The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [190]
Yu did this at his desk, and on seeing it, he looked up in considerable surprise. Hed expected a Bible, but this one must have cost hundreds of American dollars … It was an edition of the King James version in beautifully literate Mandarin … and magnificently illustrated. Yu stood and walked around the desk to embrace his Italian colleague.
"May the Lord Jesus bless you for this, Renato," Yu said, with no small emotion.
"We both serve Him as best we can. I thought of it, and it seemed something you might wish to have," DiMilo replied, as he might to a good parish priest in Rome, for that was what Yu was, wasnt it? Close enough, certainly.
For his part, Barry Wise cursed that he hadnt quite gotten his camera running for that moment. "We dont often see Catholics and Baptists this friendly," the reporter observed.
Yu handled the answer, and this time the camera was rolling. "We are allowed to be friends. We work for the same boss, as you say in America." He took DiMilos hand again and shook it warmly. He rarely received so sincere a gift, and it was so strange to get it here in Beijing from what some of his American colleagues called papists, and, an Italian one at that. Life really did have purpose after all. Reverend Yu had sufficient faith that he rarely doubted that, but to have it confirmed from time to time was a blessing.
The contractions came too fast, and too hard. Lien-Hua withstood it as long as she could, but after an hour, it felt as though someone had fired a rifle into her belly. Her knees buckled. She did her best to control it, to remain standing, but it was just too much. Her face turned pasty-white, and she collapsed to the cement floor. A co-worker was there at once. A mother herself, she knew what she beheld.
"It is your time?" she asked.
"Yes." Delivered with a gasp and a painful nod.
"Let me run and get Quon." And she was off at once. That bit of help was when things went bad for Lotus Flower.
Her supervisor noted one running employee, and then turned his head to see another prostrate one. He walked over, as one might to see what had happened after an automobile accident, more with curiosity than any particular desire to intervene. Hed rarely taken note of Yang Lien-Hua. She performed her function reliably, with little need for chiding or shouting, and was popular with her co-workers, and that was all he knew about her, really, and all that he figured he needed to know. There was no blood about. She hadnt fallen from some sort of accident or mechanical malfunction. How strange. He stood over her for a few seconds, seeing that she was in some discomfort and wondering what the problem was, but he wasnt a doctor or a medic, and didnt want to interfere. Oh, if shed been bleeding he might have tried to slap a bandage over the wound or something, but this wasnt such a situation and so he just stood there, as he figured a manager should, showing that he was there, but not making things worse. There was a medical orderly in the first-aid room two hundred meters away. The other girl had probably run that way to fetch her, he thought.
Lien-Huas face contorted after a few minutes relative peace, as another contraction began. He saw her eyes screw closed and her face go pale, and her breathing change to a rapid pant. Oh, he realized, thats it. How odd. He was supposed to know about such things, so that he could schedule substitutions on the line. Then he realized something else. This was not an authorized pregnancy. Lien-Hua had broken the rules, and that wasnt supposed to happen, and it could reflect badly on his department, and on him as a supervisor … and he wanted to own an automobile someday.
"What is happening here?" he asked her.
But Yang Lien-Hua was in no shape to reply at the moment. The contractions were accelerating much faster than theyd done with Ju-Long. Why couldnt this have waited until Saturday? she demanded of Destiny. Why does God wish my child to die aborting? She did her best to pray through the pain, doing her