The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur - Страница 102

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Soon, Nam Child, very soon now, she smiled happily, but Centaine's reply choked off as another spasm caught her. Ah, the child is impatient! H'ani nodded.

The spasm passed and Centaine lay and panted, but she had barely caught her breath before she stiffened again.

Oh, H'ani, hold my hand, please! PleaseV

Something burst deep within Centaine's body and hot liquid poured from her, and sprayed down her legs.

Close, very close now, H'ani assured her, and Centame gave a little hunted cry.

Now- H'ani pulled her into a sitting position, but she slumped back.

It's coming, Hlani. Get up! H'ani snapped at her. You must help it now.

Get up. You cannot help the baby if you lie on your back! She forced Centaine into a squatting position, with her feet and knees splayed apart, the natural position for voiding.

Hold the tree to steady yourself, she instructed her urgently. There! She guided Centaine's hands on to the rough bark and Centaine moaned and pressed her forehead hard against the trunk.

Now! H'ani knelt behind her, and encircled Centaine's body with her thin wiry arms.

Oh, H'ani, Centaine's cry rose sharply.

Yes! I will help you push him out. And she tightened her grip as Centaine bore down instinctively. Push, Nam Child, hard! Hard! Push! H'ani entreated her as she felt the girl's stomach muscles bunch up and harden into bands of iron.

There was a great blockade within her and Centaine clung to the tree and strained and moaned, and then she felt the obstruction move a little, then jam hard again.

H'ani! she cried, and the thin arms locked around her and the old woman moaned with her as they strained together. H'ani's naked body was pressed to Centaine's arched back, and she felt strength flowing out of the old wizened flesh like an electrical current.

Again, Nam Child, H'ani grunted in her ear. He is close, so close. Now! Nam child, push hard. Centaine bore down with all her strength and will. Her jaws were clenched so that she thought her teeth would crack, and her eyes swelled in their sockets. Then she felt something tear, a stinging burning pain, but despite the pain she found strength for another rigorous convulsion. it moved again, then there was a rush, a release and something enormous and impossibly heavy slid out of her at the same moment H'ani's hand reached under I her buttocks to guide and welcome and protect.

Like a benediction, the pain wilted away, and left her I shaking as though in high fever and running with her I own sweat, but empty, blessedly empty, as though her viscera had been drawn out of her.

H'ani released her grip, and Centaine clutched at the treetrunk for support, and drew long ragged breaths.

Then she felt something hot and wet and slippery squirming between her feet, and she pushed herself wearily away from the treetrunk and looked down. A tangle of fleshy glistening tubes still dangled out of her, and joined to them, enmeshed in their coils, the infant lay in a pool of blood-speckled fluid on the gemsbok-skin mat.

it was small, she was surprised at how small, but its clutching and kicking limbs were stretching in spasmodic gestures. The face was turned away from her but the M;, small neat head was covered with a dense cap of sodden black curls, plastered to the skull.

H'ani's hands reached down between her legs from behind and lifted the baby out of her sight. Instantly Centaine felt a devastating sense of deprivation, but she was too weak to protest. She felt a gentle twitching and tugging on the umbilical cord as H'ani handled the child, and then suddenly there was a furious squalling howl. It struck Centaine to the heart.

Then H'ani's laughter joined in chorus with the angry bawls. Centaine had never heard a sound of such unequivocal joy.

Oh, listen to him, Nam Child. He roars like a lion cub! Centaine waddled around awkwardly, hampered by the fleshy ropes dangling from her own body and still linking her to the infant. He was struggling in H'ani's hands, all wet and defiant, his face red with anger and his bee-stung eyes tight closed, but his toothless pink mouth wide as he howled his outrage.

A boy, H'ani? Centaine panted wildly.

Oh yes, H'ani laughed, by all means, a boy, and with the tip of her forefinger she tickled his tiny penis. it stuck out stiffly as though to endorse his anger, and at H'ani's touch released a powerful arcing jet of urine.

Look! Look! H'ani choked with laughter. He pisses on the world. Bear witness, all the Spirits of this place, a veritable lion cub has been birthed this day. She offered the squirming red-faced infant to Centaine.

Clean his eyes and nose, she ordered, and, like a mother cat, Centaine did not need further instruction.

She licked the mucus from the tiny swollen eyelids, from his nostrils and mouth.

Then H'ani took the child, handling him with familiar expertise, and she tied off the umbilical cord with the soft white inner bark threads of the mongongo tree, before severing it with a quick slash of her bone knife. Then she rolled the end of the tube in the medicinal leaves of the wild quince and bound it in place with a rawhide strip around his middle.

Sitting on the soiled gemsbok skin, in a puddle of her own blood and amniotic fluids, Centaine watched her work with shining eyes. Now! H'ani nodded with vast self-satisfaction.

He is ready for the breast. And she placed him in Centaine's lap.

He and Centaine needed only the barest introduction.

H'ani squeezed Centaine's nipple and touched the milkwet tip to the infant's lips, and he fastened on it like a leech, with a noisy rhythmic suction. For a few moments Centaine was startled by the sudden sharp sympathetic contractions of her womb as the child suckled, but this was lost and forgotten in the wonder and mystery of examining her incredible accomplishment.

Gently she unfolded his fist and marvelled at the perfection of each tiny pink finger, at the pearly nails, each no bigger than a grain of rice, and when he suddenly seized her finger in the surprisingly powerful grip, he squeezed her heart as well. She stroked his damp dark hair, and as it dried it sprang up into ringlets. It awed her to see the pulsing movement under the thin membrane that covered the opening of his skull.

He stopped suckling and lay quiescent in her arms, so she could take him from her breast and examine his face.

He was smiling. Apart from the puffy eyelids, his features were well formed, not squashed and rubbery like those of the other newborn infants she had seen. His brow was broad and deep and his nose was large. She thought of Michael, no it was More arrogant than Michael's nose and then she remembered General Sean Courtney. t That's it! she chuckled aloud. The true Courtney nose.

The infant stiffened and broke wind simultaneously both fore and aft, a trickle of her milk dribbled from the i corner of his mouth, and instantly he began to hunt for I the nipple again, mouthing demandingly, rolling his head from side to side. Centaine changed him to her other arm, and guided her nipple into his open mouth.

Kneeling in front of her, H'ani was working between Centaine's knees. Centaine winced and bit her lip as the afterbirth came free, and H'ani wrapped it in the leaves of the elephant-ear plant, tied it with bark and scampered away into the grove with the bundle.

When she returned, the child was asleep in Centaine's lap, with his legs splayed and his belly tight as a balloon.

If you permit, I will fetch O'wa, H'ani suggested. He will have heard the birth cries. Oh, yes, fetch him quickly. Centaine had forgotten the old man, and now was delighted at the opportunity to exhibit her marvelous acquisition.

O'wa came shyly and squatted a little way off, showing the usual masculine lack of temerity when faced with the feminine mystery of birth.

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