Five October 1966 #4
I loved that song, the one she sang, passed down from her mother, the one she used to calm a labouring mother and welcome a son or daughter.
It makes me sad now, thinking that I don’t remember it, that I can’t conjure the tune.
Once in a while the memory comes back, usually in the place between asleep and awake, and I try to catch it, try to hold on to it, but it always escapes me.
And for the rest of the night, I lie awake mourning the loss.
Kiju waved me over. Her hands were resting on Sally’s thighs, the light from the lantern flickering as it muted the pain on Sally’s face.
“You’re going to help me.”
My first instinct was to run, but Kiju took my hand and pulled me to my knees and placed my hands on the inside of Sally’s thighs. Sally looked down and smiled, nodding her head.
“Don’t worry, Aliet, I trust you.”
“But I’m eleven,” I exclaimed, rather loudly.
“I know how old you are. I’m not leaving you, Aliet. I’m right here,” Kiju said.
“But I’m only eleven,” I repeated, panic rising in my voice.
Kiju smiled and stirred the tea. I took a deep breath, and one last look up into the leaves to see the sliver of moon shining through.
Sally made a grunting noise and pushed herself up, her chin pressed into her chest. I looked behind me again.
“Kiju, the baby is coming.”
“I know.”
“Kiju, the baby is coming,” I repeated, a little more urgent this time. “I’m not ready.”
All I could imagine was the baby coming out all slippery and me dropping it. Sally would hate me for life if I hurt her new baby. I started to cry.
“It’s okay, Aliet. I wasn’t going to make you catch the baby. I just want you to see how a woman gives birth. It’s such a beautiful thing. I never tire of it.”
My tears turned to ones of relief.
I moved aside, the warmth from Sally’s thighs still on my hands.
Kiju took my place as I returned to the tea, a place where I knew I could hurt only myself.
And a burn would be nothing compared with the imagined injuries I would inflict upon an innocent baby.
I emptied the partridge tea into a large mug and handed it to her relation, who held it to Sally’s lips for her to drink.
Then I filled the kettle again, but this time with cedar and a few beech leaves to clean Sally and the baby once the birth was over.
The baby was born easily, just like the other two. Two strong pushes and his head slipped out. Kiju took it into her soft hands and gently turned it, to help Sally out a bit. The humming grew loud.
“One more, Sally, one more and we should be good.”
Sally took a deep breath. She clenched her teeth and pushed.
The baby came out in a rush of fluid, clear and scented of salt water.
I stood up to see over Kiju’s shoulder to gaze at this little human I’d helped, if ever so slightly, to guide into the world.
Another boy, his head full of black hair, his face all squished.
He cried his first cry as Kiju placed him on Sally’s chest, her hands and arms wet with birth.
The song was over. I watched Sally, just as enamoured of this son as she’d been of the ones who came before him.
There must be so much room in a mother’s heart.
Kiju, Sally’s relation and I stayed silent, waiting.
The first words a baby hears must be those of his mother, so he understands that he is safe and loved.
“Pjilsi nkwis, kesalul,” Sally whispered into his tiny ear.
I watched Kiju take the twine, cut days before in preparation, to tie off the cord.
She cut it with her own knife, reserved for this one duty, and set it aside.
Sally would want to take it home and bury it with the others to remind her children where their home will always be.
The ground was dark where he entered the world, Sally’s water and blood joining the blood of our women, the blood of my own mother.
She cooed and kissed his wet head, whispering to him.
“Aliet, clean up now and get the tea ready.” My grandmother’s voice snapped me out of my daze as she took the baby from Sally and washed him with water that smelled of cedar before wrapping him in the soft leather and placing him at his mother’s breast. This was a ritual reserved for the grandmother, but since Sally’s mother had passed away, it had become Kiju’s responsibility and one she took very seriously.
I washed my hands in the remaining water before returning it to the earth.
I put a fresh kettle on to boil, and Sally’s relative left to return to her own family and to let Big Ben know it was time to meet his son.
Sally pulled the leather hide away so I could see his face.
Even through the cloudy eyes of a newborn, and in the dim light of a lantern, I thought I could see a fleck of gold in his dark-brown eyes.
The baby born, the placenta and cord cleaned and wrapped to take home with them, Ben arrived to greet his new son.
He sat beside Sally, kissed her and then kissed the head of his newest child.
He carried a blanket, which he laid across his wife and child before climbing under and taking them both in his arms. The small family held in the roots of that tree.
“Another boy,” Sally said, rolling her eyes and smiling.
“He’s a handsome one, too. Looks just like his dad.”
Sally elbowed him in the midsection, and he kissed her again.
It felt odd sitting there watching something so personal, but Kiju and I had to stay until the little one started feeding and Sally was strong enough to make her way back to the camp.
I turned away and stared into the dark, to give them their privacy.
But not before peeking one last time at Big Ben, who seemed to be in awe of something so small.
Before the sun was up, Ben, Sally and their baby boy were back at their tent, Ben caring for their every need. I was excited to tell John, but he and his father had already left for the orchards, so the news would have to wait.
Before we were allowed to sleep, we had to clean up. I was at the stove, boiling water to clean the birthing supplies.
“Kiju, who’s my father?” While I had spent many autumn days looking into the faces of the men who inhabited the camp, I had never asked Kiju. More than once the question had sat on the tip of my tongue, but there was something about watching Ben with the new baby that forced it out.
She looked surprised and a little uneasy. She paused, for what seemed to me a very long time, as if she were carefully choosing what she would say next.