How to Make a Baby: a novel

by Sadie Sumner

  “Manja kites,” Ria said, “They run the strings through glue and powdered glass. It’s very competitive.” She pulled her bike onto its stand. “There,” she pointed through the traffic.

  The plaster facade of the hostel was crumbling, connected to other decrepit warehouses by a canopy of electrical wires. It was the opposite of the meticulous slide rule of colonial architects Monica had read in the guidebook. An ice cream cart, surrounded by children, was parked in front of a brown door.

  “Are you sure?” Monica asked. There were no potted plants outside, no sign attached to the wall or any indication it was Planete Bebe.

  “I was there earlier,” Ria said.

  “What was Kavitha doing?” Monica asked.

  Ria’s lips formed a straight line. “Just sitting on her bed.”

  “And we can walk in?”

  “You can. They’ll arrest me if I go back. Just pretend to be an inspector. There’s only one nurse. She’ll respect a white woman.”

  Monica considered the girl before her. She was unsure why she’d agreed to this. “Do you have a folder in your bag?”

  Ria pulled out a sketchbook from her backpack, and Monica took it and stood on the curb. A kite flipped close to her head, and she ducked as though under attack. Children darted fearlessly through the continuous traffic, but Monica could not bring herself to cross. She stood on the curb, the concrete strip an island marooned by rushing traffic on both sides. An old man with bowed legs stood beside her. He mimed walking in a zig-zag fashion and stepped out and indicated for her to follow, as he showed her how to weave through the melee.

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she made the far side. When she looked back, Ria sat on her bike in the shade of a tree. She waved and pointed to the ice cream vendor and called something Monica could not hear.

  Monica pushed through the children and knocked on the brown door. Suddenly small hands grabbed her. She kept hold of her handbag and the sketch pad and banged frantically on the battered wood. A young nurse opened it, and Monica fell inside, her hair loose, clothes twisted.

  “Hi. I’m here from Planete Bebe in Canada.” She was breathless. “For the inspection.” She pulled her hair back into its band and straightened herself.

  “No one has told me.” The nurse locked the door with a large key. Monica held the sketch pad like a clipboard. “Well, regardless, I’m here. And those children are maniacs. We have to do something about that.” She felt in her pocket. “My hotel key. Gone. Little bastards took my key.”

  The nurse looked at her in surprise. “They are just children," she said. “But I am sorry to say you will not see it again. Let me show you through.”

  Monica followed the nurse down the corridor and kicked at a pile of plaster dust. “Is it always like this?” she asked. The nurse nodded and showed her bathrooms with showers rigged over squat toilets. They went through the door, and Monica stopped. Pale evening light hit the high up windows and sent strips of dust dancing. Washing lines hung with saris, and other clothing separated the beds so on first glance the place resembled a colorful bazaar. An odor of stale curry and unwashed bodies filled the room. A pregnant woman lay on every bed. Nausea washed from the pit of Monica’s stomach, into her throat. She remembered a zoo Mitchell took her to once, when Dotty was away and how she fervently wanted to open every cage and set the animals free. The women watched her without speaking as she followed the nurse down the row and pretended to take dispassionate notes.

  Kavitha was near the end. Monica saw her eyes spring wide in what she assumed was fear. She clutched at her stomach and let out a small groan. Monica nodded and kept walking. She could not have imagined such a place, let alone herself in it or how any woman could do this. She tried to imagine holding Nina. Her blond hair would be almost white in the sunlight and her eyes the color of cornflowers. But the image dissolved in the reality before her.

  She followed the nurse back to the door. “Remind me,” she breathed through her nose and tried to sound reasonable. “At what point do they enter the hostel?”

  “Well, it depends, but mostly, from the beginning.” She watched Monica write on her pad.

  “You mean they stay here for nine months?”

  “More like four or five months on average. Just from when they start to show, so their village elders do not notice.”

  “Is that a problem for them?” Monica had not considered there would be a stigma.

