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MAMA !
WHY DID YOU KILL US
(Part II by Fr. D. Mondrone)
"Why do you read this rot?" my husband asked me one day after a
glance at certain magazines.
''Don't you like it?"
He did not answer for a moment; then he suddenly asked: "Do you know
that saying?"
"What saying?"
"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you what you are. "
"Really?"
This was all at the time, but from then on my husband did not find in
our living room such reading for criticism. Like a convent school girl,
I was reading in secret.
With tears of vexation I told my daily companion of my husband's
decision about having children.
"You are foolish if you listen to him. "
"But what can I do?"
"Are you still so naive? " And from that day on she became a skilled
teacher of contraceptive practices which I began to follow with a
docility which she termed admirable.
Despite all precautions, about two years after my first pregnancy, a
second one occurred. After an attack of typhoid fever which had nearly
killed him, my husband had been given a two-month convalescent leave.
I told the news to my girl-friend.
"Be careful, " she said, "and wait for your husband to leave. "
I waited, but I longed for my husband to go. How my selfishness was
causing me to lose, little by little, my love for him.
I can still remember the joy he expressed as he kissed me good-bye,
his happiness at the thought of the little one who would soon come to
increase our family.
"Take good care of it, my love. It is the most precious trust I leave
you. Good-bye, darling. "
As soon as he left, my girl-friend and I began looking for a way to
get rid of that "dear trust".
"Be careful and be patient, " she kept saying. But I couldn't be
patient and gave her reason to fear that I would not even be careful, so
deeply was I possessed by the desire to make haste.
Chance came to my assistance. One evening while we were together, we
happened to hear some shots under our window. The whole neighborhood was
greatly disturbed. I turned pale with fright and threw myself onto the
bed.
"Now is the time! " she said.
I shall nor relate to what we resorted to free me. In less than a
week all had been straightened out.
The letter that my husband wrote to me, after I had told him what had
happened, made me shed tears of emotion and remorse. I had been able to
display such sorrow, that nearly all that he wrote was to console me. My
girl-friend sneered.
But confronted by that letter, I truly felt like a detestable
monster. When my husband saw me a few days later, he showed a new
affection for me.
"Don't worry, dear. It was bad luck. But you are healthy, and Our
Lord won't fail to console us. "
Eight months after that abortion, I felt the signs of my third
pregnancy. My girl-friend advised me to make haste: "The sooner you get
rid of it, the better. "
But I was strangely uncertain. It was a struggle between my love for
my husband and the dread of the burden I felt growing within me of which
I wanted to be rid.
I wavered for several weeks, and the weeks become two or three
months, as far as I can remember.
Finally one morning, I rushed resolutely to see my girl-friend and
asked her what to do.
"At such an advanced stage, it's no joke! "
I stared at her in dismay.
"Now we need an expert. I know of a very skillful nurse, who could
handle it, but she would want a lot of money. "
"How much would she want?"
"Between one and two thousand Lira. Sometimes even three thousand.
She is terribly afraid of getting involved and, she says, one must be
paid well to make it worth the risk. "
"Can you guarantee her ability?"
"Oh, I know her well. You don't have to worry about that. "
"I'll let you know by tomorrow morning at the latest. "
I left undecided, but as soon as I was back in my room, I grabbed the
phone: "O. K.! I'll be ready tomorrow morning! "
The nurse was there on the dot.
I showed some hesitation about submitting to her "treatments ".
"Can you tell me Miss, what to say to my husband by way of
explanation?"
"Why does he not agree with this?"
"Not on your life!"
"I am sorry. You 'd better think of something yourself. I don't want
to get involved in a mess. " And she pretended to be about to leave.
"Are you going to abandon me?"
I realized that it was a ruse so as to squeeze three thousand Lira
out of me. I had to do a lot of lying to get the money that same day.
To avoid any clue that might compromise her, she told me to go to her
home alone. I went. On my way back I started hiccupping as I had never
done before, and I was greatly upset. About midnight, I felt sick and
had barely strength to get to the phone. "If there is any noteworthy
development, give me a ring, " she had said to me coldly, so as not to
arouse my suspicions. The telephone kept ringing, but there was no
answer. I found out next day that she had indeed been called elsewhere.
