Winner of a Highly Commended Prize in The 2006-2007
Commonwealth Short Story Competition
It was a hot dull night in May. The air was heavy as a blanket and moonless sky loomed like a cobra’s hood over the small mud hut. A man crouched outside the hut, his hands clasped around bony knees, forming an ungainly question mark. He was waiting. Inside the hut, his wife heaved in pain as the midwife’s fingers probed and prodded her swollen belly. His mother watched impassively, fingers clicking over prayer beads. Soon, the midwife scooped out a tiny whimpering infant.
“Girl”, she mumbled.
The man outside the hut cursed loudly. The mother-in-law hit her forehead with her open palm and sighed. The young woman sank back on the hard mud floor and tried not to feel anything. If the news had been otherwise, the midwife might have stayed back to coax a new sari from the mother-in-law or wheedle a few rupees from the man. Instead, she quickly finished her work and slunk away into the night like a criminal.
The mother–in-law finally spoke.
“You know what has to be done.”
The woman who had just become a mother knew what had to be done. She knew the women in the village did it in many ways. Some used the poisonous red berries or the sickening sap of the oleander tree, others rolled a sari into a tight smothering ball and some made offerings to the river Goddess. She wished her own mother had done it years ago. Then, she would not have seen her parents, already burdened with debt, sell their buffaloes and pawn their belongings to pay for her dowry and marriage, that too, to an impoverished farmer whose own few acres were already mortgaged to the moneylender. Girls, she had been told since childhood, brought only tears and unhappiness to others and into their own wretched lives. She knew that a son who carried on the family name conferred immortality to his parents.
The mother-in-law made as if to take the infant but the woman said, “I will do it”. She wrapped the baby in an old rag and willed some strength into her aching limbs. It was a long way to the river. She walked through the inky blackness, stumbling across the stones, till she heard the steady hum of the waters. The river seemed placid, with no hint of the secrets and small bodies that lay within it.
The bundle in her arms moved and though she had sworn not to see its face, the woman found herself staring into a pair of huge dark eyes. The infant let out a hungry cry and the woman quickly clasped it to her breast, more to dull the loud noise it made in the quiet night. She gasped at the touch of the small mouth against her skin and sat down abruptly on the river bank among the reeds that bordered the waters. After a few minutes, she put the child down. Her fingers worked swiftly, tearing the reeds and plaiting them into strong strands. The reeds were young and wet, so she used three in the place of one and twisted them to form a basket, just the right size for a new born baby. She sent up a prayer to the Gods as she placed her daughter in the basket and pushed it into the gentle currents. She watched till the basket was out of sight. When the first fingers of sun stroked the earth, river and trees to light, the woman stood up and began the long walk back.
