WHEN THE INFANT SMILES AT YOU
(Short story)
Dr. PREMA NANDAKUMAR
Mary began to pace the courtyard again. Just
now the ward sister had admonished her for not walking. “How
can we know whether you are ready or not? Walk, madam, and then we will
know whether the pains have come or not.” So Mary started walking once more,
but she was weary, utterly weary. The mind had exhausted itself thinking over
every moment of the recent past. Why should this have happened? She had always
been a good girl, hardworking and honest. She had strained her inmost to give
her younger brother an education. He was a well-behaved boy, of course. Would not give any trouble to her or the old aunt at home.
He was doing well at school. Another five years, and he would have taken a degree.
Then she would not have to worry at all.
Only five years. Just now he would have come
for his midday meal. Aunty would feed him well enough, and could manage the
coming month with the comfortable amount Mary had given her. George would be
well fed and would eagerly go back to school. No, he was
not the worry.
It was herself, she in this strange world,
pacing the cement courtyard with its tiny lawn in the middle. The sisters had
planted cannas to skirt the lawn. Mary had often counted them on her usual
pacing exercise, but each side reported a different count. On one side there
were eight big plants with a few tiny ones coming from beneath. Ten on another side and so on. The cannas were determined to
bloom wonderfully and allowed a generous growth of young tubers. They swayed
gently, as though conscious of their contentment. For two days Mary had watched
them and tried to forget her misery in their green-yellow-red ensemble. Yet it
was impossible to forget – really
forget when reality was closing upon her
in this maternity ward. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Mary could not stand it any more. She entered
the ward on the left side of the verandah. There were quite a few mothers there
with tiny cradles beside their beds. Mary’s neighbour
was a young mother. Quite thin and famished, but with a
pleasant face and smile. There was an infant in the cradle beside her,
blissfully asleep. Mary looked at the mother who was also asleep. She felt
almost envious of this mother who would soon be ready to receive her family, a
middle-aged gentleman and four children. The children would excitedly crowd
around the cradle, and Mary would watch the couple discussing something in low
voices. One’s own family! That would be bliss indeed.
But Mary had been condemned from birth
to a lonely existence. As a child she saw little of her mother who had a
back-breaking job in a factory. The father had died soon after George’s birth.
Then the mother too had gone and the mother’s aunt, now almost seventy, had
come to keep house for Mary. Mary had nothing to complain about. She had a good
job as a Secretary and her one ambition was to educate George. She had no
personal fads and foibles and was a regular church-goer.
And then this had come and the future seemed to have crashed about her
in one moment of unguarded helplessness.
Yet whom could she blame except herself?
Girls like her should never be burdened with trusting innocence such as hers. A
boss was a boss and should always be kept at a distance. Was this possible for a
personal secretary? Perhaps. Though
not for her.
Besides Mr. Pinto was in
the habit of mingling his personal life with her secretarial job. Often she had to take down his dictation for
a letter to his father-in-law or wife’s brother. There was some tension and the
letters would reveal the interior of Mr. Pinto’s heart. He was remote in his
day-to-day dealings, and his sentences were always curt and short, sometimes to
the point of rudeness. Mary did not mind and actually welcomed this iciness on
the part of the boss. Was this iciness but a facade for the craters within?
Mr. Pinto would often give her lifts home and
they would hardly exchange a
word except the last – “Good-bye.” Then the news of the estrangement
between Mr. Pinto and his wife had filtered to Mary. She pitied her hardworking
boss and thought no more about it. The domestic uncertainty no doubt drove Mr.
Pinto to think of Mary often. There was a new softness in his tone and a new
look in his hooded eyes. All this escaped
Mary, though perhaps the rest of the office noted it. Mr. Pinto gave Mary lifts
more frequently and began to take an interest in Mary’s personal life. It
culminated in a frontal assault on Mary’s person during a stormy day when Mr.
Pinto simply drove her to his house. It was no use trying to escape him. His
dormant passion had awakened into a single outburst and she was trapped in the
arms of this drunken dynamo. He came to his senses too late. The harm had been
done.
Apart from being a Christian and Catholic,
Mary had some unspecified feeling in her heart that tugged at her conscience
and prevented her from taking any precipitate action. She was not a beauty,
though far from ill-looking. For what had happened she did not blame Mr Pinto or the circumstances. She blamed herself, and
spent the growing months of anxiety with her Bible. Mr. Pinto behaved
handsomely. It was he who had arranged for her long leave and this
nursing-home. He could not unite himself with her. The wife was back with the
children after tears and forgiveness. Besides, there were the religious inhibitions
about divorce and remarriage. No, that was out of question. Nor could Mary
destroy the child. Now it was her own, and she dare net become a
murderess. The arrangement was to give away the child as soon as it was born
and go out of the nursing-home and resume the old life. Mr. Pinto would see to
the adoption also. It was all well-planned, but Mary had not reconciled
herself to the situation. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Forsook me then, and now forsaking me again, to be crucified in my
conscience. Reading the Psalms made her only more wretched by
highlighting her fallen state and the gaping future.
