She sighed, pulled the blanket up her chest and caught it under her arms. Fred sat back down in the chair. She hunched over the device and spoke to it in Chinese, sounding peremptory and challenging. On the bottom half of Fred’s glasses he read in red script,
This is Chan Qi. What do you want?
New text appeared after a pause of about six seconds: more Chinese characters on the screen, and now a machine voice speaking in Chinese. Fred saw the line of red sentences overlaid on his vision of Qi’s face, looking sweaty and very intent.
I want your help. We need to work with each other, not against each other.
Qi replied angrily, and the glasses scrolled, Why should I help you? Someone is trying to kill me!
More characters appeared in rapid succession:
It is not me or my people doing that. I need your help. I have just been elected president. We have the fate of China in our hands.
“Wow,” Qi said, glancing up at Fred. “Can it be true?”
He shrugged; he had no idea.
She rolled her eyes, spoke in Chinese.
What about my father? Why was not he elected?
He backed me. The Politburo elected me. He was appointed premier. He will be helping me.
Why should he help you?
We have been working together a long time. I told him I know where you are and I am trying to keep you safe.
Qi spoke angrily. You do not know where I am and the people you sent up here with Ta Shu have been trying to kill me. They are still trying to kill me.
I did not send anyone up with Ta Shu.
The people who joined him said they were from you and they have been chasing us ever since.
They are probably from the military. From Red Spear.
Qi paused to take this in. Then she spoke slowly and emphatically. If that is true, you had better be careful. They will try to kill you too.
We have control of the military. The Central Military Command is backing me.
Qi spoke at more length. I hope that is true. But some people there around you like what Red Spear is doing. They are still doing it. You will not stay president long unless you can control every part of the military and the security services.
This time the delay was longer. Then: I know that. People are helping with that. Someone inside the Great Firewall is broadcasting through all the media here, calling for peaceful negotiations. If you were to ask your people to get off the streets. To go home. That would help too.
Qi shook her head as she read this, spoke sharply. I cannot control the billion.
You can help. You cannot control the billion. I cannot control the military. No one can control these messages from nowhere. No one can control anything. But we can try and if we help each other. If we speak together on this. It might happen we can save many lives.
Qi stared at the screen. Then she hunched over and groaned. Fred’s glasses transcribed this as Ah. When she could speak, she said something brief.
I will do what I can. Let us talk later. I am having a baby now.
Oh I see. Good luck. I will do what I can here. I hope to talk with you again soon.
Tell my father I am okay. Tell him to speak for me. I do not have any way to contact my people anymore.
I can convey to people what you are saying now.
Qi hesitated, groaned again. Ah. Do that then. People. Chan Qi here. Good work so far. Let the new leadership enact the reforms. Stay vigilant. See if the new leadership will represent us. Stay vigilant!
Then she said some last brief thing and handed the device back to Fred.
He ended the transmission, looking through the words Break the red spear.
Then she was groaning again, and Fred bounced off the walls in his attempt to swiftly assemble towels and sheets, also looking under the sink for cups or pots or basins. He saw that it might be possible to disassemble the other bed frame and attach part of it to her bed, where it might serve as something to place her feet against when she started pushing. She cursed that idea when he mentioned it, so he dropped it.
He stood by her during her contractions and held her right hand. She squeezed his hand so hard he had to resist by squeezing back, or else his bones would be broken. She closed her eyes so hard her eyelids went white. She clenched her teeth, she hissed. It was like some extremely intense athletic effort that she could not choose not to make. Like trying to lift five hundred pounds with a leg press. Each time some deeper part of her would eventually realize she couldn’t do it, that it would break her, and only then would her body relent for a while. Then she would get caught up again by another unwilled attempt. Her whole body clenched during these efforts, and watching her Fred became convinced that some resistance for her to push against with her feet would help the effort. So in the interval between contractions he got up and found a tool kit in the closet, then went to the other bed, unscrewed one end of the bedstead, and pulled it out of its sleeving in the horizontal part. He put that bedstead over the middle of her bed, but the bedstead legs were the same width as the frame. This was frustrating, and he slammed the ends of the bedstead against the floor, launching himself a bit each time, until they were bent far enough inward that he could jam them down inside her mattress frame, leaving a bar like a football field’s goalposts there over her bed.
