72

Lemma gave birth to her baby ten minutes into the traverse. The first any of the men knew about it was a loud shriek, followed by silence.

Sabir stopped dead in his tracks. He could feel the short hairs rising on his arms and neck beneath the thick layers of his clothing.

Radu threw up his hands and rushed forwards. ‘What has happened? What has happened? Why did Lemma scream?’

Yola’s head appeared from beneath the nest of sleeping bags. The falling snow settled around her hair like a coronet. ‘Your wife is eighteen years old, Radu. Young women such as her don’t need long labours. You are the father of a daughter.’ She gave a tired grin. ‘Now please stop waving your arms around and get us up to the lodge. We need to tie off the umbilical cord and make sure the placenta has emerged in one piece.’

Radu stood for a moment as if frozen to the spot. ‘The placenta?’

Alexi rolled up a snowball and threw it at him. The snowball struck Radu straight between the eyes. ‘Wake up, Papi. Now it’s your turn to push.’

Radu hardly seemed to notice the snowball. He shook himself like a man roused out of a deep sleep, and hurried back to his place behind the sledge. This time the men really threw their hearts into the work. Radu was desperate to see his child, but he knew that Yola would never forgive him if he stopped the sledge again to satisfy his curiosity about his daughter.

‘I’m going to call her Lenis,’ he shouted. ‘After my grandmother. It means soft-voiced. Because she came into the world without a sound.’

At that exact moment they heard the traditional baby’s bellow.

Alexi shook his head. ‘Just listen to that. Soft-voiced, my arse.’

‘You could always call her Stentora,’ shouted Calque.

‘Stentora? Stentora? What sort of a name is that?’ said Radu.

‘A very loud one,’ said Calque.