“We’ll find a place,” he assures me.
I nod, although I’m beginning to lose faith. The place is crawling with people. It’s loud, people are impatient and shove against one another. More than once we’ve seen men fighting, either screaming at each other or in a fistfight. Now that it’s getting dark, some light a fire on the side of the street to keep warm. Unlike us, they have already given up trying to find a place to stay. I walk as fast as I can, because an old man told us about an inn at the end of the street that might still have a bed. When we get there the owner is angry he was sent more people and just waves us off. At that moment I have my first contraction and cry out in pain. When the pain ebbs off, I burst into tears. The owner’s wife has appeared, after having heard me scream, and tells her husband to offer us their barn at the back.
“She can’t go any further. Her child is coming,” she says, staring down her husband.
He looks like he wished he had never met us and grudgingly takes us past the house to the barn. I’m still crying, although this time, because I’m so grateful that I can finally lie down. The owner’s wife brings some hot water and stays with me during the birth. Leah has given birth eight times and knows what to do. I had no idea I could feel such pain. She tells me screaming is good and that I shouldn’t try to suppress the urge. “It’ll be over quicker if you let yourself go,” Leah tells me. Every time I holler the cows turn round but look unimpressed. The sheep are frightened and huddle in a corner. When the baby finally arrives, I’m so exhausted I feel nothing when Leah puts the little bundle into my arms. I’m so grateful to this woman who I’ve known for less than five hours. She has already washed him. It’s a little boy. I stroke the tuft of black hair on his head. He is so small, his hands and feet tiny. “I want to call him Jesus, like my favourite uncle,” I say to Joseph. He nods. He probably would have gone along with any name. Joseph is a good husband, I think, and then nod off.
When I wake up again, the baby is sleeping peacefully in an old crib beside me. Leah has gone but to my surprise we have quite a few visitors in the barn. We don’t know anyone here, so I have no idea why they have come. There are three elegant looking men who have brought presents for the baby. And quite a few shepherds have come too. They all have come to see the baby, to see Jesus. It seems very strange until I remember having this dream of an angel telling me that my son was the new Messiah. I forgot about it. One dreams so much incredible stuff. I would have never thought this time it would be different. Joseph looks just as bewildered as I am, but he is his usually chatty self and pretends as well as he can that he fully expected them to come and sing the praises of his newborn son. Sometimes I marvel at him. He is so good-natured and accepting. Jesus wakes and wants to be fed. I carefully take him from the crib and start feeding him. Jesus quickly sucks so hard it hurts and I’m tearing up again. Our visitors look away and begin to leave one by one. I’m glad.
Currently 32 380 people are homeless in Bavaria.