The Monster's Daughter by Michelle Pretorius Read Free Book Online

camp?”
    What could he do to her that hasn’t already been done? Anna thought. In the camp there were men like Jooste, and there was hunger, and filth, and the constant stench of death. Here she had a bed, warmth, food that wasn’t rancid. She had thought many times of dying, but the Bible said it was her duty to stay alive until God took the decision out of her hands. Maybe then He would forgive her for doing this. Anna gathered the skirt of dress and lifted it slowly, exposing herself from the waist down.
    A smile played at the corners of Leath’s mouth.
    After that first day, Anna’s life became a dependable routine. Two meals a day, interspersed with a morning visit to Leath’s room, which he called his surgery. There she would receive “treatment.” Leath always draped a sheet over her, covering her face so she couldn’t see what he was doing. His touch was cold, but he never did what Jooste had done. She sometimes felt him move something inside her. A dull soreness would linger after. Leath showed little sympathy for her discomfort, obsessively noting everything he did in his book. She had to stand very still in front of the machine every day. It didn’t hurt. Leath said he could see the baby in her with it, but he never showed her anything. Before she was allowed to leave, Leath gave her a mug of milk that he called “nutrients.” It tasted strange, metallic.
    Once a day she could go outside with the others for an hour. The girls were all young, some barely thirteen. There were a couple of older ones, around twenty, whose husbands had been captured and sent away. They always led the Bible reading and prayers. There was a lot of talk about revenge against the British, of how they would be made to pay one day. Anna sometimes thought of Andrew. Every time the women asked God to smite their enemy, Anna silently asked that Andrew be spared. One by one, their number diminished as they went into confinement. Only Leath and Sarah were allowed in the rooms. Anna knew her time would come soon. The child’s kicking grew stronger, pains waking her up at odd hours as the skin on her stomach grew taut, marred by red lines.
    Away from her mother, Hester became talkative, animated. She gained weight on potatoes and fatty meat, her cheeks rounding out, her body becoming soft. She was kind to Anna. They always sat together in the courtyard, talking about life before the war and whatthey were going to do once it was over. They sometimes talked idly about escaping, but there was nowhere to go. The farm was near a British stronghold and soldiers regularly crossed the property. Hester had a young man, Theunis, and they were going to get married once the war was over. But Anna noticed that as Hester’s stomach grew she talked less and less about Theunis, the hope she had clung to devoured by the unborn child. Anna tried to cheer Hester up, but she too knew that kind of sadness. It sometimes threatened to swallow her and there were days when she couldn’t leave her dark room. The latest talk among the women frightened her. About babies that never drew a breath, mothers taken away at night by soldiers, heads of the deformed monsters that came from their wombs smashed open against the walls of the house by Leath himself, so that nobody would know of his failures. Anna didn’t want to listen to such things. She remembered how one of the ewes on their farm had given birth to a lamb without front legs. Her father had killed it right away, bashing its head in as it struggled for life. Maybe that was what grew inside her. Something only God would pity.
    Sarah carried a tray into Anna’s room, set it down on the bed, and took the baby from her. “She’s fat, the little one.” She swaddled the girl in a blanket and put her down in the crib next to Anna’s bed, running her hand over the girl’s wispy white hair. The baby fought with sleep, her strange silver eyes