Maliha

Maliha sprinted to Nahi’s side just as the woman collapsed to the floor, sweat beading along her brown skin as contraction after contraction hit.

Panic travelled through Maliha at how fast the woman was progressing already. The other labours she had witnessed had taken hours to reach this point, yet already Nahi was bearing her teeth in preparation for her second contraction in the space of a few minutes.

“Enzo,” called Maliha waving the boy over, ” I need you to get help, follow the drums and get help. Tell them Nahi is having her baby.”

The boy looked hesitant. Reluctant to leave but when Nahi released a god-awful scream, her teeth gritting as she bared down, he jerked in horror.

“Go now,” shouted Maliha waving Enzo off in the right direction before turning back to a blotchy Nahi. Tears rolled down her eyes as she panted, her thighs and skirt stained with her fluids.

“Okay Nahi, just breathe,” she soothed, her face a grimace as Nahi squeezed her hands when another contraction hit.

The woman was either progressing extremely fast or had been in labour for hours and had not realised it. Her pains from the previous day suddenly making sense.

Realising that there was little time, Maliha began looking around for anything she could use because she would be doing this alone. Even if help came in the next twenty minutes, the baby would have already begun to crown. Maliha knew she would be delivering this baby whether she was ready or not.

“Nahi, I need to wash my hands by the stream. I will be quick,” soothed Maliha as she dislodged her hand from Nahi’s tight grip.

“No,” she cried gripping Maliha by her neck with a surprising force. “Don’t leave,” she panted, big blue eyes running like the cool river that traversed through their lands.

“Nahi, I need to clean my hands before I can help with the baby. It’s the only way.”

Nahi’s nails dug into Maliha’s neck as she rode out a large contraction, her eyes squeezing shut as she groaned horrifically.

The moment the contraction was over and Maliha’s neck was released from Nahi’s vice like grip, she ran to the river and began washing her hands. Ripping a piece of her thin night dress to scrub what little of the dirt she could. She really needed soap, but she had none on her so instead settled for the cold water. The situation was not ideal. They had no clean rags, no hot water and no soap.

Maliha would have to try her hardest to prevent infection but in the middle of grass it was hard to prevent dirt from entering where it should not.

“Maliha,” wailed Nahi, as she struggled to yank up her skirt.

Dipping a new piece of her dress into the water, Maliha ran back over and began rearranging Nahi’s body. Removing the knife at the woman’s hip and pulling her skirt higher until it hung around her waist.

Maliha yanked the woman’s legs wider just as another contraction climbed through her. There was no time to wait for help or to think, the baby was coming and Maliha had to work fast.

The baby’s head was crowning, bloody hair stuck between Nahi’s legs as the woman screeched her baby free. She pushed. Her chin stuck to her chest as she heaved out a god-awful groan.

The baby slid out, gliding into Maliha’s shaking hands with its angry cries. The baby’s wails climbed over the sound of the beating drums, face pink and wrinkled with discomfort. Maliha quickly checked his vitals, making sure he had all his little toes and fingers.

She placed the squirming baby onto Nahi’s stomach, not cutting away the baby’s cord of life knowing that some tribes held a special prayer or ritual before the baby could be separated from its mother

Running back to the river she left the sobbing mother and her crying baby to bond. She washed the gunk from her arms and then ripped more material from her dress and soaked it through. She sat by the river until the baby stopped crying and Nahi’s voice lulled into a soft cooing. With the cold cloth in her hand she made her way back to the red mother and her baby and began wiping down the wriggling boy. His eyes were still clenched shut as Maliha bathed him with the cool water. His nose scrunching up in discomfort.

Once he was clean she made her way back to the river and cleaned the cloth, before heading back so she could begin bathing Nahi. As she began cleaning, she noted that the afterbirth had slipped from the mother’s legs whilst she had been away. Setting it to the side she wondered what she should do with it.

The Feri tribe had offered the placenta to their sprit animal, the Panther as an offering to their god Manatu who was believed to be a shape shifter. Some tribes she had stayed with buried the afterbirth in fear that if someone got hold of it they could infect and kill the babies.

