Yang Lien-Hua was in Labor Room #3. The walls were of yellow glazed brick, the floor tile of some color that had been overcome by years of use, and was now a brown-gray.
For “Lotus Flower,” it had been a nightmare without end. Alone, all alone in this institution of life and death, she’d felt the contractions strengthen and merge into one continuous strain of her abdominal muscles, forcing her unborn child down the birth canal, toward a world that didn’t want it. She’d seen that in the nurses’ faces, the sorrow and resignation, what they must have seen and felt elsewhere in the hospital when death came to take a patient. They’d all learned to accept it as inevitable, and they tried to step away from it, because what had to be done was so contrary to all human instincts that the only way they could be there and see it happen was to—to be somewhere else. Even that didn’t work, and though they scarcely admitted it even to one another, they’d go home from work and lie in their beds and weep bitterly at what they as women had to do to newborns. Some would cradle the dead children who never were, who never got to take that first life-affirming breath, trying to show womanly gentleness to someone who would never know about it, except perhaps the spirits of the murdered babies who might have lingered close by. Others went the other way, tossing them into bins like the trash the state said they were. But even they never joked about it—in fact, never talked about it, except perhaps to note it had been done, or, maybe, “There’s a woman in Number Four who needs the shot.”
Lien-Hua felt the sensations, but worse, knew the thoughts, and her mind cried out to God for mercy. Was it so wrong to be a mother, even if she attended a Christian church? Was it so wrong to have a second child to replace the first that Fate had ripped from her arms? Why did the State deny to her the blessing of motherhood? Was there no way out? She hadn’t killed the first child, as many Chinese families did. She hadn’t murdered her little Large Dragon, with his sparkling black eyes and comical laugh and grasping little hands. Some other force had taken that away from her, and she wanted, she needed another. Just one other. She wasn’t being greedy. She didn’t want to raise two more children. Only one. Only one to suckle at her breasts and smile at her in the mornings. She needed that. She worked hard for the State, asked little in return, but she did ask for this! It was her right as a human being, wasn’t it?
But now she knew only despair. She tried to reverse the contractions, to stop the delivery from happening, but she might as well have tried to stop the tide with a shovel. Her little one was coming out. She could feel it. She could see the knowledge of it in the face of the delivery nurse. She checked her watch and leaned out of the room, waving her arm just as Lien-Hua fought the urge to push and complete the process, and so offer up her child to Death. She fought, controlled her breathing, struggled with her muscles, panted instead of breathing deeply, fought and fought and fought, but it was all for nothing. She knew that now. Her husband was nowhere near to protect her. He’d been man enough to put her here, but not enough to protect her and his own child from what was happening now. With despair came relaxation. It was time. She recognized the feeling from before. She could not fight anymore. It was time to surrender.
The doctor saw the nurse wave. This one was a man. It was easier on the men, and so they gave most of the “shots” in this hospital. He took the 50-cc syringe from stores and then went to the medication closet, unlocking it and withdrawing the big bottle of formaldehyde. He filled the syringe, not bothering to tap out the bubbles, because the purpose of this injection was to kill, and any special care was superfluous. He walked down the corridor toward Labor #3. He’d been on duty for nine hours that day. He’d performed a difficult and successful Caesarian section a few hours before, and now he’d end his working day with this. He didn’t like it. He did it because it was his job, part of the State’s policy. The foolish woman, having a baby without permission. It really was her fault, wasn’t it? She knew what the rules were. Everyone did. It was impossible not to know. But she’d broken the rules. And she wouldn’t be punished for it. Not really her. She wouldn’t go to prison or lose her job or suffer a monetary fine. She’d just get to go home with her uterus the way it had been nine months before— empty. She’d be a little older, and a little wiser, and know that if this happened again, it was a lot better to have the abortion done in the second or third month, before you got too attached to the damned thing. Damned sure it was a lot more comfortable than going through a whole labor for nothing. That was sad, but there was much sadness in life, and for this part of it they’d all volunteered. The doctor had chosen to become a doctor, and the woman in #3 had chosen to become pregnant.
He came into #3, wearing his mask, because he didn’t want to ‘give the woman any infection. That was why he used a clean syringe, in case he should slip and stick her by mistake.
So.
He sat on the usual stool that obstetricians used both for delivering babies and for aborting the late-term ones. The procedure they used in America was a little more pleasant. Just poke into the baby’s skull, suck the brains out, crush the skull and deliver the package with a lot less trouble than a full-term fetus, and a lot easier on the woman. He wondered what the story was on this one, but there was no sense in knowing, was there? No sense knowing that which you can’t change.
So.
He looked. She was fully dilated and effaced, and, yes, there was the head. Hairy little thing. Better give her another minute or two, so that after he did his duty she could expel the fetus in one push and be done with it. Then she could go off and cry for a while and start getting over it. He was concentrating a little too much to note the commotion in the corridor outside the labor room.
Yang pushed the door open himself. And there it all was, I for all of them to see. Lien-Hua was on the delivery table. Quon had never seen one of them before, and the way it held a woman’s legs up and apart, it looked for all the world like a device to make women easier to rape. His wife’s head was back and down, not up and looking to see her child born, and then he saw why.
There was the.., doctor, was he? And in his hand a large needle full of—
—they were in time! Yang Quon pushed the doctor aside, off his stool. He darted right to his wife’s face.
“I am here! Reverend Yu came with me, Lien.” It was like a light coming on in a darkened room.
“Quon!” Lien-Hua cried out, feeling her need to push, and finally wanting to.
But then things became more complicated still. The hospital had its own security personnel, but on being alerted by the clerk in the main lobby, one of them called for the police, who, unlike the hospital’s own personnel, were armed. Two of them appeared in the corridor, surprised first of all to see foreigners with TV equipment right there in front of them. Ignoring them, they pushed into the delivery room to find a pregnant woman about to deliver, a doctor on the floor, and four men, two of them foreigners as well!
“What goes on here!” the senior one bellowed, since intimidation was a major tool for controlling people in the PRC.
“These people are interfering with my duties!” the doctor answered, with a shout of his own. If he didn’t act fast, the damned baby would be born and breathe, and then he couldn’t…
“What?” the cop demanded of him.
“This woman has an unauthorized pregnancy, and it is my duty to terminate the fetus now. These people are in my way. Please remove them from the room.”
That was enough for the cops. They turned to the obviously unauthorized visitors. “You will leave now!” the senior one ordered, while the junior one kept his hand on his service pistol.
“No!” was the immediate reply, both from Yang Quon andYu FaAn.