I was in a state of terror. I wished I had my girl-friend with me,
but just that morning she had gone out of town and would not be back for
the next few days.
More and more distressed by the hiccups and pains, I decided to call
my husband's cousin who had recently started to practise gynecology. He
questioned me insistently and wanted to know the cause of my hiccups. I
was firm in answering that I knew nothing about it, that it all just
happened.
The doctor gave me a skeptical look which made me bitterly regret
having called him. A few hours later he was to attend my second abortion
with the help of a nurse, a big woman, who had been supplied by the
doctor's hospital.
I got out of it better than I had feared. What made me freeze and
kept me anxious for some days was what the nurse whispered to me before
leaving, after the last of the three visits she made during my
convalescence.
"Think it over next time before you do such a foolish thing. "
I protested and even used rude words. But she must have had a lot of
experience.
"I spoke for your good, Madam. Remember, this may cost you your life,
as it did the infant's. And there is also a jail sentence. "
With this she left.
Two days later, my husband came home on a short leave. I saw that he
was worn out. His cousin had notified him immediately as to what had
happened, but had acted as a perfect gentleman. His professional secrecy
made him as silent as a confessor.
I was quite worried about the nurse. "That damned woman!" as I called
her. But I felt reassured when I learned that she was a very prudent
nun. "If she is a Sister, " I thought, "she will not start a row between
me and my husband. "
After this new episode my husband insisted that two or three famous
gynecologists visit me. They all found my health perfect.
This did not overcome my stubborn will, which was guided by my shrewd
mind and which had at its disposal ever new resources.
I shall refrain from narrating the details of the five more
abortions, of which I was guilty during the following years. This story
is extremely disgusting to me, and besides, it would be scandalous to
tell. However, what is almost beyond explanation is the way that chance
seemed to help me.
Up to the next to the last abortion, my husband never suspected the
truth, since every time I was able to simulate my sorrow as well. A few
days after the sixth time, he suddenly said to me:
"lf I were certain that you were in some way to blame for this, it
would be the end of you. "
"What would you do? "
"I don't know. ..I might be the murderer of my wife as she was of my
children!"
"How dare you dream of such a thing! "
He made no answer, and I do not believe that in my whole life I was
ever a better actress. I suddenly and desperately burst into tears and
forced my husband to retract what he had said.
The occasion of my last abortion seemed almost to throw the blame on
my husband.
He was driving a new car for the first time and invited my daughter
and me to take a ride. At a bend in the road we had a collision.
Fortunately, it was less serious than it could have been. The only
damage was some scratches on the fenders and the sudden fright. That
gave me my chance to kill my seventh child a few days later.
Some weeks afterwards, due to an infamous denunciation to the local
Fascist board, my husband was taken in for questioning and swiftly sent
to confinement. I was left alone with my daughter, by then a girl in
high school. She was attending a religious academy. Living with us was
an old housekeeper, who had been with my husband's family and who was
kept in our home out of charity. Due to some mistake made in her youth,
she was unable to return to her own family in the South.
One afternoon, when I went to the school for my daughter, the Sister
Portress gave me an invitation to a lecture "for ladies only" which was
to be held in their school hall.
I attended.
I knew the woman lecturer by name. Her topic was on the question of
having children. From the beginning I assumed an attitude of perfect
indifference, as though the matter did not concern me at all. Towards
the end, the lecturer, enumerating the incalculable responsibilities of
certain mothers, began to harp on the destiny of the souls of so many
unborn children who had been destroyed in the same womb wherein they had
been conceived.
The destiny of their souls? Frankly, I had never thought of the
question because I was convinced that there was no reason to consider
souls, especially in respect to two or three month pregnancies as mine
had been. I considered that part of the lecture as idle talk, a
rhetorical device employed in very bad taste.
"Don't you think her closing remarks were nothing short of nonsense?"
I inquired of the lady sitting next to me?
"You may think so, but I don't, " she replied with conviction. Her
words struck me as sharp and inquisitive.
"It is a strange thing.... " I rejoined to get out of it.
"There is nothing strange about it.
