Free The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka

from a stranger. I held the bulge in front of me protectively. It was ridiculous to think that my unborn eldest son, already so beloved by me, could possibly be my enemy.
    Pure nonsense, if ever I heard any.
    And life went on. My husband’s wood carving very slowly became an oval face. At first I looked at it every day, and then, because progress was so slow, my impatient nature took over and I lost all interest.
    Oh, wait, I must tell you about my encounter with a proper python. It happened one muggy afternoon while I was sitting on the cold kitchen floor, separating and cleaning the insides of dried anchovies. Anchovies were cheap and plentiful, and I used them a lot in my cooking. Curried anchovies, aubergines with anchovies, and anchovies in coconut milk. Almost without thinking I added the curly, nutritious things into everything. Anyway, that afternoon, Mui Tsai’s face appeared at my kitchen window. Her eyes were big in her face, and her hands waved excitedly about. “Quick, come and look at the python.”
    “Where is it?”
    “Behind Minah’s house.”
    We rushed out to the back of Minah’s house, and in the bushes quite far away from the house three small boys were huddled together, pointing at something on the dry ground, their eyes shining with a mixture of fear and excitement. Although it was aware of our presence, the thick, curled python appeared unable to move. The sun and a very big meal had made the beast sluggish and heavy. Unblinking, burnt-orange eyes in a diamond-shaped head observed us.
    It was huge and beautiful.
    So beautiful I wanted to keep it. Inside me was no fear of snakes.
    In a flurry of urgent shouts some men arrived and beat its head to a pulp. Its thick, shiny body writhed and twisted in pain before it died a bloody death. They uncurled the dead animal and measured it by using the length from the tip of their fingers to their elbows as a ruler. They declared it more than twelve feet long. Then they ripped open its belly and found a half-digested goat, bloodied and crushed almost beyond recognition. I stared in pure fascination at the absurd lump of mangled purple flesh covered in slimy stomach juices with the odd hoof and horn sticking out of it. A strange thought occurred to me. Soon my belly would be bigger than that, I thought. And sure enough my belly grew at a rate that alarmed me. By the ninth month I was so big and uncomfortable I felt sure that I would burst like a smashed melon any time.
    Finally the real pains began. Water gushed out of me like cheap rice brandy in a busy brothel. The back of my neck tingled. It was time.
    Oh, but I was brave. I called out to my husband to summon the midwife. For a few seconds he stared at me with a blank expression, then he turned suddenly and dashed out of the house. I stood at the window and watched his speeding bicycle wobble dangerously on the stone-filled path.
    In the kitchen I put two fresh towels and some old but clean sarongs out. In a large pot I boiled water. Clean water to wash my son. I bent my head and prayed once more for a son. While waiting for my baby’s arrival, I sat on my bench and unfolded an old letter from Mother.
    My hands were trembling. I stared at them, surprised. I thought I was being adult and calm. Seven thin pages rustled in my hands like a secret, a gorgeous sprite walking over dry leaves. Mother’s small neat handwriting shook and blurred in my hands.
    A sharp pain tore through me. My hand jerked. Seven tissue-thin pages filled with Mother’s longings, hopes, prayers, love, and wishes, whispered softly and scattered onto the kitchen floor.
    Very quickly the pains turned vicious. And still I was calm. Even Mother would have been proud, for I bit hard on a piece of wood and stifled all my screams so that the neighbors would neither see nor hear anything. Suddenly I would be standing on the veranda with a flat stomach and a baby in my arms. How they would marvel. But another lightning cramp inside my body