Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

I knew all this. I felt it, saw it. It entered my consciousness in a flash, but the proof was yet to come.

Rosina called Genet's name from somewhere in the house.

I picked up the belt. How we could both be so serene, I'll never know.

I touched Genet on her shoulders, gently, carefully. The other moment of touch was long gone. Her eyes turned to me with what could be love or its opposite.

“I will always find you,” I whispered.

“Maybe,” she said, bringing her lips close to my ear. “But I might get better at hiding.”

Rosina walked in and stopped, frozen at the sight of us.

“What are you two doing?” she said, in Amharic. She smiled out of habit, but her brows conveyed her puzzlement. “I've been looking all over for you. Where are your clothes? What is this?”

“A game,” I said waving the blindfold and belt as if it answered her questions, but my throat was so dry I don't think any noise came out.

Genet brushed past me, heading back to the living room. Rosina grabbed her hand. “Where are your clothes, daughter?”

“Let go my hand.”

“But why are you naked?”

Genet said nothing, her face defiant.

Rosina jerked her by the arm. “Why did you take them off?”

When Genet replied, her voice was cutting, spoiling for a fight. “Why do you take your clothes off for Zemui? When you send me out, is it not for you to get naked?”

Rosina's mouth froze in the open position. When she could speak, she said, “He is your father. He's my husband.”

Genet's face showed no surprise. She laughed, a cruel, mocking sound, as if she'd heard these words before. I cringed for my nanny as Genet spoke. “Your husband? My father? You lie. My father would stay the night. My father would have us live with him in a real house.” She was angry, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Your husband wouldn't have another wife and three children. Your husband wouldn't come home and send me out to play so he can play with you.” She pulled her arm free and went to get her clothes.

ROSINA HAD FORGOTTEN I was there.

Innocence, the carefree days, hung over a chasm. She finally turned to me.

We studied each other as if we were looking at strangers. I'd gone into the pantry sightless. Now the blindfold was off. Zemui was Genet's father. Was I the only one not to know this? How stupid was I? Why had I never thought to ask? Did Shiva know? All the long hours the Colonel spent with us playing bridge … It made sense that Zemui was also around all that time. True, in a matrilineal society, one accepted these things and didn't ask about a father when none was present. But I should have asked. I saw it now. The signs were there. I was blind, and naïve and dumb. All the letters I had written for Zemui to Darwin inquiring about his family and conveying best wishes from his pal had given no clue that Genet was his child. All those written words, spoken words, were just the shimmering surface of a deep and swift river; to think of the nights I lay in bed, hearing that motorcycle, feeling sorry for Zemui trudging home in the rain, in the dark. Clearly, I wasn't the only one to feel compassion for him.

Rosina knew me so well, she could read the progression of my every thought. I hung my head: I'd slipped in the esteem of my beloved nanny. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that now her head was down, too, as if she'd failed me, as if she had never wanted me to know this side of her. I wanted to say, About what you saw, it was a game …

I said nothing.

Genet returned, clothed in the flannel pajamas. She left without a backward glance, and Rosina followed.

Shiva was in the dining room, just beyond the door to the kitchen.

I stayed in the pantry after shutting the door, and I stood facing the shelves. A scent lingered, an ozone generated by me and Genet, by our two wills.

I heard footsteps draw near and stop, and I knew that Shiva was on the other side of the door, just as he knew I was on this side. ShivaMar-ion couldn't hide much from Shiva or Marion. But I squeezed my eyes shut and turned invisible and carried myself to a place where I was completely alone and no one could share my thoughts.

IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, when Rosina ran her fingers through my curls, or insisted she iron my shirt before we went out, it was as if nothing had happened. But I saw these acts of hers differently They were familiar, but also designed to have a hand on me at all times, and thereby put her body between me and her daughter.

Something had transpired that night in the pantry, just as Rosina feared. Id leaned on a hidden panel, and much like in the comics, Id plunged through. The falling was unintentional, but now that I was on the other side I wanted to stay. I wanted to be around Genet more than ever, and Rosina knew it.

I saw a new dimension to Rosina—call it cunning. The same cunning was in me as well, because I no longer felt safe telling her what I was thinking. But my feelings were tough to hide. When I was with Genet, I felt the blood rushing to my face. I had forgotten how to be.

For the rest of the holidays, Genet gravitated to Shiva. His presence generated no awkwardness, while mine clearly did. I watched them put on their practice record, clear the dining room, strap on their anklets, and run through their complex routines in Bharatnatyam. I wasn't jealous. Shiva was my proxy, just as I had been his when Almaz had given me her breast. If I could not be with Genet, wasn't Shiva's being with her the next-best thing?

Perhaps my bloodhound instinct, my ability to find Genet by scent, was no more than a party trick. But perhaps not. We never played blind man's buff again. The very idea was disquieting.

I AVOIDED ZEMUI when he came to pick up or drop off his motorcycle, or when Colonel Mebratu came to play bridge. The Colonel enjoyed driving his Peugeot, or his jeep, or his staff Mercedes, and the last time Zemui spotted me, hed been riding shotgun and he waved and grinned. When I finally did encounter Zemui, I wanted to be annoyed with him; he had something in common with Thomas Stone, though Zemui at least saw his daughter every day. But when Zemui shook my hand and excitedly pulled out a new Darwin letter, I found myself sitting down with him on the kitchen steps. I was tempted to say, Why don t you ask your daughter to do this? But I didn't because I understood something I had missed before—that Genet surely didn't make things easy for her father. I was reading and writing letters for Zemui because his daughter had refused.

ON A FRIDAY EVENING, the Colonel breezed into Missing and into Ghosh's old quarters bringing energy with him, as if not one man but a regiment in full colors had arrived, along with the marching band. Half an hour later, there were two tables going. The players—Hema, Ghosh, Adid, Babu, Evangeline, Mrs. Reddy, and a newcomer they brought— seemed to inhabit their bridge hands, becoming Pass and Three-No-Trumps, their faces flushed with concentration. Adid, the khat merchant and old friend of Hema's, owned a shop in the Merkato right next to Babu's and had brought him into the group. A burst of conversation like a collective sigh signaled the end of a round. I loved to observe them play.

The Colonel, just back from London, had a rare bottle of Glenfid-dich for Ghosh, chocolates for us, and Chanel No. 5 perfume for Hema. The cigarettes in the ashtrays were Dunhill and 555—his contribution again. Though he wore a blazer and open shirt, his tucked-in chin and the shoulders drawn back made it seem he was still in uniform. If he left the party, I imagined the rest of them would slump over like toys whose spring had unwound.