The earliest memory of my first parents many centuries ago was from a time when I wasn’t bigger than a peanut drifting in my mother’s womb. I could already distinguish the weightiness in their sporadic words, although neither of them knew of my coming into being.
“Well?”
My father sighed, shrugging. At least that’s what I always imagined he would do whenever that question weighed him down and silence became so thick that I could hear the crickets chirping loudly in the summer night. My mother always groaned, instead, her body trembling, as I was tumbling in her womb.
“And the prince?” She spoke again after a long pause.
“A festering wound bubbling with impatience to burst open.” My father puffed his pipe so closely I could taste the ashy taste of smoke. “He’ll have our heads up on a spike if we don’t deliver on our promise,” he said after a while.
“How much longer?”
“Only good God knows. His fuse is short.”
“And the others?”
“They think that place is damned. A curse. The walls just crumble as if made of sand.”
My mother cupped and pressed her belly, as if she knew I had been cuddling in her womb.
“They want to quit,” my father whispered so softly I could barely hear.
“And you?”
“I can’t quit, Ana. I just can’t.”
My mother’s body was so tense, I was afraid it would expel me from within, but I stayed strong, and I would live. At least that’s what I thought back then.
After that day, my mother would often sigh late in the summer nights, hands pressed against her belly. When I grew as big as a ball I started jumping up and down to draw attention to my being. My mother, however, would groan, and press me down to keep me trapped inside her belly. “Not yet, baby girl.”
I was a boy but she would never know.
The months went by, the birds left only to return again. My mother’s belly was getting heavier with life, as I made my presence known through kicks and punches in a rush to dash into the humans’ world. One evening, when my father came home burdened with muteness, my mother cupped her hands around her waist to plead again:
“Maybe…”
“No.” A word so short, yet so decisive that all my mother did was moan.
“I won’t, hear me? My name is all I have.”
I could feel my mother’s gentle touch seeping through her skin and flesh.
“You have us.”
My father’s tone sped up, as words were tumbling in between his lips. “I’m Manole, the master builder.”
“You are a husband and a father.” My mother’s voice went low and slow.
“I’m a creator, not a quitter.”
“And her?”
My father must have shrugged again.
Weeks later, when I was about to pop out of my mother’s womb, I heard my father shouting with excitement, as an owl was hooting in the middle of the night.
“A vision! Good Lord has sent me a vision. I will erect that monastery in His name.”
“Vision, what vision?” My mother bent over with cramps, as I tumbled in her womb.
“It’s late now. Just make sure you stay home and rest tomorrow,” he said, ear pressed so tight against her skin, I could hear his rapid breathing.
The next day, my father was chirping long before birds were singing in the forest nearby.
“Remember, nowhere near the monastery no matter what,” he said before he strode out of the house.
Alone again, my mother hobbled from one room to the next, busy with her daily housework. And yet, when noon approached, the pressure in her chest had grown as strong as the wind howling out into the woods. He would be happy to see she’d cooked his favourite food, she muttered so low I had to strain my ears to hear her words.
While she was tottering up the hill, she kept talking to her God: “Thank you, Lord. You are merciful, you are kind. He’ll have his peace now.” And yet, when she reached the construction site, she was welcomed by a deafening muteness, a silence tormented with thoughts.
“Why?…” My father sighed so loud I trembled in the womb.
“To celebrate. I’ve even made your favourite dish.” My mother was chirping like a little bird. “Fresh off the stove, just how you like it.” She took a deep breath in to sniff the steaming mutton stew. “Not hungry?”
“Uh-uh” The spoon was clacking on my father’s bowl.
“So what was it?”
“What was what?”
“The vision.”
“The vision?!” my father’s tone rose higher than I’d ever heard.
“Yes, the vision. What does God want you to do?”
The clacking stopped.
“To play a game,” he muttered after a pause so long I thought he hadn’t even heard the question.
“A game? What sort of a game?”
“A pretend game.” When did my father’s voice become so soft? “With you.”
“With me?” My mother giggled like a little girl.
“Mm. The first woman to visit us today.” My father’s voice was breaking like a dried out sprig. “Pretend to build the wall around a human soul.” My father’s voice went high again.
My mother groaned – it must have been my violent kicks into her flesh.
“A game and nothing more” my father muttered to himself.
“It hurts, Manole” my mother moaned, while the wall was tightening around her ankles, and her knees.
“Too tight, it’s squeezing me.” Her weep remained unanswered, while the walls were rising high around her waist, her chest, as I pushed and screamed but all in vain.
“Manole, I’m suffocating, can’t you hear?” Her muffled bleating resonated from behind the wall, while I was trapped inside the womb, and my mother’s body, squashed inside our brick-made tomb.