When we did not say anything, Magda said, “I am going to teach you how to be the moss and the tansy. I am going to teach you how to clear out a woman’s womb.”
For a moment, only Dewdrop’s gritty tongue dragging and scraping over the fur of her upturned stomach could be heard in the farmhouse.
“But why?” Rowena asked.
“Because. Because for a hundred reasons,” Magda seethed, though it was apparent her anger was not directed at us. “Because not all women have control over being pregnant. Because not all women desire motherhood. Because there are so many children in a house already and the food on the table is thinly dealt. Because she is a girl still and not a woman. Because she is afraid. Because she is deathly sick from being with child. Because rape. Because poverty. Because. Because.Because.”
“I can’t do it,” Rowena burst out, eyeing the tools in the leather. “I do not judge you for doing it, madam. Only I cannot do it.”
“It is part of a midwife’s work,” Magda said, her voice flat.
“Can’t Robbie do it?”
“You both should learn it—but, dear girl, this is your role. An act of care is as sacred as a delivery. Do you understand?”
“I cannot,” my twin protested, and her eyes were shining.
“I can do it,” I proclaimed. “Isn’t it better that she be blameless, living in town as the midwife? I will be here, living with you. I can perform the act.”
“This is abortion, isn’t it?” my sister asked Magda, a defiance to her.
I looked to Rowena, confused. Then I remembered the word in the list of offenses booklet.
The midwife nodded. “I call it an ‘act of care.’ But yes, this is what abortion is. And you may think a midwife’s only duty is to babes, but truly her duty is to the women who deliver the babesfirst. For as precious as a child is, that woman delivering the babe likely already has folk that depend on her. Do you see?”
“I just can’t,” Rowena whispered.
Magda sighed and closed her eyes. “You are an excellent midwife already, Rowena. I cannot bring myself to end your apprenticeship.” When our mentor opened her eyes, she was looking at me. She said, “This is your charge then.”
I nodded.
“You’ll watch tonight, though,” Magda directed at Rowena.
“I will,” she answered.
Magda pulled the largest tool from the leather. At one end, it had the openings for a pair of shears, holes into which one might put a forefinger and thumb. On a hinge, when the openings were pulled apart, two long rods with rounded ends would make aVshape. They were smooth and thick. The tool was made of an old iron. Magda held up the tool and opened the hinge. “This will open a woman’s womb.”
Both of us flinched.
Magda rolled her eyes. “Obviously you don’t stick it in and do that. You make sure she’s calm. Give her some tea first. Ginger root. Pink basil. Mint. Anything, even old bark with a little tonic or lightleaf in it. I say a woman ought to have whiskey.”
“But women can’t drink,” Rowena interrupted.
Magda turned to me. “I’m allowed to buy whiskey from The Pale Horse, and you will likely be allowed that too. Even if I wasn’t, Gertie, the tavern keeper’s wife, she would sell it to me.”
“She doesn’t seem very nice,” I said, thinking of the sour-faced woman married to the man who owned The Pale Horse.
“You’d be rather mean too if every night for the rest of your life, you had to watch the men of your town call themselves holy and then piss themselves in your alleyway. Hypocrisy will do that. Are you done interrupting?”
Magda went on to advise us about how to make a woman’s body calm and relaxed, how to soothe her, talk to her, let her know therewould be a pinching, a pain, that her sex would be pried open by the tool.
“Do not call it anything like ‘a widener’ or ‘the widening shears’ either,” she warned. “Show her the tool, don’t name it. Explain how it’s actually less painful than most men’s pricks.”
Magda pulled out the second tool from its strap. It was as long as a forearm with a thick handle at one end and a small teardrop-shaped loop at the other. “This is what you’ll scrape her womb with.”
Rowena sucked at her teeth and looked away.
“Yes, it is painful,” Magda answered her as if Rowena had said a question aloud. “It is even more painful to watch your children have less food to eat. It is even more painful to mother a child you did not plan for?—”
