Speak Through the Wind (19 page)

“Bring ’em in, boys!” Ben’s voice somehow carried across the cheering crowd.

Young Ryan and James worked together bringing one of the barrels—now upright on a small hand truck—to the edge of the ring. Queen Sheba was returned to her cage, amid much canine protesting, and the two men stepped out of the ring. Ben produced a crowbar to pry the lid off the barrel, then using a set of metal tongs, he reached into the barrel and pulled out one screaming, squirming rat.

Kassandra knelt, breathless against the wall, her face pressed close to the rough plaster. She closed her eyes against the awful vision, but nothing could block out the sound. The frantic barks of Queen Sheba. The squealing rats. The voices of the men as they counted in unison—“Thirty-five! Thirty-six! Thirty-seven!”— numbering the rats to be killed by Queen Sheba. Kassandra counted with them, measuring the seconds left until the pain would subside, but when the men reached “Fifty!” with a resounding cheer, she was nowhere near relief.

“Now, gentlemen!” Ben called out. “The time to beat is three minutes! This man here will keep the time. All bets are in!”

The pitch of the screaming rats transcended the roar of the men, and no matter how hard Kassandra pressed the heels of her hands against her ears, nothing would block it out. The only blessing was the fact that the piercing of the screams distracted her from the pain of her own body. She curled herself closer to the wall, willing her senses to be deprived, and waited for the strength to stand.

Then, a new sensation, a new pressure, just between her shoulders. A new sound—“Miss Kassandra?”—barely discernible against the muffled, piercing screams of the rats.

“Miss Kassandra!”

She allowed one eye to open and turned her head. Sean knelt beside her, his long features a mask of concern. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear, so she gingerly lifted one hand.

“What are you doin’ here, Miss Kassandra?”

“Get Ben.”

Sean looked around nervously. “Can you stand?”

“Get Ben!”

“Come on.” He grasped Kassandra’s elbow and helped her to her feet. “Lean on me.”

Kassandra’s body once again relaxed just as a voice in the crowded room yelled, “Time!” Before being led up the stairs, she. suffered one more look over her shoulder and saw the writhing dog, its muzzle covered in blood, being carried out of the ring to be put back in its cage. Meanwhile, a smiling Ben once again held the metal tongs and leaned over the picketed border of the ring to pull up one limp and lifeless rat.

“One!” the men began counting again.

Kassandra didn’t know if she made it up the stairs under her own power or by the strength of Sean’s strong arm around her waist. She did know that she had never seen a sight as welcoming as the light streaming from underneath her door, and nothing ever felt so welcome as the soft mattress beneath her.

“Now,” she said, “go get Ben.”

“Aw, he’ll just be settlin’ up.” Sean wrung his cap in his hands. “I need to be down there wit’ him, countin’ the—”

“Listen to me! I am having a baby! I cannot do this alone!”

“I can send one of the boys. Young Ryan. To fetch Miss Imogene.”

“Do that. But before you go, put some more wood in the stove and put the kettle on.”

“Yes, Miss Kassandra.” Sean’s tall, lean form moved at her command.

“And Sean? In the top drawer of my bureau is my Bible. Will you hand that to me, please?”

“Are ya goin’ to read right now?”

“I just want to hold it.”

Sean nodded and walked over to the bureau. He opened the top drawer carefully, almost reverently, and took out the Bible. “D’ya want me to bring the lamp over here so you can see better?”

Kassandra offered up a weak smile, even as she felt the next contraction take over. “No, Sean. Thank you.”

He nodded again and placed the Bible in her outstretched hands. Then, with unprecedented boldness, he reached down to smooth a lock of hair off her face and bent low to kiss the top of her head.

“If you was mine,” he whispered, “I’d never leave your side.”

“Go.” She spoke through clenched teeth.

And he obeyed.

She tried to count the minutes between the birthing pains. Tried to measure their intensity counting up by fives as they progressed, then down by threes as her muscles relaxed. But all she could hear was the crowd downstairs tallying rats. Whether their voices were real or an echoed memory she couldn’t tell, but they were disturbing enough to make her resort to her childhood habit of naming the presidents. She cycled through the names twice before the pain finally reached its apex at Andrew Jackson.

When her body was at rest, Kassandra alternated between clutching her Bible close to her heart and listlessly thumbing through its pages. The room was too dimly lit to allow her to read, but the names of the books stood out as she riffled through: Samuel. Job. Proverbs. Matthew. How could it be that less than a year ago these books had such meaning? Reverend Joseph could call out a book, chapter and verse, and Kassandra—after just a moment’s thought—could recite the Scripture to near perfection. Now, though, the words were as much a blur in her mind as they were on the page, but snippets of their truth came to her.

Lo, I am with you always.

Oh, Lord, my strength and fortress.

Deliver me from evil …

“Oh, God!” she cried out, whether in prayer or pain she was not sure, but before the escalating spasm could take all her breath, she spoke out into the empty room. “
Vater-Gott im Himmel.”
She had abandoned this language so long ago, and now, in an instant, she felt the comfort of childhood innocence as she called out to her heavenly Father, perhaps crying out the same prayers her mother had nearly sixteen years ago as she labored to bring Kassandra into this world. She begged for deliverance from this pain. She pled for the safety of her child. In a flurry of phrases barely comprehensible to her own ears, Kassandra begged God for His mercy and called down His forgiveness for leaving the home He had provided, for coming to this place, for sharing a bed with this man.

Her body willed her to stand to relieve some of the pressure. Imogene would want her to walk. Kassandra herself had been the balancing force beside several women who paced through their labor, at least for those who weren’t too intoxicated. Kassandra took inching steps, clutching along the top of the bureau, then palms-flat along the wall. Across the door. To the kitchen shelf where a glance at the stove showed the kettle to be simmering, but not yet boiling. She took one unsteady open step, practically falling against a kitchen chair, afraid to reach out for the table lest she topple it and break the lamp, setting the whole flat on fire. There would be no safe path across the room back to her bed, so she turned around, lurched back to the kitchen shelf, and made her way back to the bed.

