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'ah, que la vie est belle et douce et ronde et lorsque la vie gronde elle adoucit mes peines' — brigitte dit vrai
Eulalie Sinaga, née Travers, listened to the hush murmur of the midwife as she rested against an abundance of cushioning. Through her eyelashes, she could make out a grey sky, globules of water trailing the glass; her husband stood at the end of her bed, his attention no longer on her, it'd felt dismal to Eulalie.
A smack reverberated through the room as a man in a blood-spattered robe shook his head at the other woman. In her arms was a small baby, freshly newborn, with a wide eyed expression. The matron and healer bickered for a little before her husband cut in upon the third smack to the child's back. He told them, they'd kill the child at this rate, not that it would change the fact that the baby would die anyway.
Babies must cry at birth. Otherwise they'd never learn how to breathe, how to survive outside of the dependency of the mother's womb.
Eulalie watched as her husband blew air into her child's mouth, in a rhythmic pattern until the baby coughed and spluttered. To the healer and matron's relief, next would have come the crying. The loud, shrill shriek was expected, but when a strange wheezing hiss noise sounded from the baby, their smiles dropped. But the baby was alive. The baby was breathing.
Lestari Sinaga was born on the dreary morning of October 3rd, in a blue-painted nursery, atop a hill along the edge of Cairnryan, Scotland.
Eulalie's husband, Anwar, was the second grandson of the long past Bintang Sinaga, and was second in line to inherit his father's business — an organisation that gained control over the entirety of the Dutch East Indies, but the south of Asia too, spreading across the continent like a ripple in a pond, gradually expanding its reach and impact.
Nevertheless, their immediate family was stationed within Britain, and it was a rare occurrence for the family to stay in contact for longer than a significant event in the organisation. Anwar's elder brother, Sri, became head of the Confederation of Property Market, as this leader, he often threw extravagant parties, such as his wedding — an event 1000 individuals were invited to, including Sri & Anwar's younger sister and her child. Lestari met her cousin that event, within their relationship came hundreds of intricate connections between the two, which were brushed off countless times as family bonding, though it was much rather like the puzzle of a dozen, intertwined serpents.
