The Four Winds
Loreda ran into the tent, banged into Elsa. “Why are you back?”
“They turned us away.”
“You mean—”
“Go get water. Boil a lot of it.” When Loreda didn’t move, Elsa snapped, “Now!” and Loreda ran out.
Elsa lit a kerosene lamp and helped Jean to the mattress on the floor.
Jean convulsed in pain, gritted her teeth to keep from crying out.
Elsa knelt beside her, stroking her hair. “Go ahead and scream.”
“It’s coming,” Jean said between pants. “Keep … the kids … away. Scissors in that … box. And there’s some string.”
Another contraction.
Elsa stared at Jean’s writhing belly and knew she only had a few moments. Elsa ran back to her tent, ignoring the children, who looked at her with frightened eyes. There wasn’t time to comfort them now.
She grabbed a stack of saved newspapers and ran back to Jean’s tent, where she laid the newspapers down on the dirt floor, grateful that they were relatively clean.
Headlines flashed out at her: “Typhoid Outbreak in Migrant Camps.”
Elsa helped Jean roll onto the newspapers. Elsa then put on the gloves.
Jean screamed.
“Go ahead,” Elsa said, kneeling beside her. She stroked Jean’s wet hair.
“It’s … now,” Jean cried out.
Elsa moved quickly, positioned herself between Jean’s open legs. The top of the baby’s head appeared, slimed and blue. “I see the head,” Elsa said. “Push, Jean.”
“I’m too…”
“I know you’re tired. Push.”
Jean shook her head.
“Push,” Elsa said. She looked up, saw the fear in her friend’s eyes. “I know,” Elsa said, understanding Jean’s deep fear of this moment. Babies died in the best of circumstances, and these were the worst. They also lived in spite of all odds. “Push,” she said, meeting Jean’s fear with a quiet hopefulness.
The baby whooshed out in a stream of blood into Elsa’s gloved hands. Too tiny, spindly almost. Smaller than a man’s shoe.
Blue.
Elsa felt a roar of anger move through her. No. She wiped the blood from the tiny face, cleaned out her mouth, begged the infant, “Breathe, baby girl.”
Jean pushed up to her elbows. She looked too tired to breathe h
erself. “She ain’t breathin’,” she said softly.
Elsa tried to help the baby breathe. Mouth-to-mouth.
Nothing.
She smacked the tiny blue bum, said, “Breathe.”
Nothing.