11.(64-66) Birth Amidst the Rubble - Dawn Child - Mr. Ah So - The End

Slim Novel 11 - http:adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage


64. New Life Amidst Old Rubble

With Nurse driving and Kimi lying in the back, the car speeds along Ginza Road.
    “I feel Baby’s head stretching me inside.”
   Nurse smoothly brings car to stop before what was the biggest building in Tokyo; now rubble. Having been concrete and steel it is not burning and the air is clear because they had got onto Hibiya Street across from the Imperial Palace which had not been bombed. Nurse leads Kimi into the ruins.
   “Can't go further!” She sits on bare ground amid the concrete rubble. “Can't help it, got to push.”
   Nurse sets battery-powered lamp down to light the opening between Kimi's thighs out of which Baby’s black-hair head is starting to bulge. She arranges blanket between hard rubble-strewn dusty ground and Kimi's back. She gets on her knees and, after putting on gloves, places right hand gently against the advancing black-hair wedge that now bulges and widens Kimi's opening to size of large door knob.
   “Go on push. Baby's head is almost out, and do not worry; I am supporting with my hand.”

   Kimi feels like it is the biggest and best bowel movement of her life and she fills her lungs; then, blocking the windpipe so that inhaled air cannot escape, she tries to expel it against the closed-off windpipe, but the exhalation power not being released by air flowing out the mouth rebounds against her abdomen as a powerful push-down and her opening bulges, stretching strongly.
   “That's it! That's it!” Nurse says. “A little more and you got it!”

    A sharp tearing sensation makes her cry out. Then comes a nearly ecstatic feeling. And suddenly: No bulge! Several seconds pass with Kimi keeping her eyes tightly shut – hoping, wishing praying, beseeching: "Please, let it be all right!”

   Then – choking cough, gurgle, another louder one and, then, loud surprised insistent angry crying!
   “Girl!” Nurse exclaims handing her the warm wailing little body over her chest, followed by a nodular shiny blue cord trailing from the attachment at Baby's navel into the birth opening. Kimi clasps Baby to her right breast. The wailing ceases replaced by busy smacking sound of suck. With left arm she gathers up free end of blanket and wraps it about Baby's body against her chest.
   Nurse says “I shall be back. All is good, you have a perfect girl.”

Nurse returns with surgical kit, a clean blanket and a kimono-wrap that Kimi can wear. Meanwhile the disc of placenta pops out followed by gush of black blood. Nurse puts on fresh gloves, takes 2 white strings from sterile fluid in tube, ties two close places of cord tight two centimeter from navel, cuts between them then puts placenta and cut cord in bag and gives it to Kimi.
   “Good luck for Baby. Have it dried and powdered and when your girl grows up and wishes pregnancy a pinch of powder in tea will assure it.” Nurse leans forward and kisses Kimi on lips with a slight touch of tongues. “Good job, Kid. And if you ever get to Kyoto Red Cross Hospital look up Mari, ‘at's me, and I think we can have a jolly time without men.” She winks. “We nurses got a coven there." (A group of witches but here refers to lesbians) "If ya know whut I mean, dearie.” She inspects Kimi’s opening “No bleeding and only slight tear. You'll do fine. Now I have to get back to my team. Rest until the sun rises then go to your people.” She kisses Kimi again, pats Baby on head and hurries off.

   “Thank you for doing well by me,” Kimi says after her then looks down at the little blackhead busily sucking. Each baby suck evokes a twitching thrill deep in vagina. Better than any man could, she muses. A feeling of content fills her and then the sleep of a job well done.

65. Dawn

A wailing 30-second siren repeats over and over and Kimi becomes aware she is lying on a blanket on hard ground and Baby is crying. She shifts Baby's head to her left breast and the cries become suckling sounds. In gray dawn she sees surrounding jumble of concrete and above her are distorted metal girders. The fiery night's heat is gone and a chilly winter wind blows smoke-smelling air about the ruins. Shivering she looks down at little warm red face at left breast. No dream it, but real babe in arms here: new life, new world, new future!
   Baby disengages from the sucked dry breast and she gives it the other. She has a get-up-and-go feeling. But can she, does she have enough power? Testing she sits up; then, using right hand for support while holding Baby she slowly pushes self to standing. Baby cries and Kimi makes soft clucking noise. She realizes that walking with Baby in front won’t do. Noticing a sheet she tears it in strips and uses it for diaper and firm strap to her back. Baby now sated with the milk sleeps against her back.

   Kimi carefully picks her way around the debris and, stepping into the street looking east, she is struck by the quiet beauty of the red dawn sun topping Ginza Road, shining its clear, cleansing rays on the flattened burnt-out blocks of the destroyed city. Baby wakes and makes gurgling sound, little hand touching mother's hair. Kimi unstraps Baby and checks her makeshift sheet diaper changing it for a dry one. Holding Baby up to her face, she says “No longer will you be Baby’. From now I call you, Meiko,  Dawn Child – Dawn for a new, different future.”

