Free Black Water by Louise Doughty

labour in the middle of the night, eight weeks before her due date. It was a girl. She lived for two days. The doctor explained later: it was an aspiration problem, something to do with the baby swallowing or inhaling something in the amniotic fluid that blocked its – her – airways. It caused the pneumonia that killed her. She lived long enough for them to hold her, name her – Anika, after his mother, Francisca’s suggestion. They had watched her breathe in the tiniest, most shallow of ways, her small chest labouring – but Harper still thought of her as having drowned in the womb. It made more sense, somehow. How could a baby float in fluid for nine months, anyway? When he sat next to the cot in the incubation unit, Francisca clutching his hand and weeping, he remembered his mother’s story of how he had been born during a monsoon in an internment camp in the Dutch East Indies and the rain running down the sides of the hut and the dirt road turning into a brown river and wondered if this story had somehow been there inside him when he thought of his baby daughter as having drowned, as if a story like that could be passed on to his baby, like a genetic disease.
    Francisca had sobbed in his arms at night for weeks afterwards, and said things like, ‘I know you are suffering too but you aren’t able to express it, it’s okay, I understand that.’ He did not tell her that when their tiny baby had died he had thought – in the moments before his own grief and disappointment had taken hold – at least you have been spared life .

 
    The day started well enough. He had arranged to pick Rita up at two pm and although she had told him to park outside an electrical shop on Monkey Forest Road and wait for her there, he got out of the car and wandered up and down a few paces each way, curious to know which compound was hers. He was standing right outside it when she emerged alongside a young Balinese woman who was holding a pile of textbooks with both arms wrapped beneath.
    ‘You are here,’ she said simply. ‘This is Ni Wayan.’
    He nodded and the young woman nodded back, then she looked at Rita and said, ‘ Ibu Rita,’ with a bow and smile, before turning towards town.
    ‘I thought today was a day off,’ he said, as he led Rita to the car. It had pleased him to hear the girl call her ibu with such affectionate emphasis: she was a well-liked teacher, held in affection and regard. He had thought as much.
    ‘Wayan came to me yesterday and asked for an extra lesson. It happens often. That’s why I said after lunch. My days off usually start after lunch.’
    ‘Are you good to all your students?’ He opened the passenger door for her.
    ‘They are all good to me.’
    As he climbed in his side, she said quietly and seriously, ‘God bless the Balinese.’
    They bumped slowly down Monkey Forest Road and turned right onto the main street. Rita leant forward and opened the car’s glove compartment.
    ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
    She pointed at the tape deck between them. He glanced at it and said, ‘I’ll be really surprised if that works.’
    Rita pulled out a handful of tapes, loose with no cases. She lifted a couple in turn then shrieked, ‘Superman Is Dead! Suckerhead? Where did you get this car?’
    Kadek had got the car for him. He had wanted a local vehicle, nothing identifiable as a foreigner’s hire car. ‘What’s Suckerhead?’
    Rita was still looking through the cassettes. ‘Local death metal. Big underground scene here. Even Balinese youth need to rebel sometimes. They rioted in Jakarta when Metallica came, you know.’
    It occurred to him to mention the riots in Jakarta that had recently led to the downfall of the Sustainer of the Universe, which he thought a somewhat more significant event, but it would be hard to discuss the political situation in the capital without it becoming clear that his knowledge of it was a little more detailed than your average economist; although she would know if