‘You’re needed tonight,’ Paul said urgently, and Clara’s heart sank further. ‘Max sent me.’
Clara hesitated. Friedrich’s words echoing in her mind. The promise she’d made barely hours ago felt like a betrayal waiting to happen. ‘Is it urgent?’
Paul nodded gravely and she could see genuine fear in his young face.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Marie. ‘The labour has stalled, and the baby could be in distress. It needs two of us.’
‘Who’s with the mother?’ Clara asked, her medical training already overriding her personal anguish as possibilities raced through her mind.
‘Her mother and an aunt,’ said Paul. ‘No one knows what to do. They think the baby’s position is wrong.’
‘Breech presentation,’ Clara murmured. Without intervention, both mother and baby would likely die. She looked at Paul’s worried face. ‘Wait while I get dressed.’
As she pulled on her clothes, Clara’s hands trembled with more than the cold. She wasn’t breaking her promise to Friedrich, was she? Life or death she’d said. This was one of those moments.
Before leaving the apartment, she quickly went into the living room and took her medical book from the shelf and placed it on the coffee table. She hoped she’d be back before Friedrich, and he wouldn’t have to come home to that.
An hour later, Clara and Marie climbed the stairs of an apartment building in an unfamiliar part of the Prenzlauer Berg district. A more prosperous part, with wider, tree-lined streets and from what she could see in the dark, well-maintained, elegant buildings, featuring wrought-iron balconies with flower boxes as opposed to lines of washing. She didn’t know why, but it made her uneasy. On the second floor, Max waited outside a door, smoking with the desperate intensity of a man watching his world hang in the balance. Several cigarette butts littered the ground at his feet.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, stubbing his cigarette with violent precision. In the dim hallway light, she could see something she’d never seen before on his face, raw undisguised fear. ‘Two of you?’ he said in surprise when he saw Marie.
‘Yes. It’s better to have two midwives for difficult births,’ said Clara quickly. ‘Who is the woman? What’s her name?’
‘Steffi,’ Max replied, then added quietly, almost as if the words were dragged from him. ‘She’s my wife.’
The revelation stopped Clara in her tracks. Max had never mentioned his personal life or family and she’d never asked. ‘Your wife?’ She couldn’t hide her surprise.
‘We have a son already. This is her second pregnancy.’ His voice was strained, and Clara could see him struggling to maintain his usual composure. The mask of the hardened operative was cracking, revealing the terrified husband and father beneath.
‘We need to see her immediately if the baby’s breech.’
Inside the cramped bedroom, the metallic scent of blood and the sounds of laboured breathing hit Clara immediately. The baby was presenting buttocks first, one of the most dangerous complications she could face without proper medical equipment.
Steffi lay exhausted on the bed, her face pale and drawn with pain. Her mother sat beside her, wiping her daughter’s brow with a cloth.
While Marie hurried over to Steffi, Clara focused on the birth. ‘The baby is bottom first,’ Clara explained gently. ‘I need to turn it, but it will be very uncomfortable. Painful, even.’
Steffi nodded weakly. ‘Please, just do whatever you need to.’
Clara washed her hands thoroughly in the kitchen sink, her movements automatic while her mind focused entirely on the challenge ahead. When she returned to kneel at the foot of the bed her hands were steady.
‘Deep breaths,’ she instructed, placing her hands on Steffi’s swollen belly. ‘Tell me when you feel a contraction coming.’
Working by lamplight and instinct, Clara reached inside and grasped the baby’s tiny feet. This was so much harder than the controlled environment of a hospital. Here she had no proper instruments, no backup if things went wrong.
It took several agonising minutes of careful manipulation, Steffi’s cries growing weaker with each attempt. Finally, the baby shifted, and she felt the subtle change that meant success.
‘Nearly there,’ Clara encouraged. Steffi groaned with each movement. Clara continued working, pushing and guiding until, at last, the baby moved into the proper head-down position.
The next contraction came like a gift from heaven. ‘Deep breath, but don’t push yet.’
The head emerged in a rush of fluid, followed by the shoulders and then on one more contraction, a baby girl was born.
The room erupted in cries of joy and relief. Clara gave the baby a quick check over, before wrapping her in a towel and passing her to Steffi.
Max burst through the door as if he couldn’t wait another second. He stopped abruptly, looking from his exhausted wife to Clara and she saw the tension melt from his features as his gaze landed on his newborn.
‘A girl,’ said Steffi as Max rushed over to her. Tears leaked from his eyes and for a moment he wasn’t the tough-talking anti-regime fighter that Clara knew. She saw a man simply overwhelmed with love and relief.
