Rosemary's Baby

  “Maybe the coma and the blindness were only coincidences,” she said, “or maybe they do have some kind of ESP way of hurting people. But that’s not important. The important thing is that they want the baby. I’m sure they do.”

  “It certainly seems that way,” Dr. Hill said, “especially in light of the interest they’ve taken in it right from the beginning.”

  Rosemary shut her eyes and could have cried. He believed her. He didn’t think she was mad. She opened her eyes and looked at him, staying calm and composed. He was writing. Did all his patients love him? Her palms were wet; she slid them from the chair arms and pressed them against her dress.

  “The doctor’s name is Shand, you say,” Dr. Hill said.

  “No, Dr. Shand is just one of the group,” Rosemary said. “One of the coven. The doctor is Dr. Sapirstein.”

  “Abraham Sapirstein?”

  “Yes,” Rosemary said uneasily. “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve met him once or twice,” Dr. Hill said, writing more.

  “Looking at him,” Rosemary said, “or even talking to him, you would never think he—”

  “Never in a million years,” Dr. Hill said, putting down his pen, “which is why we’re told not to judge books by their covers. Would you like to go into Mount Sinai right now, this evening?”

  Rosemary smiled. “I would love to,” she said. “Is it possible?”

  “It’ll take some wire-pulling and arguing,” Dr. Hill said. He rose and went to the open door of his examining room. “I want you to lie down and get some rest,” he said, reaching into the darkened room behind him. It blinked into ice-blue fluorescent light. “I’ll see what I can do and then I’ll check you over.”

  Rosemary hefted herself up and went with her handbag into the examining room. “Anything they’ve got,” she said. “Even a broom closet.”

  “I’m sure we can do better than that,” Dr. Hill said. He came in after her and turned on an air conditioner in the room’s blue-curtained window. It was a noisy one.

  “Shall I undress?” Rosemary asked.

  “No, not yet,” Dr. Hill said. “This is going to take a good half-hour of high-powered telephoning. Just lie down and rest.” He went out and closed the door.

  Rosemary went to the day bed at the far end of the room and sat down heavily on its blue-covered softness. She put her handbag on a chair.

  God bless Dr. Hill.

  She would make a sampler to that effect some day.

  She shook off her sandals and lay back gratefully. The air conditioner sent a small stream of coolness to her; the baby turned over slowly and lazily, as if feeling it.

  Everything’s okay now, Andy-or-Jenny. We’re going to be in a nice clean bed at Mount Sinai Hospital, with no visitors and—

  Money. She sat up, opened her handbag, and found Guy’s money that she had taken. There was a hundred and eighty dollars. Plus sixteen-and-change of her own. It would be enough, certainly, for any advance payments that had to be made, and if more were needed Brian would wire it or Hugh and Elise would lend it to her. Or Joan. Or Grace Cardiff. She had plenty of people she could turn to.

  She took the capsules out, put the money back in, and closed the handbag; and then she lay back again on the day bed, with the handbag and the bottle of capsules on the chair beside her. She would give the capsules to Dr. Hill; he would analyze them and make sure there was nothing harmful in them. There couldn’t be. They would want the baby to be healthy, wouldn’t they, for their insane rituals?

  She shivered.

  The—monsters.

  And Guy.

  Unspeakable, unspeakable.

  Her middle hardened in a straining contraction, the strongest one yet. She breathed shallowly until it ended.

  Making three that day.

  She would tell Dr. Hill.

  She was living with Brian and Dodie in a large contemporary house in Los Angeles, and Andy had just started talking (though only four months old) when Dr. Hill looked in and she was in his examining room again, lying on the day bed in the coolness of the air conditioner. She shielded her eyes with her hand and smiled at him. “I’ve been sleeping,” she said.

  He pushed the door all the way open and withdrew. Dr. Sapirstein and Guy came in.

  Rosemary sat up, lowering her hand from her eyes.

