A Single Swallow

by Ling Zhang

  As Wende changed the mattress on Pastor Billy’s bed, she found a book tucked into one corner of the bed. Pastor Billy loves to read, and you might find a book in any corner of the house, even on the lid of the cistern, beneath the washbasin, or beside the toilet. So at first, she thought nothing of it, but then she pulled her hand back as if she’d touched a hot coal. After a moment, she picked it up, knelt on the bed, and looked at the book in the light angling through the window. It seemed to have been read many times. The corners of its cover were worn, and many of its pages were dog-eared, making it loose and thick. Wende wasn’t really reading it, but was flipping to the title page as if out of habit, until she saw the name written with a fountain pen. She stared at the name, running her finger over the strokes of the characters slowly. Just then, Pastor Billy opened the door. As soon as she heard the movement, Wende turned around. She tossed the book down, but it was too late. Feeling like a thief caught in the act, she continued wiping the bamboo mats, but she used too much force, as if she wanted to scrape a layer of skin off the mats. Pastor Billy leaned over, picked up the book, and dusted it off.

  “I’ve had this book here for a long time. It should be returned to its previous owner,” he said.

  Wende stopped, rag in hand, panting with exertion.

  “I don’t want it. Tear it up. Burn it,” she said.

  Pastor Billy put the book back on his bed and laughed awkwardly. He said, “Are you speaking from anger? This has nothing to do with me. If you want the book burned, burn it.”

  She snorted and said, “OK. I’ll burn it.”

  Pastor Billy picked up the teacup he’d come for and walked to the door. He turned and stood for a moment behind Wende. He said haltingly, “He’s not as bad as you think. There was just a hurdle he couldn’t cross.”

  Wende didn’t answer, but continued dusting the bamboo mat. Her hands were even more forceful than before, and several bitter, forlorn creaks came from the mat.

  “He still cares about you. At the dorm when you went to talk to the commanding officer, he stood in front of the gun,” Pastor Billy said.

  Wende said nothing, but I saw her back heave.

  “That gun was loaded,” Pastor Billy said cautiously.

  Wende turned around forcefully and threw the rag into the bucket, splashing water on the ground.

  “If someone stabs you, then rubs a little pain-killing salve on the wound, does that mean they care?” she said.

  I had been sitting beside Wende the whole time and was caught off guard by this. Since I’d arrived, I’d never heard my master use this tone with Pastor Billy. She was usually very deferential to him, even if he occasionally said something unpleasant. At most, she would fall silent to express her dissatisfaction. She might display some outward meekness while hiding her internal rebellion as a way of making the old man happy. “Old man.” He’s not even forty, but in a village where the average life expectancy is short and sixty is ancient, Pastor Billy is seen as an old man by most of the villagers, whether he likes it or not. Anyway, I’d never seen Wende talk back to Pastor Billy before. Pastor Billy’s lips twitched a few times. He wasn’t angry. It was more like hesitation. He didn’t know whether he should pursue the conversation, but in the end, he couldn’t help himself.

  “Maybe he wasn’t the one who spread the rumors. Maybe someone—” he said, then suddenly stopped.

  She laughed bitterly. “Aside from you and him, no one else knows I’m from Sishiyi Bu. If it wasn’t him, was it you?”

  Pastor Billy didn’t answer. He just looked at Wende, then walked out quietly. I knew he had more to say. I could hear it rumbling in his belly. Wende took the rag from the bucket and knelt on the bed in a daze. She didn’t move, letting water drip from the rag onto the bamboo mat, where it pooled in little dark spots. Only then did I know it was Liu Zhaohu my master kept behind that closed door of hers. I’m sorry, Ghost. I’ve meandered too far. I haven’t visited in two days. So much has happened, and I have so much to tell you.

