Samira goes first. Her chin is drawn down to her clavicle and she seems to be whispering a prayer. A contraction stops her suddenly and her knees buckle. Pearl puts his arm around her waist. Although in his late forties, he has the upper-body strength of someone who has bulked up in prison weight rooms. You don’t work a regular job and have a physique like his.
We move quickly up the stairs and along empty passageways. Yanus has found a cabin on Deck 9, where there are fewer passengers. He takes Samira from Pearl and I glance at them, fleetingly, sidelong. Surely they can’t expect to get away with this.
The two-berth cabin is oppressively neat. It has a narrow single bunk about a foot from the floor and another directly above it, hinged and folded flat against the wall. There is a square porthole with rounded corners. The window is dark. Land has ceased to exist and I can only imagine the emptiness of the North Sea. I look at my watch. It’s twelve thirty. Harwich is another three and a half hours away. If Samira can stay calm and the contractions are steady, we may reach Harwich in time. In time for what?
Her eyes are wide and her forehead is beaded with perspiration. At the same time she is shivering. I sit on the bed, with my back to the bulkhead, pulling her against me with my arms wrapped around her, trying to keep her warm. Her belly balloons between her knees and her entire body jolts with each contraction.
I am running on instinct. Trying my best not to panic or show fear. The first-aid course I did when I joined the Met was comprehensive but it didn’t include childbirth. I remember something my mama said to my sisters-in-law: “Doctors don’t deliver babies, women do.”
Yanus and Pearl take turns guarding the door. There isn’t enough room in the cabin for both of them. One will watch the passageway.
Yanus leans against the narrow cabin counter, watching with listless curiosity. Taking an orange from his pocket, he peels it expertly and separates it into segments that he lines up along the bench. Each piece is finally crushed between his teeth and he sucks the juices down his throat before spitting out the pith and seeds onto the floor.
I have never believed that people could be wholly evil. Psychopaths are made not born. Yanus could be the exception. I try to picture him as a youngster and cling to the hope that there might be some warmth inside him. He must have loved someone, something—a pet, a parent, a friend. I see no trace of it.
One or twice Samira can’t stifle her cries. He tosses a roll of masking tape into my lap. “Shut her up!”
“No! She has to tell me when the contractions are coming.”
“Then keep her quiet.”
Where does he keep his knife? Strapped to his chest on his left side, next to his heart. He seems to read my mind and taps his jacket.
“I can cut them out of her, you know. I’ve done it before with animals. I start cutting just here.” He puts his finger just above his belt buckle and draws it upward over his navel and beyond. “Then I peel back her skin.”
Samira shudders.
“Just shut up, will you?”
He gives me his shark’s smile.
Night presses against the porthole. There might be five hundred passengers on board the ferry, but right now it feels as though the cabin light is burning in a cold hostile wasteland.
Samira tilts her head back until she can look into my eyes.
“Zala?” she asks.
I wish I could lie to her but she reads the truth on my face. I can almost see her slipping backward into blackness, disappearing. It is the look of someone who knows that fate has abandoned them to a sadness so deep that nothing can touch it.
“I should never have let her go,” she whispers.
“It’s not your fault.”
Her chest rises and falls in a silent sob. She has turned her eyes away. It is a gesture that says everything. I vowed to find Zala and keep her safe. I broke my promise.
The contractions seem to have eased. Her breathing steadies and she sleeps.
Pearl has replaced Yanus.
“How is she?”
“Exhausted.”
He braces his back against the door, sliding down until he settles on his haunches, draping his arms over his knees. In such a small space he appears larger, overgrown, with big hands. Yanus has feminine hands, shapely and delicate, fast with a blade. Pearl’s are like blunt instruments.
“You’ll never get away with this, you know that.”
He smiles. “There are many things I know and many more things I don’t know.”
“Listen to me. You’re only making this worse. If she dies or the babies die they’ll charge you with murder.”
“They won’t die.”
“She needs a doctor.”
“Enough talk.”
“The police know I’m here. I saw you earlier. I told the captain to radio ahead. There will be a hundred police officers waiting at Harwich. You can’t get away. Let me take Samira. There could be a doctor on board or a nurse. They’ll have medical supplies.”
Pearl doesn’t seem to care. Is that what happens when you spend most of your life in prison or committing acts that should put you there?
My scalp tingles. “Why did you kill my friend Cate and her husband?”
“Who?”
“The Beaumonts.”
His eyes, not quite level with each other, give the impression of lopsidedness until he talks and his features suddenly line up. “She was greedy.”
“How?”
“She could only pay for one baby but wanted both of them.”
“You asked her to choose?”
“Not me.”
“Someone else did?”
He doesn’t have to answer.
“That’s obscene.”
He shrugs. “Pitter or Patter—seems simple enough. Life is about choices.”
That’s what Cate meant—at the reunion—when she said they were trying to take her baby. They wanted her to pay double. Her bank account was empty. She had to choose: the boy or the girl. How can a mother make a decision like that and live for the rest of her life gazing into the eyes of one child and seeing a reflection of another that she never knew?
