Memories of a Moscow Maternity Ward

Finding Joy in a Russian Hospital

Twenty-three years ago, my oldest son was born in Moscow, Russia, at a time when maternity wards in hospitals did not use pantyliners. They recycled the same stock of rags because medical officials considered cotton pantyliners, which were discarded after a single use, too expensive and not sanitary enough. Instead, they issued each new mother a dozen rags a day, and told her to fold and refold them a few times. The rags were then collected and sent to a laundry, boiled, bleached, sterilized, and delivered back to the wards for the next usage.

After my son's birth, I spent four days in the ward, chatting with my roommates, breastfeeding my tiny son, and standing in line for the "rag-exchange den." To avoid long lines, every room in the ward had been assigned a time slot in which to exchange their rags. "Tante Natalia" ruled with an iron fist, maintaining our schedule rigorously. Her uncombed greasy hair stuck out from under her white medical hat. Suspicious gray deposits marred the undersides of her rugged nails. Her red, potato-shaped nose, shot with purple capillaries, hung below dull, flat eyes.

The first day I went to exchange my rags, I witnessed Tante Natalia scolding a young mother, who dared to ask for an additional rag. Reveling in her power over us, Natalia prattled about thriftiness and proletarian pride. Then she demonstrated how to refold a bloody rag so it could be applied a couple more times.

On the third day, I napped after the midday feeding and slept through my scheduled time for the rags exchange. Although I dreaded Natalia's displeasure, I needed clean rags desperately. I went to the den. To my relief, the door was still open. Instead of the old harridan Natalia, a tall skinny woman in an immaculately ironed hospital dress was packing the laundry sacks with the bloody rags we usually dropped into a corner.

"Good evening, ma'am," I said. "I'm sorry. I overslept. Could I have a few clean rags now, please?"

"Of course, dear," she said quietly. She stopped her packing and turned. Her face, clear and intelligent under her white hat, didn't resemble the nasty old shrew Natalia. The only links between the two rag-exchange mistresses were the dark bags beneath their eyes.

I glanced at her spider-like hands. Unlike Natalia's, this woman's nails were clean and neatly filed. "You don't look like you work here," I blurted.

Smiling faintly, she gestured at the shelves full of the clean rags. "Take what you need," she said.

Delighted at the unexpected cornucopia of rags, I grabbed a huge pile, clearly more than12, and tossed a quick look back at her, checking her reaction. "Thank you, ma'am," I said.

She kept on smiling, her eyes crinkling at the corners, lips quivering. She watched me as if I was a beautiful piece of art instead of a young woman with a residual belly in an ugly hospital gown. A tear rolled down her sunken cheek.

"What's wrong, ma'am?" I asked.

She shuddered as if waking up. "I shouldn't have come to work here." She shook her head. "I don't deserve so much joy." Dropping to a chair behind her counter, she began to cry.

"Why?" I asked. I didn't feel so much joy, except when the nurses distributed our babies for feeding. Mostly, we spent hours complaining to each other about postnatal cramps and breastfeeding, and gossiping about our husbands and in-laws.

"I was a bad wife. My husband left me," she whispered.

"For another woman? Parasite!" I spat, clutching my cache of rags. "I'm sorry." Slowly, I backed out of the den. I hated those old billy goats that preyed on younger women then abandoned their wives.

"No." She sniffed, her body shuddering. "He's killed himself."

I halted. "I'm so sorry. Why?"

"During the war he was wounded. He couldn't be a husband anymore. We had two sons just before the war," her words interspersed with sobs. "We had such a good life. Worked together in an architectural firm. Raised our sons together. He was a good father and a wonderful husband. We had retired recently." Her narration turned into a screech. "And now the old fool had to go and kill himself!"

"But the war ended 40 years ago," I said. "Why did he do it now? When did he do it?"

"Last month. He left a letter. Said he ruined my life because he couldn't be a husband. Said he wanted to set me free. Cretin!" Hunched behind her counter, she clutched her face with both hands, weeping, swaying. "I couldn't stay home alone anymore. My sons are both working. They have their families. I needed to do something."

"Couldn't you find another place to work, not so dirty?" I nodded at the sacks of bloody rags. "You're an architect, right?"

Suddenly, she stopped crying and lifted her puffy red eyes at me. Rimmed with dark circles, they seemed enormously deep. "This is not dirty." Fighting the tremors that wracked her thin frame, she picked up a bloody, smelly rag with both hands and shoved it under my nose.

"My husband's blood from his slit wrists was dirty. This is the cleanest blood on Earth, the blood of joy."

"Of course," I mumbled, shuffling out the door with my hoard of rags. "I'm sorry." Awkwardly, like a sprinting duck, I waddled away as fast as I could without dropping the rag between my thighs. There was nothing I could say or do to make her feel better.

The next morning, my son and I were dismissed from the hospital. I never saw that woman again, but even now, 23 years later, I still remember her and her words to me, "The cleanest blood on Earth, the blood of joy."