  “In the more traditional places.”

  “Do they see their families?” Monica stared at a small child curled up asleep on her mother’s bed.

  “Oh yes. If our surrogates are nursing little ones, we allow them. And once a week, family visiting.” The nurse led her into a rudimentary kitchen with gas hot plates and an industrial sink. Monica opened the refrigerator and was pleased to see it filled with vegetables.

  “We believe in a healthy diet,” the nurse said eagerly.

  Monica followed her. “I’ll make my report directly to our board chairman,” she said and shook her hand. She opened the door and went into the heat and the last of the sun. The ice cream vendor was gone. A small boy called to another from the tops of a tree, his tangled kite almost within reach. The traffic appeared to fragment, and Monica took her chance and raced across the lanes. A cacophony of horns objected, and she heard them distant and unrelated to her.

  “Did you see my mother?” Ria asked immediately.

  “Those kids stole my hotel key.”

  “Did you see my mother?” Ria swung her bike helmet.

  “I did.” Monica looked back at the hostel. “It was dystopian. I didn’t expect that.”

  “What did you expect?” Ria asked.

  Monica shrugged. “Like a maternity hospital at home?”

  Ria laughed. “For poor women in India?”

  Monica had rarely felt so deflated. “I’ll take a taxi back to the hotel.” She stepped onto the road and held up her hand as if she’d been in India for months. A taxi slammed to a stop.

  Ria took back her pad and ripped off a piece of paper. “My phone number. If you want to know more.”

  Monica took it and shut the door and gave the hotel address to the driver. She did not look back as they swerved in front of a bus laden with men in work clothes coated in white dust.

  At the hotel, she picked up a new key and went straight to her room. Gil was sprawled across the bed, snoring in a tangle of sheets. She watched him for a moment and saw how only his face had aged, his body still firm from the cycling and jogging.

  “Wake up.” She shook him. “Gil, wake up. You know that TV series - The Handmaid’s something?”

  “Tale?” Gil said groggily.

  “It’s real. I just went there. The place we met Kavitha is a front. The women are in a horrible place, a factory, all lined up - rows of them, all pregnant. Ria calls it baby farming.”

  Gil groaned. “What are you saying? Who’s Ria?”

  “Kavitha’s daughter. She used to manage a clothing factory, but they off-shored back to America, and everyone lost their jobs.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  Monica looked at her watch. “Two hours.” She pulled the sheet.

  “In that time you’ve uncovered some giant surrogate conspiracy from the comfort of the hotel lobby?”

  “Did you know about any of this? Is this how you want your baby to start?”

  Gil stared at her with his mouth open. “Are you serious? Are you asking yourself or me?”

  Monica took out her phone and put it on speaker. Antoinette answered, her voice thick with sleep.

  “It’s me, Monica. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “You did.” Antoinette sounded vague.

  “Okay. Can you go on FaceTime?”

  Antoinette sighed. She was in bed with two huge dogs pressed beside her, a poster of hands in prayer with the words ‘Namaste’ on the wall behind.

  “Nice dogs,” Monica said. “They’re rather large.”

 
; “Thank you,” Antoinette stroked one of them. “What can I do for you, Monica?”

  “Do you know about the hostel where the surrogates live?”

  Antoinette hesitated. “Ah, I’m not sure I follow you?”

  “Did you know they are locked in for most of the pregnancy, and some of them are breastfeeding their own, older children?”

  Antoinette pushed the dogs away, and Monica heard the thump as they landed on the floor. “How about we talk in a couple of hours. I’m wondering if you picked up my message?”

  Monica ignored her question. “But did you know?” she asked.

  “It’s not exactly a secret. You could Google it if you wanted.”

  “We have to do something!” Monica leaned against the window and looked down to the slum.

  “What do you suggest?” The dogs jumped back onto Antoinette’s bed.

  “I don’t know. Find them meaningful work?”

