Women of the South Vales - Part 2

I woke up gradually, to the sound of my daughters playing outside and the smell of another Sunday roast. Realisation struck me I hadn’t felt so peaceful for a long, long time. It was so liberating, to be freed of responsibilities. Getting up, I realised I had a lot of questions for my mother. Had it happened to her and aunt Vera? How was it going to be done to the girls? I couldn’t face having to hold them down.

My mother had everything ready as I got downstairs. With the girls, we enjoyed a magnificent meal. They couldn’t wait to get out again, to play with my old toys strewn over the lawn. This must be their idea of paradise. ’There are so many things I want to ask you, ma. I…’ ‘Fine, but later. First of all we need to sort out your financial situation. We unload the car and start on the paperwork. By the way, have you given any thought to what you want to do with your life?’

She wasn’t to be dissuaded, so I followed her lead. And no I hadn’t thought ahead. All my life, I had lived day by day and indeed the only time I had planned anything at all was when I had dated my future husband. The plan then, had been to get away from a home where a son had died and a divorce had ensued. Even if it was no long-term success, I could claim the plan had been successful initially.

We spent the afternoon sorting the bills and doing calculations. My mother lined out a payment plan and made a list of things to do and people to contact. Things looked less bleak already. ‘We go into town tomorrow and while we run our errands I drop off the girls at the hospital for a full medical check up. On our way down there we can pick up a list of the courses starting next term on the local campus.’ She informed me.

As per usual she was way ahead of me. ‘Why the medical and what do you mean courses? I never said we’d stay and I need a job, I can’t afford an education, ma. Your whole plan depends on Rod coughing up the alimony.’ ‘I can pull a few strings nowadays, believe me, we’ll find him and he’ll pay. Secondly, you have no formal education remember? As a single mother you’re condemned to shitty jobs till your dying day if you don’t get one.’

She wasn’t quite finished. ‘If you stick around here, I can help if you let me. No rent to pay, bed and board, free babysitting to boot. That way, you can afford to go to college. Don’t dismiss it at once. Think about it, for the girls’ sakes too. If they want a proper education in due course, you’re not going to foot the bills with waitressing tips, are you?’ I groaned aloud. She was right of course and I was at her mercy.

‘Ma, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t face attending classes all morning and studying in the afternoon as well. I need to be up and about, you know me!’ ‘I do indeed,’ she sighed. ‘That’s why I’m a bit reluctant to tell you exactly what I have in mind. You cower from reaching any obvious conclusions yet balk if it is spelt out for you. You could go into the adult active traineeship. Twenty hours of study or classes a week and intensive field work for three years.’

‘Doing what exactly?! Are you talking archaeology, or what?’ ma was both amused and growing exasperated with me. ‘no silly. As my midwifery student. I was considering taking one on even before your phone call. Only it is delicate issue, what with the extracurricular service.’ I stared in disbelief. ‘you’d expect me to circumcise girls?!’ ‘I do boys too nowadays. And yes, I would teach you. There is a continuing demand and a good living to be made,’ she informed me.

Mute and horrified I kept staring at her. I couldn’t believe she was suggesting that I follow in her footsteps. ‘What exactly do you find so off-putting, Alice? Is it the prospect of having to work with me or the idea of doing the occasional circumcision? Being a midwife is a tremendously varied and rewarding job, you know. And I am confident you would grow to love it, if you decide to give it half a chance,’ my mother continued instead.

‘Both, I never ever dreamed of doing this. And I do know what else it involves, ma.’ These days it wasn’t just about delivering babies anymore; pregnant women were offered advice and support, prenatal gym classes were organised, young mothers were taught how to care for their newborn infants and also postnatal counselling and follow-ups were common nowadays. Undeniably a diverse and worthwhile career.

‘You don’t have to say or decide anything on the spot, Alice. Look into other things as well tomorrow. But I’d like you to meet a few people too. Because I’m not alone in this, you know. A midwife needs back up and support. Practice and techniques change all the time. I have a wonderful teacher and mentor whom I’d like you to meet. And I need to tell you my story. I think it will answer most of your questions and refute some of your objections.’

Testimory II: Mona

I

‘I will have to start with my childhood. I never told you much about my early years and nothing whatsoever about my own circumcision. It just wasn’t done back then and when you were old enough to ask and understand you had already left, Alice. My attitude has changed too over the years. I can talk quite easily about it now, better than you I dare say. That is thanks to Stephen. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Growing up in this town, over half a century ago, it was a different world, Alice. Our parents were strict, hardworking people. You’d call them cold and distant, but they were really very devoted to us. I fear I have been too alike them. You knew my sister Vera. She died three years ago of a stroke. It was mercifully swift. There was an older brother too. Charles went to the previous war and never came back. So I didn’t just lose a son to the war, Alice.

I had inkling about circumcision early on. Years before mine I heard dad summon Charles to the shed. I hated being left out, so I followed unseen and peered inside through a crack. As soon as our dad clasped Charles’s hands above his head, he tried to dash outside. But dad was fast and stronger. ‘it’s time, son,’ is what he said. Charles’s hands were tied to an overhead beam with a coarse piece of rope. I recall his wrists being chafed days after.

