41
At last Garth was expecting a baby, with all the bodily changes and hormonal roller coasters that pregnancy entailed. A new and interesting experience, one of the best yet.
Pashnak didn’t know how long he, himself, could last.
Some pregnant women rented out their bodies to infertile females who wanted the experience of childbirth, to doctors doing research, even to curious men, like Garth. There were plenty of female candidates to choose from, but Garth had been selective, and the women themselves were choosy, adding numerous restrictions to the contract about the eventual disposition of the baby and about the care the “inhabitant” would give to the pregnant body.
Pashnak had arranged for Garth to interview numerous women because he needed to find a body he could tolerate for at least four weeks. Someday, when he had time, the artist thought about going through the whole experience, from start to finish. For now, though, he was most curious about the last month of chemical buildups and changes, as well as the actual birth itself. He figured he could learn a lot from it.
He settled on a short brunette with soft curly hair that fell in waves to her shoulders. She was retaining water, her aching joints were swollen. Because of the substantial cushioning weight her body had acquired, her lower back hurt chronically. Garth waddled around the room, taking note of all this as he tested out his new body.
Standing in his broad-shouldered physique, she laughed at the artist’s sense of wonder. “You’ve got it easy, buster—you missed two straight months of nausea and morning sickness. Interrupted sleep, weird food cravings, Braxton-Hicks contractions, swollen feet and hands. All you get are labor pains, hemorrhoids, backaches, and having to pee all the time.”
“You make it sound so delightful.”
“It’s what you’re paying for, buster.” They arranged a regular meeting schedule so the mother could keep up with the progressing pregnancy. “The baby’s going to be a girl, by the way.”
At first, the experiences added interesting new insights to his understanding of people. However, after living in this woman’s cumbersome body for one week and then another, he began to feel the emotional differences. Hormonal imbalances caused him to fly into a rage or wallow in despair. He did obsessive things that seemed absolutely necessary at the time—arranging and rearranging his art supplies, demanding a particular color of mug for his coffee—though when the moment was past, he realized his actions made no sense. It was very confusing, this motherhood.
Sometimes Garth sat with his artwork, hopeless, unable to regain a shred of inspiration. In such moments, he sobbed uncontrollably, and nothing—not even Pashnak’s concern—could snap him out of it.
Pashnak did his best to tolerate his master’s changing moods. He exhibited superhuman patience, holding Garth’s hand when he needed it, helping him take a seat when his swollen body became too unwieldy to control, feeding the artist whatever bizarre menu items he requested. Garth often had heartburn or complained of being full without having eaten very much. Pashnak insisted that he take vitamin supplements, at the very least.
Mornings, Garth fretted about being fat. In the afternoons he worried about being ugly. But there were magical, transcendent times too, when the joy of carrying the life growing inside made him just sit alone on the sofa, cradling his enormous abdomen, sensing the baby’s heartbeat . . . and he would begin to cry all over again. “I’m not worthy. This is too special. I don’t deserve this.”
Pashnak trotted around the apartment and studio, working out schedules and rearranging meetings and obligations. During Garth’s stay in a pregnant body, all other List items had to be postponed. When the hype-meister Stradley dumped interview seekers at him, Pashnak judged whether or not the artist was able to handle incisive questions or media attention at the time.
Shouting, Garth made demands as, encumbered by his girth, he was unable to do simple tasks for himself. Despite his frustration with an already eccentric artist who didn’t know how to deal with storms of unusual hormones, Pashnak convinced himself he could last a couple more weeks, until things got back to normal again. He hoped.
“I want coffee,” Garth said as he worked hard to develop a second exhibit for his portfolio of experiential artwork. “Bring me some coffee, and make it strong! I need to be awake.” Pashnak had been slipping him decaffeinated coffee in his daily mug. So far, the pregnant artist hadn’t noticed the difference.
Humming to himself, Garth stood among the old-fashioned paintings, watercolors, grainy videoclips. He had begun to assemble laser-bursts, sensory cracklers, and holograms to create the desired “experiential” effect. None of the pieces satisfied him, and he had refused to let Mordecai Ob view it. After the success of his FRUSTRATION exhibit, at least he no longer needed the Bureau Chief’s patronage and funding so desperately.
Frowning, Garth pressed one hand against his lower back. Sweat sprinkled his brow, and he rubbed it with his free hand, darting his fingers into soft dark curls. Sometimes he had trouble breathing with the added weight, and he could not sleep comfortably, which only added to his general distress and tension.
