Kalila

By Rosemary Nixon

Shortlisted, George Bugnet Award for Fiction

Kalila chronicles the lives of Maggie and Brodie, whose joy collides with devastation when their daughter's birth also heralds the news of her congenital heart condition.In this startlingly inventive novel, Rosemary Nixon braids light and darkness into a narrative chain pulled exquisitely taut. Through Maggie and Brodie's shifting viewpoints, the isolating impenetrability of hospital life, the mediation of physics, music, and family, Nixon propels the reader into unmapped emotional terrain where a shell-shocked family grapples with the horror, joy, and mystery of impermanence. The result is a spellbinding tale, provocative for the emotions and the intellect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Release date: May 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9780864926999

Rosemary Nixon

Rosemary Nixon was pastor to the Community of Durham Cathedral and formerly vicar of All Saints' Church in Cleadon, Sunderland. She also served as principal of the Theological Institute of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, director of the urban studies unit in the parish of Gatehead, and tutor in Old Testament studies at Cranmer Hall, Durham.

Book preview

The news is like staring into an eclipse of the sun. Look at it straight and you’ll go blind.

You prepared. You prepared for a child to be born. You have not prepared for this. You stand at the window of your classroom and look out past your plants. You can see down to the smoking door. Kids huddled in bunches without their coats. Their breath rising, cloudy spirals.

Roses. You must bring Maggie roses. For a moment, shifting through papers on your desk, hunting the missing wire for tomorrow’s torsion bar experiment, you forget. Forget you have a baby. This baby. You take a breath and bend into your chair. Your students sit quiet in their desks. Some are looking at you; others look away. You say, When a wave passes from deep water into shallow, the ray refracts toward the normal. You want to say, Today is cancelled. You think the baby’s name. Kalila. Beloved. The students go about their work, filling water tables, generating waves.

When water rolls from deep to shallow, you say, it can create a tidal wave.

Miraculously, the day ends.

You pack your satchel with student lab reports, drive to a florist. Ask for a dozen roses. The young woman behind the counter winks, says, Well, have we got hopes tonight! Gets glum when you don’t answer.

At the hospital, you step off on the fifth floor, Neonatal Intensive Care. And wonder how you got here.

I sit in Neonatal ICU and imagine a daughter. Fluorescent lights stare down, a worker vacuums. Ninety machines hum. Our baby. This girl. The baby next to Kalila’s isolette was born last night without a brain. His eyes stare out. There’s nothing in there. I have to look away. The mother sits beside his isolette, unmoving. Iceberg face. It pulses through me. Sudden choking laughter. You look just like your baby. I look down at mine, eyes closed, legs splayed, blue diaper dwarfing her. Inside burning. She will be reckless, this daughter, Kalila. She will play hard, be a tomboy, scrape shins, throw a football, throw herself into her history.

Throw away this picture, Maggie.

An acquaintance, Judith, is sitting on a bench in the waiting room. I hardly know her. The husband left her two, three months ago. I see the woman on occasion, at the grocery store, at church. We never talk. This morning Judith shows up at the hospital. Dark coat, rubber boots, no earrings.

You can’t get in, I tell her. They barely allow family. You can’t stay. Even my sisters have trouble getting in.

Two hours now. There she sits, on a hard bench in the waiting room. Offering no words.

I look over at the iceberg mother.

Dr. Norton enters the nursery. The one doctor who never dresses like a doctor. Today she’s wearing a floral-print skirt. It shows beneath her lab coat. Dr. Norton carries a chart, moves to the isolette next to Kalila’s. Her sleeve touches that mother cast in ice.

Good morning, Mrs. Angonata. The woman doesn’t answer. The doctor pulls up a stool, sits down beside her. Expels a breath. There’s not a lot we can do for your son. He’s being kept warm and safe.

A twitch. The woman shakes. She shimmers in this cold, blue-lit neonatal nursery.

We don’t know how long. Some hours? Perhaps several days. No, you don’t have to hold him. No, some mothers choose not to. Please, call me any time. Wait, no, it’s not too hard. It’s just the cords get caught. I’ll help you lift him out. She lifts the empty baby, empty dangling legs, stare fixed on nothing. Lifts him from the mess of wires into a frozen mother’s arms.

Mother. Doctor. Judith on a hard bench. Maggie Rachael Watson.

Under fluorescent lights, four women without a language stare into the present.