  They came and stood close to her. Guy’s face was stony and blank. He looked at the walls, only at the walls, not at her. Dr. Sapirstein said, “Come with us quietly, Rosemary. Don’t argue or make a scene, because if you say anything more about witches or witchcraft we’re going to be forced to take you to a mental hospital. The facilities there for delivering the baby will be less than the best. You don’t want that, do you? So put your shoes on.”

  “We’re just going to take you home,” Guy said, finally looking at her. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “Or the baby,” Dr. Sapirstein said. “Put your shoes on.” He picked up the bottle of capsules, looked at it, and put it in his pocket.

  She put her sandals on and he gave her her handbag.

  They went out, Dr. Sapirstein holding her arm, Guy touching her other elbow.

  Dr. Hill had her suitcase. He gave it to Guy.

  “She’s fine now,” Dr. Sapirstein said. “We’re going to go home and rest.”

  Dr. Hill smiled at her. “That’s all it takes, nine times out of ten,” he said.

  She looked at him and said nothing.

  “Thank you for your trouble, Doctor,” Dr. Sapirstein said, and Guy said, “It’s a shame you had to come in here and—”

  “I’m glad I could be of help, sir,” Dr. Hill said to Dr. Sapirstein, opening the front door.

  They had a car. Mr. Gilmore was driving it. Rosemary sat between Guy and Dr. Sapirstein in back.

  Nobody spoke.

  They drove to the Bramford.

  The elevator man smiled at her as they crossed the lobby toward him. Diego. Smiled because he liked her, favored her over some of the other tenants.

  The smile, reminding her of her individuality, wakened something in her, revived something.

  She snicked open her handbag at her side, worked a finger through her key ring, and, near the elevator door, turned the handbag all the way over, spilling out everything except the keys. Rolling lipstick, coins, Guy’s tens and twenties fluttering, everything. She looked down stupidly.

  They picked things up, Guy and Dr. Sapirstein, while she stood mute, pregnant-helpless. Diego came out of the elevator, making tongue-teeth sounds of concern. He bent and helped. She backed in to get out of the way and, watching them, toed the big round floor button. The rolling door rolled. She pulled closed the inner gate.

  Diego grabbed for the door but saved his fingers; smacked on the outside of it. “Hey, Mrs. Woodhouse!”

  Sorry, Diego.

  She pushed the handle and the car lurched upward.

  She would call Brian. Or Joan or Elise or Grace Cardiff. Someone.

  We’re not through yet, Andy!

  She stopped the car at nine, then at six, then halfway past seven, and then close enough to seven to open the gate and the door and step four inches down.

  She walked through the turns of hallway as quickly as she could. A contraction came but she marched right through it, paying no heed.

  The service elevator’s indicator blinked from four to five and she knew it was Guy and Dr. Sapirstein coming up to intercept her.

  So of course the key wouldn’t go into the lock.

  But finally did, and she was inside, slamming the door as the elevator door opened, hooking in the chain as Guy’s key went into the lock. She turned the bolt and the key turned it right back again. The door opened and pushed in against the chain.

  “Open up, Ro,” Guy said.

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, honey.”

  “You promised them the baby. Get away.”

  “I didn’t promise them anything,” he said. “What
are you talking about? Promised who?”

  “Rosemary,” Dr. Sapirstein said.

  “You too. Get away.”

  “You seem to have imagined some sort of conspiracy against you.”

  “Get away,” she said, and pushed the door shut and bolted it.

  It stayed bolted.

  She backed away, watching it, and then went into the bedroom.

  It was nine-thirty.

  She wasn’t sure of Brian’s number and her address book was in the lobby or Guy’s pocket, so the operator had to get Omaha Information. When the call was finally put through there was still no answer. “Do you want me to try again in twenty minutes?” the operator asked.

  “Yes, please,” Rosemary said; “in five minutes.”

  “I can’t try again in five minutes,” the operator said, “but I’ll try in twenty minutes if you want me to.”

  “Yes, please,” Rosemary said and hung up.

