The Selector of Souls

  “Dr. Gupta has left, ji,” says Sister Anu. Panic rises in her. “I can’t perform a C-section.”

  “Driver!” Amanjit Singh shouts over his shoulder. “Go to Jalawaaz and fetch Dr. Gupta.”

  “Then how will you go home, sir?”

  “I’ll walk, you ass,” says Amanjit. “Now, go!”

  “Sir, how will I find the doctor’s home?”

  “You don’t know where he lives?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Ask in the village—oh, never mind. I’ll come with you.”

  He mutters under his breath about a shortage of Muslim brainpower, reaches for his wife again and half-carries her into the clinic. He looks relieved at the sight of Damini.

  “Damini-amma!” Kiran groans with another contraction. “Come sit with me.” But when she sees Goldina occupying one of the three beds in the women’s ward, she says, “Is the men’s ward empty?”

  Sister Anu says, “Right now it is, but Dr. Gupta will come tomorrow, and …” If there are complications, please god, let there be answers in The 5 Minute Clinical Consult.

  “Put Kiran-ji in the men’s ward and tell Dr. Gupta the men’s ward is occupied,” says Amanjit Singh. “Amma, you look after Kiran-ji. Make sure she is not shaved. And here, look after her handbag and this kit bag. Careful now, here’s her gutka.” He hands Damini a prayer book wrapped in silk. “I’ll be back with the doctor soon.”

  A typhoon withdraws with Aman’s departure.

  Sister Anu and Damini help Kiran to a bed. Damini brings black tea laced with cardamom and jaiphal. She kisses Kiran’s prayer book, touches it to her forehead, and places it on the nightstand. Kiran reaches her right hand to touch the book, then her forehead. Sister Anu has the urge to touch the talisman as well.

  But she barely has time to prep Kiran with an enema. The baby refuses to wait for Dr. Gupta. The baby doesn’t know it should arrive by C-section, and surprises everyone by arriving through the normal gateway.

  “It’s a girl!” Sister Anu says joyfully, relieved and proud of a smooth delivery.

  Kiran gives a low moan. Her face sinks behind her upheld hands.

  Kiran has been asked the same question as Goldina, “Yeh baccha kya hai,” and was too tired to answer. The girl has been cleaned and swaddled. Damini and Sister Anu are standing side by side with the infants on an examination table before them.

  Sister Anu circles the boy’s ankle with a strip of white Johnsonplast.

  “Did your husband ever return?” asks Damini.

  “No,” says Anu. She can’t find a pen so she adds a blue thread.

  “He won’t come here again,” says Damini, taping the girl’s ankle. Sister Anu ties a pink thread. “Men can’t take pain. Not like us.” Damini surveys her handiwork, then takes a reel of black thread from between her breasts, and adds a black thread on the boy’s arm to prevent the evil eye. Should Sister Anu object? It’s a harmless superstition. But if Damini is going to do it, she should do it for the girl as well.

  “I’m still nervous,” says Sister Anu, holding the girl’s arm out. “But right now, I’m wondering where is Dr. Gupta? The car should have been back from Jalawaaz by now.”

  “Aman-ji won’t find him in Jalawaaz,” says Damini, tying a black thread on the baby girl’s wrist. “Dr. Gupta went to his cousin-uncle’s wedding in Shimla.”

  “Oh,” says Sister Anu. “Poor Aman-ji. You should have said something.”

  “Aman-ji would have called me a moron, or told me it was my fault—let him go to Shimla.”

  “But it’s dark and the roads are dangerous.”

  Damini looks unmoved. Sister Anu clenches her jaw in frustration. Damini can be so kind, then suddenly so harsh. “Well what to do now? I wish we could reach him to tell him Kiran is all right.”

  “I am here, you are here. Of course she is all right. What would he do if he were here? When Loveleen was born, he came the next day.”

  “But you will look after Kiran-ji?”

  Damini cocks her head in assent. “Yes, I have to look after Mem-saab’s family.” This from the woman who has just sent Mem-saab’s son on a wild goose chase on winding hill roads in the dark.

  “By the time Dr. Gupta comes tomorrow or day after,” Damini says, “we women will have finished all the work. He can just check Kiran-ji and get his fee and tip from Aman-ji. He can check Goldina, too.”