Dr. W. P. Vanioc rubs his neck, picks up a pen, and reads.

October 17

Operation Report Progress Notes

# 524010

Solantz Girl

Problem List:

1. Respiratory distress

2. Dysmorphic features

3. Auditory evoked responses show abnormal

4. Solantz, girl, has decreased calcium and magnesium

5. Was put on digoxin 0.1 mg p.o. bid, followed by Dr. Showalter

6. Solantz, girl, kept on 38% oxygen.

7. Goes off colour during feeds.

Dr. Vanioc unties his shoelaces, leans back in his chair, raises his arms to ease his headache, and returns to the child’s chart.

The baby came in a week ago, transferred from the Peter Lougheed Centre on her third day. She has everything wrong with her, and no reason that he can see. Slightly under four weeks early. Normal delivery, although they induced the mother due to toxemia. The right side of the child’s mouth shows evidence of facial paralysis. She has excessive mucus secretions from her nose and throat. Her feedings result in coughing and choking and vomiting. She already has developed upper-lobe aspiration pneumonia as a result. The ductus is still open. The babe’s on 40% oxygen. Dr. Vanioc makes notes on his pad. He will suggest Lasix, put her on digoxin. He reviews the nurses’ reports.

Neonatal Intensive Care Flow Sheet

Oct. 11: 4:30 p.m.:

Babe received on 50% oxygen. Colour dusky. Passed large sticky meconium. Appears jaundiced. Coffee-ground-like material in white mucus. Not tolerating oral feeds. IV restarted in scalp vein. Babe dusky and apneac. Respiration shallow.

Jittery when disturbed. Two bradys.

Parents in to visit. Apprehensive.

The doctor twists his wedding band around his finger. His headache makes him want to take it off. The babe developed hypocalcemia and was given an IV of calcium gluconate. Feedings started again twelve hours ago. The infant sucks moderately well, but her pulmonary signs are worsening. Likely more aspiration. The parents young, but not so young. Late twenties maybe. The mother exhibits high anxiety. She’s small and worried, like a wired spring.

Dr. Vanioc takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes. He thinks of his wife, at this moment spooning mushed peas and puréed squash into his small son’s mouth, irritated that her husband gives sixteen hours a day to these sick babies while he neglects his own. Dr. Vanioc thinks of his wife’s indignant back, the fine curve of her spine where it reaches her buttocks, thinks this for a moment, then pushes it into the headache that climbs his neck. He turns back to the charts.

Möbius syndrome? he scribbles.

They’ll have to feed her through gastrostomy.

The angled doors of Foothills Hospital slide apart, and you enter the smells — floor polish, coffee, corned beef, flowers, medication, pus. You think, We exist because of an explosion of stars. O2, CO2, H2. You got the mail before you drove here. Maggie’s mother sent a baby quilt, bits from her Saskatchewan sewing sunroom, a starburst pattern, tiny triangles of brown, blue, green, yellow, patterned, cotton, linen, gabardine, hand-stitched leftovers from Maggie’s childhood.

The elevator pings. A group of anxious visitors herds on and mills while everybody stabs a button. This morning you explained Schrödinger’s cat experiment to your grade eleven class. A box, an unfortunate cat shoved in a box, radioactive material, and a potentially lethal device. This device could kill the cat, depending on whether the radioactive pellet emits a particle and triggers the device. There is a 50-50 chance. You step out of the elevator and head down the hall. The observer’s paradox. The scientists outside the closed box have no idea of the fate of the cat, which remains in a state of superposition, of limbo: the cat alive and dead, or neither alive nor dead — until an observer opens the box and looks inside. You scrub your hands, don the yellow gown, open the heavy door, and step into the cold, sharp neonatal climate. Breathe its absence: a stroller ride, a winter toque, tugs on a mother’s nipple, a rubber ball. A series of bleating beeps. A nurse calls, Brady. Baby Heisler. Got it.

You look at the sweeping reach of babies, bereft of the smell of oranges, autumn quilts, iced tea. A room full of babies who cannot see the stars. You wind to your baby’s isolette and peer down at the child breathing in great gulps, as if the air were uncertain, retreating from her. Einstein never accepted Schrödinger’s quantum mechanics. Einstein said God doesn’t play dice with the world. You reach into the child’s isolette, rub your thumb, like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp, against the baby’s forehead and an agonizing flush of hope bursts across your skin. You straighten the cords, arrange the files flung atop her isolette, collect two pens, some lint, a piece of napkin from the floor.