This tribe was still so new to her, their ways of life so different than any other tribe she had visited.

Just as she was about to ask Nahi what to do, the woman’s eyes clenched, “Oh gods”, she wailed her body locking as she gritted through the pain.

“It’s not over,” she sobbed, her back bending as she grunted another gut-wrenching sound. The baby began wailing in her arms.

Not understanding what was happening, Maliha pried Nahi’s legs apart while she pressed down on her stomach, she jerked back away from Nahi’s body when a rough kick came back.

“There is another baby,” gasped Maliha, her mind whirling as she tried to gather her thoughts.

Nahi kept pushing, her baby crying along her chest as she wailed in pain. Panic was climbing through Maliha as she lost control of the situation. Before this moment she had never delivered a child in her life, she had only stood on the fringes and helped the midwifes. So, to deliver a second baby in these conditions, she couldn’t do it.

“Oh, gods the pain,” cried Nahi, her face scrunched up as she sobbed through each contraction, her face red and swollen from her tears.

“I’m going to die,” she was hiccupping, one hand clenching her crying baby while the other gripped the grass beneath her.

“You won’t die, you won’t,” cried Maliha but her words fell on deaf ears as another back-breaking contraction hit Nahi. Sweat glided down her skin as her breathing came in shallow pants.

“I can’t,” she sobbed, “no more,” her eyes clenching shut as her body became weaker.

“Don’t give up,” growled Maliha, gripping her hand even as she tried to feel for the baby.

The sounds of crunching grass had her gasping in relief as Enzo broke through the trees, Ujarak and Abazz hot on his tails. Her lips pinched tight when no one else followed behind them.

“Nahi,” Abazz called dropping to his knees beside her, his face a mask of worry as he took in her slightly greying skin and her shallow breaths. The wailing on her chest had him looking away from her, tears gliding down his face as he took his son into his arm, the cord still dangling.

“I didn’t know if there was a ritual to cutting his cord,” she whispered as Ujarak stepped closer to the bonding father and child.

“There is no ritual as such.” He murmured picking up Nahi’s knife that had been discarded to the side, “Except that the child’s chosen guardian must do it,” and with that he brandished the knife in his hand and sliced the cord from the child. Cutting that connection so new ones could be formed.

“Where is the midwife?” queried Maliha.

Ujarak was put off by her tone but she couldn’t help it, they needed the damn midwife and instead she had two useless men.

“She is too old to move so fast.”

“But we need her now,” she thundered, words drowned out by Nahi’s god awful screeching.

Something wasn’t right.

“What is happening?” Growled Ujarak, stepping closer to his sister in a protective stance.

“There is another baby,” Nahi panted, tears gliding down her eyes as her brother’s face turned ashen.

“We need the midwife now,” pleaded Maliha, as Nahi’s back bent with another painful sob.

Both men looked scared, Abazz with his son in his arms and his Solah gripping his free hand and Ujarak who now stood sheltering Enzo from the sights of childbirth.

“She won’t make it in time!” Growled Ujarak.

Maliha’s hands shook as she moved back down to Nahi’s lower body, her hand feeling around the stomach. When the baby’s legs kicked her hand that lay low on Nahi’s stomach she couldn’t control the fear that spiked through her.

“I need a knife,” she stammered, her hand sticking out for Ujarak to give it to her.

“You don’t mean to cut-”

“The baby is facing the wrong way, I need to turn him,” her voice wavering as she tried to steady her quivering hand.

She had only seen a midwife do this once, normally when a baby was facing the wrong direction, they used a non-scented oil, so they could slip their hand inside and turn the baby. Or the woman’s stomach was cut open and the baby pulled from her abdomen, there was no way Maliha could cut her open without risking Nahi’s life.

She was going to have to do this with no grease. They didn’t even have natural herbs to help ease Nahi’s pain, pain that would increase tenfold when Maliha sliced her nether lips to create a large enough incision for her hand to slip in.

“I need to push,” moaned Nahi, her hands gripping at the man beside her.

