At the edge of the village Tounkara veered off the road into a maize field, and I followed. We were looking for a woman in labor. Stalks listed over the shoestring path, their yellowing leaves brushing our shoulders as we passed through a corridor so narrow I could barely see beyond Tounkara to the other end, only her back with arms chugging, her ankles flashing beneath her skirt as her flip-flops snapped ahead. I thought the field was a shortcut. I thought we’d emerge on the other side, the stalks falling behind as we hustled through another village until we reached the house where we’d find the woman in labor with other women all around her. Or maybe we were going to the maternity, and there she would be, her people surrounding her and holding vigil as they waited for the new life to come. But when Tounkara took a hairpin turn down another path and then another, I wasn’t so sure about all of that. We seemed to be going in circles, the stalks so high and dense that the field wound around us, wrapping us in its folds like a labyrinth, and when I looked up, the sky was dizzying. Were we lost? No, she couldn’t be lost. I wanted to ask where we were going, but it was no time to bother her, and why ask when you already sense the answer? Tounkara was looking for the woman in the field, and for me to think, even for a moment, that she couldn’t find her was blasphemous. She was the midwife. She knew what she was doing—you had to have faith in that—and everything between us had to go well. Tounkara was going to do a strong thing now. She was going to help a woman give birth, and that woman was going to be strong too. Everyone was going to be strong, now.
“Stop” has been significantly altered its publication in the Summer 2010 issue of the North American Review. You can access the full original version here.