Bodies in Motion by Mary Anne Mohanraj Page A

stupid.
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    THE BABY IS SICK. THE CONVENT IS IN CHAOS. THE FLOOR HAS NOT been swept. The rice is burned. Sister Catherine’s mother once mentioned feeding a sick baby drops of ginger juice, and two nuns run tothe kitchen to chop and mince and squeeze. The doctor has come once, twice, three times.
    The child is pale; he will not drink milk. He sucks for a minute—maybe two—then turns away fretful, crying. The pitiful wail echoes through the long white halls. Mary does not leave him for a moment. She paces the room, she does not sleep. She coaxes him to eat, offering her breast again and again. She hums and murmurs—nonsense sounds, nothing that makes any sense at all. As his face grows hotter, she grows colder. Her hands and feet turn cold as mountain snow, and as the days pass and the baby becomes more ill, she stays on her feet through sheer determination.
    The Mother Superior has even come out of her office, once, to look in on Mary, the child, the huddle of nuns with their panicked whispers and scurrying feet. She shakes her head, then turns and goes back in, closing the door behind her.
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    SUSHILA IS FINISHING HER BATH. SHE TAKES THE TIN DIPPER, POURS the water over her head, down her long black hair and lush body. It has softened in the last year, becoming uncomfortably heavy. Her belly is marked now, her thighs rub together when she walks. Her breasts are finally getting smaller again, but they still hang from her chest. Sushila cannot bear to touch her alien flesh.
    Her hands move smoothly, mechanically—dipping the water, pouring it down. It is cold; she shudders. She finishes and steps out of the small room. She dries herself, eyes closed. She wraps a blue silk sari around herself and steps lightly across the corridor, into the bedroom. Sundar is sleeping. His clothes are scattered here and there, wherever he has flung them. She picks his shirt up, quietly, and folds it awkwardly. She looks around the room, uncertain, and then places it on a chair. She picks it up again, and puts it on top of the chest. Then back on the chair.
    Sushila sits down on the packed dirt floor, arms wrapped around herknees, and watches her husband sleep. His face is smooth, unlined. He is still as handsome as the day she was married to him. She hadn’t objected when her parents had first brought her to his parents’ house. She had looked up at him once, then cast her eyes down and remained silent. He seemed as good as any other that day, and her mother had said, leaving, that they would have beautiful children. A streak of silver has appeared in his dark hair over the last few weeks, and he sleeps curled in on himself, huddled like an animal in distress. His hands are buried under the sheet, but she knows that they will be tight fists against his body, fingers digging into the palms. She has felt them that way for many nights.
    He has not been a bad husband to her. Perhaps she should have taken the road to the convent herself, vowed silence and disappeared into a black robe, a cowl hiding her wealth of silky hair. It had not occurred to her then, that solution. It was not much of a solution.
    When the sun’s early light enters the room, Sushila rises, her limbs stiff. She walks into the kitchen, sits down at the table with pen and paper. She has a letter to write.
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    THE CHILD ’ S FEVER BREAKS, AND MARY FINALLY SLEEPS A FULL night through again. The doctor gives all the credit to their devoted nursing, and the nuns are pleased with themselves. The baby cuddles content against Mary’s breast; Mary’s smile stretches across her face even in sleep. Her teeth shine, white and beautiful against her dark face. The youngest nun looks in on her and thinks that this is how Christ himself must have looked, as he rested, after battling the devil’s temptation for forty days and nights in the barren desert. But she knows to keep that particular blasphemous thought to herself, and walks away