Robin Cook - Foreign Body

“Here!” Veena said, out of breath. They had been running for more than an hour. “We’ll be safe here.” Without hesitation she entered, walking among the simple shelters and into the depths of the colony. It was quiet except for an occasional baby’s cry. But the cry never lasted long. After walking away from the road a hundred or so feet, they met a woman returning from an almost-dry stream bed, which was used as the toilet, judging from the smell. Veena spoke to her in Hindi and the woman pointed. After a few more questions, Veena thanked the woman.

“We’re in luck,” Veena said after the woman moved on. “One of these structures is vacant. The problem is that it is close to the latrine. But we’ll be safe.”

“Let’s move in,” Jennifer said. “I don’t think I can run anymore.”

Five minutes later they found themselves sitting in a lean-to made with a length of cord strung between two trees and hung with a bolt of brightly printed Indian cloth whose ends were held down by heavy stones. Inside, the floor was a jigsaw puzzle of carpet scraps. Veena was leaning up against one tree, Jennifer against the other. Although the smell was rank from the proximity to the polluted streambed, the women felt safe, certainly safer than trying to hail a truck or other vehicle on the open road.

“Sitting down has never felt so good,” Jennifer said. They could barely see each other in the half-light of the moon. “I see you are still carrying the clothes.”

Veena held up the pillowcase as if she were surprised to see it. She tossed it over to Jennifer. Jennifer reached in and pulled out the shirt and pants. She felt the fabric. “Are these jeans?”

“They are,” Veena admitted. “I got them in Santa Monica.”

“So you lived in Santa Monica?” Jennifer commented. She eased herself out of the lean-to. Taking off the bathrobe and the sneakers so that she was completely naked, she pulled on the jeans, then the shirt.

Balling up the bathrobe to use to lean against, Jennifer climbed back into the makeshift shelter. She’d glanced briefly at Veena, who was motionless with her eyes closed. After Jennifer had gotten herself as comfortable as she was going to be, she again glanced at Veena. She did a double take. Veena’s eyes were wide open and sparkling like diamonds.

“I thought for a minute you were asleep,” Jennifer said.

“I need to talk,” Veena said.

“Whatever you want,” Jennifer responded. “I’m seriously indebted to you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for rescuing me. But your rescuing me begs the question: What on earth were you doing with those people?”

“It’s a long story,” Veena said. “I am happy to tell you, but first I need to tell you something about myself and my family so that what I will tell you subsequently might make some sense.”

“You have my full attention.”

“What I’m going to tell you will bring great shame to my family, but it is no longer a secret. My father abused me throughout my childhood and I did nothing to stop it.”

Jennifer recoiled as if Veena had slapped her.

“You may wonder why. The problem is I live in two different worlds, but mostly in the old. In the old India, I am duty-bound to respect my father and obey him no matter what. My life is not for myself. It is for my family, and I’m not to talk about things that would bring shame, like revealing his bad behavior. My father also told me if I did not obey, he would turn to one of my sisters.” Veena then went on to tell the whole story about shady Nurses International and the promise to move to America. She told about stealing the patient data and how it turned out to be too good.

“It was at that point that Cal Morgan decided to change what we nurses were doing,” Veena explained. “And he told me that he could make sure my father behaved himself with me, my sisters, and my mother forever and bring me to America for a new life if I would do something special for him.”

Veena paused and stared at Jennifer. The pause’s duration stretched out as Veena tried to find the courage to continue.

“What did Cal Morgan want you to do for him in return for freeing you from the clutches of your father?” Jennifer asked. She was becoming incensed as the minutes ticked by. She was beginning to fear what she was about to learn.

“He wanted me to kill Maria Hernandez. I killed your grandmother.”

Jennifer recoiled for the second time, although this time it was a lightning bolt of pure anger. For a nanosecond she wanted to leap to her feet and strangle the woman in front of her. She’d been correct about her granny’s death, and here was the perpetrator within arm’s reach. But then somewhat cooler thoughts flooded into her consciousness. Here was a young woman caught in perhaps the worst psychological trap that Jennifer could imagine, especially from having experienced it to a degree herself, but with no chance of freedom.

Jennifer took a series of deep breaths to get herself under even more control. “Why did you save me tonight? Guilt?”

“To some degree,” Veena admitted. “I regretted what I did to your grandmother. I even tried to commit suicide, but Cal Morgan saved me.”

“A real attempt, or a gesture?” Jennifer asked with little sympathy and some skepticism.

“Very real,” Veena said. “But since I was saved, I thought the gods were satisfied. But I felt badly and continued to feel badly and tried to get them to stop. Then, when I was confronted with you and realized they were probably going to get rid of you, it was too much. These people have no morality. They don’t kill people themselves but think nothing of having others do it for them. All they think about is achieving their success.”

“Since you have told me your secret, I’m going to tell you mine,” Jennifer said suddenly. “I, too, was abused by my father. It started at age six. I found it very confusing.”

“I was the same,” Veena said. “It’s always made me feel guilty. Sometimes I used to think I’d brought it on myself.”

“Me too,” Jennifer agreed. “But then around the time I was nine I suddenly knew it was all wrong, and I cut my father out of my life. I guess I was lucky. I didn’t have any cultural pressures telling me I had to respect him no matter what. Of course, I didn’t have any sisters to worry about, either. I can’t imagine your situation. It must have been awful. Worse than awful. I cannot even conceive of it.”

“It was terrible,” Veena agreed. “And as a teenager I tried suicide, but it was definitely more a gesture then. I was trying to get attention, but it didn’t work.”

“You poor thing,” Jennifer said sincerely. “I used to feel sorry for myself because I thought my father had ruined me and no one would want me, but I never even thought about suicide.”

A bit more than an hour later it began to get light in the eastern sky, but Jennifer and Veena were unaware until the sun actually rose. All of a sudden they realized they could clearly see each other. They had been talking nonstop for two hours.

Emerging from the lean-to, they looked at each other’s faces and, despite the continued threat from Cal et al., they laughed. They were both a mess, with their hair in tangles and actual dirt smeared on their faces, as though they were commandos. “You look like you’ve been through a battle,” Jennifer commented, especially since Veena’s garments were as dirty as her face. Jennifer reached back into the lean-to and pulled out the bathrobe. When she shook it out, it looked every bit as bad as Veena’s clothing.

As they walked back through the colony, other people were just emerging from the rickety, impermanent shelters. There were mothers with infants, fathers with toddlers, children, and old people.