46

HEARTRENDERING SCENES

DR ULRICH SAID IN A GENTLE VOICE NO ONE had ever heard, ‘Bear down again, girl. Just one more time. Final effort. You’ve been wonderful. The baby’s crowning.’ And to Sis’ Diliza, ‘Easy now, easy. Here comes the head. I’m releasing.’

He disengaged the forceps and, dropping them, helped Sis’ Diliza catch the baby, who came in a sudden slither with a gush of mucus and blood, blue and still. The cord was an angry purple tangle round the tiny neck. For a moment they all stood paralysed. The bedroom was a tomb with daylight seeping past the edges of the curtains. The doctor’s mouth echoed the down-curved parabola of his moustache.

‘Is it—?’ Greg croaked.

‘Ma-Jesu, help us,’ Sister Dineo muttered.

As if goaded by the supplication, Dr Ulrich snapped out of his inertia and said, ‘A boy. Cord’s the problem. Twice round.’

‘He’s not breathing.’ Greg couldn’t believe it, after everything.

‘What do you expect?’ The doctor shot him a glare, then cupped his hand under the baby’s oddly elongated head. ‘Hold him and pinch the umbilicus, Sister. Scalpel, quick.’

With infinite care he hooked a gloved thumb under the strangling cord and sliced it free, then unwound the rest with swift dexterity. Keeping her fingers pinched, Sis’ Diliza helped him lift and angle the baby face-downwards as he scooped mucus out of the tiny mouth with his forefinger. The wrinkled skin was the thin blue of skim milk.

Cassie had collapsed, spread-eagled. Palesa bent over her. ‘Okay?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Finished. My baby?’

‘We’re working on him.’

‘Oh God. Greg?’ She whipped her head round. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘He’s not breathing.’

‘He? A boy? Not—?’

‘Breathing.’ Numbed, Greg could not take his eyes off the little body being briskly patted and rubbed as the doctor and sister tilted it backwards and forwards, mumbling, ‘Come on, come on, come on.’

‘Ma-Jesu, help us,’ Sister Dineo whispered. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners—’

‘Shut up!’ Cassie rose from the soiled sheets in a surge of fury, reaching forward. ‘He isn’t a sinner, he’s just a baby. Give him to me.’

‘Hold her down,’ Dr Ulrich commanded Greg and the two women. ‘She won’t like this.’ With Sis’ Diliza still pinching, he gathered the little blue feet in one hand, held the child upside down and smacked his back.

‘Stop it! Give me my baby!’ Cassie fought like a maniac. After so long in labour, Palesa marvelled. Women are strong.

‘Zero response. Again.’ The doctor raised his hand.

‘No!’

But at this smack, the baby hiccupped and began to mewl, each weak little cry ending in a froth of bubbles. ‘Ahhh. He lives.’ Dr Ulrich lowered him into the receiving blanket held out by Palesa.

‘Give him to me,’ Cassie begged, still struggling.

‘You’ll have to wait,’ he barked. ‘Your son needs oxygen.’

She stopped at once and gasped, ‘Is he damaged?’

‘Can’t say yet. It was a long fight. I had to use forceps. The cord was round his neck twice. And he’s a bit blue.’

‘Oh no—’

As she collapsed again, Greg clasped her and shouted, ‘Do you have to be so brutal?’

‘I have to be honest.’ Dr Ulrich stripped off his gloves. ‘Such a difficult labour is not ideal.’

‘Oh no,’ she moaned. ‘Oh no.’

‘But again, he is only a little bit blue.’ He leaned towards her and stroked her shoulder with a rubber-clammy palm. ‘A few hours in the incubator will work wonders. And don’t worry about his head. It was squeezed in the birth canal and there are marks from the forceps. Nothing serious. He’s in good hands, ja?’

‘I have to see him,’ she pleaded. ‘I want my baby.’

‘Just a peep, then.’ Dr Ulrich motioned to Palesa, who wrapped him quickly and brought him close to Cassie.

‘He’s beautiful,’ she whispered in the way of all mothers, even with the ugliest infants – and this one, besides being blue with sparse rivulets of hair plastered to an egg-shaped head with blood and mucus, was as wrinkled and snuffly as a pug and had set up a piteous mewling.

‘It’s good for the lungs that he’s crying,’ Dr Ulrich said to forestall questions. ‘Now we must get him stabilised. Get some rest. Doctor’s orders. You’ve been very brave.’ He squeezed her hand.

Sister Dineo helped her to lie down and covered her with a blanket – pointless cleaning her, with the afterbirth still to come – as Sis’ Diliza and Palesa worked over the child, tying off and cutting the umbilicus and checking his Apgar ratings.