Now, just inside the studio, Pashnak hesitated, smelling the fresh coffee, smiling at the endearing sight of the pregnant artist’s back. Even in the Falling Leaves, Garth had taken everything at face value and assumed that other people had warm, giving personalities, just like he did.
Because his grand goal was so lofty, so far out of his reach, Garth had only a blurry notion of how to get there anymore, though it had once seemed so clear. Pashnak took on the responsibility of breaking down this massive undertaking into manageable steps and then helping the artist focus on each task.
Finally noticing the coffee’s aroma, Garth scowled at his assistant. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. I was concentrating on my work. You could have made me mess up.”
“Sorry, Garth.” It was a typical comment these days. Pashnak knew the artist meant nothing by his outburst.
Garth slurped his coffee, let out a contented sigh. “Just what I needed.” Then he set the cup down and went back to tweaking the sketches he’d been trying to arrange, drawing lines and charcoal connective designs.
His creative work had gone more slowly since he’d hopscotched into the pregnant woman’s body, now that his swollen fingers were much less precise. But Pashnak could see that this display already had an added depth, a spark, a greater richness than Garth’s smash debut of FRUSTRATION.
His new work was brighter and more optimistic, called simply JOY. In it Garth displayed the various forms of human happiness. The images and senses ranged from the simple childish wonder of a young boy feeling a raindrop on his skin, to the triumph of a belly dancer flawlessly performing a difficult dance move, to the sweeping arc of a cliff diver plunging along a Hawaiian waterfall. Garth also added a moving portrait that showed the contentment of an elderly grandfather surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
On good days, Garth included his pregnancy as well, aware of the baby maturing inside him, a second heartbeat close to his own.
Deep in concentration, sketching thick charcoal lines on a broad pad, Garth winced and clutched his abdomen. The spasm caused him to scrawl an unexpected zigzag across his drawing.
Pashnak barely restrained himself from dropping the coffeepot on the floor. “What is it, Garth?”
“Another labor pain, I think. Just a contraction.” Then he looked down in dismay at his ruined drawing in progress, saw no simple way to salvage it. In a rage, he tore the sketch to shreds, scattering the papers in the air. “I’ll never get this done! I’m so clumsy, and I can’t finish what’s in my mind.”
“You’re doing fine, Garth. This new work is already very powerful and very moving.”
“Don’t patronize me! You’re paid to say that.”
Pashnak held his temper in check, telling himself again that it was hormones, that the artist couldn’t help himself. “I’ve never lied to you or for you, Garth, and I’m not going to start now.” He knew Garth anticipated that the experience of giving birth would be the magnificent center of his new masterpiece.
Exhausted and cranky, Garth sipped more of his decaffeinated coffee and appeared to be on the verge of apologizing, but he checked himself. “I’m tired, Pashnak. I need to rest for a while.”
Pashnak opened the door, knowing just what to do to cheer up the artist. “Why don’t you sit on the sofa? I’ll read to you.” They had already finished David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Oliver Twist.
Garth smiled, and Pashnak felt warm inside. He helped Garth lie back on the sofa with a series of groans and winces and sighs, until the artist finally adjusted his awkward body into a comfortable position. Pashnak then spread an instasilk coverlet over his legs and bulging belly. He returned from the bookcase carrying a thin, leatherbound volume, another of Dickens’s best. “I’ll continue with The Old Curiosity Shop.” Garth propped himself up, pushing his curly hair behind him so that he could look at his assistant.
This story was Dickens’s most melodramatic, a shameless example of untying the purse strings of his readers’ emotions, but Garth seemed to be in that mood these days, and he loved to have Pashnak read to him. He closed his eyes, leaned against the pillow, and listened to the rich language and humorous descriptions, and envisioned the vivid characters.
“You know the sad part’s coming,” Pashnak warned.
Garth sniffed and nodded. “I’ve read it before.” Even forewarned, he wept as Pashnak read the tragedy of little Nell. “I hate being so . . . so maudlin,” he said and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Pashnak patted him on the shoulder. Garth reached up, needy and clinging, pulling the assistant down as he cried on his shoulder. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Pashnak. I know I’ve been . . . terrible.”
“It’s part of my job to put up with you.” He softened his words with a smile.
Garth wouldn’t let him go. “You’re so good to me. I don’t know what I do to deserve your loyalty. I’m sorry for my moods.”
Pashnak squeezed him one more time, then extricated himself. “I love you, too, Garth.”
Then Pashnak hauled out his electronic day planner and scanned the calendar, wondering just how much longer it would be until the baby came . . . until he could have his Garth back again.