66. Mr. Ah So

An hour later, Kimi squatting contentedly by the rubble on Ginza Road becomes aware of the sound of a motor. She looks and sees 5 cars in a single column coming from direction of the Imperial Palace. As they near, she notes the 2 leading cars to be military, with rifle-carrying soldiers in gray fatigues and, following, an elegant coupe with 2 fancy dressed junior officers standing on running board and purple chrysanthemum pennant flying from the wheel-guard. Bringing up rear are 2 military cars full of more such soldiers. The motorcade passes her then halts 20 meters ahead. Must be a bigwig, she muses.
   Kimi, the sole survivor in sight amidst desolation and smoldering ruin, remains on bent knees, holding baby Meiko to breast to keep her quiet and hoping not to be too obvious.

   The central car's left running board aide-de-camp steps to pavement and pulls open car door, gives military salute then stays in position head down. Out of car comes a rather small, bespectacled, age mid 40's man with a mustache that is somewhere between Charlie Chaplin's and Adolf Hitler's. He wears a kepi-type, white-banded, black visor military hat, a high-ranking officer tunic, a belted samurai sword on right at waist and trim hussar black pants with horseman jodhpurs gathered in under shiny black boots. He looks in Kimi's direction and briskly walks towards her, his aides following at a respectful distance. Something about the man, the motorcade, the entourage; something in the way he walks and how he is so respectfully followed!  
   Suddenly it clicks. The Emperor! Commoners are not to view him closely but here he is – Big Man himself!

   His voice surprises; it is squeaky and mild and with indefinable accent like an educated foreigner who had learned the language perfectly. He says something like  
   “Ah so! Ah so! Please be at ease Madame." Then, louder, “Please arise. It is not necessary.”

   She stands humbly eyes down and the baby whimpers and cries.

   He smiles. “Ah so! Ah so! A fine red face baby! Someday a great beauty! Looks so new! When born?”

   She opens mouth but no words come.

   “Ah so! Too nervous? Take a deep breath; try again.”

   “Just born,” she hears herself say. “Midnight.”

   “Ah so, where?”

   “Over there,” she points toward rubble.

   “And her name?”

   Kimi answers.

   “Ah so, Meiko. Interesting. I have never heard such a name.” He takes out a little black memo book with pencil and holds it out. “Please write the characters.”

   Suddenly her mind begins to work and she realizes that by daring to use the Chinese character MEI in the child’s name she has possibly committed lese majesty – daring to set herself on a pedestal equal to the Emperor – because the MEI is the same as the character that begins the death name of the Emperor's famous grandfather. But there is no way back – she already said it so she pencils it into the Emperor's notebook, and he looks at it and passes it to his aides who give sharp hissing intakes of breathe. She waits with head down wondering whether she might be arrested.

   The Emperor breaks the embarrassed silence with another “Ah so!”. She looks up. He shows a shadow of smile. “Madame, you chose a glorious name for your baby. Fitting that a child of the new dawn of our nation; breaks down old barriers. End of Old, start of New. Where is your home?”

   “N-North Island, y-your Highness.”

   “Ah so. I expect you will be heading back there with the new person. I am not a wise man, nor a magician but I can certainly bear a gift.” He turns to the aide on his right and dictates a brief letter on purple chrysanthemum stationery that will guarantee transportation with amenities wherever, whenever and however. After affixing the imperial seal the aide hands it to her.

   She goes on knees and begins bowing in the dust but the Emperor touches her left shoulder indicating he prefers her to rise.

   “I think I have had enough of that,” he says in a soft voice. Then, directly to Kimi.
   “Let us do things a new way: I bow to you, you bow to me; yes?” The Emperor bows, inclining 30 degrees. Holding Meiko firmly, Kimi bows. Then the Emperor, followed by his entourage, turns, walks back to the cars, and drives away.
   She wanders down Ginza Road with baby Meiko now feeding on breast contentedly, thinking to herself “Things shall be all right now.” A phrase the Doctor on the train had used comes to mind: “God has come out of his heaven …”
   She had come a long way – an immense journey on her individual road: a little red face child learning from parents on the blue northern waters, a young girl at Oto's training house, a comfort girl in Manchukuo, and, after, Tommy's girlfriend, his Only, and then a student at Seminar, and newsman Kimura's Girl Friday. She was the woman who’d come home again and made a baby in the Village then lived with the Tojos and listened to World Movers through former Foreign Minister Matsuoka and finally studied with Dr. Sanya and now had her baby in the ruins. She smiles inwardly. Then her gaze elevates in line with the morning sun and turns to right and to left, for first time noticing the beginning movements on the street. Like ants, after an earthquake severely shakes their burrow, the dust-covered inhabitants are walking out of the ruins into the sunlight to find a way home. She thinks for them all, We survivors will not allow this again, and two words come “Science Civilization” – passwords for the future. She sets out with purposeful stride towards the railroad station.

End of Slim Novel 11 Ends the Set of the Original Slim Novels Cycle. 
   To start  Slim Novel 12, click 12.(0-1) Slim Novel 12 Intro and Chapter 1