She always puts people who are out of line back in their place straightaway. She’s much braver than I am. I usually think of something I should have said as a comeback hours later, when it’s too late.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t take it out on you, or her for that matter. When the time comes, bring her down here and we’ll deal with it.”
It. It. It’s a baby coming, not an “it.”
She turns her back to me and focuses all her attention on her patient once more. I can’t wait to get out of here anyway. The old guy on the bed doesn’t look too good.
But one of the nurses grabs me on the way out, shoving a pile of towels into my arms.
“You might need these,” she says.
“What for?” I ask, feeling a bit stupid.
“For when the waters break,” she explains. “And when the baby is coming.”
“Oh,” I say, not really understanding. I’ve never been around anyone having a baby before. I’ve heard of waters breaking, and talk of towels and hot water, but I’m not sure what all that entails. Sounds like I might be going to find out firsthand soon, whether I want to or not.
I leave the towels outside our cabin door as I can’t go in, hoping no one will take them—I can’t keep them with me all day. I wander around after that, until I meet Jade again at our now designated spot at the back of the ship looking out at the wake. I feel really close to her after our time together yesterday, but a little bit shy. I wish I knew what was really going on between us.
She’s pleased when she sees I still have my french braid in, and rubs her hand down its length, giving it a gentle tug when she reaches the end. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck. She wonders how I’ve kept it so neat, or whether someone else has helped me plait another one. I admit I hadn’t wanted to take it out, and that Sheryl had given me a tip to sleep with my shower cap on my head to stop it getting mussed up on the pillow. She said that’s what she and her twin sister used to do to protect their “dos.” Sheryl’s tip has obviously worked. Jade laughs when I tell her what I’ve done—she thinks I would’ve looked hilarious lying on my mattress on the floor in my shower cap. Then I feel silly and think maybe I shouldn’t have fessed up about that part. Maybe too much information?
But Jade quickly takes the heat off me by changing the subject and asking what I’ve been up to this morning. I fill her in about the medical center and Marta. We go for lunch, then spend the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other more. We have dinner together too, which, despite being surrounded by so many people as usual, feels like we are in our own private world. Sitting side by side at the table, I can feel her body heat, and can smell lemony soap on her skin. Sometimes she puts her hand on my knee and her palm burns on my bare skin. It leaves me feeling warm and shaky at the same time.
I finally wend my way back to our cabin, wishing Jade lived in Hobart, or even just in Tasmania, or even the mainland of Australia, as I know after all this mess is over, I’d really like to see her again. America is such a long way away, and Florida being on the east coast of the States is just about as far away as you can get from Hobart. I wonder whether she thinks about the fact that our real lives are normally so far apart.
If she does, does she care? I hope so. I really hope so.
When I get back to our cabin, I find the towels undisturbed beside the door, so I pick them up and take them in. Sheryl is flat on her back in bed, mouth slack, already soundly asleep and snoring. She’s fallen asleep before switching her machine on and putting on her mask. I was right—it looks like Sheryl can sleep after all, despite being worried about the imminent birth. Marta lies next to her, belly huge in the bed, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. Simone lies on her side on her mattress on the floor, her face turned away from me. I can’t tell if she’s awake or asleep.
The night is not to be a peaceful one. In the very early hours of the morning, the baby starts to come, and there’s no time to get Marta down to the medical center. I wake to the light being switched on and loud pants, gasps, and cries. Sheryl is already on her knees, head between Marta’s legs. I hadn’t realized Sheryl could be so agile, but maybe she just got into that position without thinking—on automatic pilot from her past life as a midwife. She had no choice but to do it. I can see some of those fresh towels the nurse gave me are already being put to use under Marta. Sheryl is muttering and encouraging Marta when to push and when not to, and how to breathe. Sometimes she tells Marta to pant.
“Go get the doctor,” says Sheryl.
