Cilka's Journey(44)

“Aaaargh…” she grunts. “Niiiina Romano … va.”

“Have you had a baby before, Nina Romanova?”

“Three. Three boys.”

“Doctor, doctor! Here, quick,” is shouted from the other end of the ward.

“Why don’t you stay here and help Nina Romanova, she knows what she’s doing. Give me a call when the baby is out.”

With that, he walks quickly to the nurse who called out. Cilka looks over and sees her holding a small baby upside down who appears lifeless. She continues watching as the doctor takes the baby and gives it a quick pat on the bottom before pushing a finger into the infant’s mouth and down its throat. The baby splutters and the ward fills with lusty crying.

“Lovely!” Petre says. “Another citizen for our glorious State.”

Cilka can’t tell if he is just saying this for show or whether he believes it.

She turns her attention back to Nina. She wipes the woman’s face with the corner of a sheet. Useless. Looking around, she sees a basin on the far wall, a small pile of towels beside it. She quickly wets a towel and gently wipes Nina’s face, brushing her wet matted hair away.

“It’s coming, it’s coming,” Nina screams.

Cilka ventures to the end of the bed and looks in fascination as the head pops free.

“Dr.—Petre Davitovich,” she screams out.

“Cilka, let me know when the baby is out. I have my hands full here.”

“Pull it out!” screams Nina.

Cilka looks at her hands, bony and weak, and at the baby who now has one shoulder and an arm out. She pushes up her sleeves and reaches in to take hold of the little arm with one hand, cradling the head in the other. Feeling Nina bearing down, she gently tugs on the slippery baby. The one almighty push expels the baby completely and it lies between its mother’s legs and in Cilka’s hands, blood and fluid pooling around it.

“It’s out, it’s out,” Cilka cries.

From the other end of the ward comes the doctor’s voice, calm and reassuring. “Lift it up and give it a tap—you have to make the baby cry, make sure it is breathing.”

As Cilka lifts the baby up it begins to cry without the need of assistance.

“Well done—that’s what we want to hear,” the doctor calls. “I’ll be with you in a minute. Wrap the baby up and give it to Nina.”

“What is it?” pleads Nina.

Cilka looks at the baby, then to the doctor, who is watching her.

“You can tell her.”

Cilka wraps the baby in the towel left for that purpose. Handing it to Nina, she tells her, “It’s a little girl, a beautiful little girl.”

Nina sobs as her daughter is placed in her arms. Cilka watches, fighting tears that threaten, biting her lip—the emotion of the moment overwhelming. After studying her baby’s face, Nina exposes her breasts and pushes the baby roughly onto a nipple. The baby does nothing at first, seemingly reluctant, and then she finally latches on and Cilka marvels at the little jaw working feverishly away.

The doctor appears beside her.

“Well done. If Nina was a first-time mother, she wouldn’t know to put the baby to her breast as quickly as possible. In that case, you would need to help her. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Go and get some towels. Nina’s work isn’t done yet—she needs to get the placenta out, and having the baby suckle will quicken that.”

“So much to learn,” Cilka mutters as she retrieves a handful of towels.

When Nina has delivered the placenta, the doctor takes it away in a basin he retrieved from underneath the bed.

“Clean her up,” is his parting comment.

One of the other nurses comes over and shows Cilka the procedure for caring for the mother post-delivery. She tells Cilka she and the other nurse are fine with the remaining patients and she should spend some time with Nina and the baby, making sure nothing changes in their condition.

Cilka helps Nina sit up and examine her baby from head to toe. They talk about names and Nina asks Cilka if she has any ideas.

One name comes directly into Cilka’s mind.

“What about Gisela—Gita, for short?”

Newborn Gita is placed in Cilka’s arms and Cilka revels in her smallness, her smell. She goes to give her back and finds Nina sound asleep. Exhausted.

“Get a chair and sit with her awhile,” the nurse who has identified herself as Tatiana Filippovna suggests. Cilka is grateful. She is still aching all over. “We don’t often get a chance to cuddle the babies, as the mothers are very attached to them. Well, the ones who wanted them. A lot of them are all too happy for us to take them away and never look at them again.”

The idea breaks Cilka’s heart, but it is also something she understands. How could anyone bear to think of what the child’s life would be like, or their own life trying to protect them in a place like this?

“Nina will be transferred next door to the nursery hut in a little while,” Tatiana continues.

From Nina’s bedside, Cilka cuddles little Gita while observing the other two nurses and the doctor at work. Always calm, they move from patient to patient, soothing them, offering words of encouragement.

When a guard appears to take Nina and the baby away, Cilka is upset to see them go. Helping Nina into her coat, wrapping the baby inside, she assists the unsteady new mother to the door, and she is gone.