Think it over. Even if it were doubtful, would you run the risk of
denying a soul its eternal destiny? "
"I made a mistake in coming, " I said to myself, "and I should have
kept my mouth shut. "
As I returned home I tried to convince myself that I had listened to
drivel. How can one talk about a soul in a small clot of mucilage that
is just beginning to take on human shape? Meanwhile I remembered the big
words used by the lecturer in describing the presumed slaughter of
thousands and thousands of human beings.
That evening, I could not eat. I read something very silly to change
the course of my thoughts, and when I went to bed I decided to take a
sleeping pill. This made me. sleep until late the next morning. After a
good sleep, the disturbing thoughts of the preceding evening had
disappeared. During the following days, I mentioned the matter to
several girl friends and even to a doctor. I found them all in agreement
with me.
As for my husband, I didn't know what to think. There, was no
definite news as yet. I don't know how many times I tried to communicate
with him and to send him some packages of food, clothing and books. It
was all useless.
One day, the old housekeeper, who, as my husband used to say
jokingly, "was the nun of the house", because she devoted herself with
such determination to her religious life, suggested that I recommend him
to St. Rita, the holy patron of the impossible.
So, one evening before going to bed, I began to pray to this holy
woman, using a religious booklet; which had been discarded by my
daughter. After that prayer, I felt more confident and more peaceful. I
had the conviction that what I was not able to do for my confined dear
one, could be obtained by the Saint to whom I had begun to commend him.
It was a long time since I had prayed. I had stopped praying
altogether after a severe reprimand which I had received from a
confessor from whom I had barely obtained absolution. He granted it
because I wanted to receive Holy Communion with my husband and daughter
at the time she made her First Holy Communion.
My heart seemed to open to the hope that St. Rita might listen to me.
The housekeeper had assured me with the certainty of a theologian:
"Pray! If you can't get this grace, she will send you a greater one. One
never prays to the Saints in vain. But they do what they wish with our
prayers. Leave it to them; they know better than we do." It was a
doctrine I couldn't quite grasp at the time, but against which I could
find no argument.
One night, I had been sleeping for about two hours, when I was
awakened by a strange voice: "Mama! "
My daughter was spending the night at her aunt's, and besides, it
wasn't my daughter's voice.
Startled, I turned on the light and sat up, listening. I thought that
the voice might be coming from my neighbour's apartment across the hall.
But I ruled out that possibility.
I had heard that voice clearly and very close by in my room, at my
side. I might say at my ear or even within myself. I hadn't the
slightest doubt that I had heard it. I could have sworn to it by what I
held most dear.
Moreover, I noticed that I heard not just one voice, but several
voices together, so well fused as to seem but one.
Now in my room I heard only my palpitating heart. I had the strange
feeling that it could he something mysterious. I couldn't explain to
myself why my mind spontaneously reverted to the housekeeper's words:
"If you can't get this grace, she'll send you a greater one. " Why
should I dwell on these words?
I don't remember how long I remained thus listening as if suspended
in emptiness, thinking of nothing else, incapable of relaxing. At last
the thought crossed my mind that it might have been just a nightmare to
which I was giving too much importance. So I resolutely turned off the
light and lay down. But I knew that I couldn't go back to sleep.
After less than a quarter of an hour, the same voice as before, or
rather, the same voices fused together as one, called again:
"Mama...!"
Now I was quite awake, and I was certain that these voices were
coming from over here in my room at no more than a few steps from me.
The voices were as if muffled, smothered, with a mysteriously sad tone.
This time I neither turned on the light nor sprang up in bed. I was
paralyzed. "Is this a dream or something real!" I asked myself. And in
saying this I began to touch my hands, to count my fingers, to unbutton
and rebutton my nightgown at the neck, to count the slats of the
Venetian blinds through which the light filtered from a lamp post in the
street. Then I stopped thinking: All I did was to follow my heartbeat,
which I could not control. I tried to change the course of my thoughts,
but I could not.
At the close of the next quarter of an hour that chorus of voices
came again, clearer, more persistent and more sorrowful than before.
This time my fear was about to overpower me. I overcame it with a
movement of rage: "Why can't I find out what this is all about?" I
turned on the light, jumped out of bed and ran to wake up the
housekeeper. In reality, I was seeking protection from my fright.
