In the middle of the night Helene was woken by a contraction. Wilhelm was spending November in Königsberg, where he had business: plans and discussions about major building projects. The contraction came again, and her belly hardened. Often a hot bath would either halt or accelerate a baby’s birth. Helene boiled water and poured it into the big zinc tub; usually only Wilhelm took an occasional bath there. Helene climbed into the tub and waited. The pains were coming more often now. She tried to feel herself, but her arm couldn’t reach far enough round her belly and her hand couldn’t go deep enough into her vagina, all she could feel was the soft, open flesh. Helene counted the intervals: every eight minutes, every seven minutes, then every eight minutes again. She poured in more hot water. Seven minutes, seven and a half, six minutes. The intervals were getting shorter now. Helene got out of the tub and dried herself. She knew where the hospital was. She had often gone there to try to apply for a job, with a forged letter giving Wilhelm’s permission in her pocket; she had worked on imitating his handwriting. Although Wilhelm had told her she had better think about providing for her child, he didn’t want her taking a permanent post while she was pregnant. Sooner or later he would have found out, he might have hauled her out of the hospital by her ears. He had once pulled her ear really hard when he was in a fury because she had overlooked a crease in his shirt, had taken her earlobe between his fingers and dragged her out of the kitchen and into the bedroom. Another contraction; they were so painful now that Helene bent over her tense belly. She took Carl’s vest out of the cupboard. She had managed to keep it there so long, unnoticed by Wilhelm, only because he left it to her to put out his clothes for him. She put on Carl’s vest. It stretched over her belly and rode up. You had to breathe too, in spite of the labour pains, breathe deeply. She put on long johns, a pain, suspender belt that had to go under the bulge, a pain, stockings, a pain, her dress on top. She mustn’t forget her certificate of Aryan descent and family records; she took both documents from Wilhelm’s desk. She took some money too. It was a freezing night, the pavements were icy, and Helene had to take care not to lose her balance and slip. She had to stop every few metres as she walked along the empty street. Breathe, breathe in deeply. What did this pain matter? Helene laughed, the pain would end, her child was going to be born today, her little one, her little girl. Helene went on, stopped again. It seemed to her that the baby’s head was already coming down between her thighs; she could hardly move if she kept her legs closed. Breathe deeply and go on. Legs wide apart, Helene trudged over the ice.
A midwife came to her aid in the hospital. She carefully felt Helene, her belly first, and it immediately became firm and hard as a stone. The contraction went on a long time. Then the midwife felt inside the vagina with her hand.
There’s the head.
The head, did you say the head? Helene couldn’t help laughing. She laughed nervously and impatiently.
The midwife nodded. Yes, I can feel the baby’s hair already.
Hair? Helene breathed deeply, deeply, even more deeply, all the way down to her belly. She knew how she had to breathe, but the midwife told her all the same.
Would you like to lie down, Frau Sehmisch?
Maybe. Breathe, breathe, breathe; breathe freely, breathe deeply, hold the breath and breathe out.
Don’t you want to telephone your husband so that he can at least come to collect you later?
I told you, he’s in Königsberg. Breathe deeply. Helene wondered what it must be like for a foetus when everything all around it went so hard and stony. Perhaps the baby didn’t feel anything yet. How did existence begin? Were you yourself if you couldn’t feel anything? Breathe deeply. I don’t have a number for him there. He’s coming back at the end of the month.
The nurse was filling out her card for the card index.
Excuse me, I feel sick.
It’s a good idea if you go to the lavatory again. The midwife showed Helene where it was. Helene knew that the sickness was a sure sign; it couldn’t be much longer now. A certain nerve was stimulated, the nervus vagus. Seven centimetres open was still three centimetres too few. The stimulation of the parasympathicus, what else?
On her return Helene was to lie on the bed and make herself comfortable, but nothing about her felt comfortable. The doctor wanted her to lie on her back. The pains weren’t coming so fast, only every four minutes, every five, but then they speeded up again. Helene sweated, breathed, pushed down. She wanted to turn on her side, she wanted to stand up, she wanted to squat. The midwife held her down.
Lie there, that’s a good girl.
Her sense of time was lost, it was day now, the night midwife had been replaced by another midwife. A good pain, said Helene to herself, a good pain. She gritted her teeth, whatever she did she wasn’t going to scream, certainly not as loudly as the woman in the next bed who had already had her little girl. Helene pushed down; it burned. There were tears in her eyes.
You must breathe, breathe, keep breathing. The midwife’s voice sounded curiously distorted. She was breathing.
You can do it, come on, come on, you can do it. Now the midwife took on the commanding tone of an officer. Helene wished she hadn’t gone to the hospital. She didn’t like this nurse and her military tone. Come on, come on, again, and again, stop, stop. Can’t you hear me? You must stop. Stop pushing. Now the officer was angry too. Helene ignored her orders, she could have her baby any way she liked, it was no business of the officer’s. Breathe, breathe deeply, that was good, and push, of course, push, push, push. The midwife felt her vagina with her hands, and it scratched as if she were digging her nails into the soft flesh, the soft, indeterminate, stretchable flesh. What was the officer doing with her hands? There was pressure on her gut, such pressure that Helene felt sure the midwife would catch nothing but excrement. Blood and faecal matter in the officer’s hands. This was no time to feel ashamed, she must breathe.