I don’t need to be told twice. I can’t wait to get out of the cabin with the strange smells, noises and atmosphere. I hurtle down flights of stairs until I reach the medical center’s deck. I’m so glad I’d done my exploratory search before, as otherwise I would have wasted so much time searching for it deck by deck. The doctor is awake, despite it being the middle of the night. She looks drawn and exhausted. She sighs as she heaves herself out of her chair and follows me to our cabin.
Sheryl looks so relieved when the doctor arrives. The huge responsibility has been taken out of her hands.
The panting, followed by pushing, then resting, continues for quite some time, and I wonder how long it will all go on for. I ask Marta if she wants me to go and get her husband, but she says that in their culture giving birth only involves the women.
Finally, after quite a few hours, with a sudden rush, the baby slides out of Marta and onto the towels on the bed. I wait for the wail like you hear in movies after a baby is born, but the silence is eerie. The tiny little body lies still.
“Oh, no,” whispers Sheryl.
“What’s happening?” asks Marta, her voice worried. She too has been waiting for the cry of a healthy baby.
The doctor swiftly picks the baby up by the heels and whacks him sharply on the back—I can see the baby is a boy—but there is no response. She pokes around in the baby’s mouth to remove some gunk to clear his airway, and then breathes very gently into his mouth while alternating with gently tapping his tiny chest with two fingertips. Still no response. The doctor then puts him over her shoulder. Nothing. The baby hangs limply. The little boy is blue. And he is so, so tiny and fragile-looking. He must have been born a bit too early, or there may have been something wrong with him.
The doctor carefully examines the baby, and then she and Sheryl deal with the cord. It isn’t that much later that what I think must be the placenta flops out too. Sheryl tells me to get the plastic laundry bag to package up the mess. I feel like heaving, as I have to touch the placenta with my bare hands as, of course, there are no gloves for me to use. I dump it all in the bin in the bathroom, then scrub my hands furiously with soap and hot water, as hot as I can bear it.
What on earth are we going to do with the placenta long-term? We can’t leave it in the bathroom for days on end. And what about the baby? He’s clearly not alive.
When I come out of the bathroom, the doctor looks around at all of us and says, “We can leave the baby with the mother for an hour or so for bonding and mourning, but after that we must remove the body.”
I think it’s kind of the doctor to consider Marta’s feelings, to give her time to spend with her baby before losing him forever. Maybe the doctor isn’t as bad as she first appeared—perhaps she’s just overwhelmed with all the sick cases she’s dealing with, far more than she would on a normal cruise. It isn’t just the sheer number of passengers—it would be that the new passengers taken on board are of all ages and in different states of health, with different medical needs. She must be so tired.
Sheryl has tears in her eyes as Marta reaches out to the doctor to take the baby and place him on her chest. My throat feels thick with emotion, and my stomach is tight.
Marta grabs my hand. “Please get my husband now,” she begs. “Cabin 5074. His name is Jonas. He has brown—”
“Don’t worry, I remember what he looks like from when you two first came to our cabin,” I say, squeezing her hand, trying to reassure her.
I run to find his cabin and knock on the door. No response. I knock louder. It takes a while before a man in pajamas with rumpled hair, rubbing his sleepy eyes, answers the door. Jonas is right behind him and pushes past him into the corridor before I’ve even had a chance to say a word. He and I race back to my cabin. He rushes straight in and kneels beside the bed, one hand holding Marta’s and the other stroking the tiny baby’s head. The baby’s sweet little feet are nestled in one of Marta’s palms.
I wonder what they’re going to do with the body of the baby, but we’re soon to find out.
“We’ll have to bury the baby at sea. A sea burial. I’m so sorry,” the doctor says to Marta and Jonas. “We’re not able to keep the baby’s body on board for any length of time in this situation.”
“A freezer,” says Marta, her eyes imploring the doctor. “He can stay in a freezer.”
Marta carefully strokes the baby’s tiny, perfect fingers one by one, caressing the minute fingernails.