That gave her something, and when the next contraction came she put her feet up on the crossbar of the inserted bedstead without him asking, and grunted as she pushed, but even with his whole weight pressing against it, shoving back against her effort as hard as he could, he couldn’t keep her from kicking the bedstead down into him until he was jammed between it and her bed’s bedstead, and her legs were almost straight. “Shit,” he said as he extricated himself.
“No shit,” she said.
“How are you coming?”
“Hurts. Get that thing to stay in place, I think it will help.”
“Okay.” He rummaged in the tool chest, ransacked the cabinets. He was bouncing around the room like a pinball, but nothing. Nothing but a roll of duct tape. “Shit. Okay, tell me where you want it.” He held up the roll for her to see.
“Damn,” she said. “Okay, worth a try. Put it about here,” and she held her legs up in the air, feet only a bit farther toward the end of the bed than her bottom. He put the bedstead in that position and then duct-taped both ends to the frame in a crisscross pattern, many turns on each side.
Right about when he was finishing that, and beginning to think the room was far too warm, another contraction clutched her. It had been about four minutes. Now she had something to brace her feet against, but it was only braced at the fulcrum, down below her mattress; he had to hold the upper part in position against her pushing. He couldn’t do it; not even close. The duct tape held but twisted, and she pushed the top bar over no matter how hard he threw his body against it. “Damn,” he said. “You’re strong.”
She shook her head, red-faced and sweating. “The contractions are strong. Can you see any changes? Any progress.”
He gulped and took a look between her legs, put the blanket back over her. “Dilated,” he said, guessing. He hadn’t seen any rubber gloves in the cabinets inside the closet, and didn’t want to put his fingers inside her anyway; he had no idea what to do, how or what to measure, he could only mess things up. They were stuck with nature alone.
“I don’t think my feet up helps,” she said. “I want to try pulling on the bar with my arms instead.”
This meant the pressure on the bar would come from the opposite side, so before her next contraction Fred duct-taped the bar in long loops to the foot of her bed. Then she had another contraction, and pulled herself up on the bar.
“Damn!” she exclaimed when she was done. Then she was laughing and crying at the same time, puffing in and out as if after some desperate sprint.
“Was that better?” Fred asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should squat,” she said. “I read that’s one way to do it. Squat in the shower o
r something.”
“Would that work in this gravity? Wouldn’t you just stand up when the contractions hit?”
“Maybe so.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to stand anyway.”
“I could try to help you keep your balance.”
“No.”
“If you were crouching I could hold you down.”
“No you couldn’t.” Then her eyes squeezed shut white and she began again, pulling herself up from the bar trembling over her.
“Big breaths,” he said. “Push on the out breath, relax when you breathe in. Push hard.” In fact he had no idea. He didn’t even know what he was saying.
This time the new arrangement allowed her to push in a way she seemed to want. Her thighs banded and trembled. Her body arched until only the back of her head was touching the bed. In the midst of her huffing and puffing she yelped, and Fred jumped in surprise, flying backward in a slow arc to the floor. He returned to her side, held her shoulders. Lunar g was not enough for her now. She was clenching her fists, they were as white as her eyelids. It was good he wasn’t holding hands with her at that moment, his hand would have been crushed for sure.
When that contraction relented, she relaxed back onto the bed, sucked air until she had caught her breath. He went to the sink and wet a towel with water, returned to wipe her forehead and smooth her hair back. Her skin was glowing and she radiated heat. “That felt a little better,” she said. “Any progress?”
