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As hard as it can, the August sun pushes itself into our small apartment on the third floor. The baby I hold in my arms is a leech, let’s call her Button. Button is crying. She recently entered the world, violently and directly. We are alone and cocooned in our two- bedroom apartment until we are not, because there’s a knock on the door. The foreign sound makes Button cry harder and makes me unsure of what to do. I have been a mother for as long as Button has been outside of me, and I have yet to embrace the title as much as I have had to embrace her.
Here, the air is motionless, the light is direct, and sounds echo off the walls. I’m sweating.
I place Button in a cushioned container by the couch in the living room and she makes disappointed sounds, large and unkind. I make a different decision. I pick her up and move my robe to the side as I bring her body across my chest. It’s a motion that I still fumble through, her weight is alien to what my mind expects to hold and my own body heats up another notch. Smells on us and around us bring attention to themselves, I am brought to discomfort and cringe at my current state. The day has been long and lonely.
One arm and a hand control the body of the baby, the other unclicks the nursing bra to get the breast out. My nipple shines dark brown in the late afternoon light and I am reminded that the golden hour is my favorite hour to walk around in the city where we reside.
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Before Button arrived, I walked everywhere and leaving the apartment was a simple undertaking. During a break from the library or my writing desk where most of my work takes place, I often ventured out onto the busy streets and hoped that the beat of the city would kick a word or two out in front of me, some phrase, idea, or feeling that could be of use for whatever text I was translating at the time.
After almost ten years as a translator, my work was still mostly a struggle. Not necessarily the work itself, because there was pleasure in trying to get it “right” (a faulty concept that is still thrown around among fellow colleagues). Chameleoning my way forward was enjoyable, but the continuous fight for more money, grants, or God- forbid a royalty check was tiring. I wasn’t the kind of translator to care but needed money as much as the next. Being in the periphery of the industry was also fine— the peculiar competitiveness mostly amused me. By now I knew a handful of editors who found me reliable and writers who liked my way of working. My recent translations were even getting accolades in the general press, which meant my name also occasionally appeared on book covers. Sometimes I would find the authors profiled in glossy magazines wearing thick wool sweaters, posing with brooding looks directed into the rugged Scandinavian landscape. Like any other ordinary person, I am too vain to deny that I didn’t want to be photographed in the same cool milieu, but ultimately, I’m not the competitive kind. Visibility is not my desire.
I wasn’t yet an orphan, but I had been moving away from family for so long that at some point I was walking away from the past, perhaps only to find myself content in the present. In literal terms, this meant making a modest life for myself in the States as a translator of Swedish literature.
As the sun is setting, I must leave these thoughts behind; I am here with Button and this is all I am. This is the doing, me being here.
With a hand on the back of her head, I put her face toward my nipple and a toothless mouth opens. She latches on with lips soft as a fish. I squirm from the initial discomfort of her bite.
Most of the time I don’t know what I am doing. Button gets pushed so close to the breast that she may have a hard time breathing. Frustration arrives in her small bundle of a body and she screams, but her squeal is not loud enough to overpower the second round of knocking on the door. She makes me nervous. I wrangle with my arms. Again, there’s knocking, harder. Again, I don’t know what to do.
In a different state and in a different world I would have ignored the interruption and moved on with my life, and if I was expecting someone, I would have been prepared. Perhaps I can pretend that I’m getting ready for bed, make the robe appropriate and retie my hair. Perhaps I can blame my disheveled appearance on Button. Perhaps I can decide to never deal with the outside world again and perhaps whoever is behind the door can relieve me of this discomfort. Perhaps, in this battle, the choice has already been made for me. I maneuver us toward the entrance and Button finally sucks rhythmically in between breaths. Her repetitive movements remind me of breaststrokes under water. As she slowly fills on the comfort brought from the milk, her body turns tranquil and gives in to satisfaction. I take a deep breath.
