Bodies in Motion by Mary Anne Mohanraj

her bright green blouse. He takes her shoulder with his right hand; he pulls her around.
    â€œTired? Why?” His voice is sharp. “You do nothing, Sushila. She washed him, fed him, played with him. You had her do it all.”
    She holds a half-washed glass in her hands. “I know how to manage her. I always have.”
    â€œShe’s a half-wit. We should never—”
    Sushila looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “Husband dead, baby dead. A woman alone—where could she go? What life did my sister have?” She looks down again. “And I needed her.”
    He turns and paces away a few steps, turns back. “How could you leave them alone?” His voice is low, anguished.
    â€œI just—had to wash my face. Just for a few minutes.” She looks down at her plump hands, wrapped around the wet glass. They are covered in gold rings. “Sundar—what happens now?”
    â€œThe police keep looking. We keep looking. We’ll find her.” He sits down, as far from Sushila as he can. “How far could she have gone?” he asks softly.
    She says nothing in response, only turns back to the sink. But she does not start washing again. The glass lies cradled in her hand, delicate, fragile.
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    THE BABY CHUCKLES HAPPILY, NO MATTER WHO IS HOLDING HIM. He is not quite so thin as he was; once the woman has been fed, she begins to produce good milk again. He is getting better, and with each day, he seems more beautiful. He is the most beautiful baby the nuns have seen—though they don’t see so many, other than the scrawny, sickly babies of the parish destitute. They do not name him—he is the baby . Within a few days, he is their baby.
    He is as happy with Anne as with Mary, and, more surprisingly, as happy with Teresa as with Anne. The youngest novice is so enamored of the child that she begins to whisper that perhaps he is more than a baby, that he is the Christ child come again. But the others laugh at her, and when she persists, Sister Anne sets her to chapel-cleaning.
    As Mary’s health improves, she begins working. She is competent in the kitchen, but seems happiest in the garden. The dry season is ending; it is time to turn the soil, to weed, to plant the seeds and seedlings. She wears the baby in a sling and works peacefully. Whenshe tires, there is always a nun happy to take the child. After a few weeks of this, she seems much better.
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    THEY WERE SITTING IN HER GARDEN WHEN IT HAPPENED, SUSHILA IN a bright sari, pink like the bougainvillea arching overhead. Her sister, dressed in widow’s white, held the baby, humming to it wordlessly. Her sister had not spoken since the sickness carried away her husband, her own baby. But she had been a good wet-nurse for the baby, had taken such care with it. Even now, she held a hand above its face, shading it from the sun. Before she came to join them, Sushila never took such care.
    Sushila watches them, her heart beating faster. She has had an idea. The words are fluttering in her head, aching to get out. She has been beating them back for days, for weeks. But she is about to lose that battle. In a few minutes, she will start talking, softly, quietly, almost as if she is speaking to herself. She will say that there are places for a woman to go. Not here, perhaps, but far away, in the capital city, where Sushila had gone with her mother, her sisters, to buy her wedding jewels and sari. There are places that will take a woman in, will care for her.
    She will mention one such place, Holy Family convent, where they had once visited, had had a nice cup of thick, sweet milk tea with the Mother Superior. Sushila will say that a child would be happy in a place like that, sheltered, safe. She will say, even softer, that a child should have a mother who loves him. Then she will rise, will go into the house, leaving them alone there in the garden. She will leave them alone for a long time. Her sister is silent, not