a torch into Mother’s vagina and sees a tiny petal-like hand hanging out of the cervix. He reaches in and grabs hold of it, but as he tries to yank it out, he hears a small bone in the arm snap. ‘Bring me forceps and cotton wool, Qin!’ he shouts to his assistant. ‘Hurry!’
Mother’s legs are shaking uncontrollably. Trying to distract herself from the pain, she bites into her lower lip until it bleeds.
‘Relax, don’t tense up,’ Dr Tao tells her.
‘I can’t!’ Mother shouts, her whole body juddering. ‘I keep remembering my baby son kicking his legs about after he was pulled from me, then seconds later seeing the doctors strangle him to death. I can’t get those images out of my mind.’
‘I’m here to help deliver your child, not murder it. Come on, start pushing again, or I’ll have to call your husband in.’
‘No, it’s bad luck for husbands to see their wives giving birth,’ Mother says, her head swaying from side to side as another wave of contractions creeps up.
‘In foreign countries, men stay with their wives during childbirth to offer support and comfort,’ Qin says, pressing Mother’s legs down onto the bed.
‘Well, we’re not fucking foreigners!’ Mother yells. ‘Come out, little Heaven! Don’t be afraid. No one’s going to kill you, I promise . . .’
The infant spirit watches the fetus curl up with fright. When it was expelled from Mother’s ovary and rolled down the fallopian tube at the beginning of this third incarnation, it was aware of the two previous times it had made this journey. It remembered Mother screaming: ‘Don’t come out into this world, my child! Return to me in another incarnation. Murderers! Animals! . . .’ Then, when it reached the womb and was penetrated by Father’s sperm, memories from its former lives returned with greater clarity. It recalled Father’s anger on discovering that Waterborn was a girl, and it grew fearful of its own birth. As its senses developed, it became more aware of its surroundings. It cringed when Mother sighed with disappointment after being told she was pregnant with another girl, and squirmed when the bitter pollutants flowed through Mother’s blood. It realised it would have to choose between the poisons of the womb and the hostility of the outside world. The fetus isn’t sure what lies outside, but is certain now, after taking a brief look, that this isn’t its rightful birthplace. The date tree that was blessed in Nuwa Cave when it was a sapling isn’t growing in the yard. It decides that it must stay inside Mother’s womb, like a fish in a glass bowl, and wait for her to carry it back to Kong Village.
Mother howls out again, her legs splayed open like a forked tree. ‘Don’t let me return as a woman in my next life! I’d rather be a dog or a rat than suffer this pain again!’
‘You’ve had two doses of oxytocin, but the baby still won’t budge,’ Dr Tao says, tugging the fetus’s foot with his forceps, struggling without success to pull it out. ‘I’ve never seen a Chinese fetus resist so much. Are you sure it doesn’t have foreign blood?’ Giving up at last, he releases the foot and watches it slip back into the womb. ‘If I’d pulled any harder, its spine would have broken.’
‘Foreign blood?’ Meili shouts. ‘How insulting! I’m a descendant of Goddess Nuwa. My baby’s one hundred per cent Chinese! . . . Let me squat on the floor and try pushing again.’ Mother turns onto her side and eases herself off the bed.
‘It’s no use,’ says Dr Tao. ‘I’ve delivered hundreds of babies, but this one clearly has a psychological block: it just doesn’t want to come out. There’s nothing more I can do. I won’t take any payment. You must go to a government hospital at once and ask for a surgical delivery.’
‘You think I’d let someone put a knife to my belly? Never! Fetch me some more towels.’ Mother is squatting with her back against the bed, looking as though she’s trying to shit, but however hard she pushes, nothing is coming out.
‘I promise you, I couldn’t have pulled any harder,’ Dr Tao says, perching on a stool to catch his breath. ‘That fetus has unworldly strength!’
‘Of course it’s strong!’ Mother says, mopping the sweat from her face. ‘It’s been inside me for twenty months!’
‘Twenty months now, is it? When it does finally come out, it’ll be able to jump off the bed and