Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

“I'll come with you,” Ghosh said. He could assist if Hema opted for a Cesarean section.

I NEVER LIKED IT when they left at night. My dread wasn't intruders, but an anxiety about Hema and Ghosh, a fear that despite their best intentions, they might not come back. I never felt that way in the daytime. But at night, when they went dancing at Juventus or played bridge at Mrs. Reddy and Evangeline's house, I'd wait up for them, imagining the worst.

After they left, I padded into the living room in bare feet and pajamas. I worked the short-wave band on the Grundig.

Above the static, I heard the motorcycle. Halfway up our driveway, Sergeant Zemui would always cut the engine so as not to disturb us. Then in silence, save for the squeak of springs and the rattle of mudguards, he'd coast into the carport. The coda was the metallic whump of cycle rolling back onto its center stand.

I loved that ungainly BMW and the way its udderlike engine bulged out on either side of the frame. Shiva loved it, too. All machines have genders, and that BMW was a royal “she.” For as long as I can recall I'd been hearing her low throb, a lub-dub sound in the early morning and at bedtime, as Zemui left for and returned from work. Whenever I heard the tramp of his heavy boots receding, I felt sorry for him. I pictured his lonely hike home, particularly during this season of mud and rain. Despite the long raincoat and a plastic hood for his pith helmet, it was impossible not to get soaked.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, I heard the kitchen door open. Genet came in wearing my hand-me-down pajamas.

Her anger from earlier wasn't there. In its place was something I rarely saw: sadness. Her hair was held back by a blue headband. She was listless, withdrawn, as if years, not minutes, had passed since I last saw her.

“Where's Shiva?” she asked, sitting across from me.

“In our room. Why?”

“Just asked. No reason.”

“Hema and Ghosh had to go to the hospital,” I said.

“I know. I heard them tell my mother.”

“Are you all right?”

She shrugged. Her eyes looked through the glowing dial of the Grundig, to some planet beyond. There was a little fleck in the right iris, a puff of smoke around it, where a spark had penetrated. We were much younger, exploding cap-gun strips on the pavement, striking them with a heavy rock, when that happened. You could only see the blemish close up, and at certain angles. From a distance, the hint of asymmetry made her gaze seem dreamy.

A crackly Chinese station faded in and out, a woman's voice with sounds no throat should be able to produce. I thought it was funny, but Genet didn't smile.

“Marion? Will you play blind man's buff with me?” She asked in a sweet, gentle way. “Just one more time?”

I groaned.

“Please?”

The urgency in her voice surprised me. As if her future depended on this.

“Did you come back just for that reason? Shiva's already in bed.”

She was silent, considering this, and then she said, “How about just you and me. Please, Marion?”

I was never good at saying no to Genet. I didn't think she would have any better luck finding me this time around than before. It would only make her more depressed. But if that was what she wanted …

OUTSIDE, the rain had scrubbed the sky free of stars; the black night leaked through the shutters into the house and under my blindfold.

“I've changed my mind,” I said into the void.

She ignored me, tying a second knot to secure the blindfold. For good measure, she put an empty rice-flour sack over my head, rolling up the edges to leave my mouth uncovered.

“Did you hear me?” I said. “I don't want to do this, I never agreed to this.”

“You cheated? You admit it?” The voice did not even sound like hers.

“I won't admit what is not true,” I said.

A gust of wind rattled the windows. It was the bungalow's way of clearing its throat, warning us to cinch up for more rain.

She disappeared again, and when she returned I felt my hands being strapped against my sides with a piece of leather—Ghosh's belt. “That's so you won't remove the blindfold.”

Now she grabbed me by my shoulders. She spun me around. Her hands were paddles, slapping my chest, my shoulders, turning me like a top. When I yelled for her to stop she added a few more turns.

“Count to twenty. And don't peek.”

I was still turning in that inner darkness, wondering why nausea had to be such a firm companion of vertigo. I crashed into something. A hard edge. The sofa. It caught me in the ribs, but it did keep me from falling. This wasn't fair, tying my hands, messing with my balance … She'd tricked me. If she wanted to disorient me, it had worked. “Cheater!” I yelled. “If you want to win so bad, just say you won, okay?”

A sharp sound on the tin roof made me jump. An acorn? I waited, but it didn't rattle down the slope. A thief checking to see if anyone was home? With my hands bound, I was doubly helpless. I sneezed. I waited for the second sneeze—they always came in twos. But not tonight. I cursed the musty sack.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place!” I shouted. I had no idea what that meant, but Ghosh said it a lot. It sounded vulgar and defiant, a good thing to repeat when you needed courage. My heart hammered in my chest. I needed courage.

The scent I had to follow wasn't as distinct as it had been in the morning. Not being able to reach in front of me and being saddled with a sack on my head were huge handicaps. “I'll find you,” I yelled, “but then never again.”

In the dining room, using my foot, I traced the sideboard, saying “Screw your courage to the sticking place” as my mantra. From there I went on down the corridor leading to the bedrooms.

I knew the spots where the narrow floorboards squeaked. There were many nights I'd stood outside Ghosh and Hema's room, listening, particularly when they seemed to be arguing. With them what you thought was a squabble could be just the opposite. I once heard Hema speak of me as “His father's son. Stubborn to a fault,” and then she laughed. I was shocked. I didn't think of myself as stubborn, and I had no idea that I might be anything like the man I sometimes fantasized might come through the front gate. Hema never mentioned his name, and her tone of voice when she compared me to him suggested faint praise. Another night I overheard Hema say, “Where? Exactly where? Under what circumstance? Don't you think we could have looked at Sister's face, or his face, and known? How did we not know?They should have told us. Say something, Ghosh.” I didn't get it. Ghosh was strangely silent.

Now, with the blindfold on, I could recall every word of theirs. Covering my eyes had opened up new channels in my memory, just as it had fired up my sense of smell. I felt I needed to ask Hema and Ghosh about this conversation. What were they talking about? But how could I? I couldn't tell them Id been eavesdropping.

MY NOSE LED ME TO our bedroom. I turned in. I inched forward. I came to where the scent peaked. I was up against the dresser. Bending forward, my face touched flannel. Her pajamas. Shed piled them on top of my dresser. Like a tracker dog, I buried my nose in the cloth, shook my face in flannel and scattered the pajamas, sharpening my instrument.

“Very clever,” I said. I knew Shiva was on his bed. He must have strapped on his big dancing anklet, because it sounded now, a noise that was his equivalent of a noncommittal grunt.

I retraced my steps. The kitchen was supposed to be off-limits, but that is where the trail led. But here, the scents of ginger, onions, cardamom, and cloves were like curtains that I had to claw through.

On an impulse, I knelt and put my nose to the tiles. What chance did bipedal man have, nose high up in the air, against a four-legged tracker whose nose was to the ground? Yes, there she was. The trail veered to the right.