Dad left him there and went to sharpen a knife at his tool bench. Charles was very tense, I could tell. Dad returned and unbuttoned Charles’s pants. They fell onto his feet. His penis was hairless and quivered about nervously. Somehow I found that very funny and I almost giggled aloud. ‘hold still and keep quiet. Watch very carefully though, so you know what to do.’ I take it my father was referring to the grandsons he would never have.

I think Charles couldn’t not watch, like me. When dad took hold of his penis, Charles tried to ward him off with a knee, but his leg got caught in his loose pants. Dad made soothing noises like he would do to an animal. He rubbed the foreskin back and forth a bit. Loosening it and gradually baring the glans. Charles turned sCharleset with these manipulations. To my innocent eyes the penis stood up of his own volition.

Our dad then proceeded to gather the foreskin and pulled on it really hard, lifting up the balls. Charles cried out and his penis diminished considerably in size, relinquishing all the more skin. Dad got a forklike clamp out of his pocket and caught the superfluous skin between it. It held the skin taut and dad sliced through it in one swift motion. Charles gasped and tears welled up in his eyes. The skin retracted over his shiny red glans. There was hardly any blood.

‘all done,’ were dad’s words. He applied some all-purpose grease and put a fresh hanky around it. Without further ado, he cut Charles loose and put away his clamp and knife in their rightful places. Charles pulled up his pants, wiped his tears and ran outside. He never even saw me. So to me, circumcision wasn’t too big a deal. Say, like getting your ears pierced. That was until our mom took us to Dr. and Mrs. Carstairs.

I never played with myself and to my knowledge neither did Vera. Mom was very strict on hygiene and propriety however. I recall dad complaining off the cost of having us bundled off there. The Carstairses ran a surgery adjoining a convent school upstate. Mom took us by train and we had to walk a fair bit too. Vera and I were in the waiting room as mom spoke to the doctor alone in his office.

Mom came back in to kiss us goodbye and promised to pick us up in a week or so. You must realize Alice, that neither of us knew why we were there. We all went to the central hallway, mom to walk out the front door, Vera to be taken to the surgery and l went through a back door with a wittingly summoned convent girl. She was to take me on a sturdy country hike. When we finally returned I was famished, dead tired and my feet were blistered.

I wanted my mom, or at least my sister. Instead, it was my turn to go to the surgery. Behind the doctor’s desk and nearer the window was a curtained screen. Mrs. Carstairs stripped me and washed my cunt with a smelly disinfectant. I was hauled up an icy, metal operating table. I started crying then. I was sat in a reclining position with my legs in stirrups, bending them back as far as possible. Purposely placed leather straps were used to tie my arms and chest down.

Today, the average procedure takes fifteen minutes tops and you can easily do it in ten or twelve. It invariably seems longer to the patient. Yet I swear it lasted for an hour or more. It was crudely done, the man was a quack. God knows he must have had plenty of practicing material with the girls next door. When at one point I threatened to pass out, Mrs. Carstairs held some smelling salts under my nose to revive me.

Contrary to what is regarded as proper procedure, he started with the lips. He pulled them out, stretching them painfully and I knew then I was going to be cut, as it reminded me of my brother years before. That’s were all similarity ended however. The doctor sliced off my lips together, with sawing cuts. To that instant I never knew I could howl so. Mrs Carstairs muffled my screams by clasping her hand over my mouth. Still they sounded deafening to me.

One wound was left to bleed while he painstakingly stitched up the other. Every minute or so he wiped off the blood with a stinging cloth. Then he still had to do the other one of course. I later checked and he had given me twenty stitches on each side. I lost a fair amount of blood and it had sprayed all over my thighs and belly. I was near incoherent with shock and pain. There was more to come, though.

The doctor stoked up a little indoor brazier nearby as Mrs. Carstairs tried to apply a small ether soaked cap to my nose and mouth. I wildly turned my head from side to side as the sickly smell made me gag. I soon wished I hadn’t. dr. Carstairs retracted my hood until it bled. Holding it down with two fingers he reached for a pointy, red-hot poker. And stabbed my bared clitoris with it. that’s when I nearly passed out.

My hood was stitched over the cauterization. It itched and stung for weeks afterward. To this day, I don’t know if my clitoris was actually burnt away or if it is still there. Under the fairly normal looking hood is a toughish numb mass. It isn’t bothersome in any way. Without even a proper wash down, I was carried to a small ward with six beds. My sister was already lying in one of them, with a pinched, tear stricken little face. How I pitied her.

A girl suffering from the mumps occupied a third bed on the ward. Which we promptly caught too. As if we didn’t hurt enough already. Vera was off far worse than me. She was almost anaemic with blood loss and due to her deteriorated health the mumps ended up affecting her ovaries. It became clear later she would never be able to have children. That is the main reason she decided never to marry.

We ended up spending nine days in that ward and we still hadn’t fully recovered when mom came for us. We weren’t tied up so we kept tinkering with our aching wounds. Mrs Carstairs only disinfected them mornings and evenings. On the last day, our wire stitches were picked loose and pulled out. We howled and bled anew. Mom had a look and nodded her approval. It was to be the end of our ordeal, or at least mine.