He checked her out again, and there between her legs was a round opening several centimeters across, filled with black—the top of the baby’s head, its hair wet.
“Crown!” he said, understanding the use of the word in this context for the first time. “I see the crown!”
“Good. It’s coming out headfirst.”
“Yes.”
After that things went in a blur. Her contractions hit one after the next, and the idea that this was some kind of athletic event she couldn’t refuse began to look wrong; this had gone beyond athletics into something pitiless and superhuman. He risked holding her hand, took the pain and squeezed back as hard as he could. He held his breath, he counted, he said things that neither of them heard. He was completely there and completely not there; he was so terrified he felt nothing. She cried out during each contraction now, which was obviously easier than trying not to cry out. All of it was so involuntary. After each push her baby’s head was farther out of her, and eventually he had to lift it up and move it farther down the towel he had placed under her hips. That slight flare of her hips was going to save them. Clearly there should have been a basin there or something. He was feeling more and more dissociated; things were happening too fast because they were going too slowly; things were both completely bizarre and completely natural at the same time. Despite his fear, it resembled that time with the dog under the couch. It was simply the way things worked, the way they all came into the world. His electrified calm was as bizarre as all the rest of it—not dissociation, instead an unknown new feeling, filling him right to the skin. They were animals. Mammals in action. There wasn’t enough gravity. He drank a cup of water, got her to take a sip when she was in a break.
When the child’s red and black head was entirely outside her, he said, “Okay, the head’s out, the hard part’s over, let’s get the shoulders out on this next push and you’ll be done,” and he wanted to help somehow with this, but still didn’t know what to do; it wasn’t a situation where you could just pull on the kid’s head, at least so it seemed to him. Some waiting was involved, which was hard, but necks were fragile. He was holding his breath, and when he noticed that and tried to breathe, he could hardly do it. Was this joy or terror? Could there be some previously unsuspected combination of the two?
She nodded to show she had heard him, eyes clenched shut, breathing hard in and out. Gasping. Her face was red, her hair drenched with sweat, body everywhere glowing and sweaty. Gasping to catch her breath!
Then the next push shoved the kid’s shoulders out of her, and he had to move fast to pull off the added bed frame to make room for it. Then he flew to the sink, crashing into it and hurting his forearm again. Ignoring that, he washed his hands and went back and pulled the baby out gently by its head and shoulders, making use of Qi’s next contraction, twisting the babe a bit to the side so that out it slid, coated with bloody fluids, it was a naked little mess, it wasn’t breathing, its umbilical cord still ran blackly up into Qi.
“Okay it’s out,” he exclaimed, and turned it over on the bloody wet towel. “She’s out. It’s a girl.”
Immediately Qi leaned forward and took up the girl into her arms. “Cut the umbilical cord about five centimeters away from her,” Qi said urgently, staring at her child. “Tie it off first before you cut it, tie each side of the cut spot. Quick as you can.”
“Tie it with what!” Fred exclaimed.
“Anything! Hurry!”
He hopped over and got the duct tape and scissors, nearly flying past the cabinet into the closet. He got back to her and swiftly pulled and cut lengths of duct tape, then wrapped them tight around the slippery umbilical cord, which was a reddish black and twisty like a braided rope under a sheath. He cut between the wraps. It bled when he cut it but only a little. Then Qi sat back with the baby in her arms, one hand behind the babe’s head, another under her back. The baby was even more red-faced than Qi—eyes open, brown eyes, looking astounded. A grin split his face, though he was still terrified.
Qi sat back a little; Fred stuffed a pillow from the other bed behind her head and shoulders. She gave the baby a quick hard squeeze and shake. Nothing. Qi turned her head downward and shook her again, scooped a finger in her mouth, slapped her lightly on the butt. The baby suddenly snorted and then choked and breathed out then in, and then wailed. Qi and Fred shared a quick relieved look. Now all three of them were astounded. Qi folded her in her arms and held her. For a second they were in a space together, all three weeping or laughing, it was hard to tell; it was a moment. The two women were a mess. Then suddenly Qi bent forward again, in the grip of another contraction. “Just keep holding her,” Fred said, and attended to the dark goop coming out of her, putting down another towel under her bottom. “It’s the placenta I guess.”
