“May he be strong,” I prayed.
I was not prepared when my time came. Confident of everything I had learned from Rachel and Inna, I had no concerns about giving birth. I had witnessed the arrival of many healthy babies and the courage of many capable mothers. I imagined I had nothing to fear. When the first real pain grabbed my belly and robbed me of breath, I remembered the women who had fainted, the women who had screamed and wept and begged to die, I remembered a woman who died with her eyes wide open in terror, and a woman who died in a torrent of blood, her eyes sunken in exhaustion.
A sob broke from my mouth when my water broke and washed down my legs. “Mother,” I cried, feeling the absence of four beloved faces, four pairs of tender hands. How far away they were. How alone I was. How I longed to hear their voices speaking comfort in my own tongue.
Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers? But of course, there is no way to tell this or to hear it. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you have no idea how death stands in the corner, ready to play his part. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you do not know the power that rises from other women—even strangers speaking an unknown tongue, invoking the names of unfamiliar goddesses.
Re-nefer stood behind me, my weight on her knees, praising my courage. Herya, the lady of the house, held my right arm, muttering prayers to Taweret, Isis, and Bes, the ugly dwarf god who loved babies. The cook, on my left side, waved a bent stick carved with birth scenes over my head to ease the pain. Crouching before me to catch the baby was a midwife named Meryt. She was unknown to me, but her hands were as sure and gentle as I imagine Inna’s must have been. She blew into my face so that I could not hold my breath when the pains came, and even made me laugh a little and blow back at her.
The four women chatted over my head when the pangs subsided, and cooed encouragement when the pains returned. They put fruit juice in my mouth, and wiped me down with sweetly scented towels. Meryt massaged my legs. Re-nefer’s eyes shone with tears.
I wept and I yelled. I gave up all hope and I prayed. I vomited and my knees buckled. But even though their brows furrowed in response to my pains, none of them appeared worried or anxious. So I fought on, reassured.
Then I began to push because there was nothing else I could do.
I pushed and I pushed until I thought I would faint. I pushed and still the baby did not come. Time passed. More pushing. No progress.
Meryt looked up at Re-nefer, and I saw them exchange a glance that I had seen pass between Rachel and Inna at moments such as this, when the ordinary passage of life into life became a struggle between life and death, and I felt the shadow in the corner lean toward me and my son.
“No,” I screamed, first in my mother tongue. “No,” I said, in the language of the women around me.
“Mother,” I said to Re-nefer, “bring me a mirror so that I can see for myself.” I was brought a mirror and a lamp that showed me the tautness of my own skin. “Reach in,” I said to Meryt, remembering Inna’s practice. “I fear he is turned away. Reach in and turn his face, his shoulder.”
Meryt tried to do as I asked, but her hands were too large. My skin was too tight. My son was too big. “Bring a knife,” I said, almost screaming. “He needs a bigger doorway.”
Re-nefer translated, and Herya answered her in a grave whisper. “There is no surgeon in the house, daughter,” Re-nefer explained to me, in turn. “We will send for one now, but…”
The words came to me from far away. All I wanted to do was to empty myself of this boulder, to expel the agony, and sleep, or even die. My body cried out to push, but when the shadow in the corner nodded approval, I refused to obey.
“You do it,” I said to Meryt. “Take a knife and open the way for him. Please,” I begged, and she looked at me in uncomprehending pity.
“A knife! Mother!” I screamed, desperate. “Rachel, where are you? Inna, what shall I do?”
Re-nefer called out, and a knife was brought. Meryt took it fearfully. As I screamed and struggled to keep from pushing, she put the blade up to my skin and opened the door, front to back, as I had seen it done before. She reached up to move the baby’s shoulder. The pain was blinding, as though I had sat upon the sun itself. In an instant, the baby was out. But instead of a joyful shout, he was greeted by silence; the cord was at his neck, his lips were blue.
Meryt hurried. She cut the cord from his throat and took up her reeds, sucking death from his mouth, blowing life into his nostrils. I was screaming, sobbing, shaking. Herya held me as we all watched the midwife work.
The shadowy dog’s head of death moved forward, but then the baby coughed and with an angry cry banished all doubts. The dark corner brightened. Death does not linger where he is defeated. The voices of four women echoed around me, chatter
ing, laughing, loud. I fell back on the pallet, and knew nothing more.
I woke in the darkness. A single lamp flickered beside me. The floor had been washed, and even my hair smelled clean. The girl set to watch me saw my eyes open and ran to fetch Meryt, who carried a linen bundle. “Your son,” she said.
“My son,” I answered, dumbfounded, taking him in my arms.
Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child. I studied his face, fingers, the folds in his boneless little legs, the whorls of his ears, the tiny nipples on his chest. I held my breath as he sighed, laughed when he yawned, wondered at his grasp on my thumb. I could not get my fill of looking.
There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment. Like every mother since the first mother, I was overcome and bereft, exalted and ravaged. I had crossed over from girlhood. I beheld myself as an infant in my mother’s arms, and caught a glimpse of my own death. I wept without knowing whether I rejoiced or mourned. My mothers and their mothers were with me as I held my baby.
“Bar-Shalem,” I whispered. He took my breast and fed in his sleep. “Lucky one,” I said, overcome. “Two pleasures at once.”
We both slept under the watchful eye of the Egyptian midwife, whom I knew I would love forever even if I never saw her face again. In my dream that night, Rachel handed me a pair of golden bricks and Inna presented me with a silver reed. I accepted their gifts solemnly, proudly, with Meryt by my side.
When I woke up, my son was gone. Frightened, I tried to stand, but the pain kept me pinned to my bed. I cried out, and Meryt arrived with soft packing and unguents for my wounds. “My son,” I said, in her language.
She looked at me tenderly and replied, “The baby is with his mother.” I thought I misunderstood her. Perhaps I had not used the right words. I asked again, speaking slowly, but she touched me with pity and shook her head, no. “The baby is with his mother, the lady.”
Still confused, I cried out, “Re-nefer. Re-nefer. They have taken my baby boy. Mother, help me.”