  Moses’s hair is so soft beneath Sister Anu’s fingertips, and his face so adorably delicate, she could almost want another baby. But no—not really. She lays him back in his crib, then Damini helps her move a crib into the men’s ward for Kiran’s baby girl. So much has happened already tonight, but there are still several hours before dawn and she must be here when Aman-ji returns with the doctor.

  A cup of tea will keep her awake. She enters the nurses’ station, and places a pan of water on the burner. A blue flame licks up. Small bubbles begin rising to the surface.

  Sister Anu is making her second cup of tea when she hears shrieking. She turns off the burner, and hastens into the men’s ward. And there’s Kiran sitting up in bed, twisting away from Goldina. A swaddled infant is in Kiran’s arms, “Hut! Hut-ja, churi!” she shouts.

  Damini is trying to restrain Goldina.

  “You stole Moses!” screams Goldina. She whirls to face Damini as if demon-possessed. “You gave Moses to her! That’s my son!”

  Sister Anu takes a huge breath and shouts at all of them to stop.

  Damini and Goldina turn. Goldina’s face is ugly with hurt and rage.

  “Get the sweeper-woman out of here,” says Kiran to Sister Anu in English, looking down her nose with half-closed eyes.

  Sister Anu unwraps the infant Goldina has laid on the red-blanketed bed beside Kiran’s. It’s the girl. Sister Anu gives the girl to Damini and reaches for the baby in Kiran’s arms. Kiran’s expression turns unreadable.

  “Mrs. Singh, please would you return Goldina’s baby.”

  Kiran says in English, “You get this filthy woman out of my room.”

  Thankfully, Goldina doesn’t understand the words, but she can’t miss the tone. Sister Anu’s hands fall to her sides. She can’t wrest a baby out of Kiran’s arms.

  “I told you I shouldn’t come here, I told you!” Goldina screams at Damini in Hindi.

  “It’s a mistake, Goldina,” Sister Anu says. “Don’t worry. It’s easily corrected.”

  Can Damini be the culprit? No—the kind old woman isn’t capable of such a deed. She wouldn’t let Sister Anu down. Mrs. Amanjit Singh is just taking advantage. She turns back to Goldina. “Go with Damini, she’ll help you back to your bed.”

  Goldina doesn’t budge.

  Sister Anu summons all her gentleness and turns back to Kiran. She sits down on the next bed so their eyes are level. “Mrs. Singh, you and your husband have done so much for this clinic. Don’t you think it would hurt its reputation in the community if a baby were switched …”

  She persuades, cajoles, coaxes …

  Suddenly, Kiran is waving a white envelope before her eyes and cooing, “A small donation for an auspicious day.”

  It’s outrageous! Kiran obviously came prepared in case a bribe was needed. She probably intended her envelope for Dr. Gupta. Customary procedure, just as it was for Vikas.

  Goldina knows what is in the envelope. So does Damini. Some things need no translation. Yet Kiran doesn’t care if they see her offer a bribe. Who will believe Goldina or Damini if they tell?

  Sister Anu musters the remnants of her compassion and looks Kiran in the eye. “Kiran-ji, when a mother feels compelled to give up her child, how can this day be called auspicious?”

  DAMINI

  CAN A MOTHER MISTAKE ANOTHER WOMAN’S SON FOR her own? Impossible.

  Damini has not seen gentle Sister Anu so annoyed since she fought with her husband. She wants to tell Sister Anu that she would never exchange a baby for Kiran—why, she still remembers how Kiran and Aman besieged Mem-saab. And why should she d
o such paap for Kiran when Kiran shows her no respect? But she can’t say this. Leela and the children need the occasional work Kiran gives Damini at the Big House.

  At the sight of the envelope, Goldina seems to have lost faith in Sister Anu’s ability to persuade Kiran. She squats on the floor between the two beds, looking up from Kiran to Sister Anu, in turn. Her whole lower body must still be stretched and aching.

  Kiran-ji shouldn’t think Damini agrees with her actions either. Damini moves behind Sister Anu. She can see Kiran’s face and Goldina’s, but not the sister’s.

