hands came down, down, steadily, without trembling. They enveloped her face. The fingers traced the outlines of her features; her brow, nose, eyes, cheeks, chin and jaw-line.
‘Here’s a pretty one to be sure,’ murmured Basant in a low voice. Her hands continued their exploration over her face, head, neck, chest, soothing and massaging as she worked her way down towards her abdomen. Her touch was the touch of a potter, working the clay, softening it, manipulating it, moulding it, with all the years of experience and craftsmanship pouring through her fingers and palms. She worked her hands over the young woman’s belly, pressing deeper this way and that to feel the shape of the baby inside.
‘Ah!’ she whispered. ‘That is why you feel discomfort. Your infant wants to greet the world with his bottom!’
By this time, all Jhoti’s resistence had dissolved away. She lay beneath the old woman’s hands, pliable, relaxed and completely trusting.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ murmured the old voice, ‘I will turn him round so that he can face the world like a man.’
‘He?’ asked Jhoti softly.
‘Perhaps,’ Basant chuckled. Then suddenly her movements became fierce. She kneaded into Jhoti’s belly, grunting with the effort as gradually she eased the infant round in the womb until its head faced the exit it must use to emerge into the world.
At last, Jhoti gave one cry and it was done.
‘Now we’ll have a better time of it,’ said Basant.
Jhoti slept. It was as if the baby quite enjoyed its new position and had changed its mind about being born. The contractions diminished to the softest of sensations, squeezing and letting go, squeezing and letting go.
Outside in the courtyard, Govind squatted, wide-eyed in vigil. Marvinder lay asleep, outstretched across his knees. He stroked her forehead. The glow from the nearby brazier outlined her high cheekbones and her straight nose; her long eyelashes seemed tipped with flame, fluttering rapidly from time to time as dreams enveloped her brain. He ran a finger along her lips and chin, yet hardly noticed her determined mouth, for all his senses were strained towards the room where Jhoti lay. Being a father made him feel important, especially if, he hardly dared pray, this new baby was a boy.
‘Madanjit Kaur! Shireen! Come now and give me a hand!’ The shadows tipped wildly as kerosene lamps were snatched up and hurried towards the room.
Govind lifted Marvinder into his arms and stood up, his eyes staring intently at the bamboo blind and the shadows passing back and forth within. Marvinder sighed sleepily and snuggled her face into his beard. ‘Papa, have we a new baby?’
‘Nearly, nearly,’ murmured Govind. A faint wind suddenly rattled the leaves of the tree like drumming fingers; it caught the scent of night flowers and filled the air with perfume. Marvinder, with her ear pressed against her father’s neck, heard a song welling up in his throat – but it barely escaped before a cry of joy splintered the silence of the night.
‘Govind! You have a son.’
Edith stood in the middle of her room. It was darkened by the blinds which had been drawn against the ferocious glare of the sun. Any light which managed to prise itself between the thinnest slit or a pinprick of a hole, scissored through the gloom, sharp, blinding and silver as mercury.
She had awoken from her afternoon sleep and, just from habit, waited for someone to come. But no one did.
She got out of bed and stood in her white petticoat. She stretched her arms and legs akimbo, as she would have done for ayah, who would then slip a cotton dress over her head, and buckle her open sandals on to her feet. But ayah didn’t come to attend to her.
She stood alone. Hearing but not listening to the faint sounds of babies coming from her parents’ room, and the low murmur of voices – her mother, father and ayah. All she was aware of was the persistent croo, croo, croo of the dove, whose never-ending, monotonous cry tightened her throat, she didn’t know why.
She pattered, barefooted from her bedroom, through the cool, intervening bathroom to her parents’ room. The door was partly ajar and she peered inside. Her mother was in bed, propped up by a mountain of white pillows to an upright position. Crooked into each arm was the small, bald head of an infant, each with its face turned into a breast and seeming to devour her mother with loud sucking noises, and pig-like grunts.
Ayah knelt at the side of the bed, massaging her mother’s feet, while Father fussed around, stroking his wife’s head, and administering sips of water to her.
Edith looked at them with hatred. No one had prepared her for this. She hadn’t got the words; she couldn’t identify or understand the emotions which gripped her body. She had been cut adrift and was floating away, but no one seemed to see her.
When her mother first came home from the hospital, Edith thought everything would be the same as before. She had tried to climb into bed with her each morning as usual, but there wasn’t room any more. These two little babies seemed to have everyone in their power. They had taken over her mother, father, and even ayah.
Before, there had always been someone to keep her company – from morning till night; but now, games were left unfinished and bedtime stories interrupted. Even at mealtimes, she could find herself abandoned to sit all alone in the dining room, at the long, dark, oak table, waited on by Arjun, who padded in and out with her meals, gentle but silent.
It was becoming apparent to her that nothing would ever be the same again.
She went out on to the verandah. Great clay pots hung along the length of the roof, overflowing with ferns and trailing ivy and casting intricate shadows like pencil etchings, over the grey stone.
Edith squinted into the sun and looked across the compound. In the distance, she could see her swing.
Someone else looked at the swing, too.
It was Marvinder. She looked at it, hanging there, motionless in the still afternoon, dropping out of the pale, yellowy shadows of the lemon tree. She had gone with her mother to the Chadwick bungalow, so that Jhoti could show off her new son to Maliki. She had been sorting rice. She pushed a tray of it in front of Marvinder and begged her to pick it clean of stones, so that she could be free to admire the baby.
Marvinder squatted on the edge of the verandah where she could see the swing, and even as she picked and sifted and tossed the grains, she kept the swing in the corner of her eye.
‘So, Jhoti! Have you a name for your son, now?’ asked Maliki.
‘It was chosen yesterday!’ announced Jhoti proudly; and she described how they had all gone to the gurdwara, where the priest had opened the Guru Granth Sahib, their holiest book. He had opened it at random, as was the custom, and called out the first letter of the first hymn. ‘It was the letter J. The same initial as me!’
‘J!’ cried Maliki impatiently. ‘What did you call him?’
‘His name is Jaspal!’ Jhoti sighed with happiness.
When Marvinder was sure that she had picked out every single stone and husk from the rice, she casually eased herself off the verandah and stood for a while, just close by, picking up pebbles between her toes. Jhoti and Maliki took no notice of her and carried on gossiping.
But Marvinder’s eye was on the swing. It hung there from the tree, empty and inviting. Slowly, slowly, she drifted, imperceptibly towards the hibiscus hedge. No one called her back. Maliki had now taken the infant into her arms and was cooing over it with delight.
‘Seems you had a better time of it than the poor memsahib,’ said Maliki in a low voice. ‘She had twins, I tell you! And would you believe, the English doctor didn’t even know! What kind of doctor wouldn’t