Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

Ghosh sighed. “I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny “

AFTER GHOSH LEFT, I wondered if the army man was my pair of slippers. If so, they'd come back once already in the form of his brother. What form would they take next?

Just when my thoughts were coming in illogical sequences, a prelude to sleep, I felt someone lifting up the mosquito net. In the instant that I saw her, she was already sitting on my chest, pinning my arms down.

I could have thrown her off. But I didn't. I liked her body on mine and I liked the faint scent of charcoal and the frankincense that permeated her clothes. Maybe shed come to make up to me for being so rude before. She could ‘ve climbed in through one of the open windows.

In the light from the hallway, I could see the fixed smile on her face.

“So, Marion? Did you tell Ghosh about the thief?”

“If you were hiding here, you already know.”

Shiva, awake now, looked at the two of us, then rolled over, and closed his eyes.

“You almost told that officer, his brother.”

“I didn't. I was just surprised …,” I said.

“We think you told Ghosh and Hema.”

“Of course not. I wouldn't.”

“Why wouldn't you?”

“You know why. If it gets out, they'll hang me.”

“No, they will hang me and my mother for sure. You'll be to blame.”

“I dream about his face.”

“I do, too. And I kill him every night. I wish I'd shot him.”

“It was an accident.”

“If I'd killed him, I wouldn't call it an accident. If I'd killed him, we'd have no worries.”

“Easy for you to say because you didn't kill him.”

“My mother thinks you'll tell. We're worried about you.”

“What? Well, you tell Rosina not to worry.”

“It'll slip out one day and get us all killed.”

“Okay, stop. If you know I'll tell, why talk to me? Get off me now.”

She slid down so that her body was spread-eagled over mine. Her face hovered over me, and for one second I thought she was going to kiss me, which would have been very strange in the context of our exchange. I studied her eyes so close to mine, the blemish in the right iris, her breath on my face, sweet, pleasant. I could see the dangerous beauty she was going to turn into. I thought of the last time we were this close. In the pantry.

Her pupils dilated, her eyelids sagged down over the irises.

I felt something warm where her thighs were on top of mine, a spreading heat.

I felt fluid soak my pajamas. The air under the mosquito net filled with the scent of fresh urine. Now her eyes rolled up, showing only the whites, and she threw her head back. She shivered. Her neck was arched, the strap muscles taut. She looked down one last time. “That's so you don't ever forget your promise.” She jumped off and was gone before I could think of reacting. I reared up now, ready to chase after her, to tear her to pieces.

Shiva held me back, whether from his desire to be a peacemaker or to protect her, I couldn't say. His eyes were downcast and they managed not to look at me. I stood shaking with anger as Shiva stripped the bed. My pajama bottom was soaked; Shiva had been spared. In the bathroom Shiva ran the tub and I got in. Shiva sat on the commode, quiet but keeping me company. We did not exhange a word. Back in the bedroom I was putting on fresh pajamas when Ghosh came in.

“I saw your light. What happened?”

“An accident,” I said.

Shiva said nothing. The scent was unmistakable. I was ashamed. I could've told on Genet, but I didn't. I opened the window for a few minutes and then closed it.

Ghosh wiped down the mattress. He helped us flip it over. He brought fresh sheets, made the bed for us. I could tell that he was distressed.

“Go back to the guests,” I said. “We're all right. Really.”

“My boys, my boys,” he said, sitting on the edge of the mattress. I know he thought I had wet the bed. “I can't imagine what you have been through.”

That was true. He couldn't imagine. And we probably wouldn't know what he'd been through either.

He sighed. “I'll never leave you again.”

I felt a twinge in my chest at those words, a desire to make him take them back. He'd spoken as if it were all in his hands to decide. As if he had forgotten about fate and slippers.

SIXTY DAYS HAD PASSED since Zemui's death, and Genet was still confined to the house. Rosina, sinister with her missing tooth, was unsmiling and prickly like an Abyssinian boar.

“Enough,” Gebrew told her on the Feast of St. Gabriel. “I'll melt a cross to get you a silver tooth. It's time to smile and to find white in your clothing. God wishes it. You are making His world gloomy. Even Zemui's legal wife has given up mourning.”

“You call that harlot his wife?” she screamed at Gebrew. “That woman's legs swing open when a breeze comes through the door. Don't talk to me about her.” The next day Rosina boiled up a big basin of black dye and into this she tossed all her remaining clothes as well as a good many of Genet's school clothes.

When Hema tried to get Genet to go back to LT&C, Rosina rebuffed her. “She's still in mourning.”

Two days later, on a Saturday, I heard a lululu of celebration from Rosina's quarters as I was coming into the kitchen. I knocked. Rosina opened it just a crack, peering out at me with a hunter's eye, a blade in her hand.

“Is everything all right?”

“Fine, thank you,” she said and closed the door, but not before I saw Genet, a towel pressed to her face, and bloody rags on the floor.

I couldn't keep this knowledge to myself. I told Hema and now she knocked on their door.

Rosina hesitated. “Come in if you must,” she said, her manner surly. “We're all done.”

The room was redolent of cloistered women. And frankincense and something else—the scent of fresh blood. It was difficult to breathe. The naked bulb hanging from the ceiling was off. “Close the door,” Rosina snapped at me.

“Leave it open, Marion,” Hema said. “And turn on the light.”

A razor blade, a spirit lamp, and a bloody cloth were by Genet's bed.

Genet sat demure, her hands pressed to both sides of her face, her elbows resting on her knees. The posture of a thinker, but for the rags in each hand.

Hema pulled Genet's fingers away to reveal two deep vertical cuts, like the number 11, just past the outer end of each eyebrow. A total of four cuts. The blood that welled up looked as dark as tar.

“Who did this?” Hema said, covering the wound and applying pressure.

The two occupants were silent. Rosina's eyes were locked on the far wall, a smirk on her face.

“I said, who did this?” Hema's voice was sharper than the razor that made the cuts.

Genet replied in English. “I wanted her to do it, Ma.”

Rosina said something sharp to Genet in Tigrinya. I knew that short guttural phrase meant Shut your mouth.

Genet ignored her. “This is the sign of my people,” she went on, “my father's tribe. If my father were alive he would have been so proud.”

Hema opened her mouth as if considering what to say. Her face softened a bit. “Your father isn't alive, child. By the grace of God, you are.”

Rosina frowned, not liking this much of an exchange in English.

“Come with me. Let me take care of that,” Hema said more gently.