The Child Madonna, Chapter 38 "Labour of Love"

It’s all happening too quickly. All the plans and foresight seem so remote now, vain and totally irrelevant. I’m dizzy with pain, pulled this way and that, everything blurred, unfocused. Rules and practices, traditions and good advice - what use are they in such a muddle?

Ah! I snatch my breath as yet another searing pain shoots through my abdomen. I grab the crumbling earth of the cave wall excavated from the hillside, and hold my breath, tensing, trying not to push which my body is screaming at me to allow. At the entrance to the darkness, I clutch at God’s hand in my desperation,

“Please Lord God, be with us!”

That is all there is time for. We stumble into the dank smelly blackness, lurching over obstructions, voices mingling in my ears, but I cannot discern what they are saying. I don’t even recognise Joseph any more, perhaps the woman’s back again; I cease to care.

They are lowering me to the floor and somewhere overhead a lamplight flickers throwing shadows darting around the jagged walls.

“Lie flat. Raise your knees. Let your hips rest on this bale of straw. Roll this way. A bit more. No, not so much. Careful, watch that light. Put the water here.” The phrases splash around my brain, cascading over each other like a mountain waterfall.

I am stripped to raw essentials now. Joseph, the woman helper, my baby pushing, some bits of straw. That is all life is for me; no more is necessary. Sorry, Lord God, I forgot you, don’t forget me! Nothing is articulated, but the thoughts are there. All my mother told me, I can’t think straight, I hope I’ve absorbed it somewhere; it’s just my intuition and the vague disembodied commands floating over my head. A voice nearby - is it Joseph? - says,

“It’s alright, Mari, you can let go now. Don’t hold back any more. Push when you want to!”

I hear a voice say:

“Let me do it, man. Don’t be so tentative and shy. Uncover her, pull the shift right back, let’s see what we are doing.”

Hands scrabble at my side, and I am hoist again, I feel the prickle of the straw, that’s funny, all this pain and all I can think of is this stupid itch which I want to scratch and can’t because I don’t know where my arms are!

Then I am feeling very light-headed; weird thoughts rush through my head, I’m trying to form a perfect circle in my brain but each time I’m nearly there, it squelches out of shape. Another lacerating pain rips through my nerves, brings sudden clarity round about, and I see shadowy faces all watching me as if they’re teetering over a pit with me deep below. They are animals, I realise with a start, donkeys and mules, sheep and goats; I relax and even at this moment smile to myself. My friends. I grin again, before another shriek is torn from my lips and my mind races back to full consciousness once more.

“Keep going, Mari, keep on, you’re doing fine.”

Am I doing anything, I wonder? It all seems out of control, so messy, so chaotic. Is this always the way when miracles are born?

“The head is coming. Not long now, Mari. Push, keep going, soon, soon, soon.”

Someone’s got my wrist and is squeezing so hard that they are hurting.

My thoughts are jolted. Any moment now the baby will be revealed. All this long time I’ve made just one assumption. A boy, the stranger said, a king, God’s son, the Messiah. What if I’ve got it all wrong? Supposing, just supposing, in a moment’s time, we know it is a girl? Will all be in vain? Will I be a fraud? Can the Messiah be female, with girlish wisdom and intuition to trick the priests of their prophecies and visions? Rachel said her temple was to a goddess, she prayed to Mother Earth. ‘Teach them, kid’, she said, ‘show them what impostors they are!’

I know in this moment, with all my powers of intuition, that it is a girl. What will Joseph say? Can we ever go back to Nazareth, or will we be forced to flee; stay here in poverty and loneliness and try to snatch at hints and far-fetched novelties, keep the flame alive or abandon ambitions? I know it is a girl; she is slipping fast, I feel her drawing out, my time is done, hands are pulling at my legs, my power is gone. They know now.

“Mari,” whispers Joseph in my ear in wrapt excitement, “you have a lovely healthy boy.”