Pearl is still talking. “She threatened to go to the police. We warned her. She ignored it. That’s the problem with folks nowadays. Nobody takes responsibility for their actions. Make a mistake and you pay for it. That’s life.”
“Have you paid for your mistakes?”
“All my life.” His eyes are closed. He wants to go back to ignoring me.
A knock. Pearl slides the pistol from his belt and points it toward me while holding a finger to his lips. He opens the door a fraction. I can’t see a face. Someone is asking about a missing passenger. They’re looking for me.
Pearl yawns. “Is that why you woke me?”
A second voice: “Sorry, sir.”
“What does she look like?”
I can’t hear the description.
“Well, I ain’t seen her. Maybe she went for a swim.”
“I hope not, sir.”
“Yeah, well, I got to sleep.”
“Sorry, sir, you won’t be disturbed again.”
The door closes. Pearl waits for a moment, pressing his ear to the door. Satisfied, he tucks the pistol back in his belt.
There’s another knock on the door. Yanus.
“Where the fuck were you?” demands Pearl.
“Watching,” replies Yanus.
“You were supposed to fucking warn me.”
“Would have made no difference. They’re knocking on every door. They won’t come back now.”
Samira sits bolt upright screaming. The contraction is brutal and I scissor my legs around her, holding her still. An unseen force possesses her, racking her body in spasms. I find myself drawn to her pain. Caught up in it. Breathing when she breathes.
Another contraction comes almost immediately. Her back arches and her knees rise up.
“I have to push now.”
“No!”
“I have to.”
This is it. I can’t stop her. Sliding out from behind her, I lie her down and take off her underwear.
Pearl is unsure of what to do. “Take deep breaths, that’s a good girl. Good deep breaths. You thirsty? I’ll get you a drink of water.”
He fills a glass in the small bathroom and returns.
“Shouldn’t you be checking the cervix?” he asks.
“And I suppose you know all about it.”
“I seen movies.”
“Take over anytime you want.”
His tone softens. “What can I do?”
“Run some hot water in the sink. I need to wash my hands.”
Samira unclenches her teeth as the pain eases. Short panting breaths become longer. She focuses on Pearl and begins issuing instructions. She needs things—scissors and string, clips and towels. For a moment I think she’s delirious but soon realize that she knows more about childbirth than any of us.
He opens the door and passes on the instructions to Yanus. They argue. Pearl threatens him.
Samira has another instruction. Men cannot be present at the birth. I expect Pearl to say no but I see him wavering.
I tell him: “Look at this place. We can’t go anywhere. There’s one door and a porthole fifty feet above the water.”
He accepts this and glances at his watch. It’s after two. “An hour from now she has to be back in the truck.” His hand is on the door handle. He turns and addresses me.
“My ma is a good Catholic. Pro-life, you understand? She’d say there were already five people in this room, babies included. When I come back I expect to see the same number. Keep them alive.”
He closes the door and Samira relaxes a little. She asks me to fetch a flannel from the bathroom. She folds it several times and wedges it between her teeth when she feels a contraction coming.
“How do you know so much?”
“I have seen babies born,” she explains. “Women would sometimes come to the orphanage to give birth. They left the babies with us because they could not take them home.”
Her contractions are coming forty seconds apart. Her eyes bulge and she bites down hard on the flannel. The pain passes.
“I need you to see if I’m ready,” she whispers.
“How?”
“Put two fingers inside me to measure.”
“How do I tell?”
“Look at your fingers,” she says. “See how long they are. Measure with them.”
Opening her legs, I do as she asks. I have never touched a woman so intimately or been so terrified.
“I think you’re ready.”
She nods, clenching the flannel between her teeth through the first part of the contraction and then breathing in short bursts, trying to ease the pain. Tears squeeze from her eyes and mingle with her sweat. I smell her exertions.
“I have to get to the floor,” she says.
“Are you going to pray?”
“No. I’m going to have a baby.”
She squats with her legs apart, bracing her arms between the bunk and the bench table. Gravity is going to help her.
“You must feel for the baby’s head,” she says.
My hand is inside her, turning and dipping. I feel a baby’s head. It’s crowning. Should there be blood?
“They will kill you after the babies are born,” whispers Samira. “You must get out of here.”
“Later.”
“You must go now.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
There’s a knock on the door. I undo the latch and Pearl hands me scissors, a ball of string and a rusty clip. Yanus hisses from behind him. “Keep the bitch quiet.”
“Fuck you! She’s having a baby.”
Yanus makes a lunge for me. Pearl pushes him back and closes the door.
Samira is pushing now, three times with each contraction. She has long slender lemurlike feet, roughly calloused along the outer edges. Her chin is tucked to her throat and oily coils of her hair fall over her eyes.
“If I pass out, you must make sure you get the babies out. Don’t leave them inside me.” Teeth pull at her bottom lip. “Do whatever you have to.”
“Shhh.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Am I bleeding a lot?”