“Ah good. Don’t eat it.”
“Okay I won’t.”
The clench relented, and Qi lay back again with the baby on her chest. The babe was goopy but breathing, eyes open then shut, tiny hands clenching Qi’s fingers, mouth already groping aimlessly around.
“Should I try to feed her already?” Qi said.
“I don’t know. It seems quick, but I don’t know.”
“What, you’ve never dealt with a newborn before?”
“No!”
She smiled, a smile he had never seen before, which seemed only right. Relief—immense relief—that was that smile. Cosmic relief. He smiled back and patted her on the head. “Good job, mom. Let’s get her cleaned up a little, maybe wrapped in a towel, and then just put her there on you where she can latch on if she wants to. I think she’ll probably do what’s right for her. We all seem programmed to do that.”
“Do you think?”
Carefully he wiped some of the fluids off the babe and Qi’s arms and chest, using yet another towel wetted with warm water. They were devastating this shelter’s linens. “There you go. Best I can do right now.”
“It’s good. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Actually Fred had been thinking she was the weirdest little creature he had ever seen, on par with a possum or an aardvark. He said, “Yes, very beautiful.”
Qi laughed, a little bit out of control. “Okay, she’s going to be beautiful. Ah God, I hope she doesn’t turn out to be some kind of gibbon.” A sudden spasm of fear squeezed her face, like a late contraction. Aha, Fred thought: welcome to parenthood!
“Gibbons are great,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”
“Maybe. Maybe so.” Suddenly she was weeping.
“It’s oka
y,” Fred said, brushing her hair off her forehead. Both women needed more cleaning up, and so did their bed. He went to the sink and soaked some more towels. “She’s going to be fine.”
Fred got them as cleaned up as he could, and gave Qi some pain meds he found in the shelter’s first aid box. She tossed them down and drank three cups of water. He lay down on the other bed, and briefly all three of them fell asleep.
When he woke he had to pee, so he went into the little bathroom to do that. As he was finishing he heard Qi cry out desperately, “Fred! Where are you!” and he rushed out to her, heart thudding in his chest.
“What is it?” he exclaimed, imagining trouble with the baby.
“Oh there you are!” she said, twisting to look at him. “I thought you were gone!”
“No,” he said, nonplussed.
She reached out and grabbed him by the hand. “You’ll stay with me?”
“Of course.”
“Good!” She heaved a great juddering sigh. “Because I need you.”
The baby girl was wrapped in a towel and lying across Qi’s lap. Now she woke, and Qi shifted her up and she began to nurse like a kitten, eyes closed as she sucked rhythmically and hard on Qi’s breast. “Is she getting anything?” Qi asked.
“You’re asking me?” Fred said. “What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anything’s coming.”
“There must be. Look, you can see a little milk come out of the nipple after she comes off.”
“Good.” She grimaced at one little bite as the babe latched on.
“Does it hurt?”
“I guess a little. Actually, after what just happened, I don’t know if anything will ever hurt again.”
“They say you forget.”
“I hope so.”
At a certain point the baby peed and pooped into her towel wrap, and Fred realized he would have to cut up some towels to use as diapers. Possibly the already bloodied towels could be washed out enough to make them suitable for diapers. He began to think about optimal shapes for a diaper. Some kind of triangle, or maybe an X. The babe’s first stool was black and tarry, and he worried there might be something wrong with her. She had been through a strange nine months. It seemed like the possibilities for problems were very real. And there would be no way of knowing about a lot of them for a long time to come. And she did look odd, somewhat like the baby primates he had sometimes watched in zoos.
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