  She called Joan, and Joan was out too.

  Elise and Hugh’s number was—she didn’t know. Information took forever to answer but, having answered, supplied it quickly. She dialed it and got an answering service. They were away for the weekend. “Are they anywhere where I can reach them? This is an emergency.”

  “Is this Mr. Dunstan’s secretary?”

  “No, I’m a close friend. It’s very important that I speak to them.”

  “They’re on Fire Island,” the woman said. “I can give you a number.”

  “Please.”

  She memorized it, hung up, and was about to dial it when she heard whispers outside the doorway and footsteps on the vinyl floor. She stood up.

  Guy and Mr. Fountain came into the room—“Honey, we’re not going to hurt you,” Guy said—and behind them Dr. Sapirstein with a loaded hypodermic, the needle up and dripping, his thumb at the plunger. And Dr. Shand and Mrs. Fountain and Mrs. Gilmore. “We’re your friends,” Mrs. Gilmore said, and Mrs. Fountain said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Rosemary; honest and truly there isn’t.”

  “This is nothing but a mild sedative,” Dr. Sapirstein said. “To calm you down so that you can get a good night’s sleep.”

  She was between the bed and the wall, and too gross to climb over the bed and evade them.

  They came toward her—“You know I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you, Ro”—and she picked up the phone and struck with the receiver at Guy’s head. He caught her wrist and Mr. Fountain caught her other arm and the phone fell as he pulled her around with startling strength. “Help me, somebod—” she screamed, and a handkerchief or something was jammed into her mouth and held there by a small strong hand.

  They dragged her away from the bed so Dr. Sapirstein could come in front of her with the hypodermic and a dab of cotton, and a contraction far more grueling than any of the others clamped her middle and clenched shut her eyes. She held her breath, then sucked air in through her nostrils in quick little pulls. A hand felt her belly, deft all-over finger-tipping, and Dr. Sapirstein said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute now; we happen to be in labor here.”

  Silence; and someone outside the room whispered the news: “She’s in labor!”

  She opened her eyes and stared at Dr. Sapirstein, dragging air through her nostrils, her middle relaxing. He nodded to her, and suddenly took her arm that Mr. Fountain was holding, touched it with cotton, and stabbed it with the needle.

  She took the injection without trying to move, too afraid, too stunned.

  He withdrew the needle and rubbed the spot with his thumb and then with the cotton.

  The women, she saw, were turning down the bed.

  Here?

  Here?

  It was supposed to be Doctors Hospital! Doctors Hospital, with equipment and nurses and everything clean and sterile!

  They held her while she struggled, Guy saying in her ear, “You’ll be all right, honey, I swear to God you will! I swear to God you’re going to be perfectly all right! Don’t go on fighting like this, Ro, please don’t! I give you my absolute word of honor you’re going to be perfectly all right!”

  And then there was another contraction.

  And then she was on the bed, with Dr. Sapirstein giving her another injection.

  And Mrs. Gilmore wiped her forehead.

  And the phone rang.

  And Guy said, “No, just cancel it, operator.”

  And there was another contraction, faint and disconnected from her floating eggshell head.

  All the exercises had been for nothing. All wasted energy. This wasn’t natural childbirth at all; she wasn’t helping, she wasn’t seeing.

  Oh, Andy, Andy-or-Jenny! I’m sorry, my little darling! Forgive me!

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 1

  LIGHT.

  The ceiling.

  And pain between her legs.

  And Guy. Sitting beside the bed, watching her with an anxious, uncertain smile.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she said back.

  The pain was terrible.

  And then she remembered. It was over. It was over. The baby was born.

  “Is it all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, fine,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “A boy.”

  “Really? A boy?”

  He nodded.

  “And it’s all right?”

  “Yes.”

  She let her eyes close, then managed to open them again.

  “Did you call Tiffany’s?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She let her eyes close and slept.

