should I reconsider, all I had to do was tell him. And he would help me.
Your father has telephoned a second time. His voice was trembling. He wanted to know if I’d had my confirmation. I told him yes. He asked me a second time when I would “get it taken care of.” I hung up a second time without listening to him. What I can’t understand is why, when a woman announces that she’s legally pregnant, everybody starts making a fuss over her, taking the packages out of her hands, and begging her not to exert herself, to rest quietly. How wonderful, congratulations, sit down here, take a rest. With me they keep still, silent, or make speeches about abortion. I’d call it a conspiracy, a plot to separate us. And there are moments when I feel anxious, when I wonder who will win: we or they? Maybe it’s because of that telephone call. It revived bitter thoughts that I hoped were forgotten, injuries I thought were overcome. The ones inflicted by those men before your father, those ghosts through whom I understood that love is a hoax. The wounds are healed, the scars barely visible, but a phone call is enough to make them ache again. Like old broken bones when the weather changes.
