hospital. When I open the door I am hit by a wave of noise. The room is packed. Women are sitting on the floor, on tables, two to a chair. Above the ferment of their conversation the sound of crying babies rises like a dissonant chorus of sirens. The air is hot and clammy with waiting, with noise. A woman with a clipboard fights her way through the crowd to take my details. Donât feed the baby until youâve seen one of the midwives, she says. Alarmed, I ask her how long this will be. She laughs benignly and says that as I can see they are quite busy today. She does not appear concerned that the exigencies of her clinic are expected to unseat the volatile rule of motherbaby. I find a space on the floor and sit down on it with my daughter in my lap.
The other women talk and laugh loudly. Their faces are flushed with the roomâs heat. They manhandle their babies distractedly, turning them this way and that, putting fingers or dummies in their mouths. They flail and grizzle, their red little faces peevish as the faces of old men. Bonnets and booties and mittens on strings fly from agitated limbs. The babies boil like a row of angry kettles. When they cry, the mothers talk louder. One woman shouts into her mobile phone. Now and again a door on the far side of the room opens and a name is called. My daughter stares with round, startled eyes. She appears disarmed by this gathering of her kind. I wonder why we are all here, and then remember that it is because we are having problems breastfeeding. I find this difficult to believe: the happy, hub-like atmosphere of the room has drained feeding of its significance. The babies cry and complain, but the women have lashed themselves together to form a raft of comradeship and they sail merrily over that which separately would have drowned them. I begin to see my problems as those of isolation, of estrangement from the world. By the time my name is called I can no longer picture these problems clearly enough to describe them.
The consulting room is small and quiet. Five or six women sit in a neat row, their feet raised on piles of telephone directories, breastfeeding their babies. The babies lie regally on white pillows on their mothersâ laps. Two women in white coats walk up and down the row, adjusting pillows, removing or adding a telephone directory. Occasionally they speak to one of the mothers in a low voice, and the other mothers look up, their faces as innocent and uncomprehending as moons. I am asked quietly whether I would like a cup of coffee. One of the white-coated women comes and sits down beside me. She has long grey hair and round spectacles. Beneath her white coat I glimpse the flamboyant, multicoloured fabric of her dress. Suddenly I am filled with hope, at the curableness of my situation, at the existence of this concrete expression of that which I had thought inexpressible. I am sick, and this woman is going to heal me. She asks me to tell her whatâs wrong.
Everything
, I want to say but donât. I find that I can fix on nothing specific to tell her. Presently I say that the baby seems to feed for an inordinate length of time. She nods her head vaguely. I sense that she is not listening. She gives me the pillow and the telephone directories and tells me to start feeding. Meanwhile she wanders off to inspect her row of motherbabies. When she comes back she adjusts my daughterâs head and tells me to hold the lower half of her body higher so that she is sloping backwards. Her colleague catches sight of this manoeuvre. Thatâs new, she cries, laughing delightedly. Why not, my woman gaily replies, gesturing extravagantly with her hands. Passing each other as they cross the room they twirl girlishly about. I begin to realise that I am not going to be cured, other than by the small possibility that these women are witches and the pillows and telephone directories the impedimenta of their sorcery. My daughter has gone to sleep. When nobody is
The other women talk and laugh loudly. Their faces are flushed with the roomâs heat. They manhandle their babies distractedly, turning them this way and that, putting fingers or dummies in their mouths. They flail and grizzle, their red little faces peevish as the faces of old men. Bonnets and booties and mittens on strings fly from agitated limbs. The babies boil like a row of angry kettles. When they cry, the mothers talk louder. One woman shouts into her mobile phone. Now and again a door on the far side of the room opens and a name is called. My daughter stares with round, startled eyes. She appears disarmed by this gathering of her kind. I wonder why we are all here, and then remember that it is because we are having problems breastfeeding. I find this difficult to believe: the happy, hub-like atmosphere of the room has drained feeding of its significance. The babies cry and complain, but the women have lashed themselves together to form a raft of comradeship and they sail merrily over that which separately would have drowned them. I begin to see my problems as those of isolation, of estrangement from the world. By the time my name is called I can no longer picture these problems clearly enough to describe them.
The consulting room is small and quiet. Five or six women sit in a neat row, their feet raised on piles of telephone directories, breastfeeding their babies. The babies lie regally on white pillows on their mothersâ laps. Two women in white coats walk up and down the row, adjusting pillows, removing or adding a telephone directory. Occasionally they speak to one of the mothers in a low voice, and the other mothers look up, their faces as innocent and uncomprehending as moons. I am asked quietly whether I would like a cup of coffee. One of the white-coated women comes and sits down beside me. She has long grey hair and round spectacles. Beneath her white coat I glimpse the flamboyant, multicoloured fabric of her dress. Suddenly I am filled with hope, at the curableness of my situation, at the existence of this concrete expression of that which I had thought inexpressible. I am sick, and this woman is going to heal me. She asks me to tell her whatâs wrong.
Everything
, I want to say but donât. I find that I can fix on nothing specific to tell her. Presently I say that the baby seems to feed for an inordinate length of time. She nods her head vaguely. I sense that she is not listening. She gives me the pillow and the telephone directories and tells me to start feeding. Meanwhile she wanders off to inspect her row of motherbabies. When she comes back she adjusts my daughterâs head and tells me to hold the lower half of her body higher so that she is sloping backwards. Her colleague catches sight of this manoeuvre. Thatâs new, she cries, laughing delightedly. Why not, my woman gaily replies, gesturing extravagantly with her hands. Passing each other as they cross the room they twirl girlishly about. I begin to realise that I am not going to be cured, other than by the small possibility that these women are witches and the pillows and telephone directories the impedimenta of their sorcery. My daughter has gone to sleep. When nobody is
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