“I’m so sorry,” repeats the doctor. “None of us really has any idea what’s going on here, and what the end result of all this will be. It’s best to have a service here on board. It will be more dignified that way—I’m sure you’d want that for your baby.”
Marta looks deeply into Jonas’s eyes, then nods her head. She can see the logic. They can’t carry a dead baby around with them when they finally get off the ship, as who knows what awaits them, or exactly when that will be anyway. Or where.
The doctor stays with them for a time, then leaves, while the rest of us go out and stand in the corridor to give Marta and Jonas some privacy alone with their baby. We don’t care who sees us in our pajamas.
Chapter Nine: Day Eight Ship
THE BABY’S burial takes place later this morning. When we have to leave our cabin for the next shift, I take the wrapped-up placenta, and soiled sheets and towels, and put them in my daypack to transport them to a waste disposal unit. I know I’ll never use that daypack again, but I have to put the package in something to carry it safely. I don’t want it to spill out of the plastic laundry bag in a corridor or on the deck. I have no idea what Sheryl and Marta will do for sheets now that their only set is soiled, but that thought is probably furthest from their minds at the moment. After I get rid of my sad cargo, I run up to the deck where I know the ceremony is to take place.
The doctor has wrapped the baby in a towel and secured the cloth with several large stitches. Marta holds the tiny bundle against her chest, her face pale, tears coursing down her cheeks. Jonas stands beside her, arm around her shoulders. He too has an ashen face. Marta takes the little pink shell from her pocket and tucks it gently into a fold in the baby’s towel. It’s an unbearable scene to watch. They must have had such high hopes for their baby and their new family, and now all that has been taken away. They would have no idea what their future holds.
The captain of the ship is to perform the burial ceremony. He wears his full ceremonial outfit, gold and brass sparkling in the sun, the whites of his clothes dazzling, his black shoes polished to a high shine. He looks utterly exhausted, dark rings under his eyes. I wonder how much sleep he’s been able to get in the last few days. He says a few words, reading from a Bible, then encourages several people to step forward to lead the crowd in prayer. As the prayers fade away, a lone voice starts singing a mournful-sounding song, which is soon taken up by those who know the words. It must be in the local language of their country, as I can’t understand what they’re singing, but I can feel their sentiment. Everyone is somber, and many hold the palms of their right hands against their chests next to their hearts. People cry unashamedly, tears wet on their cheeks. Some openly sob.
Finally, the captain gently takes the wrapped-up baby from his mother’s arms and puts the tiny body onto what looks like a large wooden chopping board. Maybe it is. Someone cries out, “Wait,” and a man pushes his way through the gathered crowd, brandishing a small flag on a stick. He, or one of his family members, must have brought it with them in their luggage as one of their most treasured possessions when they had to leave their islands. The man holding the flag tugs hard to release the flag from its stick, and upon reaching the captain, drapes the little flag over the baby in the towel. It’s a pitiful sight, but the flag makes the tiny bundle look so much more dignified.
The captain holds the wooden board with the baby’s body resting on it over the side of the ship. The captain stands for a moment, arms outstretched, seemingly gazing at the horizon. Marta gasps and takes a step toward him, but her husband says, “Shh, shh,” and pulls her back gently into his arms. She tries to tug away again, but as she does so the captain sighs deeply and slowly tips the board at an angle to let the parcel slide off, holding on to the flag by its corners with his index fingers. Looking over the side, I can see the towel-wrapped body fall, finally splashing into the ocean far below. It floats for a few moments, a minute package in the vast ocean. It quickly drifts behind us as the ship motors on relentlessly; then it dips beneath the white-crested waves. The baby is gone.
The captain gives the wooden board to a crew member next to him, then reverently folds up the small flag. With a nod from the man who had passed it to him, he gives it to Marta with two hands. She reaches out and receives the flag with two hands too. It seems such a dignified conclusion to the ceremony. She holds the flag to her chest as if she will never let it go. The crowd parts as she and her husband stumble away, clutching each other tightly, their eyes cast down, faces tortured.
