Page 94 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
“Yes.” Helene misinterprets what I mean, so she’s still using a patient tone to explain the basics to me. “I didn’t actually go to the market this morning. I went to a pharmacy and bought a test. It was positive. But I’m not only excited about the baby,” she says,smiling as brightly as she did when she returned to our houseboat. “I’m also excited because I think this is evidence that the curse is broken!”
I try to swallow the lump that’s formed in my throat, but it doesn’t budge.
“How?” I manage to whisper.
“Back in Alaska, you told me that we’ve never had kids before, that our reincarnations got stuck at theRomeo and Julietphase but never progressed. Butthisis progress!”
“How?”
“Well, I mean,onedifference, like me living perfectly well for ten years after our paths crossed, might be random chance.Twodifferences, like me remembering our pasts, could be coincidence. Butthree…”
I muster a small smile for her. She snuggles into me, and I hold her—and our baby—tight.
I want to believe Helene’s theory. I want to believe so desperately I begin to feel ill.
But we’ve been close to this situation before. Not pregnant, but close enough.
And every time we start dreaming of a family, it’s the beginning of the end.
MAINZ, GERMANY—1456
All Brigitta Schultz wants is a baby. Now that she’s married the love of her life, the last missing piece of the puzzle is a child.
As her husband, I am more than happy to oblige. Every evening when I come home from my job with Herr Gutenberg, I take Brigitta to bed. I smell of ink and vellum paper, and she smells of fresh fields and the dairy farm she still helps her family with. I make love to her as if she’s as sacred as the Bibles I print.
But despite our diligence, Brigitta and I cannot conceive a child. Unfortunately, in these times, the blame rests solely on the wife. Her barren womb is viewed as such a grave defect that the world judges her useless.
Not me, though. “I love you,” I whisper to Brigitta every night after we’re spent from our efforts. “It matters not if we cannot have a child. If that be God’s will, I love you still.”
Then I tumble headlong into sleep. But Brigitta does not rest. The desire for a baby gnaws at her from the inside out.
Thirteen months after we begin trying, Brigitta dies—from lack of sleep, lack of child, lack of dreams fulfilled.
And I mourn the loss of my beautiful wife, and the loss of a child who never was.
LISBON, PORTUGAL—1498
When my ship docks after several years exploring the New World, the first thing I see on Lisbon’s shore is Senhor Lourenço Pereira and his wagon full of casks of port, ready to take advantage of sailors who missed the drink of their homeland or, frankly, are simply looking for an excuse to get drunk.
The second thing I see is Ines Pereira, the port-maker’s daughter, who stands self-assured in a fine dress among the chaos of the returning ships. The sun shines in a halo around her, as if protecting such pureness from the flea-ridden louts milling around the harbor.
She is so alluring any man would have dropped to one knee and proposed on the spot. But for me, it is more than that, for the instant I see Ines, I recognize my Juliet. Dark-haired this time, instead of blond; strong-shouldered from helping in the winery, rather than fine-boned as the last Juliet had been. I love Ines instantly, as with all her incarnations, and I elbow aside the other disembarking sailors so I can be the first one to shore.
When I reach Lourenço Pereira, I offer to buy the entire wagonload of port as proof of my devotion to his daughter.
Ines and I are married three weeks later.
This, however, is when I commit a fatal mistake. Wanting to give Ines what I could not give to Brigitta, I immediately declare my desire for a child. It is not about demanding that my wife produce an heir, but about wanting to create something together through our union.
Because of this sweetness, Ines’s sole ambition from the moment we’re married is to conceive a child. But failure again and again wears down even the strongest of women, until what she carries in her womb is not a life, but yearnings for death.
After eight months of fruitlessness, Ines drinks herself into a stupor. Her father finds her body the next day, in the wine cellar, buried and crushed under a collapsed rack of barrels.
I never drink port again.
TRANSYLVANIA—1682
It’s a blessing that Cosmina did not want a child, for even though she lived for only two years after she met me, we made love nearly a thousand times.