Mary woke up from her reverie to find a
sister bending over her. “Are you tired? I shall keep you company, come, walk
again.” Wearily Mary got up but feeling dizzy she sat on the stool between her
bed and the neighbour’s. The young lady smiled and
spoke in Tamil. “Are the pains coming? I think you will get a boy.” Mary nodded
vaguely. The sister had gone on some other errand and she settled for a chat.
“Isn’t your family coming?”
“They won’t come today. My husband has to go
to an evening job twice a week. It is difficult for him and he is not in very
good health either. But what to do – seven mouths have to be fed. Why, now it
is eight!”
She smiled a half-sad, half-amused smile and
looked at the cradle tenderly. “You know we have four children already and
there is his old mother. But I suppose I ought not to complain for there is
nothing as wonderful as having a child. Don’t you think so?”
Mary got out of her lazy world and looked at
the lady. “Is it so wonderful 7” she asked slowly. “Well, may be it is. But I
really do not know.”
“It must be your first. That explains your
fear. Actually you watch your son and then you will know what I mean.”
Son! Mary smiled. Somebody
like George? Yes, it would be wonderful. But her child would be a
bastard! Bastard! And the street urchins and school boys would always have a
whip hand. Bastard? No other identity? He would be her
son!
Suddenly Mary closed her eyes and swayed. The
lady cried out: “Sister! Sister!” Two nuns in the
nursing habit came running in. Mary had started moaning, for the first real
pain had come. They led her to the theatre just as she came out of the first
blast. Somehow everything seemed normal and she watched the sisters preparing
the table. At a corner of the room was another table that shone with gleaming
instruments. What was this, an oxygen mask? But there goes! Mary was sucked
into the whirlpool of pain once again.
She thought of those italicised
letters in her constant companion, the Bible, the Hebrew “eli, eli, lama sabachthani” followed immediately by the English” My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” O Jesus my Lord, in
reality have I been forsaken and delivered naked and defenceless
to these people here. George came to her mind again and soon she was
back in pitch darkness. When she came to, she could see that the doctor was
talking quite loudly and the assistant was holding an aluminium
tray with a pink mass.
“A boy, Mrs. Mathew and
congratulations.” ‘The
doctor bent over her with her anti-septic smile.
Congratulations! Mary had returned to the
earth, and the world had brought her back all the doubts, anxieties, and self-lacerations.
She remembered Mr. Pinto’s instructions. So she asked the doctor’s assistant to
phone to her office the next morning and convey to her Manager that a boy had
been born and that she would be applying for another two months’ leave.
When she was brought to her bed, her anxious neighbour was awake still. It was nearing midnight. The
lady welcomed her with a big smile. And as soon as the sisters had gone she
said: “The sister told me it is a boy. Didn’t I tell you? He will be a lucky
chap. You are a Christian but perhaps will not mind it if I say that he will be
god-like and famous as
The lady was talkative but Mary needed this
warmth in this moment of loneliness. She could not answer immediately. Tears
rolled down her cheeks and she said in a voice that was dead with fatigue.
“Didn’t you suspect? I have no husband.”
Mary closed her eyes after this effort. The
lady did not comprehend Mary’s meaning at once. She started again: “I mean....”
And then it struck her that Mary had given her no answer. She understood in a
flash the truth, even as she connected Mary’s words with her past behaviour. The preoccupied air, the
furtive weeping and all those evenings with not a single visitor.
Poverty had ground the lady to a precarious existence, but humanity flowed
through her like a living stream. She had been brought up in a big family, and
was herself a tender mother. She looked at Mary with this tenderness and pity
and spoke.
“Never mind, your son will grow into a fine
person and all will be well with you.”
Mary did not respond. Worn out with her
physical and mental struggle she was fast asleep.
The next day the lady went near Mary’s bed to
see the baby. Once again she was the good old chatterbox. “Look at him lady, he
is so pretty! He can already recognise people!”
This well-meant exaggeration drew Mary out of
her reverie. The lady asked her not to brood.
“What is the use of brooding? What is past is
past. I am sure you were not to blame. You look so young and good. Anyhow it
doesn’t matter. Looking after this child will give you all the joy. Sometime in
future you will know the truth and then will probably remember this foolish
lady, isn’t that so, darling boy?” She swung the cradle gently.
Mary’s heart was bitter.
“Bring up this child. How can I? Already
arrangements have been made for his, his being given away!”