"Have you been hearing anything?"
"What should I have heard?"
"I don't know; some noise, a voice, some voices calling. "
"No, Ma 'am. I heard nothing; let me sleep. "
"But I heard them! "
"Perhaps they were ghosts, " she said, just as a silly reply so as to
be left in peace. With this she turned over on her side and went back to
sleep.
But it was just that very stupid reply that robbed me of any hope or
chance to rest. I went back to the living room, turned up the three rows
of chandelier lights and began nervously and distractedly to page
through a magazine. Then I took up more magazines, one after another,
without being able to read any of them.
Thus I remained until morning, when I lay on the sofa and fell fast
asleep through exhaustion. I woke up when the housekeeper coming back
with the marketing, rung the bell because she had carelessly forgotten
her key.
"Most Holy Virgin! You look awful! What happened to you last night?
You didn't sleep and didn't let me sleep either. "
"Shut up and get going, and don't be asking foolish questions!"
She went to work in the kitchen, but I heard her grumbling: "It might
have been ghosts after all! " and she ended with a laugh which made me
angry.
"Lucia! I told you not to be silly. One more word from you and I
don't know what will happen this morning. Understand?"
"I understand that you are upset, so I shall say no more. "
I spent that day visiting people, as many as I could. I even went to
church; why? I don't know. And when I found myself in front of St.
Rita's statue, I kept going.
That night I went to bed very late. As I stayed up with the usual
girl friend, but without saying a word about what had happened to me on
the previous night. I might have suddenly found myself the laughing
stock of the house and of the neighborhood. I set the alarm and threw
myself onto the bed, longing for sleep. No sooner was I lying down than
the mysterious voices came again, not only once, but twice and three
times:
"Mama!... Mama!... Mama!... " A terrifying thought arose: perhaps I
am losing my mind. I ought to see a psychiatrist. Yet while thinking
this, I found myself saying:
"But who is calling me like this?"
"It is us. Mama."
"And who are you?"
"Your children, the ones you kept from being born."
I had neither strength nor time to scream.
"Look! We are here with you, all seven of us."
And I saw very clearly on the opposite wall between the mirror and
the window seven spots of light, shapeless and moving about. They were
moving, not sliding on the wall, but between me and the wall with an
almost continuous change of appearance.
I was frozen. Once more the thought of being insane crossed my mind.
I would have preferred a thousand times to be insane than to be
convinced that this was real. "I would rather be crazy, " I said to
myself.
"No, Mama, all that you see is true. You are not insane. You are only
guilty of having killed us in your womb."
I thought I was dying. I observed that while those spots of light
were talking, they were very pretty faces, expressing such sadness and
sternness as no mother will ever see in her children's countenances.
"We are not only shadows; we are real. Mama. If you wish, we'll prove
it to you. A few minutes ago, our very dear father died, but he is not
with us."
They stared at me with an implacable glaze and then disappeared.
I didn't know how long I remains breathless as though turned to Stone
but a prey to indescribable fright.
I was aroused from it by the little bell of the Sisters of Perpetual
Adoration ringing for the five o 'clock Mass. I jumped out of bed and
got dressed as fast as I could. I don't even remember if I combed my
hair. In a few minutes I found myself if one of the pews of the dimly
lit and icy cold chapel along with five or six poor women.
From the subdued murmur in the side aisle, I noticed that the
chaplain was in the confessional. As soon as he was free, without even
thinking of what I was doing, I went to the confessional screen to tell
him my experience of hearing and seeing.
"Just tell me. Father, whether ghosts exist and whether we can see
them or hear them talking. " I asked abruptly.
"There is no doubt, my daughter, that they do exist... "
"Did you say that they do exist?"
"As to seeing them, that is also possible, if for His mysterious ends
the Lord allows it. But in this matter, one must be very sure that one's
imagination is not playing tricks.
"What kind of tricks?"
"Have you been attending seances?"
"Never! "
"Then beware of your imagination it is able to do anything, even give
body and voice to shadows. This what I am afraid is happening I you. You
are too nervous and to upset. The story you told me is so confused... "
(to be continued) |