  Later she remembered more. Laura-Louise was sitting by the bed reading the Reader’s Digest with a magnifying glass.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  Laura-Louise jumped. “My goodness, dear,” she said, the magnifying glass at her bosom showing red ropes interwoven, “what a start you gave me, waking up so suddenly! My goodness!” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

  “The baby; where is it?” she asked.

  “You just wait here a minute,” Laura-Louise said, getting up with the Digest closed on a finger. “I’ll get Guy and Doctor Abe. They’re right in the kitchen.”

  “Where’s the baby?” she asked, but Laura-Louise went out the door without answering.

  She tried to get up but fell back, her arms boneless. And there was pain between her legs like a bundle of knife points. She lay and waited, remembering, remembering.

  It was night. Five after nine, the clock said.

  They came in, Guy and Dr. Sapirstein, looking grave and resolute.

  “Where’s the baby?” she asked them.

  Guy came around to the side of the bed and crouched down and took her hand. “Honey,” he said.

  “Where is it?”

  “Honey…” He tried to say more and couldn’t. He looked across the bed for help.

  Dr. Sapirstein stood looking down at her. A shred of coconut was caught in his moustache. “There were complications, Rosemary,” he said, “but nothing that will affect future births.”

  “It’s—”

  “Dead,” he said.

  She stared at him.

  He nodded.

  She turned to Guy.

  He nodded too.

  “It was in the wrong position,” Dr. Sapirstein said. “In the hospital I might have been able to do something, but there simply wasn’t time to get you there. Trying anything here would have been—too dangerous for you.”

  Guy said, “We can have others, honey, and we will, just as soon as you’re better. I promise you.”

  Dr. Sapirstein said, “Absolutely. You can start on another in a very few months and the odds are thousands to one against anything similar happening. It was a tragic one-in-ten-thousand mishap; the baby itself was perfectly healthy and normal.”

  Guy squeezed her hand and smiled encouragingly at her. “As soon as you’re better,” he said.

  She looked at them, at Guy, at Dr. Sapirstein with the shred of coco
nut in his moustache. “You’re lying,” she said. “I don’t believe you. You’re both lying.”

  “Honey,” Guy said.

  “It didn’t die,” she said. “You took it. You’re lying. You’re witches. You’re lying. You’re lying! You’re lying! You’re lying! You’re lying! You’re lying!”

  Guy held her shoulders to the bed and Dr. Sapirstein gave her an injection.

  She ate soup and triangles of buttered white bread. Guy sat on the side of the bed, nibbling at one of the triangles. “You were crazy,” he said. “You were really ka-pow out of your mind. It happens sometimes in the last couple of weeks. That’s what Abe says. He has a name for it. Prepartum I-don’t-know, some kind of hysteria. You had it, honey, and with a vengeance.”

  She said nothing. She took a spoonful of soup.

  “Listen,” he said, “I know where you got the idea that Minnie and Roman were witches, but what made you think Abe and I had joined the party?”

  She said nothing.

  “That’s stupid of me, though,” he said. “I guess prepartum whatever-it-is doesn’t need reasons.” He took another of the triangles and bit off first one point and then another.

  She said, “Why did you trade ties with Donald Baumgart?”

  “Why did I—well what has that got to do with anything?”

  “You needed one of his personal belongings,” she said, “so they could cast the spell and make him blind.”

  He stared at her. “Honey,” he said, “for God’s sake what are you talking about?”

  “You know.”

  “Holy mackerel,” he said. “I traded ties with him because I liked his and didn’t like mine, and he liked mine and didn’t like his. I didn’t tell you about it because afterwards it seemed like a slightly faggy thing to have done and I was a little embarrassed about it.”

  “Where did you get the tickets for The Fantasticks?” she asked him.

  “What?”

  “You said you got them from Dominick,” she said; “you didn’t.”

  “Boy oh boy,” he said. “And that makes me a witch? I got them from a girl named Norma-something that I met at an audition and had a couple of drinks with. What did Abe do? Tie his shoelaces the wrong way?”