“What?” The lady almost shouted. Turning to
Mary she asked plaintively, “Are you really giving away the child?”
Mary nodded.
“But I do not understand. Are you so greatly
afraid of this world? To give away this lovely, little child?
Look at his slender and long fingers. He will be tall and fair. Like a king.
You may regret giving him away then.”
“But what to do?” Mary wailed. “Imagine him in our crowded street with no name. They will take the life out of him.”
“Who are they?”
the lady asked, and her face grew hard. “Who
are they? Do you know how many in my street have smirked and laughed at my
swelling figure? The neighbours laugh because we
cannot afford to clothe our children adequately. Even our shopman
has the temerity to say openly at our ‘bravery’ in bringing forth one more
child. They have no business with us. Do you think we are deliberately
conspiring to increase our poverty-stricken household? All
those population-wallahs. God blast them! They
brought us loops and this and that. Like sheep we obeyed them. What was the
use? The result has been my crying the whole night. God, God, no more children.
God, do not make me big with child”. We do not want anymore. But sometimes the
gods are rather pitiless or just humorous. I do not know. Hero is this fifth
child.” She gestured towards the cradle at her side. Through the steel bars of
the cradle, Mary could see a pink face with black hair. The baby was sleeping.
“A lovely boy, isn’t he?” Mary said in a
small voice, at last showing some interest in something beyond her immediate
personal problem.
“And yet I hoped it would die, away from my
eyes, before it came into the world. It would have been a doctor’s job or a
barber’s. But now? And it is not even a boy, it’s just
like my fate, this is another girl for me. But how can I withhold my love, my
breast? The past is past, and now we will share what we have, that is all.
Forget what ‘they’ say outside the four walls of your house. Do not throw away
this gift. Yours or mine, God gives. I can only think that way.”
She suddenly halted as though half-ashamed of
her outburst. Mary looked at her with grateful eyes. In her halting manner she
said: “Akka, give my child here.” The
lady took the infant tenderly and placed it beside Mary on the bed. Impulsively
she took Mary’s hands into hers and pressed them gently gazing at Mary and the
child. Then she went to her bed.
When Mr. Pinto came to the Nursing-home in
the evening he found Mary serenely looking at pictures in a magazine. The
new-born babe was asleep in the cradle. He spoke self-consciously “Hello,
Mary,” he said. She looked up and replied: “Hello, how are you?” He had not
expected to find such an impersonal, self-possessed girl. “How is the little
nipper,” he attempted again and bent towards the cradle. “Strange, how all kids
look alike! Andy was the same, red with that brown hair, and those long fingers.”
Andy was his third son. Mary kept silent.
Disconcerted at her behaviour, yet with his
managerial aplomb he said:
“Mary, I have got the blessed transfer at
last. To
Still no reaction from Mary, except her gaze at him. Actually she was counting the stripes on the pocket of his shirt. She was jerked to reality when Mr. Pinto went on in his tooth-paste fresh voice.
“By the way, the nipper has been fixed. An
agent will come here tomorrow, and you can arrange the date of delivery. I
suppose he’ll get into a high-class family. The agent hinted that much. Lucky kid.”
Sharp though tear-stained came
Mary’s voice. “The agent need not come.” Mr. Pinto turned behind sharply.
“What do you mean, be
need not come?”
“Simply what I say” replied Mary glancing at
the empty bed near her. The lady’s husband had come at noon and they had left.
The husband had carried the child in a comfortable bundle. The lady had spoken
many good words to Mary. Then she had distributed bakshish
to the maids in the ward and taken leave of them. Mary still felt the lady was
beside her giving encouragement. Why should I fear the world, if the fault were
not mine? She looked at Mr. Pinto with contempt and anger.
“Good-bye to you and never disturb me again,”
she hissed.
“What has come over you? How can you manage
to bring him up all alone? George is enough of a burden and to add to him this
bastard.”
Before he could go
further, Mary bad thrown the illustrated magazine in his face, and shrilled:
“Go, go away. If you do not, I will hit you with this.”
She picked up a
tumbler from the bedside table.
Mr. Pinto stood rooted to the spot, ruminated for a while, watching the quick breaths of Mary shaking her body. He was also uneasily aware of a couple of ladles in other beds staring at him curiously.
“I see that you are mad. Well, never mind and
good-bye,” he barked the words in a hayenish manner
and vanished into the thickening gloom outside.
Mary bent over the cradle near her and her
eyes filled with tears.
“He calls you that? O God! Couldn’t
you think of a milder punishment for me than that word? But my darling, that is
the last word of reproach you shall hear. You have a mother, you have a
mother!”
She settled herself on the cot and felt tired
with relief. No, God had not forsaken her. God had come to her at last as love,
In the form of this infant and this love would help
her hold her face up in all this wide, wide world.