THE MOTHER
Gertrude Diamant
THE MOTHER GREW THIN AND HAGGARD,
as if she were giving of
her own body to feed the children. Her flesh lay shadowed between the
bones, her breasts hung dry and slack, with futile mpples. pointing to the
ground. All things nagged at the mother's body. At night her husband
seized it in his strong hands, and worked an angry passion on it. The
mother's body was a rusted machine, too weak· and tired for his power.
By day the children were at her. When they were hungry the children
came to the mother and beat at her thighs with their ·fists, and pulled at
her skirt. They looked up at her, crying, with angry, distorted faces;
and i:heir eyes seemed to say: "Why did you give us lif·e, why did you
give us hungry mouths, and nothing to fill them with?" The eyes of
the children watched the mother as they looked up, reproachfully and
yet slyly; for after all she could work miracles, and at any moment, from
her hands or her breasts, food might be forthcoming.
When her husband had been out of work for two years, and the
mother was in despair, the other women in the house came to her with
this adviCe: "Why don't you have another baby?" they said. "Your
luck will change then. God will provide for it, God always brings lud:
to a new baby." Then the mother permitted her husband's seed to take
root in her, and sent the thin sap of her body into the center of her being,
so that the new life could grow and come out into the world, where
God could see it. The child grew heavy within her, and it was with
difficulty that she bore herself upright. The child was a sweet and bitter
weight within her body. But the mother kept thinking: "They are right.
When the new baby comes, everything will change. God will see the
new baby, and take care of it."
Three days after it was delivered, the baby died. For three days
it threshed about with its arms and legs, gasping, struggling lo swim
in
the light and air of this world. Then it died, and they put it into a
plain coffin, no bigger than a grocer's carton. The other women came
in to see it. They shook: their heads and crossed: themselves, and stood
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