“You’re bleeding. I don’t know if it’s too much. I can see the baby’s head.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
Existence narrows to just breathing, pain and pushing. I brush hair from her eyes and crouch between her legs. Her face contorts. She screams into the flannel. The baby’s head is out. I hold it in my cupped hand, feeling the dips and hollows of the skull. The shoulders are trapped. Gently I put my finger beneath its chin and the tiny body rotates within her. On the next contraction the right shoulder appears, then the left, and the baby slides into my hands.
A boy.
“Rub your finger down his nose,” gasps Samira.
It takes only a fingertip to perform the task. There is a soft, shocked sob, a rattle and a breath.
Samira issues more instructions. I am to use the string and tie off the umbilical cord in two places, cutting between the knots. My hands are shaking.
She is crying. Spent. I help her back onto the bunk and she leans against the bulkhead wall. Wrapping the baby in a towel, I hold him close, smelling his warm breath, letting his nose brush against my cheek. Which one are you, I wonder, Pitter or Patter?
I look at my watch and make a mental note of the time: 2:55 a.m. What is the date? October 29. Where will they say he was born? In the Netherlands or Britain? And who will be his true mother? What a mixed-up way to start a life.
The contractions have started again. Samira kneads her stomach, trying to feel the unborn twin.
“What’s wrong?”
“She is facing the wrong way. You must turn her.”
“I don’t know how.”
Each new contraction brings a groan of resignation. Samira is almost too exhausted to cry out; too tired to push. I have to hold her up this time. She squats. Her thighs part still further.
Reaching inside her, I try to push the baby back, turning her body, fighting gravity and the contractions. My hands are slick. I’m frightened of hurting her.
“It’s coming.”
“Push now.”
The head arrives with a gush of blood. I glimpse something white with blue streaks wrapped around its neck.
“Stop! Don’t push!”
My hand slides along the baby’s face until my fingers reach beneath her chin and untangle the umbilical cord.
“Samira you really need to push the next time. It’s very important.”
The contraction begins. She pushes once, twice…nothing.
“Push.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. One last time, I promise.”
She throws back her head and muffles a scream. Her body stiffens and bucks. A baby girl emerges, blue, slick, wrinkled, cupped in both my hands. I rub her nose. Nothing. I hold her on her side, sweeping my index finger round her mouth and throat, trying to clear the dripping goo.
I drape her over my hand, with her arms and legs dangling and slap her back hard. Why won’t she breathe?
Putting her on a towel I begin chest compressions with the tips of my index and middle fingers. At the same time I lower my lips and puff into the baby’s mouth and nose.
I know about resuscitation. I have done the training and I have witnessed paramedics do it dozens of times. Now I am breathing into a body that has never taken a breath. Come on, little one. Come on.
Samira is half on the bunk and half on the floor. Her eyes are closed. The first twin is swaddled and lying between her arm and her side.
I continue the compressions and breathing. It is like a mantra, a physical prayer. Almost without noticing, the narrowest of chests rises and eyelids flutter. Blue has become pink. She’s alive. Beautiful.
15
A girl an
d a boy—Pitter and Patter—each with ten fingers and ten toes, squashed-up noses, tiny ears. Rocking back on my heels, I feel like laughing with relief, until I catch my reflection in the mirror. I am smeared with blood and tears yet have a look of complete wonderment on my face.
Samira groans softly.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It will stop when I feed them.”
How does she know so much? She is massaging her belly, which ripples and sways in its emptiness. I swaddle the baby girl and tuck her next to Samira.
“Go now!”
“I can’t leave you.”
“Please!”
An extraordinary calmness washes through me. I have only two options—to fight or to fall. I take the scissors, weighing them in my hand. Maybe there is a way.
I open the door. Pearl is in the passage.
“Quickly! I need a drinking straw. The girl. Her lungs are full of fluid.”
“What if I can’t?”
“A ballpoint pen, a tube, anything like that. Hurry!”
I close the door. He will leave Yanus to watch the passage.
Taking the babies from Samira, I lie them side by side on the floor of the bathroom, tucked between the sink and the toilet. Cupping my hands beneath the running water, I wash away the blood and clean my face.
I have been trained to use a firearm. I can shoot a perfect score with a pistol from thirty yards on an indoor range. What good is that now? My hand-to-hand skills are defensive but I know the vital organs. I glance again at the scissors.
It is a plan I can only try once. Lying on the bathroom floor, I face the bedroom, holding the scissors like an ice pick with a reverse grip. My thumb hooks through the handle. If I look toward my toes, I can see the babies.
Taking a deep breath I open my lungs, screaming for help. How long will it take?
Yanus shoulders the door open, shattering the lock. He charges inside, holding the knife ahead of him. In mid-stride he looks down. Beneath his raised foot is the afterbirth, purple slick and glistening. I don’t know what he imagines it to be, but the possibilities are too much for him to comprehend. He rears back and I drive the scissors into the soft flesh behind his right knee, aiming for the artery and the tendons that work his leg. The knee buckles and he swings his arm down in an arc trying to stab me but I’m too low and the blade sweeps past my ear.
The Night Ferry Page 27
