“I suppose.” Filip wasn’t an elegant dancer, not yet, but that hadn’t made dancing with him any less enjoyable.
Veronika seemed to be waiting for something. Nadia stayed silent for a time, then couldn’t hold it inside any longer. “I thought he might kiss me.”
“And?”
“He didn’t.”
“But if he had?”
If he had, Nadia wouldn’t be walking back to the women’s boxcar. She’d be flying back. A smile escaped.
“Ah. You would have welcomed it.” Veronika seemed pleased. “I thought so.”
“It’s just . . . complicated.”
“Sometimes kissing can make things less complicated.”
“How?”
Veronika stopped walking and seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked to Nadia again. “I’m sorry. Yes, you should let him kiss you. Or kiss him yourself. He may feel he can’t because of your arrangement.”
“But I don’t know how.”
Veronika laughed. “It’s not so difficult. You’ll figure it out.”
Would she? Or would she make such a mess of it that she’d leave Filip disappointed?
They walked for a bit, then Veronika stopped again and released a small moan.
“Are you all right?”
Veronika straightened and inhaled deeply. “What’s the day today?”
“July 10, I think.”
Veronika rubbed the side of her abdomen.
“Is it the baby?” Nadia asked.
“The baby’s not supposed to come for another week or two. And Larisa said first babies are always late.” Her words morphed into a sharp cry of pain.
“Babies come when they want to come, and I think yours is coming early.” Giving birth in a boxcar full of wounded soldiers didn’t seem like the ideal location, so Nadia led Veronika to the women’s carriage instead of the hospital car. The train wouldn’t move for a few days, so many of the women were sleeping in tents with their husbands. The few who remained could either help or find a different bed. She hoped someone had attended a birth before, because Nadia certainly hadn’t, and working among soldiers hadn’t prepared her for midwifing.
She pulled Veronika’s arm around her shoulders and helped her along. They had to stop every few minutes to wait out the pains. She’d heard noblewomen speak of childbirth and describe it as an elaborate affair, with doctors and numerous attendants, but peasants seemed to manage it with a mother or a friend, sometimes without even a midwife. Hopefully Veronika would be more like the peasants because they weren’t in Irkutsk yet, so they couldn’t send for a doctor or midwife, and the nearest settlement to the west was just a small village. It might not have anyone who could help.
Eventually, they made it back to the women’s carriage. Larisa and Petr were nearby, almost hidden in a shadow.
“Can you help me get her inside?” Normally, Nadia wouldn’t interrupt them, but these were abnormal circumstances.
The three of them helped Veronika into the carriage, then Petr went to find Anton.
“Have you ever helped with a birth before?” Nadia asked Larisa.
A look of fear crossed Larisa’s face. “No.”
“We’ll need water. Boiling water. And rags. And . . . and I don’t know what else, but we’ll figure it out.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nadia stayed with Veronika all through the night, even when Anton came. He’d never attended a birth either. She and Larisa obeyed his requests anyway, whether it was fetching more water or applying counterpressure to Veronika’s back. And sometimes, Nadia just held Veronika’s hand through the contractions.
The sun was high the next morning when Veronika cried and pushed yet again.
“It’s the baby. I see hair.” Anton’s face was haggard, but the joy of those words seemed to wipe away hours of exhaustion. “One more push, Ver. You’re almost done.”
Nadia sat behind Veronika, supporting her back, so she couldn’t see, but at the next contraction, she felt her friend tremble and push again and heard the groan. Then Anton’s laughter merged with a baby’s wail. “It’s a boy.”
Veronika sighed and leaned back. Despite the exhaustion from so much pain and so much work, she beamed. “A son.”
Nadia wiped her friend’s forehead with a cool cloth while Anton delivered the afterbirth and cut the infant’s cord. Larisa wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed him in Veronika’s arms. The new parents admired each fragile finger and each tiny toe. The baby was small and red and somehow the most endearing thing Nadia had ever seen.
She excused herself after a while. “I’ll find something for Veronika to eat.” Her work that night had been minor compared to Veronika’s, but she was tired and hungry. Veronika had to be even more so.
She returned with food, then later with a bucket of warm water so they could clean the baby. The meal did little to restore Veronika’s energy, but it would take several days, maybe weeks to recover. Anton washed the newborn boy, who screamed loudly until his father dried him and once again wrapped him in a blanket.
Someone knocked on the side of the boxcar, and then the door slid open, and Dalek came inside, followed by Filip. Nadia’s eyes went to Filip first. They always did now, whenever he was in the room.