Savita could not think calm thoughts. She felt as if her body had been taken out of her own control by some terrible, brutal force. She gasped when the pains came, but because her mother had told her that they would be unbearable, and she kept expecting them to get worse, she tried not to cry out aloud, and succeeded. Hour followed hour, and the sweat stood out on her forehead. Lata tried to keep the mosquitoes away from her face.
It was four o’clock, and still dark. In a couple of hours, Pran would be awake. But Imtiaz had made it quite clear that he would not be allowed out of his room. Now Savita began to cry softly to herself, not only because she would be deprived of the comfort of his support, but because she could imagine how anxious he would be for her.
Her mother, thinking she was crying because of the pain, said: ‘Now, darling, be brave, it’ll all be over soon.’
Savita groaned, and held her mother’s hand tightly.
The pain was now very nearly unbearable. Suddenly, she felt the bed wet around her legs, and turned to Mrs Rupa Mehra, flushed with embarrassment and perplexity.
‘Ma—’
‘What is it, darling?’
‘I think — I think the bed is wet.’
Mrs Rupa Mehra woke Maan and sent him to get the nurses on duty.
The bag of waters had broken, and the contractions began coming very fast now, every couple of minutes or so. The nurses took one look at the situation, and wheeled Savita into the labour room. One of them telephoned Dr Butalia.
‘Where’s my mother?’ asked Savita.
‘She’s outside,’ said one rather abrupt nurse.
‘Please tell her to come in.’
‘Mrs Kapoor, I’m so sorry, we can’t do that,’ said the other nurse, a large, kind, Anglo-Indian woman. ‘The doctor will be here very soon. Hold on to the railing behind your bed if the pain is too bad.’
‘I think I can feel the baby—’ began Savita.
‘Mrs Kapoor, please try to hold on till the doctor arrives.’
‘I can’t—’
Luckily the doctor appeared almost immediately, and the nurses now both exhorted her to push.
‘Hold on to the spring and handle above you.’
‘Push, push, push—’
‘I can’t bear it — I can’t bear it—’ said Savita, her lips drawn apart in agony.
‘Just push—’
‘No,’ she wept. ‘It’s horrible. I can’t bear it. Give me an anaesthetic. Doctor, please—’
‘Push, Mrs Kapoor, you’re doing very well,’ said the doctor.
Out of a haze of pain, Savita heard one nurse say to the other: ‘Is the baby’s head coming out first?’
Savita felt a tearing sensation below, then a sudden warm gush. Then more stretching and such pain that she thought she would pass out.
‘I can’t bear it, oh Ma, I can’t bear it any more,’ she screamed. ‘I never want to have another baby.’
‘They all say that,’ said the abrupt nurse, ‘and they all come back next year. Keep pushing—’
‘I won’t. I’ll never — never — never have another child,’ said Savita, who felt herself being stretched beyond endurance, almost torn apart. ‘Oh God.’
Suddenly the head slipped out, and she felt a sense of immediate relief.
When, after what seemed a long time, she heard the baby’s cry, she opened her eyes, which were still hazy with tears, and looked at the red, wrinkled, black-haired, bawling baby, covered with blood and a sort of greasy film, that the doctor was holding up in his arms.
‘It’s a girl, Mrs Kapoor,’ said the dreamy-eyed doctor. ‘With a very powerful voice.’
‘A girl?’
‘Yes. Quite a large baby. Well done. It was a difficult birth, as such things go.’
Savita lay exhausted for a couple of minutes. The light in the labour room was too bright for her. A baby! she thought.
‘Can I hold her?’ she asked after a while.
‘Just one minute more, and we’ll have her cleaned up.’
But the baby was still quite slippery when it — she — came to rest on the cradle of Savita’s slack stomach. Savita looked at the top of its head, adoringly and accusingly, then held it gently and closed her eyes with exhaustion once more.
13.12
Pran woke to find himself a father.
‘What?’ he said in disbelief to Imtiaz.
But seeing his parents sitting there by his bedside, something that would not normally have occurred outside visiting hours, he shook his head and believed it.
‘A girl,’ added Imtiaz. ‘They’re upstairs. Maan’s there too, quite happy to be mistaken for the father.’
‘A girl?’ Pran was surprised, perhaps even a little disappointed. ‘How is Savita?’
‘Fine. I’ve had a word with the obstetrician. He says the birth was a little difficult, but nothing unusual.’
‘Well, let me go to see her and the baby. I suppose she can’t move.’
‘No, she can’t. Not for a couple of days. She has a few stitches. And I’m sorry, Pran, you can’t move either. Neither movement nor excitement will conduce to your recovery.’ Imtiaz spoke with the slightly severe formality that he found worked best with patients when he wanted to ensure their compliance.
‘This is ridiculous, Imtiaz. Be sensible. Please. I suppose you’re going to tell me that I can only see photographs of my baby.’
‘That’s an idea now,’ said Imtiaz unable to resist a smile, and rubbing the mole on his cheek. ‘But the baby, unlike the mother, is a transportable item, and she can certainly be brought to you here. It’s a good thing you aren’t infectious, or even that wouldn’t have been possible. Butalia guards his babies as if they were something of value.’
‘But I must speak to Savita,’ said Pran.
‘She’s doing well, Pran,’ said his father reassuringly. ‘When I was upstairs she was resting. She’s a good girl,’ he added irrelevantly.
‘Why don’t you write her a note?’ suggested Imtiaz.
‘A note?’ said Pran with a short laugh. ‘She’s not in a different city.’ But he asked his mother to give him the pad on the nightstand, and scribbled a few lines:
Darling,
Imtiaz has forbidden me a sight of you; he claims that walking up a couple of flights of stairs and the excitement of seeing you will undo me. I know that you must be looking as beautiful as ever. I hope you are all right, and I wish I were there to hold your hand and tell you how wonderful our baby is. Because I’m sure she must be wonderful.
I haven’t seen her either yet, and this is to request you to relinquish her for a few minutes.
Incidentally, I am fine and, in case you were wondering, had a restful night!
All my love,
Pran
Imtiaz went off.
‘Don’t worry that it’s a girl, Pran,’ said his mother.
‘I’m not worried at all,’ said Pran. ‘I’m just surprised. Everyone kept talking about a boy, so after a while I believed it.’
Mrs Mahesh Kapoor herself was not displeased that she had had a granddaughter, since Bhaskar (though not in the male line) had fulfilled her wish for a grandson.
‘Rupa couldn’t be pleased, though,’ she told her husband.
‘Why?’ said her husband.
‘Two granddaughters and no grandsons.’
‘Women should have their brains examined,’ was his response, before he returned to the day’s newspaper.
‘But you always say—’
Mahesh Kapoor held up his hand, and continued reading.
In a short while Mrs Rupa Mehra appeared with the baby.
Pran’s eyes filled suddenly with tears. ‘Hello, Ma,’ he said, reaching out for the baby.
The baby’s eyes were open but because of the folds around them, she looked almost as if she was squinting. To Pran she looked extremely raw and wrinkled, but not unattractive. In an unfocused way she too appeared to register Pran.