Handmaiden

Handmaiden

''Everyone is going to blame us. You kept the whore at home, they would say. Stop weeping. You should have given a thought while producing your bastard. They are going to blame my husband, my son, and my men in the house. Shall we go in danger just for your pleasure? I don’t want it. I can’t keep it in this house. This moment, right this evening, it is going.''

Bitter words in her lips, towels, and a kettle full of hot water in her hands, unexpected from her skinny, weak body the old woman jumped the threshold and entered the ice cold room. In a corner, the bleedings of the half naked girl lying on a dirty mattress filled the room with a heavy, rotten smell.

''Do not scream. You want to make everybody come here? Kids will wake up. You, shameless! I don’t even ask who it is from. Hope it dies and saves us from all the trouble. My dearest Lord, why did you let this immoral off.''

The woman pressed harshly on the abdomen of the girl. Scolding, she told her to hold her breath and push it at once. This theatre had to end before the dawn, before the household woke up to the daylight. The young girl whirled in pain, embarrassment and sweat. She was trying to cover her naked body with the blood soaked sheet, digging her nails into it. The weak light pouring from the ventilation hole played shapes on her buttocks.

''You could open every bit of yourself while throwing you under strange men. Now you are ashamed of your ma’m you have known for ages, ha,'' she reprimanded moppingly.

The girl moaned for a last time. She pushed the baby with all her strength. Her tiny body and the baby trying to cry between her legs turned towards the wall and froze like that. Her shoulder was shaking with unspoken utters.

The woman cut the umbilical cord with a rusty kitchen knife. She tore the wet sheet the girl was lying on and covered the hardly breathing baby.  It was beating the air with its tiny fists. She handed the bundle to the ten year old boy who was standing paralyzed in the darkness.

''I can’t do it granny. If it cries? If they see me?''

The boy spoke in a fearful and shaky voice.

''You can do it, my brave heart. Be smart. We have to get rid of this shame. Follow the darkness, go under the canopy. Leave it in the courtyard. If the evil gives a noise, cover its mouth tightly with your hands.''

''But it is a sin, granny. Everywhere is so frosty.''

The boy was standing like a statue on the threshold, his eyes wide open. The woman pushed the boy with the bundle in his arms to the icy weather and locked the door inside.

''Go, go right now,'' she ordered.

She didn’t dare to go back to the room where the girl was lying motionless. She leaned her back on the door she bolted a minute ago after the helpless boy.

''Oh God, forgive  us,'' she whispered to herself.

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