The Children's War (177 page)

“I’ll just carry you.” He bent down to remove his skis.

“No, no, I can make it. Come on.” To prove her point, Zosia began skiing toward the cabin.

45

T
HE CABIN APPEARED THROUGH THE TREES,
cold, dark, and empty. Zosia rested at the edge of the clearing while Peter went inside to check that it was unoccupied and safe. Once he had quickly inspected it, he skied back to Zosia and escorted her into their shelter.

It was dark and frigid; dawn was hours away. He found a candle and lit that, then helped Zosia to lie down on the straw mattress. She was breathing hard, barely cognizant of her surroundings. He covered her with a blanket and stroked her forehead as she gasped again in agony. He felt so helpless as he watched her suffer.

Once the pain had abated, he turned away to inspect the cabin and see what supplies they had, but Zosia cried out for him not to leave her.

“I’m right here. I just need to see what we have and make a fire.”

“No!” Zosia exclaimed.“No, don’t leave me!”

He sat on the edge of the bed and held her. Another contraction racked her body. He spoke soothingly to her as she gasped and clutched at him. When that one had passed, he said, “Zosiu, I must make a fire—it’s freezing in here.”

“No! They’ll see us!” Zosia sounded near panic, not at all like herself.

“No, they won’t. They’re far away. We’ve got to use this chance to get this place warm. Maybe later we’ll have to do without smoke—we’ve got to get this place warmed up!”

She was still gasping “No” as he gently detached her hands from his arm and went over to the fireplace. Thank God some wood was there. He stacked the kindling and logs hurriedly, assuring Zosia as she cried out to him that he would be at her side in just a moment. A few scraps of newspaper were stacked to the side, and he lit a page and ignited the kindling.

Just as the fire caught, he remembered the damper and reached up above the smoldering flames and into the chimney to open it. A rush of cold air met him and the fire leapt into life. A fireplace. How romantic. That’s what he had thought a year ago. Now, all he could think was, too bad it’s not a woodstove or a kerosene heater. Damn, it would be a cold few hours.

He removed his coat, set his gun and knife on the table, and threw his coat over Zosia. She was writhing again, twisting from side to side as if trying to escape her body. He scanned around, found another blanket, and brought that out as well, setting it at the base of the bed. There was no point putting it on her—she had already thrown off the other covers.

“Let’s get you ready.” He helped her to stand so that he could remove her coat and weapons and help her undress. He thought to put her gun and knife and stiletto on the table with his gun, but she insisted that they remain in the bed with her. He grimaced at the risk, but did not argue. They might well have to fight for their lives, and if she felt more secure with a pistol next to her as she gave birth, then so be it. He tucked the weapons into the bed and returned to peeling off the layers of sweaty clothing she wore.

When they had removed all the clothing that would be in the way, she was left with her long flannel shirt, an insulated cotton undershirt—both long enough to cover her thighs—and a pair of wool leggings and heavy wool socks, both soaked with sweat and amniotic fluid.

“Shall I put your boots back on?” he asked. They would be warmer, but it seemed they might also be in the way.

“I’ll do without.” She had sat back down on the edge of the bed, but decided she did not want to lie down for the moment. Another pain brought her to her feet, and she began to pace like a caged animal. He wrapped his arm around her and they paced together up and down, back and forth across the small room of the cabin. Every time she felt a contraction, she doubled up in agony and he supported her, fearing she might drop to the floor if he did not hold her up. As he
held her, he comforted her, talked to her, and in between his words he scanned desperately for food, weapons, and fuel.

“Do you know if there’s a rifle in here?” he asked her during a break in her pain. “A hidden cache of weapons?”

The break did not look particularly painless, and Zosia grimaced as she shook her head. “No, probably not. We don’t have enough weapons to keep any in reserve. It’s assumed that whoever takes refuge here—during a storm say—has been patrolling and is armed. There should be the basics for two to three days for two or three people. Maybe less now with all the shortages.”

Without a rifle, they could hardly hope to defend their place against attack. Of course, with a rifle, all that would happen was that their deaths would take a few minutes longer. Peter tried to filter out the distant sounds of battle as he walked Zosia around and around the room. She clung to him as though he were her last contact with reality; she moaned and gasped and panted, and in between she whispered intense words to him. Words she had never said before, words she would probably never say again. “I love you,” she murmured over and over into his ear, “I love you with all my heart.”

“I love you, too,” he replied again and again.

“I want you to stay here by my side,” she whispered intensely.

For how long, he thought bitterly.

“Please don’t go back to London,” she pleaded as though it were something he had chosen. “I need you, please stay here with me.”

“I’ll stay,” he replied, then to give her the out that she would inevitably need, he added, “As long as you want me to.”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! I think it’s about time!”

He walked her over to the bed and helped her crawl in. He put the blankets over her top half, leaving her lower half exposed. Zosia grasped convulsively at the edge of the cloth and panted with the effort of controlling her pain.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“See if you can’t find something to wash your hands and me with. I don’t want an infection.”

There was the snow—cold but probably clean. Still it was not likely to be very effective. He opened the cupboards and located a bottle of vodka. Thank God! Supplies for three days in a snowstorm—yes, vodka made sense. He rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, then swabbed between Zosia’s legs. “Hope that does it.”

She giggled, then gasped a bit. After a moment she found the energy to tell him to look to see how large the opening to her uterus was. Indicating with her thumb and forefinger, she said, “It should be about this big.”

