She lowered the jar of mustard oil she was carrying. Her face took on a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know. I’ve never had any children of my own.”
I should have nodded silently and gone back to my room, but I was nine, and I could be incredibly thoughtless. “Why not? Dadi-ji told me that every woman wants children.”
Her lips turned down. “Because my husband had the misfortune of dying six years ago.”
I knew she wore the white sari of a widow, the same as Grandmother, but it had honestly never occurred to me that in order to have children, a woman needed a husband.
Avani must have recognized my embarrassment, because she crossed the hall and took my hand in hers. “Don’t worry.” In the golden light of the lamps, she looked to me like Lakshmi—the goddess of beauty. “It will all be over soon.”
But Mother’s cries went on for two days. By the second night, Aunt was called home by her husband; he felt she’d been with us for long enough.
“Sita,” she said to me from the doorstep before she left, her voice low, like the rain clouds behind her. “You must take good care of your mother. Do whatever the midwife says. Without questions.”
“Can’t you stay, Esha-Masi, just for one more night?”
“I’m sorry, Sita.” Her eyes teared. She didn’t want to go. “If I can, I will come next week.”
Father walked alongside her palanquin. He would do so to the other end of Barwa Sagar. I watched them leave, and when they were out of sight, I could feel Grandmother standing behind me the way you feel the presence of a threatening animal. She grabbed my shoulder.
“Go into your mother’s room and don’t come out until she’s had the child.”
If she had asked me to do anything else—anything at all—I would have gladly done it. But the idea of going into that dark closed space made my chest constrict as if someone were sitting on it. “But what if something happens, Dadi-ji? Aren’t you coming?”
Her face looked as if it were carved from teak. I told this once to Father, and instead of reprimanding me, he laughed. Then I told him how Mother’s face looked to be cedar, since that wood is soft and easier to carve. He, however, was cypress. At this Father looked puzzled, since he knew I had never seen a cypress tree. I reminded him of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and told him, “Gremio says he stores his most precious belongings in cypress chests. Well, you’re my most precious belonging.”
Father looked quite surprised—as if what I’d said was a very original thing.
The day after this conversation took place, I found a book on my bed. It must have cost a small fortune, for the leather cover was painted with an image of Saraswati, our goddess of the arts, and the pages were all very carefully trimmed. They were also empty.
“Of course they’re empty, Sita.” His eyes creased at the sides. He was trying not to laugh. “They’re for you.”
I didn’t understand.
“To write your thoughts. In England, they call it a diary,” he traced over the flat of my palm. “You’re a very clever girl.”
I would have been less shocked if he had gifted me an elephant and told me he expected me to become its trainer.
“Perhaps no one will ever read what you write except for your children,” Father went on, “but you are a kalakaar, Sita.”
In Hindi, this means artist. It was the greatest compliment he ever paid me.
I thought of these words as I walked down the hall to Mother’s chamber. But what good was a kalakaar? I had no real skill, like the midwife or like Father. I knocked on the door and I could already smell the stench of sweat.
“Where is your grandmother?” the midwife asked as soon as she opened the door.
“She told me not to leave this room until the child is born.”
The lines deepened between the midwife’s brows, but she didn’t say anything. I shut the door and approached Mother’s charpai, a wooden bed whose woven top is made from rope. She reached for my hand, but when I gave it to her, she had no strength left to squeeze my fingers.
“Sita,” she said softly. Her pretty face was creased in pain and a single white blanket clung to her damp skin. “The baby doesn’t want to come. Where is your grandmother?”
The midwife glanced at me, which I took to mean that I should be silent and let her answer.
“She has gone to the temple,” she said. “Concentrate on your pushing.”
Mother’s braid trailed out over her pillow; it looked like a long black snake curling over the bed to strangle her. I stood at her bedside and did as the midwife instructed. When she needed hot water, I fetched it. When she wanted help rubbing primrose oil onto Mother’s stomach, I did that, too. But when Mother’s breathing grew more labored and the midwife turned to me and said, “Go and get your grandmother,” I hesitated.
“Now!” she said forcefully. “This child won’t come without a doctor.”