Ha Jin - Waiting

"Who did you talk about?"

"Just women in general."

"So he thinks I'm out of my mind?"

"Oh no, he said I was in the wrong and I didn't understand you."

"What did he say exactly?"

"He said a woman couldn't live long without attention and love. "

She tittered, amused that the commissar could talk that way. No wonder he was so patient with his crazy wife. She said, "That's not true. How about nuns?"

"Well, " Lin paused, then went on, "they have the attention of monks, don't they?"

They both laughed.

"Manna," he said, " if I had known you'd feel so strongly about my teaching the class, I'd never have agreed to do it."

Seeing the honest look on his face, Manna smiled and told him never to make such a decision on his own. They should always discuss it first. "A married couple must work like a team," she said.

From that day on, he would stay home in the evening to prepare the lessons. Because the class was already in motion, it was impossi ble to change and he had to go to teach it twice a week. Though Manna was glad about the reconciliation, the two lonely evenings each week still irritated her. Sometimes she felt depressed when he wasn't home, and she couldn't help imagining how to give him a piece of her mind.

As her belly bulged out in the summer, Manna grew more grumpy. She resented Lin's absence from home two evenings a week. She knew the class would be over soon, but she couldn't help herself, treating him as though he were having an affair. Her peevish face often reminded Lin of what she had said the day after their wedding, "I wish you were paralyzed in bed, so you'd stay with me all the time."

Is this love? he would wonder. Probably she loves me too much.

One late afternoon in August, Manna returned from the grocery store with four cakes of warm tofu in a yellow plastic pail. Putting it down on the kitchen range, she said to Lin, "Something is wrong with me." Hurriedly she went into the bedroom, and he followed her in.

She looked down at the crotch of her baggy pants and found a wet patch. "Oh, I must've broken my water."

"Really?" He was alarmed. The pregnancy had not reached the ninth month yet.

"Quick, let's go to the medical building," she said.

"Don't panic. It may be too early and could be false labor."

"Let's go. I'm sure it's time."

"Can you walk?"

"Yes. "

Together they set out on their way, he supporting her by the arm. The sun was setting, but the heat was still springing up from the asphalt road, which felt soft under their feet. A few lines of green and white clothes were swaying languidly among the thick aspens behind a dormitory house. A large grasshopper whooshed away from the roadside, flashing the pinkish lining of its wings, then bumped into a cotton quilt hanging on a clothesline and fell to the ground. The leaves of some trees on the roadside were shriveled and darkened with aphids because it hadn't rained for a whole month. Here and there caterpillars' droppings were scattered on the ground. Lin was paying close attention to the road so as to avoid places where Manna might make a false step; at the same time he grew more apprehensive, thinking of the baby that would be premature.

When they arrived at the building, Manna was rushed into a small room on the third floor, in which an examination table, upholstered with sponge rubber and shiny leather, served as a birth bed. Nurse Yu spread a sterile cloth on the table and helped Manna climb onto it. A few minutes later Manna's contractions started and she groaned.

Nurse Yu ran out to send for Haiyan, the only obstetrician in the hospital, who had left for home. At the entrance of the building she bumped into her friend Snow Goose, who agreed to come up and help.

In the room upstairs Manna groaned again, clutching Lin's arm. "You'll be all right, dear," he said.

"Oh, my kidneys! " She was panting and rubbing her back with her free hand.

"It can't be your kidneys, Manna," he said as though examining a regular patient. "The pain must radiate from your pelvis."

"Help me! Don't just talk!"

He was baffled for a moment; then he pressed his palm on the small of her back and began massaging her. Meanwhile she was moaning and sweating. He had no idea what else he should do to alleviate her pain. He tried to recall the contents of a textbook on childbirth he had studied two decades before, but he couldn't remember anything.

Haiyan didn't arrive until an hour later. She looked calm and apologized for being delayed by traffic. After examining Manna briefly, she told Nurse Yu to test the patient's blood pressure and then shave her. Next she ordered Snow Goose, "Flick on the fans and boil some water." Then, turning to Lin, she said, "Her cervix is only three centimeters open. It will take a while." Putting her palm on the patient's forehead, she said, "Everything will be all right, Manna."

Lin drew Haiyan aside and whispered, "Do you think she can survive this? You know her heart isn't very strong."

"So far she's doing fine. Don't worry. The baby is coming and it's too late to think about anything else. But I'll keep that in mind."

She moved back to the table and said, "Manna, I'm going to give you an oxytocin drip, all right?"

"Yes, do it. Let me get through this quickly."

"Can I do something?" Lin asked Haiyan.

"Did you have dinner?"

"No."

"Go eat and come back as soon as you can. This may take a whole night. We'll need you to be around."

"How about you? Did you eat?"

"Yes. "

He was impressed by Haiyan's composure. He left the room while his wife was groaning and rubbing her back with both hands.

In the mess hall Lin bought a spinach soup and two buns stuffed with pork and cabbage, which he began to eat without appetite. He couldn't tell whether he was happy about the baby, whose arrival took him by surprise. He belched, and his mouth was filled with acid gastric juice, which almost made him vomit. He rested his head for a moment on his fist placed on the edge of the tabletop. Fortunately nobody was nearby; around him were stools turned upside down on the tables.

Outside, pigs began oinking from their sties behind the kitchen as the swineherd knocked the side of a trough with an iron scoop. A group of nurses and orderlies came in, gathered around two tables at the other end of the hall, and began stringing green beans.

Lin let out a sigh. His heartburn prevented him from finishing dinner. In the air lingered a stench, coming from the hogwash vat by the long sink. He got up and went across to dump the soup into the vat. After washing his bowls and spoon, he gargled twice, then put the dinner set into his bag made of a striped towel and hung it on the wall, among the bags of his comrades. At the other end of the hall the young women were chatting and humming a movie song. A puppy was whimpering, leashed to a leg of a table.

When Lin came back to the medical building, his wife's groaning had turned into screaming. Haiyan told him that the baby seemed to be coming sooner than she had thought. In fact Manna was in transition. Lin wet a towel and wiped the sweat and tears off her face. Her eyes were flashing and her cheeks crimson.

"I can't stand this anymore! No more!" she cried. The corners of her mouth stretched sideways.

"Manna," he said, " it will be over soon. Haiyan will make sure that — "

"Oh, why did you do this to me?" she shouted.

He was taken aback, but managed to say, "Manna, don't you want the baby?"

"Damn you! You don't know how this hurts. Oh, you've all abused me!"

"Please, don't yell. Others in the building can hear you."

"Don't tell me what to do, damn you!"

"Come on, I didn't mean — "

"I hate you!" she screamed. "I hate you all."