I don’t know how Maire managed not to scream, but she did—though some awful grunting sounds were coming from behind the veil. And then something new began to happen. I saw it first on Maire’s face; she looked puzzled. I glanced across at Helle for confirmation, but she just shook her head. Maire, who’d been so grateful for everything we did, suddenly became bad-tempered, tetchy. Nothing we said or did was right. The next time Helle tried to moisten her lips, she pushed the cup away so violently it skittered across the floor.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She didn’t know what she wanted. And then, with the next pain, she started to push. I thought it would soon be over, that we were only minutes away. Each in-drawn breath was expelled in a shriek of effort. “Shush!” I kept saying, looking nervously at the door, but the shrieks were beyond Maire’s control.
Helle stood up. “Sing!” she hissed at the girls. “Come on, don’t just sit there—bloody sing!” And sing they did. I think they must have sung every song they knew—even the old man with the hole in the middle that refused to piddle got a second outing. “Louder!” Helle cried. No doubt the fighters still drinking round the fires heard the singing and thought: They’re having a good time. Under cover of the noise, Helle and I kept glancing at each other, frightened by the extent of our own ignorance. So, we hung on from one pain to the next—and were rewarded, at last, by the sound of Andromache’s footsteps on the veranda.
She came in, head down, jaw clenched, not seeing anything or anybody. When, finally, she looked up and found everybody awake and a woman on the floor, moaning, she seemed bewildered. “What’s going on?”
Helle said, “She’s in labour.”
“Labour?” Andromache looked down at Maire and shook her head, the gesture saying: I don’t care. “I’ve got to get washed.”
And with that she walked through the frightened girls and out into the yard. A murmur ran around the room. Helle and I looked at each other and then I followed Andromache out into the night. The fire was still blazing; a cauldron of hot water stood on the grass beside it. Crouched over, splay-legged, Andromache was scrubbing herself viciously with a square of linen folded over to make a pad. Instinctively, I looked away—though she didn’t seem to mind my being there. She had no need for privacy now, since her body didn’t belong to her anymore. I knew that feeling, and the angry words I’d been about to speak shrivelled on my lips. Face averted, I waited for her to be ready.
“Right, then,” she said, tossing the pad into the cauldron. “Let’s see what we can do.”
I followed her into the hut, wincing again at the overcrowding, the smells, the heat of all those bodies. Andromache knelt at Maire’s feet, waited for the next pain and then, immediately, did what I hadn’t felt able to do: push Maire’s shift up round her waist and try to see what was going on. I was glad I hadn’t done it, because it would only have made me panic. What I was looking at simply didn’t seem possible. The pain ebbed; Maire gave that long grating shriek and let her head fall back.
“You’re not trying,” Andromache said. “You’ve got to push!”
“I AM PUSHING!”
“Not hard enough.”
That was harsh; but the roughness seemed to rouse Maire from her torpor and—whether coincidentally or not—the next pain was stronger. Andromache whispered to me, “Under all that fat, you know, she’s actually quite narrow.” She looked worried—and if she was worried, I was frantic. “Come on, Maire,” I said. “You can do it.”
Maire shook her head. Andromache slapped her, not hard, but any slap at that time was brutal. “Look at me, Maire. Look at me—we’ve lost everything—homes, families, everything—but we are not going to lose you.”
Poor Maire. We must have sounded like demons urging her on to do the impossible. She turned to Helle, who took her hand and said, “Come on.” And then, half laughing, trying for a joke: “What am I going to do without you?”
Maire shook her head; the next pain had already started.
“Good!” Andromache said. “I can see its head—lovely long black hair, just like you.”
All I could see was a bloody ball, but the words seemed to encourage Maire.
“Come on, it’ll soon be over,” Andromache said.
We were all urging Maire on, unconsciously holding and blocking our breaths to the same rhythm as hers. Nobody heard her shrieks of effort now—we were too intent on the next pain. Andromache, who had her hand on the hard mound of Maire’s belly, nodded. “Make the most of this one. Go on, deep breath. Hold—and push.”
And there was the baby’s head. As we watched, it turned—as if it were trying to help. As if it knew how to be born.
“Shoulders now,” Andromache said. “Come on, just one more pain, and it’s over.”
A gush, a flop. And there was a new person in the room, a person who’d never been there before. I’ve been present at so many births since then, and had children of my own, but nothing ever prepares you for that moment. Just as when somebody dies—that lengthening silence after the last breath always comes as a shock, no matter how long the death has been expected.
Andromache picked him up and chafed his chest until he produced a thin, bewildered wail. To begin with, he was the bluish purple of ripe plums, but gradually, as he went on wailing, he began to change to a healthy-looking red.
Picked him up.
Chafed his chest.
He began to change.
The room was very quiet, no sound except for the baby’s reedy cry. I realized what was missing: the shout of triumph that follows the birth of a boy. I thought this might be the first time in the whole history of Troy that the birth of a healthy male child had been greeted with nothing but dismay. Andromache had still not given him to Maire to hold, and Maire was beginning to look anxious. Suddenly—even though only a moment before she’d been too exhausted even to raise her head—she reared up, snatched the baby from Andromache’s hands and put him to her breast. Her nipple was so big, I didn’t see how he could possibly get it into his mouth, but after a few frustrated cries he managed it, and his cheeks began working vigorously. After a little grunt of surprise—obviously the sensation wasn’t what she’d been expecting—Maire heaved a sigh of contentment and relief.
Mechanically, Andromache went on attending to what else needed to be done, emerging from between Maire’s legs with what looked like a sheep’s liver in her hands. Mercifully, the girls were all craning to admire the baby. “Look at his fingernails!” I heard one of them say.
Andromache gripped my arm. “We need to talk.”
Helle and I glanced at each other, both of us, probably, thinking: This is a nightmare. We followed Andromache out into the yard where, under cover of burying the afterbirth, we could have a few minutes’ private conversation.
“You should have killed it,” Helle said. “It’ll only be worse for her if they do it.” She jerked her head to indicate the Greek fighters who were shouting on the other side of the fence.
“No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “They’re the enemy. We’re supposed to be her friends.”
“It’s too late now anyway,” Andromache said.
“Is it?” Helle said.
There was a moment when we looked into the abyss.
Then: “Yes,” I said. “She’s fed it.”
Many newborn children are killed or left to die: deformed boys, obviously, but also a great many perfectly normal girls. The rule is it must be done before the mother feeds the child. In snatching her baby out of Andromache’s hands and putting him to her breast, Maire had saved his life.