Recovering Breathe.
Somewhere in the night sky a star implodes and explodes in silence. At that very moment a girl, aged four, hurtles downwards, tumbling, falling and falling, plunging deeper into darkness.
She is somewhere now, dimly grey to her eyes, as if everything has turned to ash. Yet in the silence there is breath.
She can hear the sound of her heart pounding and a sharp ache clawing at her chest. The atmosphere is thick with feeling. Trembling, she looks around, crying out Mama, Daddy. Her eyes search frantically, trying to see through the dusty haze, the swirling mass” Mama! Daddy, Daddy! “ “I want to go home”.
Wailing, pierces the air, but only the sound of her terror, echoes out of the stunned silence. Alone. She can see neither person, nor warm flesh, blood or bone, no wall or floor nothing previously known. Its’ as if she tumbled beyond the edge of the world into a timeless zone.
Except, from the corner of her eye, a movement, a vague shape of something there. A person perhaps. Someone, bulky in black and there’s a hint of gleaming white, in this mysterious, monochrome site.
She hears a distorted voice as her hand is suddenly and firmly clutched. Held up now, she is being pulled quickly along and through a long passage way. Still weeping and wailing. Along another corridor and yet another and another, she is taken, until led up a stair case. Eventually, with her hand still clutched tight by the stranger, they enter the doorway of a room, coming to a full stop .
Through the blur of the child’s teary eyes, all at once, under bright lights, a large group of ragamuffins appear, all dressed the same in drab, uniform clothes. All staring in her direction,
Startled, they sit frozen in a pin drop silence. The spell broken almost instantly, as the child begins to wail her persistent plea, her inconsolable grief spills, over -filling this chamber. She, starts to back away towards the door. As the stranger coaxes and pulls her back and in to her side, the child’s head flops, rolling over to one side, she feels herself again, falling deeper into the dark.
Meanwhile, witnessing this scene, the ragamuffins , all girls from 5 – 14 years are caught up and captives, in this agonising spot. They watch passively, the small girl with wild, black hair and coal -black eyes, swollen in a heart shaped face. Some of the girls sit stock still, perhaps in shock, some shift nervously, wide eyed and uncertain, others look on uncomprehending, others seem curious as if wondering what will happen next. While yet others, have eyes cast down. Perhaps wishing for a safety net, feeling ‘something’ inside, they’d, long pushed underground. As they watch this girl now slumping down, her legs giving way.
In that moment, two hands reach out lifting the child on to her feet. She’s being held by a much taller girl. 11year old, Kathy with short mousey, brown hair in a middle parting, is also holding the child in her gaze. Looking straight into the pools of these grief -stricken eyes her own are dark brown, doleful yet kind. She speaks quietly as she squats down, gently wiping the child’s face with her hanky, before following the instructions: “Take the girl upstairs to the bed near my cell, to ‘calm her down’ before taking her into the dining room at supper time”.
Later that evening in the clothing cupboard room, Kathy recounts the scene to her friend. How the child had leaned in to her, gripping her hand, as they climbed the stairs to the dormitory.
“.she lay there, like a lost lamb” I stroked her mop of hair off her brow” “There, There“ was all I could say. “Her eyes were always searching for mine.. gradually she stopped crying . I was fighting back my own tears, seeing those ‘eyes like a swollen river at midnight’, “her nose aw bunged up and snotty, gulping for air, hardly able tae breathe. My heart wis in mi mooth. I reached to the drawer of the bedside cupboard for a hanky, coaxed her to ”blow”.. Heart breaking it wiz” I only noticed we’d been in shade, when light suddenly beamed in and was dancing leafy shadows on the wall, next to the bed. I folded my hand, to make a bunny shadow puppet.. to distract, look! I laughed .. saw a glimmer of a smile on her lips, as she turned her head, felt something happen in me, right then”
“ I went to drawer again for her missal, show her cover .. St Theresa, holding flowers. I don’t know why, it flashed through my mind, those few things in our bedside cupboard. I mean its normal, these are thee sole possessions we hae, in here:
The same black rosary beads, missal and hanky in the top drawer. At the bottom
A toothbrush, a rough towel, brown flannel, a worn and bobbled night dress, all numbered. She’s number 22 from now on.
Never, gave this a thought till now .. but I felt bad for her somehow... Maybe cause she was aw dressed up.. her Sunday best? Jus thought, ‘she won’t see them clothes no more ‘.. just like us, all dress exactly the same, wae handed -down clothes. Yer lucky if yir get something that fits yir size.
Eventually, her chest rose and fell, as if given oxygen, like I saw in the hospital. ..fell fast asleep, still holding on to my hand.”
This incident became indelibly imprinted on Kathy’s mind. Years later, the story, ever repeated, was given meaning and myth.
“Her utter distress, Kathy said, not long before her untimely death, “touched a raw tenderness within me, an kind of empathy cause..(she never did finish that sentence) The child needed me and I found I was capable of giving and of loving and maybe then I too, was loved. For as her heart was consoled, so was mine consoled and more.. I can’t explain...but I felt something strong within me, like a power. I felt lifted in that moment. I was not alone, but warmly held.
They discovered the girl was named Lorraine. No-one it seemed, was able to pronounce her original name. To Kathy she was Lorraine ‘the child with eyes like a swollen river’ at midnight. To others she remained a child who looked so odd, she must have fell from the sky.
