A Mother's Tale
This is true story that happened when I visited a hospital for consolatory purposes: "D ear God, please take care of my baby, don't let my enemies to laugh at me". These were the words she said to her fellow admitee as she lay on her back clutching her protruding belly that four days earlier had held a full term foetus. A very dark skinned Ibo woman with closed cropped hair and impossibly high African cheek-bones, animated white eyes and large even teeth. On closer inspection, I saw a tube running from the under-side of her bottom as she lay flat on her back down to a square transparent bag that was slowly filling up with liquid the colour of muddy ginger ale. I sat still with-out moving, holding my breath, I smelt a story.... And then, she began.... She had given birth four days earlier through a gruelling and harrowing caesarian section. And, after all that pain and awful near-death experience, she had not heard the cry of her baby. She has not seen h