After that, we have to fill in the day somehow until we can go back into our cabin. It seems everyone on that shift is aware of what happened this morning, whether they’d seen the burial ceremony or not, and people speak in whispers or stare out to sea, silent. The baby’s death has affected all of us in different ways, and we realize we are alone on the ocean.
Even mealtimes are desultory affairs, with people queuing quietly at the buffet. Usually there’s a bit of shoving and pushing, as passengers are becoming increasingly short-tempered with all they’re having to put up with, but this tragedy has marked us all. We look at each other with a newfound respect. A life has been lost, a life that never had the chance to live. Who knows whether more lives will be lost on this cattle crate before we are freed from our confinement. I look around at my fellow passengers and see with fresh eyes just how vulnerable many of them seem. The old, the infirm, some with injuries they’d come on board with, several more pregnant women—anything could happen healthwise in this situation, and it will have to be dealt with here and now. Nobody is coming to rescue us. Nobody seems to know where we are. And none of us know where we are going or how long it will really take us to get there. Even though they said about four or five days, how do we know if that’s true? And what will happen then?
I realize I have to try and stay positive, despite Marta’s situation. I meet up with Jade, and even though I want to spend time with her, I tell her I really need to spend the rest of the day with poor Sheryl, who is beating herself up that she must have done something wrong, must have missed something, causing the baby to die. Marta and her husband Jonas had thanked Sheryl for her help, so it seems they aren’t holding her responsible. Luckily, as she is blaming herself enough for something that wasn’t her fault—something she worked so hard to help with, and it had all turned to tragedy. Jade squeezes my hand tight and tells me I’m so thoughtful. Nobody has ever said that to me before. I feel myself glowing under her praise. She says she understands, and to go to see Sheryl.
Marta has been taken down to the medical center to check everything is okay postbirth and is to stay there overnight, so that night our cabin seems eerily empty without her. I hop in with Sheryl in the king-size bed, sharing my single bed sheets with her as she no longer has any to use. We are a bit cozy due to the width of the sheets, but after our terrible day, I think we both appreciate feeling the warmth of another human being so close. I can’t get out of my head the image of that little parcel slipping into the ocea
n, nor the feeling of Jade’s hand gripping mine.
Chapter Ten: Day Nine Ship
WE’RE ABRUPTLY jolted from sleep by the ship pitching and tossing around. I’ve been dreaming of riding a horse, knees dug in tight to the horse’s flank, and barely being able to hang on to the reins, so maybe that was the movement entering my consciousness before I fully woke to the reality. I almost roll off the bed onto the floor, and once I’ve switched on the light I can see Sheryl is hanging on to the bedhead for grim death, to stop her falling out of bed. Simone is sitting bolt upright on her mattress. Loud groans and moans seem to be coming from all around us, and from deep within the ship itself. It sounds like it’s being wrenched apart by giant hands.
“What’s going on?” says Sheryl, nervous.
“We must be in a storm,” I say. “It’s pretty wild. I’m going to go outside and have a look.”
“Be careful, dearie,” says Sheryl. I forgive her the “dearie” under the circumstances.
Normally I don’t leave our cabin during our hot-bed shift, as I want to make the most of our limited time here, but I’m determined to see what’s going on. And my stomach tells me I need fresh air, and fast. I’ve never felt this bad when we go sailing with Dad, but then again Mum always gives us some ginger tablets, with orders to chew them as soon as we get on board. But this sea is much rougher. I drag on my dressing gown and step out of the cabin.
It’s really difficult walking along the corridor, and I’m weaving like I’m drunk to the eyeballs. My feet patter along almost without my control as the ship dips and leaps, and my stomach keeps flipping over. I find myself lurching from one side of the corridor to the other, so finally I hold on tight to the handrail on one side so I can walk a bit more steadily. Slowly I make my way to the end of the corridor and haul myself up the stairs, still hanging on to handrails. Other passengers are colliding with me or bumping into the walls with the motion of the ship.
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