. . . in mourning, not capable . . .” Surely this healer could have compassion for a grieving man?
Sophia waved any idea of the father away. “You know our way.”
Frieda felt exasperated. Times had changed, why did Sophia insist on making things difficult? “Our way is not the way of the father,” she stumbled.
Astrid, sucking at a strand of her red hair, mumbled wickedly: “The father must have his way, the father must have his way . . .”
Sophia inhaled audibly, impatiently, not bothering to respond. She opened a packet of powder and placed a pinch on the baby’s tongue, then picked her up into the crook of her arm and lifted her own jersey. She stroked the baby’s cheek with the tip of her ample nipple, crooning to her. The child’s tiny head turned towards the offer, wobbling hungrily, her mouth open, eager and instinctive, then latching and sucking, sucking and sucking, sucking and sucking, then pulling away with the wail of failure.
What was she doing? “Is that . . . is it for the comfort?” asked Frieda, astonished. Sophia shook her head.
Frieda understood. “I didn’t mean for you to . . .”
“What did you expect?” Angry, there was an anger in Sophia. “You could do this too, if you put a mind to it and took ergonot root.”
“Me? My lastborn eighteen, and me almost in the change?” Frieda shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Astrid rocked, laughing, shaking her fiery head. “I don’t think so,” she repeated, “I don’t think so!”
Sophia handed the child back to Frieda. “The milk will come, if she sucks every day.” She looked at Frieda. “You’ll bring her every day.”
Impossible. Impossible! Surely . . . there must be another way.
“Astrid will help. If she sucks also, the milk will come.”
Astrid stood abruptly, struck by the thought. “I am not a baby.”
“No. You are not a baby.” Sophia gestured: come, come and sit beside me, you are not a baby. Astrid tensed with indecision, her eyes looking at Sophia longingly, then away with feigned indifference.
“Together we can help this child, who is a baby.”
Astrid glanced at the baby whimpering in Frieda’s arms, then gave in and came over and nestled against Sophia, desirous, afraid; then she lifted Sophia’s jersey. She looked at Sophia’s pendulous breasts lying like a feast on the table of her chest, then her eyes darted back to Sophia’s face.
“Suckle me,” instructed Sophia. Astrid bent her brazen head to Sophia’s breast, her lips open, her tongue finding the dark nipple, and closing her lips around the halo of the areola, she sucked, pulling it deeply into her mouth. Frieda watched, embarrassed, amazed, as Sophia put her arm around the shoulders of the suckling woman to support her. It looked like love, like lovers, what did it look like? She glanced at the windows; the curtains were not drawn; what if someone saw, what would they think?
In her own arms, the baby had fallen asleep.
Sophia indicated that Frieda should take the rest of the packet of powder with her. “Add a pinch into each feed. And bring her back. Tomorrow.” In her arms, Astrid had started crying, suckling and crying. Unconcerned, Sophia stroked the side of Astrid’s face and watched as Frieda wrapped the baby up and strapped her to her chest.
Frieda pulled on her jacket, put the remedy into her pocket. “Thank you,” she said. “How much . . .”
“An egg-laying hen,” answered Sophia, who never took money as payment, “and a bag of flour. And leave food out every day. You know it, Frieda. This island is full of the ways of the mainland, the ancestors are starving.”
Frieda nodded, torn. She turned to go.
“Gulai,” said Sophia.
“What?”
“The ancestors say her name is Gulai.”
Chapter Six
“Gulai!” The doctor banged his coffee cup down and glared at Frieda.
“It was her mother’s wish.” Not a lie, Frieda never told lies, and the ancestors had spoken.
“What kind of a name is Gulai?” The doctor stuck a finger behind his collar and tugged at it as though it was strangling him.
“It is a good Ongala name. It means born in the rainy season.”
“It sounds like a man digging in mud! Besides, she isn’t African!”
“She’s part African. So am I. So was her mother.”
“Hardly.” The doctor picked at his moustache irritably. “She never mentioned that name to me! Gail was the name we agreed to. It was Gail, you have made a mistake. It’s just a few of the letters swapped round. Look at her, she’s not a Gulai!”
* * *
So the baby had two names: Gail for the father, meaning father’s joy, and Gulai for the mother, meaning born in the rainy season. It was Gulai who sucked at Sophia’s breast every day until the milk came, and continued suckling for two months thereafter. Her crying stopped and the doctor told all who would hear how Gail had responded to the miracle of modern medicine, and they nodded their heads in agreement, knowing full well that his daughter drank witch’s milk every day, for it was no longer a secret. Often enough, Sophia would come to the doctor’s house to feed the child while the doctor was at work, and everyone could see how the baby grew fat and happy, full of ancestral magic and miracles.
There came a day that Frieda cut the cord around the baby’s belly and hid it away in an envelope, for she argued within herself that the child was now healthy and out of danger. The ancestors would understand, it was surely prudent to take only the risks that were strictly necessary. It’s true she lived with the worry that Sophia might discover the yarn’s absence; but there was no pleasing everyone, and Frieda knew it was a miracle that she had got away with what she had.
Yet there were those who shook their heads in the privacy of their own homes, or even in the tavern when the doctor was not there; no good could come of this situation in the long run, no good at all. No one ventured to inform the doctor about Sophia and Gulai – for who wants to be the bearer of unwelcome news, and while the weather is fair and mild, why rock the boat? Things will emerge in their own good time.
Why was it that the doctor was the last to know? Well, his mind was on many things, busy he was, keeping certain feelings at bay; and being the only doctor for several thousand miles around he was, fortunately, a busy man. After the funeral – a sad, windswept affair with Minister Alfred Kohler’s blessings tossed this way and that over the open grave so that the mourners heard only snatches – Orion filled up his spare time reorganising the hospital’s filing system. This was not his job, but he was a methodical man who understood the way things should work.
He was fortunate in that Sister Veronica was available to help him in her spare time. Often enough he came home late and a little drunk, having stopped off at Veronica’s for a bite to eat and stayed on longer than he had intended. It was a great solace to him that his assistant pointed no fingers; on