  Antoinette ran her hand through the dog’s hair. “I have to go, Monica. You need to listen to my message. It’s important. I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  “You know, it’s not a great look for your company,” Monica said, but Antoinette had hung up.

  “Can you believe her?” She threw the phone onto the bed. “Acting like it’s okay to treat women like this.”

  Gil got up and put on a robe. He stood beside her at the window. “I don’t understand. You steal my sperm, you buy eggs and you make a baby in a petri dish. You have it sent to India and put inside a stranger who needs money so badly she goes through months of agony, only to have the baby taken away and most likely ripped off for the money. And now you act surprised?”

  Monica saw Kavitha with her arms around her belly as she’d walked past her bed, clipboard in her hand. It occurred to her Kavitha was protecting the baby, her baby, from her. “I’m sorry about the sperm thing,” she said. “It was drastic, but I know you, I know you will love her when she’s born. It’s not too late. We can still be a family Gil. We can.” She slumped in a chair and realized she’d left the papers on the table in the bar and that she did not want to get divorced.

  Gil left the room and returned a minute later with ice in a small container. He took two bottles from the mini-bar and mixed drinks. “Did you sign the papers? I’m booked to fly back tomorrow.”

  Monica felt spacious, as if her body had filled with air. She turned away from him and spied her phone on the bed. Antoinette’s message would be a distraction. ‘Monica, hello.’ The doctor’s croaky voice intruded into the room. ‘I’m aware you changed your tickets. I was about to call you in to discuss a change in regulations in India.’ As she paused, Monica glanced at Gil. ‘Not sure how we missed the changes, but you need two parents to leave the country with your child. I have a concern about your husband. I’ve not met him, and that’s unusual.’ Monica hung up. The echo of Antoinette’s voice stayed in the room.

  Gil handed Monica the drink. Monica took a sip, and the alcohol engulfed her in a wave of exhaustion. She did not think she’d ever been this tired and she sunk into an armchair. “What will we do?”

  Gil picked her discarded clothes from the floor and began to fold them.

  “Gil,” she raised her voice. “Can you stop and answer me?”

  He refolded her t-shirt. “This is not my problem. She’s not my baby. You made this whole situation. You’ll have to sort it.”

  Monica thought of the underwear he’d bought her and how embarrassed she’d been when she danced for him. She thought of all the dinner parties where he entertained their guests while she poured the drinks and cleaned up after, while he fell asleep, drunk on the sofa. She thought of all the brides and the obsession with white lace and satin. She could never go back to that world.

  “Gil?” her voice came out small, every emotion crumbled like late autumn leaves.

  He shook his head, and she looked at the glass in her hand and launched it at him, spraying the gin across the room. He ducked, and the glass bounced on the floor.

  “You have to be her father. Legally. You do.” She grabbed her phone and her bag and slammed the door and stood in the silence of the hallway. “Stupid girl,” she whispered to herself, “Stupid, stupid.” And she banged her forehead on the wall until the tears came. A maid wheeled a trolley towards her. Monica straightened and rubbed her head. Part of her wanted Gil to find her there, but she knew he would never come running after her. She’d always known it, their entire marriage more like a pantomime than the real thing. She caught her breath, found the piece of paper in her bag and made a call.

  Twenty-Three

  The cooler evening air drew people from their homes and into the roads and alleys and promenades around the Kalighat temple. Children in rags ran laughing through the crowd. Monica gripped her handbag under her arm. There were homeless people in her neighborhood, even a man who camped out in the alley behind their townhouse, but never children. Part of her wanted to scoop them up and feed and clothe them. But she recognized part of her was repulsed by the grime etched into their skin and their runny noses and knew she would never be that good person she wanted to be.

  Ria had chosen the market in front of the Kalighat temple to meet. The guidebook described it as a place for Hindus. Monica knew she would not be allowed inside to see the black stone deity with golden hands and tongue. The crowd was too dense to see even the edge of the newly painted dome, but she could smell the water from the Adi Ganga.