  Three days ago, around midnight, someone knocked on the door. Those who need Pastor Billy don’t care what time it is, so I’m used to midnight callers. Pastor Billy opened the door and found a woman lying on a plank. She’d been in labor for two days and had fallen into a semiconscious state. The village midwife was visiting her parents, and the midwife in the neighboring village was forty li away, delivering a child. Not knowing what else to do, the family brought her to the church. Pastor Billy had lived in Yuehu for ten years, but he’d never delivered a baby. People here would never let a man—especially a foreign man—touch their wives’ bodies. Though Pastor Billy was a surgeon, he wasn’t an obstetrician and had only observed a birth once during his internship. But there was no time for hesitation. He called Wende to boil some water, disinfect the towels and knives, clear the table, spread out a white cloth, and lift the woman onto it. He started to examine the woman, but the two men who had brought her to him—her husband and brother-in-law—stopped him and said, “We want that one.”

  Pastor Billy didn’t understand.

  The husband stammered, “The . . . the woman doctor . . .”

  They meant Wende.

  He said, “No, she’s never delivered a baby or even seen one delivered.”

  The husband said, “So what? The woman doctor’s skills are good. When Xu Sancai’s wife’s shoulder was dislocated, she fixed it. And Liu Mazi’s leg bled for half a year, but as soon as she cut it and cleaned it, it never bled again. Having a baby is easier, like a hen laying an egg. Why can’t the woman do it?”

  Pastor Billy sighed and said, “You ignorant men. Childbirth is like laying an egg? She’s been in immense pain for so long, she doesn’t have strength for the contractions. It could be an abnormal fetal position or a narrow birth canal. If we delay, she’ll . . . she’ll . . .” Pastor Billy caught himself. The word he was about to say was taboo. He quickly swallowed it and said, “She’ll face very serious consequences.” The men looked at Pastor Billy blankly, as if he had just finished reading scripture to them. Aside from the beginning and the end, they didn’t understand a word of it.

  The pain roused the woman, and her hands grabbed at the air as she called her husband’s name. “Tianlin, you son of a bitch! You did this to me! You’ve killed me!” She sounded like a pig being slaughtered, making my hair stand up.

  Pastor Billy glared at the two men, then shouted, “Get out! You two, get out! If you’re here, how can the woman doctor go about her business?” They went out helplessly, sat on the steps, and waited for news.

  Pastor Billy started to examine her. Though she’d passed out from pain several times, she still felt shame. She pressed her legs closed tightly, not allowing him to look. Seeing this, Wende said softly in her ear, “It’s me. We’re both women. It’s OK. You can relax.”

  She’d been in pain for so long, she had no strength left. She let Wende remove her pants and disinfect her. Pastor Billy checked and saw that the fetal position was normal and that her cervix was dilated fully, but the fetus was too big for her birth canal. He took a clean towel and told the woman to bite it. He said, “If you can’t stand it, then scream, but better save your strength if you can. When I say push, push hard.”

  He then instructed Wende to get the surgical scissors. When she tried to give them to Pastor Billy, he didn’t take them, but held the woman’s thighs open with both hands.

  “You do it. You’ve drained an abscess. You can do this.”

  She hesitated, then understanding what he meant, began to tremble slightly.

  “I’m stronger than you, so I’ll hold her legs. You make a lateral incision, at a forty-five-degree angle to the left and about an inch and a half in length,” he said.

  She still hesitated. Pastor Billy leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Forget it’s a person. Think of it as the sole of a shoe. Use the skill you always use when you cut a sole. Make the cut, steady and accurate.”

  She took a deep breath, then cut as Pastor
Billy had instructed. The woman’s face twisted violently, and a dull squeal escaped around the towel. After a moment, the squeals were overtaken by another sound. It was sharp as an awl, reaching the roof and piercing it. It was a baby’s first cry. A boy’s cry, to be precise. When the stitches were finished and mother and child cleaned and wrapped, they opened the door and let the men come in. Seeing his child, the father knelt with a crash, touching his head to the ground before Wende, thanking her over and over. Pastor Billy pulled him up and said, “They must stay in the church for two days so we can watch for infection.”

  The husband refused, saying, “No matter what, I have to take them home before dawn.”

  Pastor Billy knew he was afraid that people would see his wife in the church and think a man had delivered her baby. He said, “You heard it all yourself. It was the woman doctor who took your child from your wife’s belly. Are you so afraid of what others will say that you’ll risk their lives?”

