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She waits. Minutes tick by. She checks little Ostap who has turned his head instinctively and has found his mother's breast. An hour goes by. The room grows hot. Hanna goes to the window and opens it a crack. She is growing worried. Had she been wrong not to tell Sonia and Ostap what she knows? She looks toward the dim comer, at the icon of the Virgin and the Child. The Virgin's face is sallow and sad. The flame in the votive candle flickers and dies. Hanna rushes to relight the candle. A moth has flown in through the crack in the window. As it buzzes and circles, Hanna realizes that it cannot see the flame. Like the birds in the forest, the moth is blind. "God have mercy," Hanna cries and her voice is as hollow as the voices of people are at the end of the night. When the rooster crows for the third time, Sonia's body comes alive. It writhes and shudders and she screams. Hanna pries her legs open and reaches inside. The twin is stuck. Frantically, Hanna tries to help. Her fingers slide deep into the distended birth canal and in another moment she knows what the trouble is. The umbilical cord is wrapped tightly around the fetus, both holding it back and strangling it. Sonia screams and her body heaves to expel the fetus that is so reluctant to see the world. Hanna knows that she should cut Sonia open to free the infant. But she does nothing. At Sonia's breast, Ostap sleeps, fed and perfect. Hanna waits until she sees the black tufts on the fetus' skull. She wraps her hands around the skull and pulls with her powerful biceps. The fetus is out — to its shoulders. Hanna cuts the umbilical cord and loosens it from around the baby's neck. She pulls the child out completely and raises it, but almost drops it. It is tiny, too tiny. It is ugly. It has stumps instead of arms and legs. Yet the face has all the right features. Hanna makes herself peer into the face. Its lips are blue, the tiny eyes are bulging. The monster has suffocated to death. Hanna looks at Sonia and at the perfect infant at her breast. She knows what she must do. She wraps the dead twin in a shawl and heads for the door. She unbolts it and steps into the yard. She looks to the right and left but no one is about. She crosses the yard and heads for the forest. The dawn has turned the clouds in the eastern sky into a flock of flamingos, but on the ground the shadows are as black as crows. Hanna knows exactly where she is going. In a few minutes, she reaches the spot. She kneels and lowers the body into the open grave. She had dug it two days ago when she heard two heartbeats in Sonia's belly. She had dug it because she had been afraid. She had dug to show that she was not greedy. She had dug it and she had prayed: "Lord, give her one healthy child. I will not ask for two, but Your will shall be done." She had bought a new candle and she had lit it before the icon. She had kept her part of the bargain and had not been greedy. She had not tried to save the twin by cutting deeply into its mother. May God forgive her, if she had erred in not trying to extricate the infant girl. Hanna makes the sign of the cross three times, as is the custom, before she finds the shovel she had left under a pile of rotting leaves. She hears the clumps of earth thud against the corpse, but she does not look down. She does not know whether she is doing right or wrong, but in her heart she does not believe the armless fetus was human. She does not think of the infant's soul because her life has been rooted in the belief that what is human is made in the image of God and his Most Blessed Mother and the Child. Hanna has seen nature at work all her life. The weak chick dies, as does the calf that cannot stand. She does not believe in — no, she does not comprehend — heroic acts to save the weakling. Life is full of mysteries and surprises, she knows, while death and suffering are untiring in their cruel encroachments. But such thoughts cannot be indulged in now, if ever. Hanna's hands work furiously. She pants with exertion, but in another moment, the grave is filled. Hanna scatters the pile of crumbling leaves she has readied. She takes the shovel and hurries back to the house. She will come back soon and sprinkle holy water over the grave, perhaps one day put up a twig cross. Life, healthy, vibrant life, is calling her. Little Ostap is wailing. Quickly Hanna washes her hands in the bucket and blows on them to make them warm. She looks down at her daughter. This girl-woman, who has suffered to become a mother, deserves only happiness. Hanna waits until Sonia's eyes flutter open. "Wha--?" Sonia begins. "A lovely boy. Perfect in everything," Hanna says, as she smiles and bends down to kiss her daughter. "Just listen to him. He will grow into a lusty man." Sonia turns her head to look down at the infant demanding to suckle at her breast. Her face grows radiant with happiness. Outside, the morning is shimmering in golden threads. The sun plays hopscotch on the windowpane. Sonia fumbles for Hanna's hand. "I knew if I came to you, you would do the right thing," she says. Copyright © 1998. Ania Savage. Previously published in Women's Words. About the author: Ania Savage is a freelance w riter who teaches journalism at the University o f Denver and has lectured on American journalism at the University o f Kyiv under an arrangement with the Ukraina Society. Ms. Savage was in Kyiv when the second reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear plant started burning in the autumn o f 1991. She is currently working on a book o f stories on the Chornobyl disaster. Ms. Savage is a member o f UNWLA Branch 38 in Denver.
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