By Mashida R Haider

SHE slept fitfully, abdomen heavy, mind sluggish, only mildly aware of the small body snuggled against her, so silent. The only sign that she was there at all was the tiny heaving of a chest, a sporadic breath, a little mewling. Morning broke into commotion in the ward, the nurses hurrying with breakfast, cajoling, scolding, forcing mothers to eat a banana, some milk. Young mothers, fresh-faced despite the recent toll on their bodies, smiling as they snuggled their babies. Some looked comfortable, it was all very natural, they had done it before. One or two, the first timers, looked awed, sneaking peaks at the babies they were suckling.
   Noorjahan remembered the first time too. She had been eighteen, a new bride. When her blood didn’t come that month, she knew. She felt it. Her breasts were engorged, ankles thicker. She didn’t tell anybody that first month, wondering how the hawk eyes of her mother-in-law had missed her glowing face. Then one night, after his day’s work at the sweater factory, Azim had pulled him to her for their nightly ritual. No matter how much he worked, that first month of marriage, he had always wanted it. He said it made him feel less tired, more alive. That one time she had demurred, fearing the baby would be hurt. And that is how he found out. She wasn’t prepared for his reaction. His usual calloused hands felt more gentle, he spoke in her ear, he kissed her belly, all over.
   Overnight, her status changed.
   ‘Bou,’ old hawk eyes would say, chewing her paan. ‘Don’t bend, don’t bend.’ The boti was not to be used by her anymore. Azim’s younger sister, who lived in the two-roomed dwelling, took over, scowling at her, but having no choice really. She had to have eggs every day, precious eggs that only Azim was allowed to have before. No raw papaya, no, the baby will come out bou, no pineapple, do you want him to have blisters, bou? Azim just looked happy, his accomplishment growing in her belly every day.
   And then the pains came. She had not known anything like it. She woke up panting in the middle of the night, skin soaked in sweat, sari soaked in water. ‘Please,’ she had whispered. ‘Please, wake up.’ The mother-in-law was woken. The midwife summoned. It was three in the morning, and she squatted on the floor, wanting to urinate, thirsty, as wave after wave of pain came. Then suddenly, there was a slippery sound, a wail, and she saw it. The baby, dangling from a thin rubbery tube between her legs. As the midwife cut it, and wiped the baby, she felt no pain. As they pushed the baby to her nipple, and dark red milk gushed out, she felt only relief. By the time Azim came in, told her not to worry that it was a girl, and rushed out to tell the muezzin to call out a prayer, she was calm.
   She was named Aisha. She had been the first of three, with big, black eyes, a quick smile, slight of build, and as dark as midnight. Each time there was a daughter, Azim had soothed her, said it was Allah’s will, and each time, he had sounded a little more unconvincing. After the third girl, it was a tacit understanding, no words spoken. They just stopped altogether. She got busy raising her daughters, he started returning home later and later. She lost weight, he grew a beard. The old hawk, tired of harping away, died one night.
   She sometimes wondered with detached curiosity if he was relieving himself somewhere else. Khodeja, her friend from the bathroom line, had told her all men had their needs, her ample chin quivering with laughter.
   Aisha now was also with a baby. Her husband, useless oaf that he was, had some uses after all. She sometimes wept to her mother, sometimes cursed her father, for marrying her off to the goonda. All he did was sit around in the tea stall the whole day, leering at younger girls. Aisha sometimes wondered where the money came from, but it was better to remain silent.
   ‘I carry a shame, ma,’ she would often lament on her bad days, ‘it’s not a blessing, it’s a curse.’
   Noorjahan would keep quiet. The other sisters, knowing that it was going to be their turns soon for marriage, or worse, would look forlorn.
   One night, after ten years, it happened. Azim came home, his beard stinking. ‘Noor,’ he called. ‘Noor!’ Noorjahan’s heart lurched. Long ago, when he would come home at night, he would call her that, and whisper, so hawk eyes wouldn’t hear. Tonight, he shouted. She sat up, trying to gather her senses. He came in, much like the old way, marched in with chest puffed out. But this time it was different. He turned off the light, something he had never done before. He was not savage, but there were three hard juts, and she muffled her cries, fearing that the two girls in the next room would wake up. As she crept away to wash herself, face burning, body quivering, she heard him snoring. In the morning, he left before she woke up.
   Aisha was the first to notice her mother was ill. She was short of breath and couldn’t sit for a long time without getting beads of sweat on her face. Noorjahan knew that she could not hide it anymore.
   ‘How could you, ma?’ cried Aisha. ‘What will I tell him, what will I tell his parents? How could you bring this shame?’
   Azim was more pragmatic. ‘No, we cannot get rid of it,’ he said. ‘How will I answer to Allah?’ And then a little anxiously. ‘You are too old anyway. It might not survive.’
   But this one, a girl again, from the way her belly grew not from the top, but from the bottom, had the most temerity. She not only survived, but she made sure that her mother knew it. Nausea every day, followed by so much vomiting that Noorjahan thought her intestines would surely come out, and feet so swollen that she could not move. She couldn’t eat, and her body shrivelled, her breasts sagged like two empty pouches, they hung almost all the way down to her growing belly.
   The neighbourhood women tittered and made snide remarks, even as she tried desperately to hide her shame. ‘Ki Noorjahan, what have you done to capture your husband’s heart? Getting younger, are you? Or is it some jaadu? Tell us, tell us!’ She started getting up before dawn to reach the bathroom, while everyone still slept.
   It was Khodeja who gave her advice, massaged her feet, rubbed her wrinkled back. Khodeja, who took her to the hospital when the time came. Aisha was also there, wiping her eyes, whispering continuously, as she watched her mother being stripped in front of the doctors, watched her cringe as they examined her with cold steel, and continuously berate her. A daktar woman, pristine in a starched white coat, not much older than Aisha herself, kept up a continuous litany: why, ma, why must you do this, why did you not use a method, you are so old, who will take care of the child, how will you feed, you people never understand, why do you need a boy so badly, are three girls not enough, this baby will be as old as his nephew, you are a grandmother now, not a mother anymore, why do we have to explain this all the time?
   Azim was not around. Noorjahan half hoped that the labour would kill her, half hoped that…no, even thinking that was a sin.
   By afternoon, the ward had grown heavy with heat and bodies and milk. Babies cried noisily, guards yelled for the families to get out, it was past visiting hours. The women, all too eager to bare their breasts, hardly noticed that there were strange men coming and going. They were mothers, so there was no need for modesty. Noorjahan pretended to sleep as Aisha fed the baby water from a small tin bowl. She hadn’t been able to feed, her body too weak. As the baby had tugged lustily, her breast had been dry. Nothing had come out, even after squeezing long and hard. Maybe in a few days.
   The baby cried for a while. Mostly she was silent.