After Priya’s birth, there had been two others who had not stayed inside her long enough to live. She named the first baby Murugan after her favourite deity. She named the next baby Keshava, after Lord Krishna. Rajan had been upset when she told him. He said she shouldn’t do that. She shouldn’t name a child before it was born, but she couldn’t help it.

She thought of all the times she had complained about Priya and suffered her clinging kisses with irritation; all the times her period had come and she’d been relieved. She was being punished. She never discussed it with Rajan, too afraid to know what he thought. For once, she didn’t resent his silence, keeping it safely between them.

He spoke to colleagues at Colombo General and called colleagues in Madras and London about the ‘problem’. He sought reasons, explanations for the loss, while she sought comfort and the courage to try again.

Her friends offered advice and prayers. Everyone had a story to tell, about women who had tried to have children for years, who had performed the right poosai at the right temple on the right day, imploring the planets to align and a baby to be born. She barely listened as they spoke, her eyes wandering over the wealth of children that filled the houses of these women; women who did not know the depth of her yearning; women who had never felt the bitter thrill of regularly conceiving but not consummating life.

Nala pulled the shawl around her but she couldn’t feel its warmth; she had been spotting flecks of dark, clotted blood all morning, and a familiar cramp in her belly had started to pulse slowly, quietly. She tried hard not to name the baby within.

•

‘Don’t move.’ Nala’s eyes darted between her palette and her subject. They were sitting on the shaded verandah at the back of the house. Since her last miscarriage, she hadn’t left the house, often not leaving her bedroom for hours. Finally, Rajan had pulled out her easel and paints from an unpacked box. He requested a portrait of himself. It was so unlike him that she conceded and began to look forward to their daily sitting.

She added more red and white into the brown paint; she was struggling to create his skin colour. He was dark but the base tone was softer and lighter. When he smiled, his lips parted, revealing clean, straight teeth. He said dental and oral hygiene could never be prioritised too highly, the mouth was the gateway to the body. She wished it was the gateway to his soul.