  “You’re afraid to have a girl,” Goldina accuses Kiran, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose with the end of her sari. “Will you be beaten? After one or two beatings, you get used to it. But,” she leans forward, clasping each knee, “don’t do this paap. Give my son back. Moses needs me.”

  She shouldn’t talk to Kiran-ji this way—she could lose her job at the Big House—but desperation seems to be carrying her away like poppy-fume.

  “You’re afraid to bring another girl into the world. I know, I know. It is your bhagya that is the problem. But see me. I am living proof you can improve your bhagya with hard work.”

  Kiran’s brow furrows as if she’s having trouble understanding Goldina.

  Goldina says, “Is your mother-in-law telling you today, ‘Make me happy, give me a grandson’? What will she ask for tomorrow? What will she ask you to do?”

  Damini cannot remain silent. “Goldina, Kiran-ji’s mother-in-law is no longer in this life. And if she were, she would never ask Kiran to do anything like this. There’s some other reason.”

  Kiran wipes her eyes. “I can’t believe even Damini-amma is against me! You all wait till my husband comes. All of you will be sorry …”

  “I know, I know,” says Goldina, “Women like me can’t get any rest or food or a single word of praise unless we have a boy. But you? Don’t worry, you’ll get rest, you’ll get food even if you have a girl …”

  Kiran looks away as if Goldina had not spoken.

  “You’re a Sikh,” Goldina says to Kiran. “Sikhs have the same names for men as for women. Sikhs say men and women are all equal-equal. I know, I know—they only say that, don’t they? But you can give your daughter a boy’s name and consider her equal to a boy. You know, when your Damini-amma asked if I would get this baby cleaned out because I already have many children, I said no. I said this child is a piece of my body even if it is a girl. I said what the padri says: god will provide. My mother had five girls, and she loved each of us and told us how lucky she was to have us. She told us we were precious, special even if the world said we were just sweepers.”

  Damini says, “Han, han! But my mother also had five girls. She mourned our births and told us how unlucky she was to have us.”

  Goldina shoots a look at Damini, then says, “Sister-ji, keep her away from the girl baby. I cut the cord at the birth of her granddaughter. The baby girl was alive when I left but died a few days later.”

  Damini presses her lips together. Her lungs expand in mixture of guilt and pain. This is not how she should be repaid for befriending a sweeper!

  “And she takes women to the Jalawaaz clinic for the machine to tell if they are having a daughter or son. And if they’re having daughters, she gets them cleaned out there or gives them her medicines to put inside.”

  Sister Anu glares over her shoulder at Damini. “Did you take Goldina to the ultrasound clinic?”

  Damini avoids the righteous flash of those black eyes. “I offered, but she said she didn’t want to know if she was going to have a boy or girl, that it doesn’t matter. These sweeper-women are foolish that way, Sister-ji. They don’t think: how will I live if I am thrown out? On fresh air?”

  “At least Goldina knows what is honourable,” the sister says.

  “Hein?” says Damini. “I’m not like you! Letting women have babies one after another, like cows. You don’t even tell them their husbands should wear topis! If Dr. Gupta did cleanings here, I wouldn’t have to make poor pregnant women walk five hours down the ghost-trail to Jalawaaz. I listen to women’s wishes—that’s honourable.”

  Sister Anu looks as if Damini has slapped her.

  “How is it that every woman wants the same thing?” Goldina’s voice sounds as if she’s calling up a well shaft. “Only wanting sons, like Kiran-ji? If women really are telling you their wishes, then won’t some want sons and others want daughters?”

  Damini has no answer—she really hasn’t thought about it. It’s true. How can it be that all the women she has taken for ultra-soons want the same thing? “It’s kudrati to want sons,” she says, keeping her tone elaborately matter-of-fact while pretending to know what’s natural, “and kudrati not to want daughters.”

  Kiran unfolds Moses’s swaddling a little at a time, and begins examining him.

  Goldina gives a sardonic laugh. “When someone wants her wealth written in her stars, my poverty becomes natural. When someone wants her intelligence to be ordained, my stupidity and the stupidity of my family becomes natural. You asked what I wanted but you wanted me to want what other woman want. And you wouldn’t help me act on my wishes. You must be thinking: Goldina’s not ‘in-telli-gent’ enough to know what she wants, Goldina can’t even write her name. You told me I should do what every woman you’ve taken there does—find out if it’s a girl and kill her before she takes birth.”