  She had run out of the hotel in the wrong shoes, and her feet hurt. Near the last of the squatter shops that sold flowers and sweets for the deity, she found a spare stone seat. A group of teenage girls sauntered past, curious and shy at the same time. Her phone rang. It was Gil, and she ignored it. When it rang again, she saw it was Rufus. He was the last person she wanted to speak to, and she wondered how they could separate the business and what she would do with her half.

  An old woman swathed in a tattered sari sat beside her. She pointed to Monica’s hand. The woman’s skin was paper dry, and she bent over Monica’s palm, absorbed in all she saw there.

  A young girl appeared, and the woman began to speak while the girl interpreted. “An opportunity may present itself. It will come with a sacrifice.” The girl spoke in a barely discernable, halting English. She stopped to listen as the palm reader spoke in a rush of words. “She says you have done everything you can to live someone else’s life. She says you must now forsake yourself to find yourself. She says everything has been in order not to do the one thing.”

  Monica looked at the girl in shock. “She said all that?”

  The girl moved her head from side to side. “Yes, almost all that. Some words are hard to copy.”

  “What is the one thing?”

  The palm reader dropped Monica’s hand. She peered into her face and pointed to her glass eye and nodded as if she understood everything. Monica shivered under her gaze. “But what does it mean?” she asked. The girl conferred with the old woman and shook her head. “She says she is not a fortune teller.”

  The palm reader shrugged and raised her hand as if dismissing Monica.

  “Oh great,” Monica jumped up and began to walk away. The woman and the girl stood close on either side of her. Ria came through the crowd, her helmet swinging from her hand. She glanced at the fortune-tellers. “You need to pay them,” she said.

  Monica realized her mistake. She fished out $20, and the girl snatched it from her hand, and the two of them disappeared into the crowd.

  “I can see why you can afford to buy a baby,” Ria said. “That was worth less than 100 rupees. Maybe two dollars.”

  “Are they reliable?”

  Ria considered. “Did it make sense to you?”

  Monica frowned. “Not really.”

  “Then yes, you can probably rely on it. You don’t look too good. Heat getting to you?”

  “Can we walk?” Monica asked. “You could show me around this area.”

  “Oh great, sightseeing while you traffic in child
ren.” Ria walked off.

  Monica dodged through a group of young men in tight pants and slicked back hair to keep up. “You have to stop.” She now had blisters on her feet. “Please, if you think such terrible things about me why are you even talking to me?” The crowds flowed around them as though they were permanent fixtures.

  Ria looked straight at Monica. “Did you know babies recognize their mother’s voices after they’re born? What if you are not the mother this child was expecting? What if that screws her up?”

  “Where do you get this stuff?” Monica felt a prickle in the back of her throat.

  “The internet of everything. Free for anyone to look,” Ria said.

  “Do any of us get the mother we want?” Monica wanted to grab Ria and shake her. “Do we? Did you? I sure as hell didn’t.”

  A yogi shuffled past them, her hair a tangle of long grey dreadlocks, her clothes in tatters. She held out a small bowl, and Ria dug in her jeans pocket and dropped in a few coins and walked away. “They call them ‘breeder machines’ you know. People like my mother.” She spoke over her shoulder.

  “But I don’t think of your mother in that way.” They were beside the wall that surrounded the temple. Monica ran her hand over the stones. The setting sun turned them a dull orange.

  “Of course, you think it’s altruistic.” Ria shook her head. “Why did you call? I have to go.”

  “I need to know something.” Monica took a breath. “Do you think your mother will want to keep the baby?” The fear had bloomed as she stood in the hotel corridor. If Gil left now they had no way of proving Nina was theirs, was hers.

  “Really?” Ria looked shocked. “You ask me this question? Did you change your mind?”

  Monica’s feet ached. “No. No. I was just worried.”