Then Eddie Glossop, in the autumn, the one who had found her breasts insufficient and told her so. Big broad-shouldered Eddie, who worked for the meat merchant and who had an air of great worldliness about him. He was old, almost twenty-five. She went with him because she knew there was supposed to be pleasure in it and she had not had it from Andy. But there was none from Eddie either, just a lot of huffing and puffing as he lay sprawled on top of her in the aisle of that burned-out omnibus by the side of the road that went toward Shaftesbury. He was much bigger down there than Andy, and it hurt when he went in, and she was glad that this had not been her first time. But she wished she had not done it at all.
And then Richie Burke, in this very storeroom on an oddly warm night in March, with everyone asleep in the family apartments downstairs at the back of the restaurant. She tiptoeing up the stairs, and Richie clambering up the drainpipe and through the window, tall, lithe, graceful Richie who played the guitar so well and sang and told everyone that someday he was going to be a general in the war against the Entities and wipe them from the face of the Earth. A wonderful lover, Richie. She kept her blouse on because Eddie had made her uneasy about her breasts. Richie caressed her and stroked her for what seemed like hours, though she was terrified that they would be discovered and wanted him to get on with it; and when he entered her, it was like an oiled shaft of smooth metal gliding into her, moving so easily, easily, easily, one gentle thrust after another, on and on and on until marvelous palpitations began to happen inside her and then she erupted with pleasure, moaning so loudly that Richie had to put his hand over her mouth to keep her from waking everyone up.
That was the time the baby had been made. There could be no doubt of that. All the next day she dreamed of marrying Richie and spending the rest of the nights of her life in his arms. But at the end of that week Richie disappeared from Salisbury—some said he had gone off to join a secret underground army that was going to launch guerrilla warfare against the Entities—and no one had heard from him again.
Andy. Eddie. Richie.
And here she was on the floor of the storeroom again, with her trousers off and the shiny swollen hump of her belly sending messages of agony and shame through her body. Her only covering was a threadbare blanket that reeked of spilled cooking oil. Her water had burst about midnight. That was when she had crept up the stairs to wait in terror for the great disaster of her life to finish happening. The contractions were coming closer and closer together, like little earthquakes within her. Now the time had to be two, three, maybe four in the morning. How long would it be? Another hour? Six? Twelve?
Relent and call Aissha to help her?
No. No. She didn’t dare.
Earlier in the night voices had drifted up from the streets to her. The sound of footsteps. That was strange, shouting and running in the street, this late. The Christmas revelry didn’t usually go on through the night like this. It was hard to understand what they were saying; but then out of the confusion there came, with sudden clarity:
“The aliens! Pulling down Stonehenge, taking it apart!”
“Get your wagon, Charlie, we’ll go and see!”
Pulling down Stonehenge. Strange. Strange. Why would they do that? Yasmeena wondered. But the pain was becoming too great for her to be able to give much thought to Stonehenge just now, or to the Entities who had somehow overthrown the invincible white men in the twinkling of an eye and now ruled the world, or to anything else except what was happening within her, the flames dancing through her brain, the ripplings of her belly, the implacable downward movement of—of—
Something.
“Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Universe, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” she murmured timidly. “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His prophet.”
And again: “Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Universe.”
And again.
And again.
The pain was terrible. She was splitting wide open.
“Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael!” That something had begun to move in a spiral through her now, like a corkscrew driving a hot track in her flesh. “Mohammed! Mohammed! Mohammed! There is no god but Allah!” The words burst from her with no timidity at all, now. Let Mohammed and Allah save her, if they really existed. What good were they, if they would not save her, she so innocent and ignorant, her life barely begun? And then, as a spear of fire gutted her and her pelvic bones seemed to crack apart, she let loose a torrent of other names, Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Mary, and even the forbidden Hindu names, Shiva, Krishna, Shakti, Kali, anyone at all who would help her through this, anyone, anyone, anyone, anyone—
She screamed three times, short, sharp, piercing screams.
She felt a terrible inner wrenching and the baby came spurting out of her with astonishing swiftness, and a gushing Ganges of blood followed it, a red river that would not stop flowing. Yasmeena knew at once that she was going to die. Something wrong had happened. Everything would come out of her insides and she would die.
Already, just moments after the birth, an eerie new calmness was enfolding her. She had no energy left now for further screaming, or even to look after the baby. It was somewhere down between her spread thighs, that was all she knew. She lay back, drowning in a rising pool of blood and sweat. She raised her arms toward the ceiling and brought them down again to clutch her throbbing breasts, stiff now with milk. She called now upon no more holy names. She hardly remembered her own.
She sobbed quietly. She trembled. She tried not to move, because that would surely make the bleeding even worse.
An hour went by, or a week, or a year.
Then an anguished voice high above her in the dark:
“What? Yasmeena? Oh, my god, my god, my god! Your father will perish!”
Aissha, it was. Bending to her, engulfing her. The strong arm raising her head, lifting it against the warm motherly bosom.
“Can you hear me, Yasmeena? Oh, Yasmeena! My god, my god!” And then an ululation of grief rising from her stepmother’s throat like some hot volcanic geyser bursting from the ground. “Yasmeena! Yasmeena!”
“The baby?” Yasmeena said, in the tiniest of voices.
“Yes! Here! Here! Can you see?”
Yasmeena saw nothing but a red haze.
“A boy?” she asked, very faintly.
“A boy, yes.”
In the blur of her dimming vision she thought she saw something small and pinkish-brown, smeared with scarlet, resting in her stepmother’s hands. Thought she could hear him crying, even.
“Do you want to hold him?”
“No. No.” Yasmeena understood clearly that she was going. The last of her strength had left her.
“He is strong and beautiful,” said Aissha. “A splendid boy.”
“Then I am very happy.” Yasmeena fought for one last fragment of energy. “His name—is—Khalid. Khalid Haleem Burke.”