Dr Gilbert looks at me kindly from the sofa where he is leaning back against one of my feather cushions. ‘You lived in Mandalay, I understand, before you moved to Rangoon?’
I nod.
He questions me, asks if there’s anything I want to say about it. I take a moment before I speak and, as I do, I shiver at the memory of my husband’s irrational rage, his face scarlet with fury. I tell him Douglas was terribly angry with me, although that barely describes it.
It was foolish, but I wanted a child so badly and couldn’t seem to conceive. When I went to her the burning red sun had softened into a sultry Mandalay evening. The heavily made-up woman, wearing satin and silk, danced for me and the other women, almost in a trance. She drank beer and we all pinned banknotes to her shiny costume sleeves. The spirits liked a party, it seemed. When it was over she said the spirits had spoken, though she didn’t reveal what they’d said. I tell the doctor how the people loved their spirit mediums. How they believed a Nat Gadaw, for that is what they called them, spoke to them and they thought the spirits could make wishes come true.
Douglas was immovable. He’s a very rational man and was outraged I’d given in to one of their dark superstitions.
‘Did it work? The spirit medium?’ Dr Gilbert asks.
I nod. Instead of feeling helpless I had taken matters into my own hands. I felt different afterwards. Hopeful. The next day came, the sun shone, and before long I became pregnant with Elvira.
‘And your husband forgave you?’
‘Apart from once more, we never spoke of it again.’
‘And does it still trouble you?’
There is a long, unsettling silence.
‘The one time we spoke of it again, Douglas blamed the Nat Gadaw for the voices I began to hear.’
I find it hard to say anything more.
‘A rational man, you say?’ Dr Gilbert smiles at me oh so gently.
‘Yes. Queer, isn’t it? He said I had brought it on myself by dabbling in perilous superstitious practices.’