Under the mothers' feet

Madaoui was not going to allow the story to stop at this point, and she demanded that the narration move to the other side, to Fahad who was born without a birth cry, and something in my mother's face changed, a light frown appeared on her forehead as she struggled to recall the details of that day. My mother said that terror had taken them all completely, and that doubts had crept in that Ali's son might have been born dead, or sick, or too exhausted to cry out, but none of that was true. All that happened was that the baby was born without any desire to cry, and even when the nurse carried him by his feet and patted his back several times... he did not cry, and he peacefully settled in his mother's arms, immediately beginning to stare, and started to absorb the world with his enormous black eyes, examining the faces that were examining him in turn. Three mothers and one grandmother!