When the nima and ruma are satisfied the room is free from the bad spirit, they leave, taking gifts of money, rice, and the egg in the pocket. “Do you have the strength to squat?” A-ma asks as Deh-ja sinks to the birthing mat. Deh-ja whimpers as she gets into position. “Think of your baby slipping out of your body as wet and slick as a fish.”
The sounds that come from Deh-ja are awful—like a dog being strangled. A-ma keeps encouraging her and massaging the opening where the baby will come out. Everything is too red for me, but I don’t look away. I can’t, not after already disappointing A-ma. She’s given me this gift, and I must try to show her my worthiness. Deh-ja’s entire body contracts, pushing hard. Then, just like A-ma said it would, the baby slides out and flops onto the mat. Deh-ja collapses on her side. The older women stare at the baby. It’s a boy, but no one moves to touch or pick him up.
“A baby is not truly born until it has cried three times,” A-ma recites.
He’s much smaller than I expected given how big Deh-ja was when he was inside her. We all count: ten toes, ten fingers; his limbs match—two legs, two arms, equal sizes; no harelip; no cleft palate. He’s perfect. I’ve heard whispered what would happen if he were a human reject. Ci-do would have to . . .
Finally, the little thing cries. He sounds like a jungle bird.
“The first cry is for blessing.” A-ma speaks the ritual words.
He pulls air into his new lungs. This time his cry is even stronger.
“The second cry is for the soul.”
Then comes an ear-piercing wail.
“The third cry is for his life span.” A-ma smiles as she picks him up and hands him to his grandmother. A-ma ties the string around the baby’s cord and cuts it with the knife. Deh-ja pushes a couple of times and what A-ma calls the friend-living-with-child—a gooey red blob—squeezes onto the birthing mat. This is put aside for Ci-do to bury under his parents’ house right below the ancestor altar.
A-ma takes a breath—ready to give the baby his temporary name so that no bad spirits will claim him before he’s awarded his proper name by his father—when Deh-ja suddenly moans. The expressions on the older women’s faces tell me something is terribly wrong. Deh-ja draws her knees to her chest, curling into a ball. A-ma feels Deh-ja’s stomach then quickly draws back her hands as though they’ve been scorched.
“Tsaw caw,” she utters. “Twins. Human rejects.”
Ci-do’s aunt covers her mouth in shock. Ci-do’s a-ma drops the first baby on the floor. The way he sucks in the smoky air sounds frantic, and his little arms jab into space as though he’s searching for his mother. And Deh-ja? She’s in so much pain, she’s unaware that the worst thing that could happen has happened. Ci-do’s mother and aunt leave to give Ci-do the dreadful news. I shift on the mat, getting ready to bolt, but A-ma grabs my arm. “Stay!”
The firstborn baby lies alone, naked and unprotected. The second baby—a girl—comes out quickly. We don’t touch her. We don’t count her cries.
“Twins are the absolute worst taboo in our culture, for only animals, demons, and spirits give birth to litters,” A-ma tells me. “Animal rejects are contrary to nature too. If a sow gives birth to one piglet, then both must be killed at once. If a dog gives birth to one puppy, then they too must be killed immediately. None of the meat can be eaten either. The birth of twins—which has never before happened in Spring Well—is a calamity not just for the mother, father, and relatives of the babies but for our entire village.”
From outside, I begin to hear shouts and wails.
Ci-do enters the room. His tears mingle with the rain on his cheeks. He carries a bowl, his fingers kneading the contents in an awful rhythm.
“You know what you have to do,” A-ma says sorrowfully.
Ci-do looks down at Deh-ja. His face is as pale as hers. She tries to swallow her sobs. It doesn’t work. I can barely make out her words. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Ci-do kneels by the first baby.
“Close your eyes,” A-ma instructs me. “You don’t need to see this.”
I’ve been shown mercy at last, but my eyelids refuse to shut.
Tears drip from Ci-do’s cheeks onto the baby boy, who still squirms and cries in his strange hiccuping way. Deh-ja watches her husband with eyes that are pools of sorrow. I also stare, aghast, as he scoops a mixture of rice husks and ashes from the bowl and tenderly tucks it into his son’s mouth and nostrils. The baby writhes for a few desperate seconds. My whole body rejects what I’ve seen. It didn’t happen. It couldn’t have happened.
Ci-do moves to the baby girl.
“No!” I sound small, tinny.
“Girl!” A-ma’s voice is sharp.
“But, he can’t—”
A-ma’s open palm comes at me so swiftly and surprisingly that when it meets my face I’m nearly knocked to the ground. The stinging pain is shocking, but not as mind-numbing as the slap itself, because children are not beaten, kicked, or hit in our culture.
“We are Akha,” she says harshly. “These are our rules. If you are to be a midwife, you must—must—follow our customs. Human rejects need to be sent to the great lake of boiling blood. This is how we protect the village from idiots, the malformed, or those so small they’ll only prolong their own deaths. It is us—midwives—who keep our people pure and in alignment with the goodness of nature, because if human rejects are allowed to do the intercourse, over time an entire village might end up inhabited by only them.”
Her words are directed at me, but they also give Ci-do courage. As he kneels by his baby girl, I hide my face in A-ma’s skirt. Her hand on my shoulder feels like it weighs ten thousand kilos. The baby girl dies quicker than her brother, which doesn’t make it any less horrifying. If every living thing has a soul, as I’ve been taught, then didn’t Deh-ja’s twins have souls? If God created a tree to represent each and every Akha, have two trees now toppled in the spirit world? Shouldn’t we be hearing the echoing crashes, the sputtering of birds, the howling of startled monkeys? When A-ma finally lifts her hand, I feel so light that maybe I could float up to the ceiling, right through the thatch, and on to the stars.
She reaches into her basket, removes a length of cloth, and gives it to Ci-do. He silently spools out the cloth, places the infants side by side, and rolls them up. How does he know what to do? How has he known what to do for any of this?
“Ci-do, repair your face!” A-ma demands. “When you go outside, you must show our neighbors how angry—furious—you are at the spirits, who’ve allowed this hideous occurrence to curse you and your family. It is custom. Following it will help you.”
He roughly wipes the tears from his cheeks with the backs of his hands. Then he nods to his wife, tucks the bundle under his arm, and leaves.