“Again,” he said. The wet wedge of skull grew, then shrank once more.

Blood and water gushed out of her, but still the baby refused any real movement.

“Inhale,” he said. “And exhale. Push, push, push.”

Her belly seemed to grow impossibly huge as she heaved. Still the baby did not move.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” said Courchene.

Emily pushed and screamed. Still the child would not come.

More breath, more hours, more blood, more water. Emily seemed to vanish, so that there was nothing on the table but a bloody vagina and a stuck head.

“Keep breathing,” said the ever-patient Courchene.

“Hate you,” wept Emily. “Hate that dead dog Tak-Wing. Hate those murdering Japanese soldiers. Death to Japan. Death to Britannia rules the waves. Death to opium. Death to tea. Death to the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Bank of China too. Death to the KMT. Death to the Qing. Why was I ever born into this painful, fleeting life?”

At last, the baby crowned between her legs. Its head was enormous, like a giant pumpkin, covered in blood and mucus. What if it wasn’t human? What if it was some kind of monster? It seemed to be twice as big as she was. After all Emily had been through, after all her crying and wailing, what if the child had transformed into a demon in her belly? I thought of Ting-Yan’s curse at the cricket club wedding. What if it was materializing now? I knew this was ridiculous, superstitious, no way to think, but the thought possessed me like an evil spirit.

“Violet!” Courchene shouted. “Ding, ding! Wake up! See if you can help the baby out. Gently, gently, easy does it. This is the most delicate moment when the brain can get damaged or the neck can get twisted or caught in the umbilical cord. After all this, it wouldn’t do for the baby to die by hanging.”

I laid my hands on the bloody pumpkin and pulled gently.

Emily took a croaking gasp inward.

“Now exhale, and push again,” Courchene said. “Long and slow. Come on, sweetheart, nearly there. It’s going to be okay.”

She screamed like a demon scything murder through a whole village. The shoulders emerged. Arms, a body, little kicking legs followed. A boy. I pulled him to me, and cradled him against my chest. He was slimy and stank of blood and iron, but his wriggly warmth infused me with a strange joy. On the giant head, a giant mouth opened. The universe howled out, pursued by a trail of sparkling stars.

And so, in a bath of blood, war, and family dysfunction, little Raymond Duk-Ming was born. Praise Mary and the Son of God, Jesus Christ Our Lord.

CHAPTER 38MOON AND STARS OVER SAI KUNG

Undisclosed Location

New Territories

September 12, 1942

Dear Morgan,