“Don’t,” shouted Maliha, eyes wide with fear.

“You can’t push yet. You have to fight it.”

“I can’t, Maliha- I need to - push,” she cried, hands clenching the earth beneath her as she bore down on a long contraction.

“You will kill him if you do,” she growled, looking to Ujarak and Abazz for help.

Ujarak’s clenched jaw softened as he curled over his sisters writhing body. She couldn’t hear his words, but they had Nahi releasing her death grip and panting heavily through her lips.

“That’s it Nahi, that’s it my love,” murmured Abazz, handing his son over to Ujarak so he could remove the clinging tresses of hair from her sweating face.

“Okay,” croaked Maliha.

Her face was ghostly white as she sliced the woman’s genitalia. Blood coating her fingers as her hand slid in and she began to feel for the baby. She bumped against his foot and then kept moving until she touched his back. One hand lay along Nahi’s stomach as she tried to coax the baby to move by himself. Sweat beaded on her brow as she gently turned the baby in the right direction, her breathing heavy over the sounds of Nahi’s screaming.

Her eyes yes were blurry, and she could feel the cold liquid dripping down her skin as she began to pray hard. Her heart was thudding in time to the drums as she continued turning him until the baby was in the right position.

As soon as she had him facing the right way her hand slid out, the baby following shortly after as Nahi released her loudest wail yet. Bloody brown hair was the first thing Maliha saw as the baby slid out. Eyes clenched shut and heart thudding as the baby’s stiff body felt like ice in her hands. Tears glided down her face as she felt the weak heart beat in her hands.

A cold cloth was shoved into her quivering fingers and she softly bathed the weak baby, hoping that baby would begging to cry. At the contact of the cold liquid the baby’s eyes scrunched tighter and a wail that rivalled their mother’s tumbled from small puckered lips.

A gasping sob choked through Maliha’s lips as the bloody baby began squirming in her arms. Little legs and hands wiggling at the discomfort.

“It’s a girl,” she sobbed wiping the baby quickly, so she could hand her over to her eager parents.

The umbilical cord was left attached as she placed the baby along her mother’s chest, small lips opening wide and suckling with a hunger that far surpassed her much smaller brother.

“She’s a hungry one,” croaked Nahi, shifting her daughter to the breast that had more milk. Ujarak came forwards with his nephew and lay the boy down into his mother’s chest, the siblings in her arms for the first time.

Climbing to her feet Maliha made her way over to Enzo -who she hoped hadn’t witness the scene - to only be halted in her step.

“Maliha,” she turned back around to a watery eyed Nahi, colour climbing back into her skin now that the hardest parts were over.

She would still need stitching between her legs and the afterbirth hadn’t come yet but that could be because the cord was still attached to the baby. She wasn’t sure.

“We would be honoured to have you as our daughter’s guardian,” she looked to Abazz and he nodded his head in agreement.

“Without you here, Nahi and my children- I cannot thank you enough for what you have done,” he was sincere, hands outstretched as he beckoned Maliha forward to come and take the knife.

With wobbling feet, she stepped forward and knelt down alongside Nahi’s body, “Thank you for this honour,” she mumbled.

Her hand pressed down on the blade and then the cord was sliced free, dropping to the ground.

Enzo stepped closer into the clearing, hesitantly moving until Ujarak beckoned him closer to his side where he still held the new born baby.

“Take her,” ushered Abazz, lifting his squirming daughter into his arms and giving her to Maliha.

The moment her hazy blue eyes flickered up at Maliha, she knew that she would never let this child down. She was so small and delicate in her arms but the way she gripped Maliha’s finger told her of a strength that she would help nourish.

Tears glided down her cheeks as she realised how far she had come.

A few weeks ago, she had been travelling through dirt and mud, rain and desert. Lost to the world with no direction until she reached this foreign land. A land that had given her so much meaning and life.

For the first time ever, she could see herself belonging somewhere. She could see herself staying and not only for this young life in her arms, or for Enzo who stood unsure of himself - but for herself.

Her soul called to this untamed place and its wild people.