Order in the world.

Foothills Neonatal ICU breathes story. Stories weave the isolettes, the suction machines, heart monitors, the oxygen tubes, the heaving ventilators. They cling to the hems of nursing uniforms and ride the lapels of doctors’ lab coats. They smell, these stories, these angry prayers.

I hold Kalila on my lap, an intravenous needle stuck in her head. Yellow bruises criss-cross her shaved scalp where intravenous needles went interstitial. Even needles fail my baby. When I was a child, farmboys caught frogs, cut off their legs, and let them go. The frenetic gyrate of legs, the bulging eyes. Stop it! I hate you! Sobbing. The boys laughing.

Just being boys.

Kalila fights like that when the nurses suction her. Her fists punch out, head wheels from side to side. I conserve strength for those suction episodes — twelve, fifteen times a day. A tube inserted up the baby’s nose, tiny mouth open in a gag, push farther, farther, frog legs jerking, a nurse hauling tubing like a hose snaked down a drain hole. White-green gunk sucking up the hose, spastic limbs, the baby’s face a caricature of anguish. The nurses step around me, doing their job.

Dr. Staszick enters. One of the boys. The head nurse is also one of the boys. This is an old boys’ club and we have crashed it. Nobody likes us here. Nobody likes my baby. I ask permission to bathe Kalila. To lift her into a warm water basin. The surprise of skin on skin. Baby, you exist. We’re really touching. I know to arrange the gastrostomy tube inserted in the baby’s stomach, to keep hold of it twelve centimetres down the tube so gravity won’t pressure and pull it free, to arrange the oxygen tube, the heart monitor attachment tubes, her intravenous lines. My fingers support her at the small of her neck. Kalila finds herself in water, her expression is surprise. I lap water against her belly, the soles of her feet. Cheek against my baby’s head until her features lose their tenseness, her head moves to touch her cheek to mine and she kicks. For one strange moment the institution smell lifts, and I am a live whole mom holding a live whole baby.

No bath! Nurse says no time this morning. Beepers are going off. Babies are trying to die. The nurse has filled a basin with water, then abandons it when the baby next to Kalila goes into cardiac arrest. The nurse moves fast, her elbow catches the baby’s foot, which hits the basin, knocks it to the floor, and now the cleaning staff has been called in — more bodies, more equipment.

I hum. It’s an act of rebellion. I hum to Kalila, who ignores her bathwater sweeping the neonatal floor.

My baby’s life here at Foothills Hospital is one big awful song. Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall. Ninety-nine bottles of beer. Fragments. Bleak and rhythmic. The sickening repetitive pattern. Pass one

Reviews for Kalila

[yells-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book which is strange because, as someone without kids, I thought it would be a subject matter that would be completely foreign to me. It's basically the story of new parents trying to deal with the fact that their newborn is quite ill and no one really knows why. It's told from three different perspectives: Maggie & Brodie (the parents) and Dr Vanioc but what is so interesting about this is that each tells their story through varying degrees of separation. Each section gives us a private peek into the mind of that person but with Maggie it's always 'I did this", with Brodie it's "you did this" and with the doctor it's "Doctor Vanioc did this". And then at the end. there are no more labels and the narrator takes over as if reporting a news story. I quite enjoyed this way of writing and I think it really lent itself well to the storyline. It is not an easy read; it's quite raw and honest at times. But it is a realistic look into minds of people dealing with a personal tragedy. Definitely recommended.

[dgmknzgrl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Holy depressing Batman. This is not a book to read if you are in a low point in your life. The characters were well written and the story was provoking but it sure dragged me down into the dumps. Perhaps that's a sign that it was written really well?

[deesirings · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a sad, moving account of a couple whose baby girl is born with serious, unidentified health problems. I suspect the gamut of emotions they go through is all too real. It is written in short, poetic sentences and short chapters as well. Each chapter is titled by its narrator, usually the baby's mother or father, but sometimes her doctor. One of the things I thought was most well done in this novel was the amount of backstory that was included, without using flashbacks, but just observations from the present. One technique I was left wondering about was why the chapter written from Brody's perspective used the second person -- you do this, you think this, etc. Was it expected that most readers would be women and having them be Brodie would help them identify with the character better? This was a hard read, but only because the subject matter is hard. Well worth it, but hard.

