It was nativity time.
Belkis’s waters had broken.
Hrant, who had once assisted Hippocrates, appointed himself midwife.
During her contractions Belkis had been exercising, walking to and fro on orchid petals we had strewn around. Orchids, Hrant had informed us, have been an essential birthing aid in China for some two thousand years. Its oil – which I had amply rubbed on Belkis – facilitates delivery by dilating the cervix.
Bringing the orchids had been fun. Swimming to the grotto, Hrant and I had dog-paddled with one arm to keep the flowers aloft. We thought our aquarobics would impress Belkis. Instead, she admonished us for the amount of water we’d swallowed.
As Belkis’s contractions became regular, I lit the aromatic candles that legends say Eileithya, Greek goddess of birth, prescribed. The perfumes of lavender, neroli, jasmine and myrrh suffused the grotto.
Hrant increased his sound system’s volume. He had prepared a medley: Verdi, Theodorakis, Schubert, Beethoven, Khachaturian, Beatles, Livanelli, Dylan, Cohen.
Then he helped Belkis into the pool.
He had planned the delivery meticulously. It would be at dusk when the crepuscular light would reflect the placenta’s ambiance, and the water, having absorbed the day’s heat, would be tepid enough to spare the neonate the shock of coming into this world.
Hrant also knew the baby’s gender. This perception, he once explained, is innate in humans, but wanes when people abandon musky soil for polluted urbanism. He himself would have lost it had he not befriended the Leviathan, Robert Gordon, the seventeenth-century Aberdonian philanthropist, who extolled the happy times he had spent in local cattle-breeders’ farms. The perception develops through constant observation of the treads and smears a pregnant cow leaves as she walks and sits during her gestation.
Belkis and I didn’t have that gift. But then we didn’t want to know our baby’s gender. Boy or girl it would be a blessing.
Belkis was easing her contractions by doing breaststroke.
I became nervous. ‘Should she be swimming, Hrant?’
‘She’s a dolphin, isn’t she?’
Belkis, breathing shallowly, shouted. ‘You two – stop behaving like anxious fathers! I’m fine! I feel I’m the one in my womb instead of my baby.’
Hrant shouted back. ‘You’re releasing endorphins.’
That unnerved me. ‘What are they?’
‘Peptides – amino acids. They suppress pain. Produce good feelings.’
Assuaged, I joked. ‘I’m releasing endorphins, too!’
Belkis stopped swimming and trod water.
Hrant moved to the ledge. ‘Ready?’
Belkis nodded. ‘Ready!’
I stammered. ‘Is it … happening?’
Hrant eased himself into the pool. ‘Yes. Don’t faint! Get in here!’
I slid into the pool and held Belkis’s hand. ‘I’m here. Hold on to me.’
Hrant instructed Belkis. ‘Take a deep breath and hold it!’
Belkis did.
‘Now, exhale and push! Keep doing that!’
I started quivering. Was it joy? Was it concern?
Belkis laboured for what felt like an eternity.
Hrant dived under the water then came up instantly. ‘Emerging now!’
Belkis managed a murmur; I shouted. ‘What is it? Boy or girl?’
Hrant shouted back. ‘Big bonny boy!’
Belkis panicked. ‘Pull him out! Before he drowns!’
‘Don’t worry! Water is his element – evolution and all that … Keep pushing!’
I became even more agitated. ‘What can I do?’
‘Keep holding her!’
Belkis screamed.
Hrant shouted. ‘She’s done it!’
He dived in again and brought up our baby.
Gently, he slapped my son’s buttocks.
Childe Asher howled.
Hrant handed him to me.
I held Childe Asher’s face against mine and wept and laughed deliriously. I realised then that nothing in the world can excel the ecstasy of parenthood.
Hrant jumped onto the ledge. ‘You can come out now, Belkis! Time to cut the umbilical cord. Oric, give me the baby.’
I handed him Childe Asher, helped Belkis onto the ledge, then climbed out and hugged her. ‘It’s a boy, my love, a boy – just as you wished.’
For once Belkis was tongue-tied. She laid her head on my shoulder and started weeping, too.
Hrant, holding Childe Asher on his knees, picked up a pair of sterilised scissors and cut the umbilical cord. Then he clamped both navels.
Childe Asher had stopped howling. In fact, he had hardly cried. Instead he was scrutinising us with his amber almond eyes. Was he wondering whether we were the right parents for him? He was so like his mother. Not a hint of yellow-green on his mouth. Hidebehind would have no dominion over him.
