Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

Hema went from disbelieving to blaming Mrs. Garretty. Then she blamed herself. She canceled the dancing lessons at Juventus Club, just when Ghosh had mastered the fox-trot and could circumnavigate a room. The turntable got its first rest in years. The bridge regulars shifted to Ghosh's old bungalow, which he had been using as an office and clinic for private patients.

Hema checked out Kipling, Ruskin, C. S. Lewis, Edgar Allan Poe, R. K Narayan, and many others from the British Council and the United States Information Service libraries. In the evenings, the two of them took turns reading to us in the belief that great literature would stimulate and eventually produce speech in Shiva. In those pretelevision days, it was entertaining, except for C. S. Lewis, whose magical cupboards I didn't buy, and Ruskin, who neither Ghosh nor Hema could understand or read for long. But they persisted, hoping that at the very least Shiva might yell for them to stop, the way I did. They kept on even after we'd fallen sleep, because Hema believed one could prime the subconscious. If they had worried over Shiva's survival after birth, now they worried over lingering effects of the antiquated obstetric instruments that had been applied to his head. There was nothing they would not try to bring about speech. Shiva remained silent.

ONE DAY, soon after we turned eight, we got home from school to find Hema had a blackboard installed in the dining room. She stood there, chalk at the ready, copies of Bickham's Penmanship Made Easy (Young Clerks Assistant) at each of our places, and a maniacal gleam in her eyes. On top of each book was a shiny new Pelikan pen, the Pelicano, every schoolkid's dream, along with cartridges—such a novelty.

A time would come when I would be glad to be known as a surgeon with good handwriting. My notes in the chart perhaps gave some intimation of similar skills with a knife (though I will say it is not a rule, and the converse isn't true: chicken-scratch scribbles aren't a sign of poor technique in the theater). One day I would grudgingly thank Hema for making us copy in the round and ornate styles:

Shiva was already fingering his Pelicano. Genet said nothing. Her position in these matters was delicate.

I stood firm. I didn't trust Hema's motivation: guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action. Besides, I had planned a special parade of my Dinky Toys in a weaving path I had carved out on a low embankment next to the house. Her timing was terrible.

“Why can't we go out and play? I don't want to do this,” I said.

Hema's mouth tightened. She seemed to be considering not what I said, but my person, my obstinacy. Subconsciously, at least, she blamed me for Shiva. She saw me and even Genet as having camouflaged his silence in a blanket of chatter.

“Speak for yourself, Marion,” she said.

“I did. Why can't we—I—go play?”

Shiva already had his cartridge loaded.

“Why? I'll tell you why. Because your school is nothing but play I have to see to your real studies. Now, sit down, Marion!”

Genet quietly took her seat.

“No,” I said. “This isn't fair. Besides, it won't help Shiva.”

“Marion, before I twist your ear—”

“He won t speak till he is ready!”I shouted.

With that, I dashed out. I flew around one the corner of the house, gathering speed on the turn. At the second corner, I ran straight into Zemui's broad chest. My first thought was Hema had sent the military to get me.

“Cousin, where is the war?” Zemui said, smiling, peeling me free. His olive uniform was as crisp as ever, the belt, holster, and boots all brown and gleaming. As a reflex, he stomped his right foot and snapped a salute with enough vigor for his fingers to sail off.

Sergeant Zemui was the driver to a man who was now full colonel in the Imperial Bodyguard—Colonel Mebratu. Ghosh had saved his life in surgery years before. Colonel Mebratu was once under suspicion, but now he was in the Emperor's favor. He was both senior commander of the Imperial Bodyguard and liaison to the military attachés from Brit ain, India, Belgium, and America, all of whom had a presence in Ethio pia. The Colonel's job involved frequent diplomatic receptions and parties, not to mention the regular bridge nights at our place. Poor Zemui could only begin his long walk home to his wife and children when his boss's head was on the pillow and the staff car parked in the shed. The Colonel had assigned Zemui a motorcycle to make it easier for him to get back and forth. Since Zemui, who lived near Missing, didn't want to ruin his tires on the crude stone and shingle track that led to his shack, he got Ghosh's permission to park the bike under our carport. There his precious machine was sheltered from the elements and from vandals.

“Just the person I was hoping to see,” Zemui said. “What's the matter, my little master?”

“Nothing,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. My troubles seemed minor when talking to a soldier who'd just done his tour with the UN peacekeeping forces in the civil war in the Congo. “How come you're picking up your motorcycle so late?” I asked.

“The boss was at a party till four in the morning. When I got him home, the sun was coming up. He told me I could come back in the evening. Listen, come, sit down. I want you to read me this letter again.” He parked himself on the edge of the front porch, took the blue-and-red aerogram from his front pocket, and handed it to me. He took off his pith helmet to extract a half-smoked cigarette tucked carefully under one of the straps on the outside. The pith topee, in the manner of white explorers of old, was unique to the Imperial Bodyguard, recognizable at a distance.

“Zemui,” I said, “can I read it later? Hema is after me. I talked back to her. She'll cut off my tongue if she catches me.”

“Oh, that's serious. Of course we can do it later,” Zemui said, springing up. He put the letter away, but I could sense his disappointment. “Do you think Darwin got my letter by now?”

“I am sure his letter is coming. Any day.”

He saluted me and went on to the back of the house.

Darwin was a Canadian soldier who'd been wounded in Katanga; I'd read his letter to Zemui so often I knew it by heart. He said it was cold and snowing in Toronto. At times he was discouraged and he didn't know if he could ever get used to a wooden leg. “Are there women in Eytopia intrusted in a one-leg white man with a scard face? Ha-ha!” He did not have much, but if his pal Zemui ever needed anything, he, Darwin, would do it because he'd never forget how Zemui saved his life. I'd written back in English for Zemui, translating as best I could. I wondered how the two had conversed in the Congo. Zemui showed me a pinwheel gold pendant which he wore around his neck, a St. Bridget's cross. The wounded Darwin had pressed it on Zemui when they parted on the battlefield.

The sight of Rosina, peering back at me as Zemui walked toward her, made me start running again. I felt a vacuum where my brother should have been running next to me.

MY MOTHER'S GRAVE, with its halo of fresh cut apothecary blooms and its inscription of σAFE inAPMσ OF JEσUσ held no fascination for me. But in the autoclave room next to Operating Theater 3, I sensed her presence, a scent, a feel so linked to mine. That was where my feet took me. It wasn't the smartest choice as a place to hide.

I never understood Shiva's reluctance to visit this room. Perhaps he saw it as a betrayal of Hema, who had watched over his every breath, who had linked herself by a cord to his anklet. Coming here was one of the few things I did alone.