Songbirds(37)

Trying to keep my hands from shaking, I called my doctor’s emergency number to request a home visit. Nisha had made her way to the bathroom and was sitting on the toilet with the door open.

Her face was red and bloated with pain, drenched knickers around her ankles, streaks of red on her thighs. She was mumbling, saying something to me that I couldn’t understand.

I sat down beside her and took her hand; she held it tight, as if she were about to fall from a cliff. Her words became more audible: she was repeating something in Sinhalese, maybe a prayer.

I couldn’t move or speak, I just held her hand to stop her from falling into the black abyss that had opened up before us.

Dr Pantelis arrived silently: I saw only the headlights of his car distorted through the privacy glass of the bathroom window. I tried to release my hand from Nisha’s so that I could open the door for him, but she wouldn’t let go.

‘Can you get up?’ I asked.

She nodded and stood, slowly and with great effort. She held on to me as we made our way to the front door. By this time Dr Pantelis had come up the stairs. He took charge immediately, swiftly and professionally. Only then did Nisha allow her hand to loosen from mine. He asked me to fetch a chair. I did so. My next task was to get a glass of water. I did that too. Meanwhile, he had opened his bag on the floor and checked her blood pressure and oxygen levels, her heart rate and pupils. He then gave her a small canister of oxygen to hold over her mouth.

Once she started breathing into it, I could see her shoulders relaxing. She glanced at me over the mask and I knew what her eyes were saying.

The doctor and I lifted her onto the bed and I tucked the covers around her. Then, at his request, I led him into the bathroom as he wanted to see what had come out of her body.

He looked into the toilet bowl.

‘I’m afraid she has lost the baby,’ he said, bluntly, but with a softness to his voice that made me want to break down and cry.

I swallowed hard. ‘What can I do?’

‘Make sure you keep giving her oxygen through the night. Stay with her. If you find she bleeds again and it doesn’t stop, you may need to take her to the hospital. But for the time being she is fine to stay here.’

I stayed by her side all night. I peeled her out of her wet clothes, helped her into one of my T-shirts and sat by her side. We did all this without speaking. She wanted me to hold her hand so she could sleep.

‘How are you doing?’ I would say, whenever I saw her eyes flicker open.

‘Yes, I’m doing OK.’

Beyond the glass doors of my bedroom, I could hear murmurs from the people passing in the street, the barking of a dog, the wheels of a car, footsteps, clattering plates at Theo’s. It all seemed miles away. I was in between worlds: behind me was a road that reached a dead end and would never now open up; a child that would not come into existence. Yet, I could see him or her, a half-formed shadow with Nisha’s bright eyes. Maybe I’d been too hasty. I’d made too many plans. I had been too sure of myself. This unloving child was so real to me. It filled the cocoon in which I sat and Nisha slept, like the light from the sun and the song of the birds that came through the window that morning.

Of course, I thought, birdsong glows like sunlight. A strange thought, which was snatched away from me as sleep tried to catch me. I stood, by the window, making sure to stay awake.

When Nisha woke up around five o’clock, I was seated upright on the bed beside her.

‘Good morning,’ she said, with such sadness that it broke my heart.

‘Good morning. Did you sleep OK?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘The pain has gone. I’m tired.’

I nodded, kissed her on the cheek and went to fetch a glass of water, which I held to her lips. She had a few sips and handed it to me.

‘I’m empty,’ she said. A clear and quiet truth.

The air in my apartment was heavy and humid. I had sweated through my clothes. There were a few items of clothing that Nisha had left over at my place – some underwear, and a red beach dress with yellow flowers that she often wore in the garden. I helped her to get dressed. It was as if she was half-asleep, her arms and body malleable, like soft clay – she allowed me to move her without resistance. It was the first time I had seen such vulnerability in her. Nisha was always strong, fearless, practical. Now, she had handed her power over to me.

She said only a few things. Namely that she would tell Petra that she was unwell with a stomach bug and that hopefully after a little more rest she would be able to return to her duties. With every word she spoke, every small decision she made, I could see her strength returning, her back straightening, the colour gradually returning to her face.

We walked through the garden to her room. The red dress kept reminding me of her blood-soaked blue dress. I tucked her up in bed in order for her to get some rest before Petra and Aliki woke up.

‘Stay with me for a few minutes?’ she said, quietly, and I heard the deep sadness in her voice again.

‘Of course.’

I sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair.

‘You know,’ she said after a long silence, ‘every person comes into this life with a certain amount of breaths. You live until those breaths run out. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, if you have no breaths left, your energy will pass. This baby just didn’t have enough breath to come into this world.’