Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

IN THE EARLY MORNING she awoke, fed and changed the children, and when they went back to sleep, she returned to Ghosh. They began again, and it was as if it were the first time, the sensations unique and unimaginable, the headboard slapping against the wall advertising their passion to Almaz and Rosina who were just arriving in the kitchen, but she didn't care. They slept, and only when they heard the cowbell and the calf cry did they rise.

Ghosh stopped Hema as she was about to leave the room.

“Is marrying me still a laughing matter?”

“What are you saying?”

“Hema, will you marry me?”

He was unprepared for her response, and later he wondered how she could have been so ready with an answer, one that would never have occurred to him.

“Yes, but only for a year.”

“What?”

“Face it. This situation with the children threw us together. I don't want you to feel obliged. I will marry you for a year. And then we are done.”

“But that is absurd,” Ghosh sputtered.

“We have the option to renew for another year. Or not.”

“I know what I want, Hema. I want this forever. I have always wanted it forever and ever. I know that at the end of the year I will want to renew.”

“Well you may know, my sweet man. But what if I don't? Now you have surgery scheduled this morning, no? Well, you can tell Matron that I'll start doing hysterectomies and other elective surgery again. And it's time you learned some gynecologic surgery, something other than just C-sections.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder as she departed, and the coyness in her smile and the mischief in her eyes and her arched eyebrows, and the steep tilt of her neck, were those of a dancer sending a signal without words. Her message silenced him. Instead of a year or a lifetime, suddenly he could only think of nightfall, and though it was only twelve hours away, it felt like an eternity.

IREMEMBER THE EARLY MORNINGS, sweeping into the kitchen in Ghosh's arms. He is counting under his breath, “One-two … onetwothree.” We twirl, dip, lunge. For the longest time I will think that dancing is his occupation.

We execute a turn before the stove and arrive at the rear door, where Ghosh works the lock and shoots back the bolt with a flourish.

Almaz and Rosina step in, quickly shutting the door against the cold, and against Koochooloo, who is wagging her tail, awaiting breakfast. Both mamithus are wrapped like mummies, only their eyes showing in a crescent gap. They peel off layers, and the odors of cut grass, and then turned earth, then berbere and coal fires rise from them like steam.

I laugh uncontrollably in anticipation, tuck my chin into my body, because I know Rosina's fingers, which are like icicles, will soon stroke my cheek. The first time she did this, I was startled into laughter instead of tears, a mistake, because it has encouraged this ritual that I dread and anticipate every day.

AFTER BREAKFAST, Hema and Ghosh kiss Shiva and me good-bye. Tears. Despair. Clinging. But they leave anyway, off to the hospital.

Rosina places us in the double pram. Soon, with uplifted hands, I beg to be carried. I want higher ground. I want the adult view. She gives in. Shiva is content wherever he is placed, as long as no one tries to remove his anklet.

Rosina's forehead is a ball of chocolate. Her braided hair marches back in neat rows, then flies out in a fringe that reaches her shoulders. She is a bouncing, rocking, and humming being. Her twirls and turns are faster than Ghosh's. From my dizzy perch, her pleated dress makes gorgeous florets, and her pink plastic shoes flash in and out of sight.

Rosina talks nonstop. We are silent, speechless, but full of thoughts, impressions, all of them unspoken. Rosina's Amharic makes Almaz and Gebrew laugh because her guttural, throat-clearing syllables don't really exist in Amharic. It never dissuades her. Sometimes she breaks into Italian, particularly when she is being forceful, struggling to make a point. Italinya comes easily to her, and strangely its meaning is clear, even though no one else speaks it, such is the nature of that language. When she speaks to herself, or sings, it is in her Eritrean tongue—Tigrinya— and then her voice is unlocked, the words pouring out.

Almaz, who once served Ghosh in his quarters, is now the cook in his and Hema's joint household. She stands rooted like a baobab to her spot in front of the stove, a giantess compared with Rosina, and not given to sound other than deep sonorous sighs, or an occasional “Ewunuth!” — “You don't say!”—to keep Rosina or Gebrew's chatter going, not that either of them needs encouragement. Almaz is fairer than Rosina, and her hair is contained by a gauzy orange shash that forms a Phrygian helmet. While Rosina's teeth shine like headlights, Almaz rarely shows hers.

BY MIDMORNING, when we return from our first Bungalow–to– Casualty–to–Women's Ward–to–Front Gate excursion, with Koochoo -loo as our bodyguard, the kitchen is alive. Steam rises in plumes as Almaz clangs lids on and off the pots. The silver weight on the pressure cooker jiggles and whistles. Almaz's sure hands chop onions, tomatoes, and fresh coriander, making hillocks that dwarf the tiny mounds of ginger and garlic. She keeps a palette of spices nearby: curry leaves, turmeric, dry coriander, cloves, cinnamon, mustard seed, chili powder, all in tiny stainless-steel bowls within a large mother platter. A mad alche mist, she throws a pinch of this, a fistful of that, then wets her fingers and flings that moisture into the mortar. She pounds with the pestle, the wet, crunchy thunk, thunk soon changes to the sound of stone on stone.

Mustard seeds explode in the hot oil. She holds a lid over the pan to fend of the missiles. Rat-a-tat! like hail on a tin roof. She adds the cumin seeds, which sizzle, darken, and crackle. A dry, fragrant smoke chases out the mustard scent. Only then are the onions added, handfuls of them, and now the sound is that of life being spawned in a primordial fire.

ROSINA ABRUPTLY HANDS ME TO Almaz and hurries out the back door, her legs crossing like scissor blades. We don't know this, but Rosina is carrying the seed of revolution. She is pregnant with a baby girl: Genet. The three of us—Shiva, Genet, and me—are together from the start, she in utero while Shiva and I negotiate the world outside. The handoff to Almaz is unexpected.

I whimper on Almaz's shoulder, perilously close to the bubbling cauldrons.

Almaz puts down the stirring ladle and shifts me to her hip. Reaching into her blouse, grunting with effort, she fishes out her breast.

“Here it is,” she says, putting it in my hands for safekeeping.

I am the recipient of many gifts, but this is the first one I remember. Each time it is given to me it is a surprise. When it is taken away, the slate is wiped clean. But here it is, warm and alive, eased out of its cloth bed, bestowed on me like a medal I don't deserve. Almaz, who hardly speaks, resumes stirring, humming a tune. It is as if the breast no more belongs to her than does her ladle.

Shiva in the pram puts down his wooden truck, which his saliva has digested to a soggy pulp. It is, unlike his anklet, separable from him if need be. In the presence of that magnificent one-eyed teat, Shiva lets the truck fall to the floor. Though I have possession of the breast, stroking it, palpating it, I am also his amanuensis.