Peter looked, probed with his hand. “I think so. I feel something behind— maybe it’s the head?”

“Could be.” Zosia sounded relieved.

As he helped her into a semi-sitting position and propped her up, she
explained what he should look for. “I’m going to start pushing,” she gasped around her pain. “If it’s the head coming out, we’re probably all right. If not, well . . . Ahhh.”

After she had recovered herself, Peter felt the shape of the baby in her belly and reiterated that he thought the baby’s head was in position. Sighing with relief, Zosia told him to check to see if the umbilical cord was out of the way and not wrapped around the baby’s neck. “I think the head will slide out. Guide it out and then I’ll pause and shove the rest out,” she panted. “Tell me to stop if the cord is in the way, or if anything isn’t going right. You might need to twist the shoulders a bit to guide them through.”

He nodded, checking with his hands that all was going well. It did seem to be the head of the baby that he could see, and the color was good enough for him to suspect it was not being strangled.

Zosia seemed to lapse into confusion, so as he saw another pain overtake her, he commanded, “Push!” She did, and slowly the crown of a little head emerged. They worked for a while in this manner, and then with a great heave Zosia struggled to get the entire head out. It didn’t work—the baby was adamantly stuck, the wrinkled pink skin of its head slowly turning blue.

Like a large, purple walnut, he thought.

They tried about fifteen minutes with Peter trying to gently guide the child out, but it remained stuck.

“Rest a bit,” he advised as he whisked away some fecal pellets Zosia had expelled with all her efforts. He washed his hands again and Zosia rested, ignoring the urge to push on the next contraction. She raised herself up a bit to look down at the stuck head, then lay back and rested through another contraction. Peter went around to her and, lifting her up a bit farther, waited for the next wave. Her muscles tightened, the contraction shook her, and he ordered her to bear down.“Do it, this time!”

She did and, with an earth-shattering heave, expelled the child onto the mattress.

They both stared at the little thing lying like a rag doll on the blood-spattered mattress. “Shouldn’t someone pick it up?” Zosia asked, her voice suddenly steady, her pain immediately relieved.

“Oh, God, yes!” Gently dropping Zosia back down, Peter went around to the child. “I thought you were just going to push out the head,” he said stupidly.

“So did I.” She smiled at the baby lying sprawled between her legs. Two legs, two arms, healthy pink beginning to replace the blue. Hands and feet looked normal and healthy. Sex organs red and swollen. It was a girl!

Tenderly Peter lifted the little bundle into his arms, remaining bent over Zosia’s legs because of the length of cord that still tied the baby to her. He looked down at his daughter, gasping with the realization of what he held. The infant snatched at the air with tiny little sobs that developed into a hearty cry as he held her.

He cleaned a bit of mucus away from the baby’s nose with his fingers and
stroked some fluid out of her mouth. He wiped her face with a soft cloth, but it was insufficient to remove all the muck. He wanted to clean her face, but the vodka worried him. Would it be too rough? Without deciding anything, he instinctively bowed his head over her and, after kissing the tiny face, licked away the detritus that covered her face.

Zosia watched and nodded her approval. He finished cleaning the child’s face, laid the baby gently on Zosia’s abdomen, as far up as the cord would allow, then he turned to tend the fire as Zosia stroked the child’s head. After pitching a log onto the fire, he returned to cut the cord. “Is it all right to do it now?” he asked. Still the sounds of fighting marred the morning silence.

“I think so,” Zosia replied, desperate to hold her daughter.

There still seemed to be blood pulsing through the cord and Peter hesitated. Maybe they should wait? Then, because the baby could not reach her mother’s breast, he grabbed a bit of the cord, twisted it to stop the blood, and sliced it with his knife. He held the ends for a moment, then picked up his daughter and handed her to Zosia to hold.

Zosia held her, crooned to her, sang her a little song as Peter fetched a towel to wrap the child. After a while, Zosia handed him the baby as she began to feel further contractions. It took a few minutes to deliver the placenta, then she took the baby back and, opening her shirts, tried to nurse it as he cleaned up what he could and then wrapped Zosia and the baby with blankets and his coat.

Once everything had been cleaned and the fire tended, he pulled a chair over to the bedside and sat down. He had not realized how exhausted he was.“Has she taken any milk?” he asked.

Zosia shook her head. “But that’s not unusual.”

He nodded. “Can I hold her a bit?”

Zosia handed the bundle to him. He beheld her as if she were pure magic. Their daughter, their little girl, the product of their love, their commitment to the future. That last thought made the fighting in the distance sound all too close. Was it closer? Did they have a future? He thought of Joanna as he held his daughter and wondered, why such madness?

The child slept obliviously in his arms, and after a long, long while he handed her back to Zosia and went to prepare breakfast.

Zosia held her daughter pressed against her, every now and then trying to convince her to take a nipple into her mouth. She was not interested. She sighed and squirmed and sobbed occasionally, but she did not try to feed. Zosia let her mind wander as she held the precious bundle. She felt tears streaming down her face as she contemplated their situation. They were farther from the northern border of their territory—the direction the attack had seemed to take, but they had moved closer to the eastern frontier. The terrain was more difficult in that direction and the boundary fluctuated more frequently due to the inability of either side to establish a firm hold. Was it possible
that troops might come in from that direction? They could be overrun before the bunker, they could have troops marching through before the fighting even died down to the north.