Abraham Verghese - Cutting for Stone

So while Rosina went after Genet, hauling the magazines and textbooks Genet had dropped, and certain to continue her fight, I wasted no time. I went inside, washed up, and then spread my books out on the dining table. Hema and Ghosh were playing bridge with a few others at Ghosh's old bungalow.

I ate as I studied. Every minute counted, as far as I was concerned. Id mapped out how many days and hours and minutes remained before the school-leaving exam. If I wanted to sleep, play cricket, and get into medical school, I had no time to waste.

Genet arrived an hour later to study with me. I tried not to look up. Soon, Shiva joined us. Hed brought Jeffcoates Principles of Gynaecology to the table, and it bristled with bookmarks. Shiva didn't read books as much as he disassembled and digested them, made them appendages of his body.

For Genet and me to get into medical school we had to get top grades in the school finals. Genet professed to be just as enamored with medicine as I was, but she was often late joining me at the study table, and she packed it in earlier than I did. Sometimes she didn't come at all. On two weeknights I took a taxi to Mr. Mammen's house, for tuition in math and organic chemistry. Genet came once, bristled at Mammen's ironclad discipline, and wouldn't go back, while I found his help to be priceless. On weekends I retreated to Ghosh's old quarters to study, leaving Ghosh and Hema free to turn the radio on or entertain without worrying about disturbing me. Genet could have joined me at Ghosh's quarters, but she rarely did.

Shiva didn't have any of our worries. He'd been lobbying to drop out of school altogether. He wanted to function as Hema's assistant— degrees and diplomas did not matter to him. Hema was blunt: if he wanted to work with her, he'd have to finish his final year, even if he didn't take the exams. Meanwhile, on his own he was learning everything he could about obstetrics and gynecology. I overheard Hema tell Ghosh that Shiva knew more than the average final-year medical student when it came to obstetrics and gynecology.

Shiva had appropriated the toolshed where we'd hidden the motorcycle. He'd learned to weld from Farinachi, and he kept his torch and equipment in there. A month or so earlier, I'd stuck my head in the toolshed and was surprised to see the back wall was visible, with no sign of the motorcycle, or the wood stacks, gunnysacks, and Bibles we'd used to conceal it.

“I took it apart,” Shiva had said, when I asked. He pointed to the base of his heavy worktable—the square wooden plywood support concealed the engine block. The bike's frame he'd wrapped in oilcloth and tarp and buried under the table. The rest of the bike was stored in containers which ranged from matchboxes to stacked crates, neatly arranged on metal shelves he'd welded together.

“TELL ME ABOUT IT, Shiva,” Genet whispered from behind her book, Chemistry by Concept. She'd lasted just ten minutes before breaking the silence and my concentration.

“Tell you about what?” Shiva said, not bothering to lower his voice.

“About your first time! What else? Why didn't you tell me before? I just heard from Marion that you're not a virgin.”

Shiva's story, which I'd been too embarrassed and envious to ask about myself, was stunning in its simplicity.

“I went to the Piazza. Down the side street next to the Massawa Bakery, you know, where you see the rooms, one after the other? A woman in each doorway, different-colored lights?”

“How did you pick?”

“I didn't. I went to the first door. That was it,” he said, smiling, and turning back to his work.

“No, it isn't it !” She snatched his book away. “What happened next?”

I pretended to be annoyed, but every cell in my brain was attentive. I was glad that Genet was doing the questioning.

“I asked how much. She said thirty. I said I had only ten. She said okay. She took off her clothes and lay on the bed—”

“ All her clothes?” I blurted out. Shiva looked at me, surprised.

“All but her blouse, which she pulled up.”

“A bra? What was she wearing?” Genet wanted to know.

“A little sweater, I think. A half-sleeve thing. And a miniskirt. Bare legs and high heels. No underwear. No bra. She stepped out of her heels, dropped her skirt, lifted her blouse, and lay down.”

“Oh, God! Go on,” said Genet.

“I took all my clothes off. I was ready. I told her it was my first time. She said, ‘God help us.’ I said I didn't think we needed God. I got on top of her, she helped me start—”

“Did it hurt her? Were you …”

“Erect. Yes. No, I don't think it hurt her. You know the vagina has walls that are expansible, they can accommodate a baby's head—”

“Okay, okay,” Genet said. “Then what?”

“She started to move, showing me how till I understood. I did that till I experienced the ejaculatory response.”

“What?” Genet said.

“The contraction of the vas and the seminal vesicles mixing with pro-static secretions—”

“He came,” I explained. I'd learned the word from a scruffy little pamphlet authored by a T N. Raman, a writer of purple prose. My classmate Satish brought these pamphlets back from his holiday in Bombay. T N. Raman was responsible for most everything Indian schoolboys learned (or misunderstood) about sex.

“Oh … and after that?” Genet said.

“Well, I got up, got dressed, and left.”

“Did it hurt you?” I asked.

“No pain.” From his unsmiling expression, he could have been talking about getting an ice cream at Enrico's.

“That's it?” Genet asked. “Then you paid her?”

“No, I paid her first.”

“What did she say when you were leaving?”

Shiva thought about that. “She said she liked my body, and she liked my skin. That next time she would give it to me … doggy style!”

“What did she mean, ‘doggy style’?”

“I didn't know. I said, ‘Why wait till next time? Show me now.’ “

“You had money?”

“That's what she asked. ‘You have money?’ But I didn't. She let me do it anyway. From the back was what she called doggy style. This time I think she had her own … explosion.”

“God,” Genet said, groaning and sliding down in her chair, her face suffused with blood. “What's the matter with you, Marion? Where are you going?”

I had risen from my chair. The scent coming from Genet was overpowering, the air shimmering pink with it.

“What's the matter with me?” I was not as annoyed as I acted. “How am I supposed to study here, tell me? I can't believe you asked me that.”

The matter with me was that I was terribly aroused, hearing Shiva's story, and now seeing the sultry look in Genet's eyes, her body in touching distance, smelling her in heat, and knowing she was willing. If I didn't leave, I was going to have my own explosion in my pants. I had to leave. I shoved my biology notes into my jacket.

I found Rosina standing too close to the kitchen door and now pretending some special interest in the stove. Even if she wasn't eavesdropping or lacked any sense of smell, she surely saw the pink cloud wafting out of the dining room. She avoided my eyes. Mother and daughter couldn't seem to escape each other, with Genet determined to act outrageously, and Rosina just as determined to respond, and it was difficult to say who initiated their battles. Rosina was my ally in one sense, because she kept Genet safe for me. But it annoyed me to see her hovering in this way.

“I'm going to the souk,” I said gruffly.

“But you just sat down to study, Marion.”

I glared at her, daring her to stop me.

I TOOK MY TIME walking down to the front gate. I bought a Coke but then gave it to Gebrew. I sat in his sentry hut. I didn't want to go home until my mind and my body were back to baseline. Gebrew's long story about a troublesome nephew helped the cause.