[readerbynight · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First, it is important to remember this is a novel. I say this because this book is the closest I have ever seen to the trauma of fact. Disjointed thoughts known only to those who have suffered trauma or extreme grief, the grief related to the loss or desperate illness of a child. Maggie has given premature birth to a baby girl with problems no one has yet identified. The baby is in a care unit at a research hospital.The doctors are not connecting with the parents, their only interest is the child. It's not a thing, it's not "the baby", she has a name, Kalila. She is a little person, not a specimen! Maggie is outside looking in. She has fallen through the crack into another world where isolation is the norm and she doesn't know the rules. Life goes on all around her at its regular pace but she is only aware of it for short intervals. It is always a shock to discover in the crisis you are living, that other people are living their normal lives. Don't they know that your life is in tatters? Can't they see you are living, too, at a terribly slowed pace of pain and isolation?At this point, her husband is as supportive as anyone can be. He deals with his grief in an entirely different way, and so it is with the two sexes, they do respond differently. A male grieving takes it as a literal blow to his own humanity. Also, in most cases, he continues to work. It's actually rather interesting to view him in his working life all tangled up with what is happening with his child and wife. But a chance discussion with another mother, who finally took her child home to care for rather than leaving her in the isolation of the neonatal ward, compels Maggie to make the decision to bring Kalila home. Once there, they have a small feeling of normalcy between episodes of panic, the problem is the doctors have never been able in the four plus months to discover what her multitude of problems are, and what is causing them. All Maggie and Brodie feel is the comfort of finally being able to hold their baby.This is not a weighty book in size, but certainly in subject matter, and very well written. I did feel loss toward the end of the book, I felt something missing in the relationship, but I have never lived that role before so can not truthfully comment on it. It did seem to fall off a bit toward the end. Ironically, the very surgery that gives them some glimmer of hope to hang on to is the very thing that causes the unthinkable. Hope, then sudden loss. I grieved, too. But there is often a marriage break-up in these cases, and indeed they were warned this could happen. The reader is not really aware that this had happened at first, and perhaps that is why I felt lost in the last part. There was nothing, and then it was years later. So that is my one and only regret in the telling of this novel. Extremely well-written for the most part, and I would certainly recommend it for anyone going through the grief of an ill child or the loss of a baby. Be prepared to be living the story with the participants. A difficult story to write and to live. Rosemary Nixen has written from the heart and soul. She has stepped inside the characters of her book and done it exactly right.

[lkernagh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Meet Maggie, Brodie and Kalila. Maggie is a care support worker in a seniors retirement facility. Brodie is a high school Physics teacher. Kalila is the baby daughter of these new, first time parents. The story starts after the birth of Kalila has occurred and a harsh reality weights on the parents: Kalila has been born with medical issues and is in the Neonatal ICU. As Brodie states on page 1: "You prepared. You prepared for a child to be born. You have not prepared for this."The story is told through a series of very short chapters - maybe chapter breaks is a better way to describe them - with each chapter break entitled the name of the character who's viewpoint is being presented. I felt that this story really packs an emotional wallop, and differing perspectives, that made me thankful for the short chapters breaks so that I could put the book down when the raw, or sometimes overwhelming numb emotions conveyed by the characters made me feel like a voyeur to Maggie and Brodie's inner thoughts and feelings. The ending left me confused, and I can only assume that what I think the ending is meant to convey is how I understand it!Overall, it is a well crafted story that makes use of sparse, concise prose to draw the reader in to a rather raw, emotional environment that may have a different impact on different readers. I am glad I read this book but I am at a loss as to who I would consider recommending this story to, given the subject matter.

[kpolhuis_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is not a book that I would have chosen to read. It is very dark, raw and human. Perhaps because I am a mother I feel this way. I certainly couldn't read it all in one sitting... the story was too intense. You are brought into the moment of each person, and that is a good quality in a book. Each 'entry' is labelled with "Maggie" or "Brodie" (them being the parents of Kalila), or some secondary characters who have a small contribution to make. At the end I was confused though. Nothing was quite recognisable the first time I read it. This is so because the last few entries are not labelled... no one has names any more it is just "he" and "she" and I'm not always certain who is being written about. There is also some puzzling aspects... are we going a few years forward in time? Or am I missing something important here? I went back and re-read those confusing parts and I am still not closer to understanding.I did appreciate the different quotes... especially those from The Little Prince, with my favorite: "Goodbye," said the fox. "Here is my secret. It's quite simple. One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

