The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert Page A

for, it must be here somewhere, and I’ll show you.” He darted across to his desk. “I know I’ve seen her recently, in this room, in one of these blessed books,” he said, pulling out a large flat volume, rather like an atlas, from beneath a pile of others, which tottered and fell to the floor. Melissa put the baby down and started to pick them up, while the Doctor flipped the pages of this large book over, balancing it clumsily in the crook of his other arm. “Yes, here she is, I knew it!” he cried. “Here she is, my lovely.” He held the book open to show to the others, as much to David as to Morgan.
    They saw an engraving, colored by hand, of the woman in the box upstairs. The belly was closed tight in the picture, but the Doctor turned the page, struggling to hold the book up as he did so, and there she was again, the same calm face and perfect hair, her belly opened like a nut and the fetus visible. The Doctor turned the book back round and glanced at the caption. “It’s the work of an Italian,” he said, “three hundred years ago, in Florence. And I was right, she is made of wax, of dyed and painted wax. But what an artist! And what a man of science!” The Doctor slammed the book shut and ran towards the door. “Don’t just stand there, Morgan! Come on!” he cried, and ran from the room. The others followed him and, as they hurried in single file along the corridor, it seemed to Morgan that all the other children must have been waiting behind doors for them to pass because the stairs that led up to the attic were immediately filled with children, some of them walking on their own, others being carried or pulled by the older ones, in a buzz of excited chatter. By the time they had reached the attic room in which the woman was kept, the entire household, with the exception of Engel, had gathered around the two men, the smallest babies lying on the floor in front of them, the toddlers seated behind. The Doctor opened the door of the chest and then, as though silence could be deeper than itself, the air of the room seemed to empty as the Doctor opened the perfect belly of the waxen woman to reveal the fetus within. Nobody moved a muscle until Morgan passed through the children, who shuffled and edged to one side to make room for him. He touched the woman’s cheek with the back of his hand.
    “It must have been my grandfather,” he said. “My grandfather must have found her on his travels and had her shipped here.”
    “I was right, you see,” Doctor Crane said behind him. “She is Italian. You can see that from her face, her coloring, the way her hair has been arranged. She’s like a woman from a painting.”
    Morgan’s good hand slid down the cheek of the woman onto her chin, resting for a second on the bone between her breasts, his fingers brushing the husk of the bee in the amber drop, then further down until they came to the edge of the part that had been opened to reveal the fetus.
    “No, not like this, not like this, so bare and cruel,” he said under his breath, and closed the woman’s belly with his other hand, the damaged one, pushing until he heard the click within. She was closed to him now, and whole. He stroked her pale distended skin as tears poured down his cheeks.
    “What on earth’s the matter?” Doctor Crane said.
    “I don’t know,” said Morgan. “I wish I did.” When Doctor Crane put his arm round Morgan’s shoulder and pulled the man in towards him, so that his wounded face would rest on the taller man’s chest, Morgan began to cry as he had never cried before, not even as a child; he cried until he was utterly drained. The children around them were silent and observing, but happily so, as though they had known this would happen in the end, and were glad. Finally, Morgan broke away, although a hand remained on the Doctor’s waist.
    “Well,” he said, and gave a short embarrassed laugh. “It seems I am an emotional creature.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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