A FEW DAYS later. It was late evening outside, and Khuki had already gone to bed. Her aunt was not at home. She had fought bitterly with her mother, and had left Contentment for the house of a distant relative. That had been two months ago. Ever since then, and particularly since her mother had entered the birthing chamber, there wasn’t really anyone to look after Khuki. No one noticed what she ate, or when she slept. So, with nothing else to occupy her empty evenings, Khuki had taken herself to bed.

After a few minutes of sleepless loneliness in the dark room, Khuki began to sob softly for her aunt. She cried for her aunt every night in bed, away from censorious eyes and ears. Then, still whimpering, she drifted into sleep. A few hours later, she was roused abruptly by the babbling of adult voices. A group of women seemed to have gathered outside their kitchen, in the area where the water pots were kept. Khuki tried to stay awake and identify the voices. There was Kuruni’s mother, the village midwife, Nyara’s grandmother . . . and a few other neighbouring women. Everyone sounded busy and worried.

From her bed, Khuki could see that the light in the birthing chamber was on. Long shadows clustered around it, whispering urgently. On a different night, Khuki would have been scared by the air of worry and anxiety. But tonight, her sleepy eyes were drawn to the glow of the full moon. The veranda outside her room, usually infested with shadowy darkness after sundown, was awash with the golden moonlight. As the night deepened, a moist, cool river breeze began to waft into the village, rustling the tops of the bamboo grove on its way. Soothed by that rhythmic sound, Khuki slowly slipped back into sleep again.

When she next woke up, it was around the middle of the night. She had been roused by the sound of running feet and a confusion of loud voices. The women were still gathered around the birthing chamber, but speaking much louder than they had been earlier. She heard her father run across the courtyard towards them, anxiously demanding, ‘How is she, younger aunt? What is it?’

Then Khuki heard her mother. It couldn’t have been anyone else—she knew that voice too well. But why was her mother grunting and groaning? What was wrong with her? What exactly was going on in the birthing chamber? Heavy with sleep and alarm, Khuki sat up in a tangle of bedclothes, but couldn’t decide what to do next. After a few minutes of helplessly looking around, she fell back on the bed. Her mind was such a whirl of worry and wonder that she didn’t even notice when she sank back into sleep again.

The sound of a kitten crying pierced the night. Khuki had no idea how long she had been asleep this time, but she shot up at the sound. The stray female—the one that lived in the woods and came by the house sometimes—had just given birth to a litter. Khuki had secreted the pile into her aunt’s unused mud stove to keep it safe from predators. Clearly, that safe haven had been breached.

‘It’s the tomcat!’ she thought to herself, thoroughly alarmed. ‘Oh no—he’s going to eat the kittens!’

However, when she sprinted over to her aunt’s veranda and put her hand inside the cold oven, she found that the soft pile of kittens was still there, fast asleep and perfectly safe. There was no sign of the tomcat anywhere. Could the kittens have gone back to sleep in the few seconds that it took her to reach her aunt’s hut? No . . . that didn’t seem likely. But if it wasn’t the kittens, who could have been making that wailing noise? And why?

Khuki trudged back to bed, sleepy and puzzled. As she drifted into sleep again, she was fairly certain that she heard another kitten-wail.

It was morning when she woke up next. To her surprise, some of the women from the previous evening were still milling about their courtyard. The midwife, Kuruni’s mother, approached her with a big smile.

‘You had a little brother last night, Khuki—didn’t you realize?’

Khuki was astonished. She had had no idea!

‘Bless your sleep!’ exclaimed the midwife. ‘Here we were, screaming and shouting all night . . . didn’t you hear anything? I’d better make offerings at the pirbaba’s mosque at Kalpur on my way back—saved us from a catastrophe last night, he did!’

The moment Kuruni’s mother walked away from her, Khuki ran to the birthing chamber and peeked in. If she had a new brother, then it stood to reason that he would be found near her mother. Even at this hour, the inside of the chamber was hazy with smoke. The midwife had built and banked a cow-dung and coal-powder fire inside. Khuki had to look around a few times before she could make out the shapes within. There was her mother, lying on a makeshift bed next to the temporary fence. She was fast asleep. Beside her lay a tiny, doll-like creature . . . barely bigger than an actual glass doll. Was that her brother?

At that very second, the creature opened its eyes, blinked a few times, then raised two impossibly small fists in the air and let out a wail. Durga was astonished. He sounded exactly like a newborn kitten! It suddenly occurred to her that the wails she had heard the previous night had been of this creature’s making—not the kittens’ at all. Amazing!

As she watched the tiny thing continue to wail, the astonishment in her heart melted into a flood of pity, which swiftly transformed into protectiveness and rapidly blossoming affection. Her poor little tiny brother! Just as helpless, poor darling, as those newborn kittens! Had it not been for the forbidding presence of the midwife and Nyara’s grandmother, she would have run