Somewhere along the way, the intentions of her body took a turn.
Push.

“Ich kann nicht”
she protested.

But her body would not be denied.
Push.

Kassandra fell to her knees beside her bed. Everything she’d learned at Imogene’s side, every trick and truth of childbirth fled her mind as she knelt there, her face buried in the soft mattress. She was conscious of a warm trickle along the back of her legs. She remembered Imogene telling her that that water was the life force of the baby in the womb. “When that water gone,” she’d said, “time for baby to come out.”

Push.

“Nicht allein … nicht allein”
she sobbed into the sleeve of her nightgown, but then she heard a voice as clear and distinct as if it had been spoken into her ear.

You are not alone.

Kassandra opened her eyes and looked around, but no one was there. Then her glance fell to the floor beside her, where Clara’s Bible lay just where it had fallen. Sniffling, she wiped her sleeve across her face and picked it up off the floor. She held it in both hands and braced herself on her elbows.

“Ich bin nicht allein.”
She dug her fingers into the leather and bore down.

“Get off that floor. Into bed.”

“Imogene! Where is Ben?”

“Into bed.”

Kassandra felt herself being half pulled, half pushed onto the bed.

“Where is Ben?”

“Hush now.”

“But he should be—”

“He downstairs. Waiting.”

The brusque quality to Imogene’s voice warned Kassandra against any further conversation. The little woman accompanied her ministrations with the same tuneless humming Kassandra had heard countless times. She lost herself in the notes, trying in vain to predict the next one when her body once again compelled her to push.

The humming stopped. The furrows that crossed Imogene’s face deepened as she brought the light closer.

Kassandra took a deep breath and began to bear down.

“Stop!”

“I—I can—”

“I said do not push.”

“Wh—”

But Imogene was gone. She threw open the door and ordered whatever sentry was posted there to go fetch Mr. Connor. Now. Returning, she positioned herself at Kassandra’s feet.

“Tell me,” Kassandra said.

“I see baby’s head,” Imogene said. “But something else, too.”

“What?”

“The cord.”

“Oh,
Gott.”

“You keep pushing, not good.”

“I didn’t know …”

The final word trailed off in a shrill cry as Kassandra fought against her body’s instincts to expel the child. In an instant, the heat generated during her fevered labor disappeared. She was overcome with chills as the sweat evaporated from her, the fabric of her nightgown clinging—clammy and cold—to her. skin. It seemed her body would be trapped at this impasse forever. She reached toward Imogene, her hand floundering until it gripped the bony forearm.

“I need Ben.”

“He downstairs. Smoking it up. Big man.”

“Get him. Please.”

But Imogene wouldn’t go. Soon all thought of Ben vanished as Kassandra fervently worked to obey Imogene’s quiet commands.

Deep breath. Hold. Little push, just tiny, tiny. Stop.

“Is the baby all right?”

“Don’t know.”

“If only—”

“Big push now.”

The little woman all but disappeared behind Kassandra’s raised legs and the now nearly sodden gown, but Kassandra smiled up to the ceiling, knowing that the “big push” always meant the end was near. She thought back to the miracles she’d witnessed, new beings thrust into the world. Maybe someday—

“Stop.”

A tug, her body stretched, the pain beyond what she had ever imagined in all the times she’d stood by, watching new lives slide through almost effortlessly She didn’t scream, though. The time for calling out seemed long over.

“The cord. Around the neck.”

Kassandra didn’t scream then, either. There was no breath left in her to scream, or cry out, or voice a single prayer. Everything within her went numb. Her body fell away, dropped in pieces, floating detached from its core. The noise from the crowd downstairs dissipated, Imogene’s instructions dropped to a whisper, and Kassandra allowed herself only the merest whimpering as she hoisted herself to her elbows and bore down with all the strength she could summon for the final push.

Then, the room fell into a silence as profound as she had ever experienced. There was no lusty cry from a newborn, no congratulatory pronouncement by Imogene as to the child’s health and perfection. The old woman said just two words, “A boy,” before placing the completely still infant in Kassandra’s arms.

Neither woman spoke as Imogene attended to the final details of birth. She simply hummed her peculiar tune, bustling between Kassandra’s splayed body and the washbowl on the table. Kassandra meanwhile studied every inch of the tiny boy—every wrinkle, every toe, every strand of soft hair that, even in the dim light of the room, showed every sign of being flaming red.

“He was perfect,” Kassandra said, tracing a finger across her son’s slightly parted lips.

“He was.”

Imogene spoke more sweetly than Kassandra had ever heard as she reached down to take the little one from his mother’s arms. She took him over to the washbowl on the table and, cradling him in one arm, brought the washcloth out of the warm water to gently wash the tiny body. From her bed, Kassandra watched as Imogene laid the child on a clean towel and gently patted him dry before taking a soft piece of flannel and swaddling him tight within it. Reverently now, she walked back across the room and handed the child to Kassandra again.

She looked down at the tiny face, infinitely peaceful, pale lashes dusting the tops of his cheeks.

“He looks like he is just sleeping,” she said, after bringing the child close to kiss the top of his head.

“Always do.” Imogene settled on the edge of the bed and reached out a stubby finger to caress the boy’s face. “You want I go get Mr. Connor now?”

The idea of Ben storming into this utter quiet let loose the emotion gripped tight within Kassandra’s chest. The first true tears flowed, and she brought the bundled baby close to her face, weeping into the soft blue flannel. Her shoulders heaved, but she made no sound until she voiced one long mournful sob.