Then there were the reindeer. And there must be fish here now, too.
Yes, manage they certainly would.
The next morning they were down at the edge of the mountain once more. There was no change. The sea had neither risen nor sunk. The sea remained as it was. As it did the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Meetings between neighbors were conducted, and there was general agreement, no one saw any reason why things should be different up here than down there: provided everyone had enough food for themselves and their own, barter was the order of the day. What would happen after that could be dealt with when the time came.
On the fourth night after the tidal wave, Anna was roused by Rachel’s hand on her shoulder.
“Mom,” she said. “Wake up. I think it’s begun.”
She sat bolt upright.
“Have your waters broken?” she said, reaching for the dress that was hanging on the bedpost.
Rachel nodded.
Anna got up and pulled it over her head.
“Have your contractions started?” she asked.
“Yes. I think so.”
If she thinks so, they haven’t begun, Anna thought.
“How often?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only felt them once. Just before I woke you.”
On the other side of the bed Javan raised his head, looked at them.
“What’s happening?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Anna. “Go back to sleep.”
She stroked Rachel’s arm lightly.
“We’ll go downstairs,” she said.
Rachel nodded. She stole across to the other bed, bent over Jerak, and whispered something to him before following her mother.
Omak and Ophir lay asleep on the floor downstairs. Both were snoring. A few feet beyond them lay Lamech. He, too, was asleep.
“What do we do now?” said Rachel.
“Wait,” said Anna.
They each sat down in a chair. Rachel was avoiding her with her whole body, Anna noticed. That meant she was frightened. She probably didn’t know it herself. That she inclined her body away from her, that she never met her gaze, that she only looked at the floor or over at the far wall.
After a quarter of an hour she stood up and bent forward.
“It’s beginning again,” she said.
She moaned. When the rising pain reached its climax, she gave a loud groan.
“Ooh,” she said when it was over. “I can’t stand many more of those.”
She seated herself again.
Anna took a deep breath. What was this going to be like? She was a long, long way from giving birth. Perhaps as much as twenty-four hours away.
It was going to be a nightmare.
“Rachel?” she said.
Her daughter half lifted her head, fixed her eyes somewhere in the region of Anna’s chest.
“Walking helps. Shall we do that? Go out for a walk?”
“Don’t we have to stay here?”
Anna shook her head.
“The contractions must come closer together first. That’ll take a while, you know.”
A suspicion crept into Rachel’s look.
“How long?” she asked.
Anna shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s impossible to say. A while. But walking helps. The contractions are brought on by it.”
“Let’s go then.”
Rachel hadn’t as yet seen the sea from the plateau, and they agreed that it would make a reasonable walk. The darkness was as dense as it had been every night for the past six months, but the path was wide and the terrain it followed relatively easy to travel. Four times the contractions made her stop and double up on the way down there, which took them about an hour.
When they came out onto the mountain and the sea lay pitch-black and quiet before them, to their amazement they picked out several lights shining across it. Despite being small and widely dispersed, Anna’s first thought was that the cherubim had returned. The next moment she realized that it was people on the other mountains who must have lit fires to signal that they were alive.
They counted eleven fires.
“Why haven’t we done the same?” asked Rachel.
“We’ve had enough to think about as it is,” said Anna, and smiled. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure that we light one here too.”
“They’re so beautiful,” said Rachel.
“Yes,” said Anna. “And eerie.”
Just then Rachel bent over again. This time she cried out loud. It sounded as if it were as much in anger as in pain. Anna put her arm around her and they walked toward the forest again. Not many minutes later, the next contractions arrived.
Anna was getting worried. Had she miscalculated?
Rachel screamed and swore at her side. Then she recovered, and they walked on.
And then the contractions came again.
They were at least an hour’s journey from the summer farm. They might get up there, if Rachel was dogged enough, thought Anna.
They continued like this for half an hour. They walked, Rachel weathered the contractions, they walked on.
She cried out as hard as she could now.
Then, after supporting herself against a tree with her head lowered and her hands clasped firmly around the trunk, crying out all her pain and all her rage, she straightened up, looked at her mother.
“We’ll go in there,” she said, and pointed to a boggy clearing in front of a thick belt of spruce.
“It’s not far now,” said Anna. “If you can manage it, we’ll get there.”
“I can MANAGE it!” yelled Rachel. “But I don’t WANT to!”
“Why not?” said her mother as mildly as she could.
“There are too many PEOPLE there!” Rachel yelled.
“That’s fine, then,” said her mother, taking a step back. “We’ll stay here.”
The next few hours were a torment. The contractions returned with the same regularity, and Rachel fought them with all her strength. She lay down in the marshy grass and rolled to and fro, she beat the tree trunk in front of her with her hand, she tore at her hair as she shouted and railed.
In the intervals she stood looking gloomily at the ground in front of her, and if her mother so much as cleared her throat, she looked at her with eyes full of hate.
The rain poured down on them incessantly. Their hair was sodden and tangled, their clothes heavy with moisture, and when, after a couple of hours, Rachel suddenly became aware of them, she tore them off. Just then it began again, and naked she bent forward, sunk her head, pressed her fingers into the trunk of the tree, and yelled as she rocked the lower half of her body to and fro.
Her mother had put her arms around her several times, each time she’d been pushed away. But she couldn’t just stand there watching.
She stood close up to her.
“It’s good that it hurts. Each time it hurts, the child gets closer.”
Rachel turned on her with a snarl.
“Shut UP!” she shouted. “SHUT UP!”
Anna took a step back and waited for it to abate. When the pain had left her body, she went close again, put her arm around her waist, stroked her hair.
“It’s good that it hurts,” she said again. “It’s not just something I’m saying. It’s good. The more it hurts the better it is.”
Rachel stood with her head bent, breathing rapidly in and out. She looked up at her just as suddenly as the previous time.
“I’m going to DIE!” she shouted.
“No,” said her mother. “It hurts, but it isn’t dangerous. It’s good. Good. D’you hear?”
Rachel pushed her away and leaned forward again, began rocking the lower half of her body backward and forward.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAH!”