Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

Inching to the pantry, I knew that this game, born out of monsoon tedium, was no longer that. No rules now. Nothing would be the same after this. I knew. I may have been just eleven, but my consciousness felt as ripe as it would ever be. My body might grow and age and I would soon have more knowledge and experience, but all that was me, all that was Marion, the part that saw and registered the world and chronicled it in an inner ledger for posterity, was well seated inside my body and never more so than at that moment, robbed of eyes and hands.

I stood up as I entered the pantry. “I know you're there,” I said. The echo gave me a fix on that long narrow room; I knew just where she was and I went to her.

Genet was in front of me. If my hands were free, I would ‘ve reached for her, tickled or pinched her. I heard a muffled sound. It could have been laughter, but I didn't think so. She was crying.

I wanted to console her. The urge to do so grew. It was a feral instinct, much like the one that led me to her.

I drew forward.

She pushed me away, but halfheartedly. The push was a plea for me not to leave.

I'd always assumed that Genet was content with her life. She ate at our table, went to school with us, and was part of the family. She didn't have a father, and we didn't have our real parents, and I assumed that, just like us, she felt lucky to have Hema and Ghosh. I saw us as equals, but in doing so, perhaps I glossed over the things she could not overlook. Our bedroom was bigger than her narrow and drafty one-room quarters. At night, if she wanted to visit the privy, Genet had to step out into the elements, passing the open shed where we stacked firewood. While Ghosh and Hema tucked us into bed, transported us to the magi cal world of Malgudi, then turned off the lights, Genet read to herself under the single naked bulb, trying to tune out the radio which Rosina played late into the night. There was one bed, and mother and daughter slept in it, but Genet would probably have relished her own bed. A charcoal brazier provided warmth. The smoke and incense that permeated her clothes embarrassed her. If we found her quarters cozy, she was ashamed of where she lived. In earlier years, we were as often in that room as we were in our house. But of late, though Rosina welcomed us, Genet didn't encourage us to come in.

Blindfolded, I suddenly saw all this so clearly. I understood her fierce competitiveness in a way I'd never appreciated.

One more step forward. I waited. The push or punch did not come. I inclined my head, used it as a probe to find her. Her ear and then her cheek brushed against mine. Wet. Her jerky breathing was hot against my neck. Slowly she settled her chin there.

The feral self stood dutiful and protective. Watch and learn, it said to me. Defend and comfort. I felt heroic.

My feet were close together. I had tilted forward to counter her weight. When she readjusted, I fell against her, sandwiching her against the pantry shelf. Our bodies were touching at the thighs, hips, and at the chest, our cheeks still together. I waited for her to push me back to the vertical, but she didn't.

How well we knew each other's bodies from wrestling, from pulling each other up to the tree house, and from earlier years, wading in our splash pool together. In the big packing cases stuffed with straw in which glassware was shipped to Missing, we played house and doctor. We were never self-conscious about our anatomical differences. But now, blindfolded, her face invisible to me and mine obscured by cloth, it was all new and unknown. I wasn't the Invisible Man. I was the blind man who could see, who is forgiven his clumsiness by the other qualities the blindness brings out.

Though my arms were pinned to my side, I could swivel my hands forward. I touched her hips. Her skin was cold. She didn't flinch. She needed my touch, my warmth. I pulled her to me.

She trembled.

She was naked.

I don't know how many minutes I stood there. It was precisely the comfort she seemed to need this night. If only she had known to ask, or I to give, we could've done away with the blindfold … Thank God for the blindfold.

She worked her hands into the gap between my arms and my trunk. She hugged me. It was an awkward, painful pose for me. Yet I didn't dare say a word for fear she'd let go.

The rain murmured gently on the tin roof.

After an eternity, she withdrew her arms. She took the rice bag off my face.

She undid my restraint, freeing my hands, and I heard the belt buckle clatter to the floor. But she left the blindfold on. If I'd wanted to, I could have taken it off.

I missed her embrace. I wanted to feel it again, now that my arms were free. I reached for her. Naked, she felt smaller, more delicate.

Something soft, fleshy touched my lips. I had never been kissed before. At the movies, Genet and I groaned and laughed when we saw the actors kiss. There was always one Italian movie in the triple feature, particularly at Cinema Adowa. It was either dubbed or had subtitles. It typically came before the short comic feature—the Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy—and it always had lots of kissing. Shiva studied those onscreen smooches with great seriousness, cocking his head. Genet and I didn't. Kissing was silly. Adults had no idea how stupid they looked.

Our lips were dry. A big nothing, just as I thought. Perhaps the kissing had the same purpose as the embrace. To give and get comfort. I tilted my head to one side, movie style, wondering if the sensation would get any better. I caught her lower lip between my lips. This was a new discovery, that the mouth could be this delicate tactile instrument, particularly in the absence of sight. Her tongue touched my lips and I wanted to snap my head back. I thought of the twenty-five-cent, one-hour sucker on which the three of us took turns. Now, slowly, our two mouths shared the candy without the candy. Not really pleasurable. Not disgusting either.

Genet's hands were on my face. They did that in the movies. I slid my right hand to her shoulders, then down her chest. I felt the hillocks on which her nipples sat, no different than mine. Her fingers slid down to touch my chest, where it should have been ticklish, but it was not. My hand swept over her belly, and then down farther, between her legs, running over a soft fissure, the absence, the empty space, more intriguing than what might have been present. Her hand, tentative like mine, slipped past my waistband, prospecting. When she held me, it felt so different than when I touched myself.

THE DOOR FROM THE OUTSIDE to the kitchen opened.

It had to be Rosina. Or perhaps it was Ghosh and Hema. The footsteps went on into the living room.

I stepped back. I pulled off the blindfold, blinking in the dark pantry, an alien landing on earth.

In the reflected light of the kitchen, Genet's eyes were moist, her face puffy and her lips swollen. She didn't want to meet my gaze. She preferred me blind. Her eyes were slanted, her nose rising to a quick point. Her forehead planed back, not at all like Rosina's rounded one. She looked like the bust of Queen Nefertiti in my Dawn of History book.

My blindfold was off but I still possessed a hyperacuity of the senses. I could see the future. Genet's face in that pantry was the face that most revealed her. It carried intimations of the woman she would grow up to be. I could see how those eyes would stay serene, beautiful, concealing the kind of restlessness and recklessness so evident tonight. Her cheekbones would push out, expressing the sheer force of her will, making her nose even sharper, further elongating her lovely eyes. The lower lip would outgrow the upper, the buds on her chest turn into fruit, and her legs would grow like tall vines. In a land of beautiful people, she would be most beautiful and exotic. Men—I knew this before I should have known—would perceive her disdain and would want her. I would want her most of all. She'd put up obstacles. I might never be as strong for her or as close to her as I was this night. Despite this knowledge, I'd keep trying.