  Finally, he agreed, and the men were sent away. Pastor Billy looked at the fuzzy little head wrapped in his old cotton jacket, sighed, and said, “Here, with such poor nutrition, where the mother is so small and skinny, she still managed to have this big fellow.”

  Using old scales, one end lifted very high, Wende found he was nine pounds and six ounces. She scooped water from the vat into a basin to wash her hands. Pastor Billy pointed at my belly with the tip of his cloth shoe, gently hooking his toes under me as I sat at Wende’s feet. He said, “Our Millie is the same. A tiny body giving birth to a giant. I hope there won’t be complications when the time comes.”

  He’s right. Though I’m not even halfway through my pregnancy, my belly is already so round, it’s ready to burst. If I don’t tighten my belly when I walk, it almost drags on the ground.

  “Congratulations, Stella. You’ve successfully delivered a child. Your first,” Pastor Billy said.

  She shook her head, exhausted, and said, “That was just to appease them. I don’t have the knowledge. You delivered the baby, not me.”

  Pastor Billy looked stunned. “You should be proud of yourself. Didn’t you hear? They kept calling you the woman doctor. Stella, your greatest strength is that you’re fearless in the face of danger. You just need someone to stand behind you and push you from time to time.”

  She said nothing, silently rubbing her still-shaking hands with soap.

  “I’ll teach you more gynecology. A few of the midwives in the area here are in their forties. Delivering a baby requires a lot of energy. They won’t be able to work much longer, and they don’t know Western medicine or how to do simple surgery. In the future, this will be your domain,” he said excitedly.

  Wende muttered, “I . . . I . . . people . . . ,” then stopped again.

  Pastor Billy suddenly came to himself. “You’re worried people will say you’re just a girl who hasn’t yet had children of her own, so what would you know about delivering a baby, right?”

  He had guessed part of what was on her mind, but not all. What he didn’t know was something my master had only shared with me—that her marital status was blurry at best. By fingerprints on documents, she was a married woman. By her maidenhood, she had lost her virginity and thus could not be considered a maiden, yet nobody claimed her as a wife. There was no word under the sun that accurately described her. She was a monster, stuck somewhere between childhood and adulthood, between maiden and wife. She couldn’t reconcile such a status with the role of midwife.

  Pastor Billy’s face tightened. “Stella, gossip is like dust in the wind. After it flies around for a while, it will settle. You can’t avoid going outside because of the dust. If you just take the first step, you’ll see it isn’t as scary as you imagine.”

  Wende said nothing.

  “Here, who can bring a woman a hundred li to a hospital to deliver her baby? No one knows how long the war will go on, but even the war won’t stop children from being born. If you become a midwife, you’ll never want for food or respect. Even if I were gone, no one would dare harm you then. You would have the whole village to protect you, because their wives’ and children’s lives would be in your hands. You can’t just think about now. You have to consider the future.”

  That phrase “the future” kept popping up in Pastor Billy’s words that day, and without realizing it, he said it more intensely each time, as if afraid it would flutter away. He didn’t realize that Wende didn’t want the future, just as she didn’t want the past. Those sentiments were only shared with me, in one of the rare moments she voiced any complaint. The first time he said it, she was uncertain. She didn’t know if she wanted it or resented it. But each repetition was like a stone on her heart. She realized that the future was a heavy thing to carry.

  They cleaned themselves up, and Wende told Pastor Billy to go back to sleep. She grabbed a stool and turned down the flame on the lamp, then sat with the woman who had just become a mother and the baby who had just become a son. I jumped up and curled up in her lap. Day was already breaking, and the paper over the windows was turning from black to gray. Mother and child fell asleep, their breathing shallow. The baby was ugly. His thick fetal hair seemed covered with a layer of dirt and the red skin on his face was just a wrinkled mess. It was as if he hadn’t fully escaped the horror of the scissors. From time to time, he twitched. I wondered if he was dreaming.

  Wende put her face down and gently rubbed my fur with her cheek. “A baby. I delivered a baby,” she muttered to herself.