  Damini holds the baby girl out to Goldina. “Love girls so much? Take this one—go on. Starve in your old age.”

  “If she was mine, I would,” says Goldina. “And I would sew, knit and clean in my old age just as I do now, and as my mother does. But god didn’t send me this girl. I want Moses. Even if I never wanted to make him, now he’s here. He’s a piece of my body, he came from my koke,” she holds her lower belly as if reliving the pain.

  Damini gazes down at the baby girl. How very small and light she is. She opens her eyes, lovely sweet brown eyes, and looks right at Damini, as if she sees. Damini lays her down on the bed again but she feels the baby looking at her with those twin firefly eyes.

  Goldina appeals again to Kiran, “I can feel the fear you’re feeling. I fold my hands before you and ask: try to feel mine. If you don’t give me my son, and I tell my husband and his family what happened, they’ll say I should never have listened to Damini and Sister Anu. They’ll say I should have had this child at home, like all the others.”

  “Are you stupid enough to prefer having a child at home instead of here?” says Kiran. “Ungrateful creature.”

  “I’m stupid, yes. But you—all your education and money and you can’t face your friends in your high-up society and say I am a woman and a mother and I was once a baby girl? I know, I know. The more you have, the more fearful you are of losing it, but socho … socho.”

  Yes, think, think! What should Damini do? What can she do?

  “What rubbish!” Kiran says to Sister Anu. “This woman dares to believe she can feel what I feel! And she thinks I should feel as she feels—how can she even think it possible? You wait till my husband comes—I’ll fire her, and her family will be thrown out of her little hovel. Then we’ll see how she dares to accuse her superiors.”

  Sister Anu says, “Kiran-ji, even if you refuse to know Goldina’s pain, how can you reject your baby daughter?”

  Goldina’s lips tremble as she struggles to speak, but no words come because tears are in the way. Someone must speak for her. Damini should not take sides but she can’t help herself. “Kiran-ji, you took her son,” she says.

  “You be quiet, Amma. This is my child.”

  Damini says, “Kiran-ji, open your ears and listen. The gods have some reason why I am acting in the movie of your life. I did not give you that child. You had a girl. I saw it happen, Sister Anu saw it—we can’t deny what we saw.”

  Goldina looks up, gathers her voice. “Didn’t you go to the Jalawaaz clinic, Kiran-ji? You don’t even have to walk. You can go by car and afford all the tests
that would have shown you a girl was coming.”

  “No one had to take me.” Kiran says indignantly. “The doctor brought the machine right to the house, in his Gypsy van.”

  “Dr. Gupta?” says Sister Anu.

  “No, not Dr. Gupta,” says Kiran. “He was too afraid he might be the first doctor ever to be sued for prenatal sex diagnosis.”

  “Even in nursing school I was told to be careful not to get into trouble when using ultrasound.”

  Kiran rolls her eyes. “The machine is not illegal. Jails would be full if doctors were put behind bars for using one.”

  “It is, if you learn the child’s sex,” says Sister Anu. “That’s called ling janch.”

  Kiran shrugs. “It’s my body—I have the right to know. If I had been about to have a girl, the doctor would have sounded sad, mentioned pink or a need for ‘family balancing.’ ”

  “If you knew you were having a girl,” says Damini, “why didn’t you have her cleaned out?”

  “Because the ultrasound said what you said, that I would have a boy.”

  Now Kiran is accusing her of being an astrologer! But at least she’s still addressing her as tum rather than tu.

  “You mean the ultrasound test was wrong,” says Sister Anu.

  “Was the power on? Buttons don’t work when there’s no power,” says Goldina.

  “Yes, the electricity was on, you fool,” Kiran says, addressing Goldina as tu.

  “Then how did the machine give you a wrong answer?” says Goldina, still careful to address Kiran as aap.

  “Sometimes the child is too young when the ultrasound is done,” says Sister Anu, “and the doctor can’t tell. Or the doctor could be inexperienced and make a mistake.”

  “Or the doctor told Kiran-ji she would have a boy to please her,” says Goldina. “People always say what they think will please her. I’ve heard that the doctors in Jalawaaz always tell women they are having girls, so they can clean the babies out and make more money.”