The doctor jerked his head at Greg to follow him into the kitchen. ‘Your wife should have been in hospital.’

‘I couldn’t get her there. The bakkie wouldn’t start.’

‘Excuses.’ Dr Ulrich felt the weight of responsibility begin to lift and the sour pleasure of insult intensify. ‘You are a spineless shithouse who hasn’t the guts to be a father. You don’t deserve that fine woman. And you can thank Jolobe for rounding up the incubator.’

Greg was dumbfounded. No one had ever called him spineless, and when he’d thought about it – which hadn’t been often – he’d been sure he’d make a marvellous dad. ‘But you were drunk,’ he bleated.

‘So? I did my job. You look after her and that boy, or I’ll have your balls for breakfast,’ Dr Ulrich vowed. ‘Cross my black heart.’

In the nuns’ common room, Sweetness tried on first the frilly white taffeta dress with inset lace. Girlie Ming stocked up on a range of party clothes before Christmas when settlement children whose parents got bonuses could expect new outfits.

‘You look lovely, dear.’ Sister Hilary was entranced. She had longed for a dress like that.

‘It feels a bit smart, you know?’ Sweetness loathed it on sight. She felt like a bride doll and expanded her chest hoping they’d think it was too small.

‘But it’s a bit tight round the bust.’ Sister Hilary looked disappointed. ‘Try on the floral skirt and blouse. We also bought some nice undies and T-shirts, plus a track suit and white trainers and a denim jacket. Mrs Ming says those are all the rage with teenagers.’

Sweetness thought, Thank you, Mrs Ming. Then, But I’m still frightened about going to Joburg.

‘We’ll have to brush up on your behaviour,’ Sister Immaculata had said. ‘I’ll ask Mother Esmé to give you a crash course. Your mother too, if she goes.’

If she goes. Sweetness sighed into the floral blouse as she pulled it on. The kind lady in the long blue robe was a fading dream against the commotion of the past two days and the threat of what was to come.

Smart Fikile crouched in the corner of the holding cell behind the police station, bereft of both his Parabellum and his pride. The cops had taken away his belt, shoelaces, cigarettes, money and the slim jim, which had lived in an inside pocket since his first stint in prison. As a second offender and no longer a juvenile, he faced a stiffer sentence now. Even worse, the two thugs who had been hustled into the holding cell during the morning had made their intentions quite clear: come darkness, they would screw him. One after the other. All night.

There was a way to avoid humiliation. He inched up the wall and sidled towards the barred gate, beyond which a young constable sat at a desk reading a newspaper.

‘Sir!’ he called. ‘Sir! What if I inform on the other guys with me?’

‘Impimpi,’ one of the thugs growled.

The constable just shrugged.

‘I want to speak to the captain,’ Smart insisted. ‘Tell him I am one of the Lucky Boys. Tell him I know where the rest of them live.’

The constable laughed. So did the thugs.

‘It’s my right to talk to the commanding officer!’

The constable said, ‘Nice try, clever boy,’ and went on reading.

Rejoice could not believe what her mother was saying. ‘We’re going home. I told your father last night that I will not continue living here.’

‘But this is home now, Ma. For at least a year, Baba said.’ She slumped down on the settee and folded her arms.

‘It’s a slum full of crazy people. Look at that girl who saw Ma-Jesu. And those Afrikaners who’ve declared their independence, only it’s the same old apartheid: whites inside, blacks outside. I’ve had enough. We’re leaving.’

‘I’m not. I like it here.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you like. It’s what’s best for you, my girl. And the school here is rubbish – still two sessions like in the bad old days. You’re going back to your school in the city and all your friends. Won’t that be nice?’

‘No. I’ve got friends here now. Including the girl who saw Ma-Jesu. Sweetness is great. Crocodile Flats is great.’

‘You’re just like your father,’ Thulazi grumbled. ‘But I don’t care. We’re leaving, and that’s that.’

‘I’m not going.’

‘You’ll do what you’re told, Rejoice. Now pack your bags.’

‘No.’ She folded her arms the other way with a defiant pout.

‘I’ll call your father.’

‘He won’t go either.’

‘Then it’s got to be boarding school. You won’t like that.’

‘I won’t go.’

Stalemate. Thulazi tried cajoling, then bribes, then more threats. All her efforts were undermined when Captain Ngobese rushed in for five minutes at lunchtime to announce that he expected to be on duty until at least midnight.

‘Your leaving will have to wait, sorry Thuli. And keep Joice in the house. It’s chaos out there.’