[craftimommi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is an intimate portrait of a family's new beginnings. We hear the heart breaking thoughts of the mother , father and doctor of an ill newborn. It is well written and draws the reader in from the first sentence. Chapters are the thoughts of each character. And are written in a manner that one would think these people would think. You can feel the exhaustion of the new parents and the care and concern of the doctor. Our family has been blessed with healthy children and it was difficult reading about the illness of one so small and helpless. It was an enjoyable book and as good books should, it left me feeling as though I had learned a lot about the subject

[refashionista · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poignant, heartbreaking, and so true to the connection a mother feels for her child, this book brought tears to my eyes more than once. I felt almost guilty while reading the book, as though I was reading someone's most private, tightly-held thoughts.

[callmejacx · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Before I started reading the book I was wondering how I would stay interested in a story about a new born baby with health issues. How much could one say? It wasn't going to be easy. Somehow, Rosemary Nixon succeeded. The reader gets involved quickly. It takes a hold of your heart right away. It dives right into the moment. Right into the feelings of the childs parents. We hurt along with them. We struggle with them, We feel for them.We glimpse into thier thoughts. There we hear their most deepest thoughts. Just as thoughts really are, they are sometimes interupted by other thoughts or their surroundings.The sentances are often short as are the paragraphs. There is no flow to the story. There is no rhythm, nor rhyme. It is deep, raw, hard, sometimes soft, it's confusing, it's real, it's sad and sometimes happy, it's hopeful and it's heartbreaking.Once I picked up this book I could not put it down.

[ldvoorberg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I received this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers, and it is the best book I've received from the program thus far. However, that is not high enough praise. This book is excellent! Essentially it is about a couple whose newborn baby has multiple medical problems and spends the first 4-5 months in the NICU.It's terse and tense. Chapters from Maggie (the mother)'s perspective are in first person; from Brodie (the father), in second, and from the doctor, third. I like how this adds to the personality of the characters. (There are also other 3rd person objective narrated chapters.) Sentences are not complete, just as thoughts come in fragments, so the reader needs to pay attention to catch nuances and details. However, this style enhances the emotion of the story. Chapters are short, but the story is more intense when read in longer stretches -- the book is short enough to be read in one sitting of 2-3 hours if you're willing.I also love the biblical and literary allusions, as well as the physics, throughout the story. They add so much meaning and say more with their references than plain prose can evoke.Definitely a book I will re-read and pass on to my friends. I think it should be nominated for the Giller Prize.

[bucketyell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book which is strange because, as someone without kids, I thought it would be a subject matter that would be completely foreign to me. It's basically the story of new parents trying to deal with the fact that their newborn is quite ill and no one really knows why. It's told from three different perspectives: Maggie & Brodie (the parents) and Dr Vanioc but what is so interesting about this is that each tells their story through varying degrees of separation. Each section gives us a private peek into the mind of that person but with Maggie it's always 'I did this", with Brodie it's "you did this" and with the doctor it's "Doctor Vanioc did this". And then at the end. there are no more labels and the narrator takes over as if reporting a news story. I quite enjoyed this way of writing and I think it really lent itself well to the storyline. It is not an easy read; it's quite raw and honest at times. But it is a realistic look into minds of people dealing with a personal tragedy. Definitely recommended.

[lavermeer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kalila is a contradictory text: it is shatteringly beautiful. It announces the birth of a baby — something that should be reason for celebration — but the baby is struggling to live. What follows is a text of many voices, achingly lyrical, as Maggie and Brodie and others come to terms with Kalila's fate.I could read this book only in brief sittings: it is too intense to absorb in large portions. The subject is of course almost unimaginable to most readers, and author Rosemary Nixon realizes Kalila's illness in relentless detail. The doctors are mystified, ineffectual; the nurses are impersonal, mechanical in their puncturing, wiping, suctioning, scolding. Yet the text generates such a soaring sense of love and determination that readers cannot help but feel for this baby, for her parents, for everyone entangled in her story.This book deserves to be recognized for its flawless execution and the author's courage in exploring such a comfortless topic. Give this book a chance; it is in no way an easy read, but it has so much to teach its readers about compassion, living, and hope.