would sing to Baby Alexandra, hoping to get her to flutter her eyes open. After washing her hands in the basin filled with disinfectant, she would gently stroke her and hold her close, this child of her heart, the most extraordinary of all the babies Edith had produced, a blue-eyed princess in a kingdom of brown eyes.
But the fever took over and Baby Alexandraâs luminous eyes dimmed and her body grew impossibly flushed and warm, and she couldnât breathe.
There was nothing anyone could do.
My mother wasnât allowed to hold her or comfort her, and she was too sickâmercifully, perhapsâto realize that her baby was dying in the next room.
There was a chance that Edith would also not pull through, that she wouldnât be able to overcome the fever. My father opened the house to her side of the family, as they launched an unprecedented offensive to save both mother and child.
After Oncle Edouard had brought the doctor, Tante Rosée all but moved in. She tended to Mom night and dayânever going to sleep, watchful for the slightest change, attentive to my motherâs every need.
Under the determined care of the indomitable Tante Rosée, my grandmother hovering close by, Edith survived. Baby Alexandra did not.
Whenever my mother asked, âOù est la petite?â she was told that she was too sick to see her daughter, that it would only put the child at risk. Edith would nod and go back to sleep, retreating to near oblivion. She was still delusional, still confused.
At last, my siblings returned from their exile. They went from room to room but found no trace of the child. Malaka Nazli was seemingly the same as before, except that it was scrubbed clean and still bore the scent of strong disinfectant. Everyone was silent, especially our mother, who remained in bed all day.
No one would explain exactly what had happened, no one would say where the baby had gone, and they knew instinctively not to ask questions. It was the way of Old Aleppo never to expose children even to thehint of death. The young were barred from going to a house of mourning. They couldnât pay their respects, or go to the cemetery, or even wear black because that would bring bad luck.
Â
SHE LASTED EXACTLY EIGHT days, Baby Alexandra, though years and decades later, she was still there, deep in our consciousness. No pictures of her exist. The tradition was to take a new baby to a professional for a formal studio shot within weeks of her arrival, and that, of course, had not been possible.
César would speak to me of this lovely child with clear eyes, and Suzette remembered the delicate mound of light brown hair that she had briefly seen. We all obsessed about her in our own way, imbuing her with all the qualities we valued. She haunted me, this child who never grew up.
âLoulou, you, of course, are Alexandra,â my mother would say to me again and again. For a long time I thought she was comparing me to my grandmother. Only later, much later, did I begin to comprehend that she was invoking the child she missed. I was, to her, the little girl blue, returned to this earth.
Â
MY MOTHER LOST HER beauty. It was a gradual process, which had begun even before Baby Alexandra, but accelerated with the childâs passing. Her lovely white teeth had inexplicably started to crumble after César was born. With the years, she was left almost toothless, and it became almost painful to look at her, this young woman in her twenties with exceedingly fine features, and the puckered-in mouth of an old lady.
She became a recluse.
Edith rarely left 281-Malaka Nazli. The ostensible explanation for her decline, or at least the one my family embraced, was that Mom, who was anemic and ate very poorly, had suffered a loss of calcium after her second pregnancy, a process that intensified with subsequent births.
She never drank so much as a glass of the fresh, delicious milk thatcontinued to come by way of the goats
But the fever took over and Baby Alexandraâs luminous eyes dimmed and her body grew impossibly flushed and warm, and she couldnât breathe.
There was nothing anyone could do.
My mother wasnât allowed to hold her or comfort her, and she was too sickâmercifully, perhapsâto realize that her baby was dying in the next room.
There was a chance that Edith would also not pull through, that she wouldnât be able to overcome the fever. My father opened the house to her side of the family, as they launched an unprecedented offensive to save both mother and child.
After Oncle Edouard had brought the doctor, Tante Rosée all but moved in. She tended to Mom night and dayânever going to sleep, watchful for the slightest change, attentive to my motherâs every need.
Under the determined care of the indomitable Tante Rosée, my grandmother hovering close by, Edith survived. Baby Alexandra did not.
Whenever my mother asked, âOù est la petite?â she was told that she was too sick to see her daughter, that it would only put the child at risk. Edith would nod and go back to sleep, retreating to near oblivion. She was still delusional, still confused.
At last, my siblings returned from their exile. They went from room to room but found no trace of the child. Malaka Nazli was seemingly the same as before, except that it was scrubbed clean and still bore the scent of strong disinfectant. Everyone was silent, especially our mother, who remained in bed all day.
No one would explain exactly what had happened, no one would say where the baby had gone, and they knew instinctively not to ask questions. It was the way of Old Aleppo never to expose children even to thehint of death. The young were barred from going to a house of mourning. They couldnât pay their respects, or go to the cemetery, or even wear black because that would bring bad luck.
Â
SHE LASTED EXACTLY EIGHT days, Baby Alexandra, though years and decades later, she was still there, deep in our consciousness. No pictures of her exist. The tradition was to take a new baby to a professional for a formal studio shot within weeks of her arrival, and that, of course, had not been possible.
César would speak to me of this lovely child with clear eyes, and Suzette remembered the delicate mound of light brown hair that she had briefly seen. We all obsessed about her in our own way, imbuing her with all the qualities we valued. She haunted me, this child who never grew up.
âLoulou, you, of course, are Alexandra,â my mother would say to me again and again. For a long time I thought she was comparing me to my grandmother. Only later, much later, did I begin to comprehend that she was invoking the child she missed. I was, to her, the little girl blue, returned to this earth.
Â
MY MOTHER LOST HER beauty. It was a gradual process, which had begun even before Baby Alexandra, but accelerated with the childâs passing. Her lovely white teeth had inexplicably started to crumble after César was born. With the years, she was left almost toothless, and it became almost painful to look at her, this young woman in her twenties with exceedingly fine features, and the puckered-in mouth of an old lady.
She became a recluse.
Edith rarely left 281-Malaka Nazli. The ostensible explanation for her decline, or at least the one my family embraced, was that Mom, who was anemic and ate very poorly, had suffered a loss of calcium after her second pregnancy, a process that intensified with subsequent births.
She never drank so much as a glass of the fresh, delicious milk thatcontinued to come by way of the goats
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