Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

HEMA AND GHOSH soon drifted back into the house. The taxi driver helped Gebrew unload wooden stools and a new bed into Rosina's quarters. The bed was made of hand-carved dark wood, a gift from Rosina's brother in Asmara, we learned.

I sat on the new bed, gazing at Genet. It felt as if she'd been away for years. I was tongue-tied. “So how was your winter, Marion?” If I was unsure of myself in front of her, she didn't know the meaning of shy.

I'd saved up things to tell her. I even had a script. But this tall beautiful girl—this woman, I should say—sitting next to me, so Eritrean and so enamored of things Italian, messed up my speech. The patients I'd seen, the books I'd read … none of this could compete with Asmara.

“Oh, nothing really,” I said. “You know how it is here in the long rains.”

“That's it? Nothing? No movies, no adventures? And … girlfriends?”

I was still smarting from Rosina's description of the boys chasing Genet in Asmara. It was a betrayal. Surely Genet had a role in that: What boy would bother you if you told him to get lost?

“Well,” I said, “I don't know about girlfriends, but …”

Reluctantly at first, I told her about my visit to my mother's old room, but I recast my time with the probationer as something casual, portraying myself as the indifferent participant. However, the further I got into the story, the less I was able to sustain that tone.

Genet's eyes became as round as the hoops on her ears.

“So you did it with her?” she said.

“No!” I said.

She seemed disappointed, when I would have expected her to be jealous.

“For God's sake, Marion, why not?”

I shook my head. “I didn't because …”

“Because what? Spit it out,” she said, poking my side, as if to help the words come out. “Who are you waiting for? The Queen of England? She's married you know.”

“I didn't do it, because … I knew it would be wonderful, more than wonderful. I knew it would be fantastic—”

“What kind of explanation is that?” she said, rolling her eyes in frustration.

“But … I knew I wanted my first time to be with you.”

There, I said it.

Genet looked at me for the longest time, her mouth open. I felt vulnerable. I held my breath hoping what came out of her mouth next wouldn't be mockery or amusement. Ridicule would destroy me.

She leaned over, her eyes soft, her expression loving and tender, and she took my chin in both her hands and shook it side to side as if I were a little baby.

“Ma che minchia?” Rosina asked, her hands on her hips, rudely interrupting us. I hadn't noticed her come back into the room.

Genet burst out laughing. Rosina didn't find it amusing, but Genet was losing her breath, keeling over. Rosina glared at her, then gave up, muttering to herself. This hysterical laughter of Genet's was something new.

When she could speak, Genet explained. “ Ma che minchia?’ means ‘What the fuck?’ which I kept saying in Asmara. I learned it from my cousins. My mother threatened to slap me every time I said it. And now she says it, can you believe it? … So, Marion— che minchia, eh?”

WE HAD DINNER together in the bungalow, Genet seated with us, while Rosina and Almaz ate in the kitchen.

It had become my practice to take over the Grundig once wed eaten. Often I listened to the Rock of Africa till midnight when it went off the air. The music spoke to what I was feeling; in the tight structure of a twelve-bar blues or in Dylan's haunting ballads, order was imposed. Shiva sat with me most evenings. The music spoke to him, too.

Now the DJ came on, “Rock of East Africa, AFRS Asmara, where everyone is a mile and a half high. This is a Boone's Farm Saturday here at the base. The first shipment of Boone's Farm wine came in last night, and folks, if you missed it, I hate to tell you, but it's all gone, and so are some people here. Now let's listen to Bobby Vinton, ‘My Heart Belongs Only to You.’ “

I was pleased to find Genet knew nothing of this radio station. The cousins in Asmara couldn't be that cool if they never tuned in to this show.

The next song began without any introduction. I jumped up. “This is it!” I said to Genet. “This is the tune I was telling you about.”

In all the evenings of listening to the radio, here for the first time was the song that I'd heard in the probationer's room.

I was shimmying and twisting to the music, blind to Hema's shocked expression and the stares of Ghosh and Genet. I cranked the volume up; Rosina and Almaz came out of the kitchen. They must have thought I was mad. This was out of character for me, but I couldn't stop myself, or I chose not to, and something told me this was the day for it.

Now Shiva stood up and joined me, and his dancing was smooth, silky, and so polished, as if all his lessons with Hema had been a way of biding time till he heard this song. That was all it took for Genet to jump in. I pulled Hema up from her chair, and soon she moved in time to the music. Ghosh needed no urging. I tried to pull Rosina in, but she and Almaz fled to the kitchen. The five of us in that living room danced till the very last note had sounded.

Chuck Berry.

That was the name of the artist. The song was “Sweet Little Sixteen”—so the announcer said.

When it was time for bed, Genet said she was going back to Rosina's quarters. Hema looked hurt. “I'll keep my mother company,” Genet said. “I have my own bed now. There were six of us on the floor in Asmara. Having a bed for myself will be a real luxury.”

The next day in the Piazza, I found the Chuck Berry 45 in a record shop. I realized from the dust jacket that “Sweet Little Sixteen” was a number one hit—but in 1958! I was crushed. The rest of the world had heard this song more than a decade before I knew it existed. When I thought of how I had danced to it the previous night, it felt like the dance of an ignoramus, like the awe of a peasant seeing the neon beer mug on top of the Olivetti Building.

ON THE EVE of the new school year, Hema and Ghosh took us with them to the Greek club for the annual gala to celebrate the end of “winter.” Genet surprised me by saying shed stay back and get her school clothes ready; she, Rosina, Gebrew, and Almaz planned a cozy dinner in Rosina's quarters.

The big band was made up of moonlighting musicians from the army, air force, and Imperial Bodyguard orchestras. They could play “Stardust,” “Begin the Beguine,” and “Tuxedo Junction” in their sleep. Chuck Berry wasn't in their repertoire.

The expatriate community back from vacations, was out in force, looking tanned. I saw Mr. and Mrs. G——, who weren't really married, and the word was they'd abandoned their spouses and children in Portugal to be with each other; Mr. J——, a dashing Goan bachelor who was jailed briefly for a financial shenanigan, was in full form. The newly arriving expats would quickly learn their roles; they'd find that their for-eignness trumped their training or talent—it was their most important asset. Soon they'd be regulars, smiling and dancing at this annual event.

I'd always thought the expatriates represented the best of culture and style of the “civilized” world. But I could see now that they were so far from Broadway or the West End or La Scala, that they probably were a decade behind the times, just as I'd been with Chuck Berry. I watched the ruddy, sweaty faces on the dance floor, the childlike brightness in their eyes; it made me sad and impatient.

Shiva danced first with Hema, then with women he knew from Hema and Ghosh's bridge circle, and then with anyone who looked keen to dance. Suddenly I didn't want to be there any longer; I left early, telling Hema and Ghosh I'd take a taxi home.