When it passed, she remained in the same position. Her mother stroked her hair, put her hand on her brow, kept it there. And gradually Rachel fell into a rhythm. A pattern emerged. Contractions, screams, pause. Contractions, screams, pause. Contractions, screams, pause. It began to seem more and more like a piece of work. Rachel was caught up in something. She no longer noticed what was happening around her, what her mother said or did. Or if she did, she no longer reacted to it. And the deeper she got into the rhythm, the more natural it seemed to her, the less resistance there was in her screams. They grew deeper, leveler, hollower. They became something in which she sought refuge. A place other than her thoughts for her to employ her strength.
With her hands pressed against the trunk, her head bowed, and her abdomen swaying from side to side, she stood roaring into the forest. Wave after wave went through her, she rode them, rested, rode them, rested.
It was impossible to talk to her. She was too far inside herself. And the few times she struggled to get out, perhaps just to know that there was someone there, she was confused and helpless.
Once she turned around suddenly and shouted:
“IS THERE ANYONE ELSE HERE?”
Presumably it was intended as an ordinary question, but with that strength and intonation behind it, there was something almost frightening about it.
Anna looked around.
“Only us two,” she said.
And Rachel was content with that. It almost seemed as if it were a relief for her to get back to the pain again. The pain, the cry, the pause. The movement of the belly. The drooping head, the hair that hung down. The palms pressed against the trunk. The pain and the cry, the pause.
Perhaps an hour passed in this manner, perhaps two.
When without warning she slipped down onto her side in the grass, Anna noticed for the first time that it had begun to grow light above them. A faint, pale glimmer showed in the sky between the inky treetops.
She crouched down beside Rachel. Her white skin was glistening with rain and sweat. She’d shut her eyes, lay as if asleep on the ground.
Anna was about to get up when she clutched her hand.
“Am I doing alright?” she whispered.
Anna nodded and averted her face. Only when she was sure her voice wouldn’t break did she answer.
“You’re managing fine,” she said.
Rachel gave an almost imperceptible smile. And then it was as if her eyes emptied. She looked straight at Anna, but was no longer present in her own gaze.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH,” she yelled.
Anna knew it was getting close. Now there was only a short interval between each of the contractions. Rachel got up and stood as before, but the rhythm had gone, she’d moved on to something else and changed her posture several times in confusion.
A fresh anger came upon her then. She’d lost the only thing that was good, and now she couldn’t find it again.
She put both her arms around the tree trunk, sank slowly down. Rested there. Turned her head toward her mother.
“Is there much more?” she asked.
“No,” said her mother. “I don’t think so.”
“Feel. I’ve got to know. I can’t take any more.”
She got up again, spread her legs. She screamed with pain as her mother put her fingers into her vagina as gently as she could.
There was its head.
Rachel looked at her over her shoulder.
“Did you feel anything?” she whispered.
Anna got up and put her arm round her.
“I felt the head,” she said. “Squat down, Rachel.”
She did as she was told. Crouched down, then looked up at her with big eyes.
“Feel for yourself,” said Anna.
She did.
“I can feel it,” she said.
She kept her hand there during the next contractions. On her haunches, supporting herself with her other hand on the neighboring tree. The colors of the vegetation around them had begun to be visible. The pale yellow grass, the dark green spruce trees, the black of the earth between the trunks, the reddishness of the bare projecting rock close by. The light gray sky.
First the head appeared between her legs, dark with red blood, shiny with membrane, and then the rest of the body, long and bluish, as it gently slipped to the ground beneath her.
Not a sound escaped her then. Nor did Anna speak. Apart from the light, the almost inaudible rush of the falling rain, everything was quite still.
Rachel picked up the baby.
It gave a little cough. Then it drew breath for the first time.
Rachel held it close. Anna stood stock-still, watching. Only when Rachel looked up at her did she go across.
“Look,” said Rachel.
She looked.
The baby lay staring up at Rachel. Its eyes were dark, its gaze calm.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” asked Anna after a while.
Rachel held it slightly away from her body.
“Boy,” she said.
“A boy. .” said Anna.
She laughed for joy.
“You’ve got a son, Rachel.”
“Get Jerak, can you?” said Rachel.
“You can’t be left alone here with the baby,” said Anna.
“Why not? Fetch him now.”
When she stood panting in the doorway twenty minutes later, everyone stared inquisitively up at her.
“The baby’s come,” she said. “It all went fine.”
She turned to Jerak.
“Rachel’s waiting for you,” she said. “I’ll just pull out some dry clothes, then you can come along with me.”
When they reached the place where they’d left the path earlier that night, Anna handed him the clothes — he’d already gotten a knife — pointed to where he should turn, and went back to the summer farm so as to leave them in peace.
They arrived back an hour later. Rachel held the swaddled child close to her breast, she had an aura of tranquillity about her that Anna had never seen before. Jerak had to look down every time anyone met his eyes.
Rachel carried the baby up to the loft and lay down with him there. Jerak ran up and down the ladder all day long. Anna stayed away for the most part, but she couldn’t deny herself a couple of visits as well.
She’d never been filled with such delight as when she saw Rachel, propped up with pillows, sitting on the far side of the bed with the little baby gathered to her breast. Or lying on his tummy, with his cheek against his mother’s skin and those eyes. . yes, those eyes. . the dark, serious look he gave them when their faces drew close. A hint of wonder could also light up in them.
And his hands! They were so amazingly small!
Rachel lay up there all night, but came down the next morning. She wanted to show him to Lamech.
She held the boy over his bed. Lamech stared at him for a long time, and Anna, in the background, smiled, but then he began to click his tongue again, and she knew that his final connecting thread with the world was broken.
“I’ve got a son,” said Rachel despite that. “Isn’t he lovely?”
Click, click, click.
She turned to Anna and smiled.
“Well, at least they met,” she said. “Look, can you hold him for a moment. I’ve got to take a trip outside.”
Anna held him in her arms and looked down at him.
“He’s so calm,” said Javan, who’d come over.
“Have you seen his hands?” she said.
Javan placed his index finger in the little hand, which immediately closed on it.
He yawned and closed his eyes. Anna lulled him to and fro for a while, carried him up to the loft when Rachel returned.
They stayed up there for a week. Anna was filled with rapture during the days and with worries in the evenings and at night. It seemed the rain was never going to stop. And what would happen if the sea didn’t retreat? Could they live here? Really live here?