Caliphate

Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Germany,

30 June, 2006

"Push," the doctor said, gently but firmly and encouragingly. "Puuushshsh!"

Gabi heard him dimly, all her senses concentrated in the white light of sheer agony with its source somewhere around her stretched and tortured vagina.

"Ohgodohgodohgooo . . . aiaiaiai! Mahmoud, you SON OF A BIIITCH!" she screamed, head thrashing wildly from side to side on the thin hospital pillow. Of course, Mahmoud wasn't there. He was in Boston from which place he still wrote regularly, all glowing reports designed—she was sure—to lure her into the embrace of the enemy.

She missed him pretty badly. Ordinarily. When she wasn't passing a baby.

Mahmoud, and how much she missed him, however, were all quite forgotten as the next wave of wracking pain, this one worse than the previous, overtook her. Once again Gabi began her "Ohgodohgod . . . you motherFUCKER, Mahmouououd!" refrain.

"Funny how few genuine atheists there are in birthing beds," muttered the doctor in attendance. Even as Gabi gasped, his skilled hands were working to catch and lift the baby, while cutting and binding the umbilical.

Her breasts were still heaving when she heard a slap and an outraged cry. And then the doctor laid her new daughter to her breast and it was all much, much better.

In many ways, art was an ideal occupation for a single mother in the Federal Republic of Germany, for not only was there a substantial social safety net, but art was, as often as not, sold "under the table" and much of the income derived from its sale was never reported. Of course, some of it was reported because Germany's social safety net benefits went up, up to a certain point, based on the normal income and contributions of the worker. It was going to be a high tight-rope walk for Gabi to eke out the most benefit for herself and the baby, reporting some income and keeping the rest to herself.

The baby was not, of course—and never would be, as far as Gabrielle was concerned—christened. For that matter, she didn't opt for a traditional name, Germanic or Christian. Instead, mindful of the baby's father and wanting her to be a part of Mahmoud, as well, Gabi chose "Amal." In Arabic, this meant "Hope."

One of the reasons, and perhaps the major one, that Gabi had always been ambivalent about motherhood was, as she frankly admitted to herself, a mix of fear of inadequacy and fear of responsibility. She was pleased to discover that both fears were groundless, that she already had everything important required to be a mother. That was one surprise, but not the biggest. The biggest was that she loved being a mother.

"Not that I want to do the whole thing over again, mind you," she said to Amal while changing the baby's diaper. And isn't it funny how your own baby's poop doesn't really stink? "You are quite enough for me and if your father will only come to his senses, I'll have everything I want."

Gabi was just finished taping the diaper in place when the phone rang, setting her to running for it even as it set Amal to crying.

"Hello?"

"Gabi, it's Mahmoud. What's that crying in the background?"

I suppose there's no sense in trying to hide it now, she thought.

"Ummm . . . the baby. Your baby . . . errr . . . our baby."

"And you didn't fucking tell me?"

"I didn't want to trap you," she said, softly, less certain at the moment that she'd done the right thing. "Or to seem like I was trying to trap you."

Mahmoud, on the other end of the line, sighed heavily. Gabi could almost see him nodding in his fatalistic and accepting way.

"Okay," he said. "What now?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I still won't go to the United States."

"And I won't live in Europe."