The woman was prepared for the question; as well she might be, I thought. She looked into his face and spoke quietly but clearly. ‘I couldn’t go through with it – not after what I’d seen. I know I should have been there, but…’ She faltered for a moment, before adding in a lower voice: ‘I know others suffered as well, yesterday. And I heard what happened. But I couldn’t… Please understand… I sent the others on in my place.’
‘I had to lead the ritual,’ Goose said coldly.
The midwife flinched. ‘I’m here now,’ she said hastily. ‘Perhaps I can help.’
Spotted Eagle had forgotten about me for the moment. ‘Who are you?’ he asked Cactus.
The stranger smiled. ‘I’m a curer. I’m a friend of Gentle Heart’s – we work together sometimes. She told me about your loss.’ He looked about him, his eyes lingering on each person he saw in turn before he spoke to Handy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he concluded simply.
The commoner thanked him, but looked confused. Gentle Heart explained: ‘Cactus finds herbs for me sometimes, and casts auguries. He thought he might have something to alleviate your distress, so I agreed to bring him.’
Goose said: ‘But why did you come?’
‘To see if there was anything I could do,’ the midwife said.
I seized the chance to say: ‘There is! Handy was asking me about what words to use for his... for Star’s unborn baby. I was trying to explain why I didn’t have any.’
Her expression when she looked at me was queer. It was a look of alarm, her eyes wide open and shifting left and right like a trapped animal's. She licked her lips and swallowed once. ‘Words?’ she asked. ‘For what?’
‘For the child,’ Goose said. She was still holding the bundle she had taken from the sweat bath. Now she walked over to the midwife and deposited it in the woman’s hands before Gentle Heart had a chance to ask her what she was doing.
Gentle Heart looked at the body, but did not start to unwrap it. I was afraid she was going to drop it; but eventually she said gruffly: ‘Poor little one.’
‘We don’t know what to do,’ Handy said. ‘He doesn’t even have a name. And when we asked Yaotl here we got some nonsense about him not even being Spotted Eagle’s brother, as though we’d somehow’ – he took a deep breath – ‘somehow picked up the wrong baby!’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the curer, Cactus, glance at me curiously. I squirmed. ‘Look, I was just trying to say…’
The woman shut her eyes and frowned as though trying to remember something she had heard once, a long time ago. ‘I think he meant…. it was not the will of Tezcatlipoca that this child be born to your family. Isn’t that right?’ When she opened her eyes it was to look at me.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Go on,’ Spotted Eagle ordered.
The woman took a deep breath. ‘The lord of the Here and Now is… capricious. Yes, that’s the word. He gives and takes life at a whim.’ She looked at the hole by the maize bin. ‘You have found the right place for his body, but I don’t think his soul ever entered it.’
‘So where did it go, then?’ the young man demanded. ‘Where is it now?’
She seemed to have no answer for him. Seeing his tension in the way his hand trembled, I spoke up instead. ‘It’s back where it came from, ready for another life.’
The midwife took over again, with what sounded like a burst of renewed confidence, and eager to please, to tell these people what they wanted to hear: ‘That’s why I can’t name him, you see, because he didn’t live to see his name day. But you mustn’t be distressed for him. He’s getting ready to be born again. It’s a terrible disappointment for you and a terrible loss, but the child is well.’ And with that, she stooped, and in a quick, simple gesture, placed the body in the hole.
‘Is that all?’ Goose started forward. ‘But there must be…’
‘There aren’t any words for him,’ Gentle Heart went on, still looking into the tiny grave. ‘He doesn’t need any.’
‘But we do!’
The midwife looked, for a moment, as baffled as I had felt, and more afraid; but at last I had understood what was required, and why my clumsy attempt to explain the dead child’s fate had only angered his family. Belatedly I recognised that if I knew of no ritual for this occasion, then I had better make one up.
Half closing my eyes, I intoned solemnly: ‘The Giver of Life has taken the little one, the precious feather, the jewel, has taken him back and guided him to the great Milk Tree, and shown him which of its countless teats to suck on until it is his time to appear on Earth.’ It was the truth, as far as I was aware, and if the words were not right I could not see that it mattered now.
If Star’s spirit was listening, I could only hope she approved.
6
After my little improvised speech, the household slowly resumed something resembling normal activity. Goose and the eldest of Handy’s daughters hurried into the house, with a muttered apology from the woman about being so slow providing food and drink. Spotted Eagle and his father took up their tools again and began to fill in the hole they had dug. The other children, sensing they were no longer wanted as spectators, looked about them uncertainly for a moment until Gentle Heart went over to talk to them.
That left me alone with the newcomer, Cactus.
I looked at him curiously, taking in his unkempt appearance and trying not to wrinkle my nose too obviously at his odour. He must have been on a fast, I realised, when in