Hrant laid Belkis down. ‘Now rest, dear girl. Oric, let her have Childe Asher. Belkis, hold him close. Flesh to flesh. Best way to bond.’
Then he dived again and came up with the placenta.
Childe Asher found Belkis’s breast and started feeding happily.
Hrant chuckled. ‘Knows what’s good, eh?’
I watched mesmerised while my son darted his eyes here and there as if to imprint onto his mind every detail of the grotto. Is that how prodigies suckle? Will he really be as Hrant believes he will be?
When he appeared satiated Hrant and I washed him.
Then I placed him in the Moses basket Hrant had made for him.
Hrant, humming triumphantly, brought out an Etruscan bucchero jug and three glasses. ‘Special usquebaugh. Pure nectar. Recommended by Robbie Burns.’
He filled our glasses to the brim. ‘Welcome Childe Asher, dearest Dolphinero!’
We repeated his toast and drank the usquebaugh.
Hrant sprinkled some of his drink into the pool then picked up the placenta and the umbilical cord. ‘I’ll leave you two for a while. Finish the bottle. Pour a portion into the water as an offering.’
Later as Childe Asher slept in his Moses basket and Belkis and I nested in the Carmelite monastery, Hrant cremated the placenta. He let the air winnow the ashes. The winds, he assured us, would scatter the fig seeds in Belkis’s womb all over the globe. And humankind will have a new generation of Dolphineros.
A dog nudges me: Phral and Moni.
Moni ruffles my hair. ‘We meet again.’
‘Always a joy, Moni. Is this one of your turfs?’
‘Coffee break.’ Moni points at three anglers by the pier. ‘I always join those retired Tritons.’
Lost in thought, I hadn’t noticed the fishermen. Oldsters. In faded Greenpeace overalls. Against the backdrop of cruise-liners, they look like Lowry figures. ‘Anything worth catching?’
‘Let’s ask them.’
We join them.
Moni introduces us. ‘Lads – Oric. Oric – Paddy. André. Joe.’
The men greet me affably, bring out thermos flasks, mugs, and serve coffee.
Phral gets some biscuits which he gobbles up.
Moni banters. ‘Oric wonders if you catch anything.’
‘I was thinking about the pollution. Our beautiful sea – defiled by ships’ effluence, plastic rubbish, you name it!’
Joe replies wryly. ‘We’ve got a pact with Nature. She cleans the waters. We make sure we don’t overfish.’
Paddy casts his line. ‘It’s also a spiritual journey. For us, anyway.’
‘Spiritual?’
André doesn’t have a rod – just a container teeming with bait. He throws a handful into the sea. ‘Like how the sea was before, how will it be at the end.’
Joe has caught a mullet and drops it in a bucket. ‘The end being the beginning of another cycle.’
I’m intrigued. ‘Go on.’
André, throwing some more bait into the sea, appeals to Moni. ‘Tell him, sunshine. You’re better with words.’
Moni’s voice goes into his good-tidings mode. ‘Their pact with Nature. They know Evil has no place in Nature’s designs. She wants to feed the living. To do so She serves her species as food for other species. But that’s to prevent their extinction – something that humankind chooses to disregard. Because even as She offers her species as food, She provides them with the miracle to beget enough of themselves to ensure their survival. You’ll find there are only a few rogue species – like humankind – that kill for the sake of killing. That’s a mystery no one has yet been able to explain.
‘These lads admire that about Nature. They take only what they need. Paddy has a large family, so he fishes a lot – but no more than what they require. Joe has only his wife to look after. So, he fishes enough for two. André is single and vegetarian. He never catches any. Instead he feeds the fish – you saw the way he does that.’
I’m enthralled. Belkis – and the Leviathans – would approve.
Moni chuckles. ‘I should mention André’s fare is haute cuisine. The fish love it.’
I laugh. ‘Like strawberries and cream?’
André chortles. ‘Curried prawns – that’s the piéce de résistance.’
Phral barks gently.
Moni pats Phral. ‘Phral reminds me. When Paddy and Joe get their catch they ask the fish to forgive them. They explain: the law that keeps Life alive by feeding it other lives cannot be transgressed. So, in return, they promise to be food for the fish.’
Paddy clarifies: ‘We will cast our remains into the sea.’
I envy the clarity of their philosophy. Hidebehinds banished. End of doubts.
Phral paws me gently to say ‘yes’.