The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [3]
I felt the contents of my stomach rise and settle in the middle of my chest when the baby’s head entered her canal. Still I felt some relief, even though I know she did not. I told myself, Now I can see a child will truly come of this agony; this is not entirely impossible.
In spite of my hopefulness, the baby stopped coming forward and lay at the near end of her birth canal, as though it had suddenly changed its mind and decided not to leave. Numbed by the pain, the señora did not move, either.
“Señora, it is time,” I said.
“Time for what?” she asked, her small rounded teeth hammering her lower lip.
“It’s time to push out your child. I see the head. The hair is dark and soft, in ringlets like yours.”
She pushed with all her might, like an ant trying to move a tree. The head slipped down, filling my open hand.
“Señora, this child will be yours,” I said to soothe her. “You will be its mother for the rest of your days. It will be yours like watercress belongs to water and river lilies belong to the river.”
“Like I belonged to my mother,” she chimed in, catching her breath.
“Now you will know for yourself why they say children are the prize of life.”
“Be quick!” she commanded. “I want to see it. I want to hold it. I want to know if it is a girl or a boy.”
Her forehead creased with anticipation. She tightened every muscle and propelled the child’s shoulders forward. The infant’s body fell into my arms, covering my house apron with blood.
“You have a son.” I proudly raised the child from between her legs and held him up so she could see.
The umbilical cord stretched from inside her as I cradled the boy child against my chest. I wiped him clean with an embroidered towel that I’d cut and stitched myself soon after I’d learned of the conception. I rapped twice on his bottom but he did not cry. It was Señora Valencia who cried instead.
“I always thought it would be a girl,” she said. “Every Sunday when I came out of Mass, all the little boys would crowd around my belly as though they were in love with her.”
Like Señora Valencia, her son was coconut-cream colored, his cheeks and forehead the blush pink of water lilies.
“Is he handsome? Are all his fingers and toes there?” she asked. “I don’t think I heard him cry.”
“I thought I would leave it to you to strike him again.”
I felt a sense of great accomplishment as I tore a white ribbon from one of the cradle pillows, wrapped it around the umbilical cord, then used one of the señora’s husband’s shaving blades to sever the boy from his mother. Señora Valencia was opening her arms to take him when a yell came. Not from him, but from her. A pained squawk from the back of her throat.
“It starts again!” she screamed.
“What do you feel, Señora?”
“The birth pains again.”
“It is your baby’s old nest, forcing its way out,” I said, remembering one of my mother’s favorite expressions. The baby’s old nest took its time coming out. It was like another child altogether. “You have to push once more to be certain it all leaves you.”
She pushed even harder than before. Another head of curly black hair slid down between her legs, swimming out with the afterbirth.
I hurried to put her son down in the cradle and went back to fetch the other child. I was feeling more experienced now. Reaching in the same way, I pulled out the head. The tiny shoulders emerged easily, then the scraggly legs.
The firstborn wailed as I drew another infant from between Señora Valencia’s thighs. A little girl gasped for breath, a thin brown veil, like layers of spiderwebs, covering her face. The umbilical cord had curled itself in a bloody wreath around her neck, encircling every inch between her chin and shoulders.
Señora Valencia tore the caul from her daughter’s face with her fingers. I used the blade to snip the umbilical cord from around her neck and soon the little girl cried, falling into a chorus with her brother.
“It’s a curse, isn’t it?” the señora said, taking her daughter into her arms. “A caul, and the umbilical cord too.”
She gently