The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [476]
The day ebbed into evening and once again it was night; but few in the Women's Quarters were able to sleep, while those in the birth-chamber were unable even to snatch a mouthful of food. By now Shushila was exhausted, and her throat so sore and swollen that she could no longer scream but only lie still and moan. But she continued to cling to Anjuli's hands as though to a life-line, and Anjuli, aching with weariness, still bent above her, encouraging her, coaxing her to swallow spoonfuls of milk in which strengthening herbs had been brewed, or to sip a little spiced wine; soothing, petting and cajoling her as she had done so often in the past.
‘…and for a while – for a short while,’ said Anjuli, telling the story of that frenetic night, ‘it was as though she was a child again and we were friends once more, as in the old days; though even then I knew in my heart that this was not so, and that it would never be so again…’
Apart from Shushila's uninhibited and hysterical behaviour, there had been no major complications, and when at long last, just after midnight, the child was born, it came into the world very easily: a strong, healthy infant who bawled lustily and beat the air with tiny waving fists. But the dai's face paled as she lifted it, and the women who had pressed forward eagerly to witness the great moment drew back and were silent. For the child was not the longed-for son that the soothsayers had so confidently promised, but a daughter.
‘I saw Shushila's face when they told her,’ said Anjuli, ‘and I was afraid. Afraid as I have never been before: for myself… and for the babe also. For it was as though the dead had come back to life and it was Janoo-Rani who lay there: Janoo-Rani in one of her white rages, as cold and as deadly as a king cobra. I had never seen the resemblance before. But I saw it then. And I knew in that moment that no one in the room was safe. Myself least of all… Shushila would strike out like a tigress who has been robbed of its cubs – as she had struck twice before (yes, that too I knew now) when she had been disappointed of a child. But this time it would be worse: this time her rage and disappointment would be ten times greater, because she had carried this child for its full time and been assured that it must be a son, and having endured agony beyond anything she had ever dreamed of to give it birth, it was a daughter.’
Anjuli shuddered again and her voice sank to a whisper. ‘When they would have given the babe to her, she stared at it with hatred, and though she was hoarse from screaming and so weak that she could barely whisper, she summoned up breath to say: “An enemy has done this. It is not mine. Take it away and kill it! Then she turned her face from it and would not look at it again, though it was her own child, her first-born: bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh.I could not have believed that anyone… that any woman… But the dai said that it was often so with those who had endured a hard labour and were disappointed of a son. They would speak wildly, but it meant nothing; and when they were rested and had held their infants in their arms they came to love them tenderly. But but I knew my sister better than the dai did, and was even more afraid. It was then I think that I came near to hating her… yet how can one hate a child, even a cruel one? – and children can be far crueller than their elders because they do not truly understand -they only feel, and strike out, and do not see