  It wasn’t joy and contentment in her voice. What I heard was panic, fear, incredulity, and perhaps a trace of doubt. I understood. Wende, my master, was still a child herself. I gently licked her face and hands. For the first time, I felt the incompetence and sorrow of doghood. We understand countless emotions and feelings in humans, but we can only comfort them with our tongues. No, we can do more than that. When I noticed my master was anxious, I hopped onto her knees or sat at her feet, rubbing myself against them, and she gradually relaxed. My contented, rumbling breath could loosen the taut strings in her head like magic. Once I noticed this, I began to try to figure out which scales and rhythms relaxed her most quickly. I’m very good at it now. At that point, I rumbled for a few moments, and her eyes quickly grew sleepy. I thought the day’s chaos had finally come to an end.

  Wende had dozed off for a moment when someone knocked at the door again. By now, the most diligent roosters in the village were awake, crowing from time to time. The knock wasn’t as heart-stopping as the one at midnight, but it was still foreboding. I hopped down from Wende’s lap, and when I caught a trace of your scent, I knew it was Ian. Three days earlier, he and Liu Zhaohu had set off with a squad of new students. This was the day they were supposed to return, but they weren’t expected at the church, definitely not so damned early.

  Pastor Billy and Wende both woke in alarm and ran to open the door. Autumn was in the air, and the wind blew a little chill into the room. The trees were blurred to grayish brown with dew. Ian stood at the door, his face dull and sallow. He was being held up by two Chinese men, both much smaller than him. Wende recognized one of them as Ian’s servant, Buffalo. Ian had his full weight on one leg, the other bent with the pant leg rolled up to show a calf covered in dark-purple mud. Taking Buffalo along had been Ian’s idea, he said later. This mission was almost as far away as the one you went on, Ghost. Your last mission. After that previous long night march, Ian decided to bring Buffalo along to carry his food and weapons. He had learned that pride was trivial compared to exhaustion. Pastor Billy led them into the house and asked what had happened. Buffalo whispered, “It’s all my fault.” Then, he started to cry.

  They were going to a town that had no military significance in itself, but it happened to be on a tributary of a big river. There was actually nothing special about that either, as there were thousands of such waterways in Jiangnan, but this was the birthplace of a man who’d placed second in the imperial examinations during Daoguang’s reign. He became an important official
in the capital, and when he eventually returned to his village, he used the money he had earned to build a stone bridge. The bridge was built with excellent stone and exceptional handiwork, allowing it to hold not only the weight of ancient mule carts and carriages but also of modern cars. Over the previous month, the Japanese had started using the bridge to transport troops and supplies across the river, after suffering steady losses on the road they’d been using. The mission was to blow up the bridge and force the Japanese back to the original road, then let the regular army deal with them.

  They hadn’t expected the defenses to be so weak. Things had been quiet for a month, and they’d begun to let down their guard. There were only two sentries, one at either end of the bridge. The one on the far side was leaning against the bridge, asleep. Liu Zhaohu only needed one shot to kill the standing guard. With the silencer and the branches creaking in the strong wind, the sleeping guard didn’t even stir. One of the trainees stuffed the soft lumpy gray explosives into the gaps between two stones on the bridge almost effortlessly. The timing device was set for detonation half an hour later, when Japanese convoys usually crossed the bridge, as they were less likely to be noticed in the middle of the night.

  The mission all went according to plan. By the time the bridge blew into a pile of rocks, they’d retreated to perfect safety down the mountain path. The accident occurred when they were about two li from camp. Buffalo was tired, and he failed to keep an eye on Ian, and Ian slipped and fell into a ditch roughly as deep as a man is tall, with no footholds to climb out. With a great deal of effort, Buffalo and Liu Zhaohu pulled Ian out, but he couldn’t walk. At first they thought it was a fracture, but later found it was just a deep, bloody wound. A large, sharp rock had cut a seven-inch-long gash in his leg, scraping away his flesh almost to the bone. It was bleeding badly. Ian was nearly delirious with pain, so Buffalo got a handful of wet mud from the paddy field and plastered it over the wound, saying it was his grandfather’s trick to stop bleeding and relieve pain. Ian shouted, “What are you, a fucking witch doctor?” But he immediately felt a slight soothing coolness in the wound, and in moments the pain lessened noticeably, and they were able to get him back to Yuehu. The medical officer in the camp was in Chongqing on some business, so they sent him to Pastor Billy.