At no point does Nina feel any pain—that is one hundred percent certain.
In order for the family fully to understand the impossibility of the situation, the doctor also tells them the following fact: if a neurosurgeon with a full operating theater and staff happened to be on the metro platform, he would have sawed off half of Nina’s skull and put it in a freezer to wait. That would have balanced the intracranial pressure, the brain tissue wouldn’t have swelled, the brain stem wouldn’t have been compressed, and Nina’s chances of survival would have been more than the ten percent they were.
But even then nothing would have been certain.
As is always the case in life.
Watching resuscitation makes me sick . . .
When will they realize?
They’re still trying.
What else can they do?
Nina stands behind the Nina lying on the stretcher. She places her white hands on her white hair and makes gentle stroking motions. She tries to think of her babies, first dead, then alive, but can only catch hold of a nightmarish image. Two shriveled creatures inside a matchbox on a bed of cotton wool: Mademoiselle Red and Monsieur Transparent. One with black caviar pinhead eyes, the other with rich, swirling hair.
Nina pushes the matchbox closed in her mind, leaving the unfinished beings there for others to worry about, and shifts her thoughts to Maimuna. To beautiful, lithe Maimuna, who a moment ago dove into her own death. Nina didn’t see that moment though. She was staring at her husband’s brother, who was there, on his hands and knees in the Saharan sand. A blink of an eye—and Maimuna was gone. A gun fired. And now her turn is next, in an ambulance with her dying doppelganger, with herself, accompanied by her five afterwordly sisters who are chattering nonsense on the verge of her death.
Nina, did you see? That paramedic started to stroke your stomach!
Suddenly the ambulance siren stops blaring. The medics stop rushing. One of them, a young woman with freckles on her nose, holds the laryngeal mask on the Nina lying on the stretcher and looks inconsolable. With her other hand she begins to stroke Nina’s belly.
Well now. So the moment has come.
That’s how it looks.
And what am I supposed to do?
What do you mean?
What do I have to do?
You do like Maimuna, right?
What did Maimuna do?
Sometimes things go awry. Completely. Sometimes life’s most pivotal instant, the pregnant moment, as Shlomith would express it, goes all to hell. Suddenly none of the women understand how to proceed. With Maimuna, events had moved forward so purposefully and fearlessly that they had all been deceived into imagining: this is how it goes. Each would have her own turn, and how easy it would be! You just spread your arms and fall into yourself, and the end comes, as light as a feather, almost without noticing. Their task seemed ridiculously simple. They were there as Maimuna’s mental support. No one sacrificed even half a thought for the possibility that her turn would come too. This was about Maimuna. So they had to concentrate on Maimuna. And besides . . . how could anyone know if her turn would ever come?
There they had been, spread out around Maimuna, truly supposing they were helping her. Then someone decided to place her hands protectively on Maimuna’s head! Everyone thought that was a good idea. The confusion evaporated, turning to a bustling energy, and they raised their hands and felt necessary again.
Now everything is different. Nina is in a panic. Nina, who is known for her practicality, felicitous situational assessments, and rich imagination, stands behind the head of her worldly duplicate lying on a stretcher and stares at them in horror.
No one remembers the significance of rhythm.
No one feels the pulse.
Suddenly everything is eerily quiet. The ambulance crew seem to have frozen in place.
Nina . . . ?
Oh little Ninjuška . . .
What if you try to fall into it?
Into what?
Into it. Yourself.
How?
The same way as Maimuna . . .
Maimuna spread her arms and sort of . . .
Flung herself?
Yes, she flung herself.
Am I supposed to push with my legs and jump?
Try.
Or do I just fall?
Do whatever feels best to you.
Nina looks miserable. She buries her fingers in her hair that hangs over the edge of the stretcher. She looks at herself, almost a corpse, and gathers courage as if to climb into a frigid lake or to jump out of an airplane with a parachute. Then she makes a feeble push.
It is a pitiful display.
Hundreds of thoughts swarm in a thick cloud of terror in the air.
No . . .
Help,
how do I
. . . like this . . .
Why don’t they!
. . . can help . . .
No!
A common enemy always helps. When Ulrike thinks to turn their attention to the ambulance crew, the women’s thoughts automatically begin to coalesce around them. The shock takes on a shape, a direction, the accusations receiving a channel it is easy to pour the resentment into. For a moment.
Those people are just waiting for the ambulance to arrive at the hospital . . .
Where some doctor will declare
