It was in the early hours of the morning that Bimbo gave birth to the child. The midwife, a woman with firm hands and deep eyes, only sighed as she dried the newborn with a worn cotton cloth.
“It’s a girl,” she said. “Very small, but alive.”
But Bimbo did not look. She barely looked at her.
In the corner of the room, a flickering lamp cast long shadows across the mud walls. The baby cried, but not loudly. Her cry was weak and thin, as if she already knew she was not welcome in this world.
“What is that?” Bimbo muttered, wrinkling her nose. “A lizard?”
The midwife stared at her in shock. “Excuse me, ma’am. She’s skinny and very dark. What kind of creature is this? That’s a sign of a curse, not a blessing.”08
The midwife held the baby more carefully, trying to hide her offense.
“She has all her fingers. She’s breathing well, and her heart is beating. She’s alive, ma’am. Alive, and she’s yours.”
But Bimbo was not listening. The frown on her forehead was a mask of disgust. That was not the baby she had imagined. Not the little Princess Clara she had hoped to show her husband, Mario, and her mother-in-law, Donatau, the woman who already called her a hen without eggs every time the subject came up at the table.
So, as soon as the midwife fell asleep in a corner, exhausted, Bimbo got up, took the baby into her cold hands, did not look at her face, and walked out.
The village was still asleep. The sound of crickets was the only witness.
She walked to the Ogen River, her footprints erased by the low mist. She stood there before the dark water that whispered songs of centuries. The baby squirmed in the cloth with barely an audible cry.
“You are going to destroy me. You knew it,” Bimbo whispered.
And without another word, she let go.
The sound of the cloth hitting the water was so faint it did not even echo. No thunder rolled from the sky. No leaf moved. Only silence.
Then Bimbo returned home, lay in bed, and shut her eyes tightly.
The next morning, when Mario came running after hearing about the birth, he found Bimbo hugging a pillow and crying.
“She was so sick, so weak. She didn’t make it,” she sobbed.
Mario froze. “What?”
“I tried. I tried to hold her, but she was gone,” Bimbo said, burying her head in her chest.
Mario stood still. Tears came to him like hot rain. He screamed, punched the floor, ran outside, and kicked a drum that flew across the yard.
The neighbors heard the wailing and whispered.
Bimbo only cried with technique, because not a single tear was real.
In the days that followed, the house was filled with silence. The village sent porridge, comforting herbs, and prayers. Her mother-in-law, Donatau, spent her days sitting on the porch, repeating, “A baby who dies at birth is a sign. A sign that something is wrong with the mother. The fault is never the baby’s.”
Bimbo pretended to listen. She would say, “It’s God, Mama. It’s divine will.”
Leave a Comment