Four Birds to Announce the Birth of a Boy
Sweat pours, cracking through the layer of dust on my face, like rain flooding desiccated riverbeds. I can’t have a bath. My mother-in-law hasn’t heated the water yet. She refuses to let me have a cold one, though my body pulls towards the hose like it is a magnet. “Any fool knows that will turn the baby into a girl,” she says, talking out of the corner of her mouth. “Wait until the sun goes down, then you can have bath hot-hot.” Her paan is tucked into her left cheek, like a dental abscess. She spits vermilion saliva onto the floor of the terrace roof. We are guarding the drying papads from the birds. It is her specialty, made every summer to last us the year. I count one, two, three, four birds. I am not good with the names. They are black, large, with predatory beaks. They perch on the parapet eyeing us and the rice and lentil wafers beadily. The largest one looks straight at me, at my belly swollen around my cotton sari. The pleats are lifted in the front, exposing my ankles. There is no breeze to fan my heated blood. “I need a drink,” I say to her. She calls to Selvi to bring me some water, “Make sure it is nice and warm!” I use the pallu of my sari to fan myself. My hair, suddenly frizzy with this baby proving in my belly, lifts off my temples momentarily, then collapses back in helpless clumps. The biggest bird — crow? Raven? Does a little skip-hop towards us. “Ma,” I point. “Hmm?” she jerks her chin up from her chest. “The birds, Ma.” She inhales noisily, considering. “Four ah? Very good omen. Definitely a boy this time.” She glares at me, as if I might screw up the good fortune these birds bring. I think of my daughters, both at school. Their grandmother dotes on them, constantly feeding them, playing with them, showing them off to all and sundry. Yet when they aren’t around, she beats her chest, speaking of her ill-fortune that God has seen fit to give her only grand-daughters. “Yes. Very good omen, four birds,” she says. She turns away from the birds, casting a critical eye over her papads. “I did a good job this year. Very thin. They will be crinch-crunch, just like from Ambika’s Depot.” That’s when I see the fifth bird. A chick, hiding behind her mother. Its feathers seem vulnerable and unfinished. Not jet black yet. The largest bird nabs a papad, and flies away, taking the flock with it. The little one soars with a grace I hadn’t expected. “Ma, what would five birds mean?” “Five? All that I don’t know. I know four is very good luck. Why you must ask all these difficult questions? Just accept your good luck from God and leave it.”
I shift into a more comfortable position, feel the blood pooling in my hips. Settle in for the wait.
Sumitra Singam writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). She works in mental health. You can find her and her other publication credits on twitter: @pleomorphic2
