Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  Samadhi had not come easily to him but he’d persevered for what seemed an eternity, though time no longer seemed to have a meaning, leaving his body and connecting with that part of himself which was the purest.

  And that was when he realised what he’d have to do.

  ‘Let me know if you need more money,’ Madhav had insisted. ‘Make sure Ms Mendis gets the helps she needs.’

  ‘Weren’t you raising money for the Saraswati deity’s saree?’ Aravinda had asked at the doorstep as Madhav handed the cheque to his aunt Renuka. ‘Won’t the temple trustees be furious with you?’

  ‘No, they won’t. The two chief pundits and I spoke to them this morning. We told them about the importance of charity as a Navaratri tradition,’ Madhav said. It hadn’t really been so easy to convince the trustees, but the other pundits had agreed with him. Charity was more important than sarees.

  Since no one was joining Madhav in chanting, he strode forth and slowly sat cross-legged in front of the deity on the float. He closed his eyes and prayed to the gods who’d deserted him, hoping they would finally come to his aid.

  ‘Yaa Kundendu tushaara haara-dhavalaa, Yaa shubhra-vastra’avritaa

  Yaa veena-vara-danda-manditakara, Yaa shweta padma’asana

  Yaa brahma’achyuta shankara prabhritibhir Devai-sadaa Vanditaa

  Saa Maam Paatu Saraswati Bhagavatee Nihshesha jaadya’apahaa.

  Shuklaam Brahmavichaara Saara paramaam Aadhyaam Jagadvyapinim.’

  ‘She, who is as fair as the Kunda flower, white as the moon, and a garland of Tushar flowers; and who is covered in white clothes;

  She, whose hands are adorned by the excellent veena, and whose seat is the pure white lotus;

  She, who is praised by Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh;

  O Mother Goddess, remove my mental inertia!’

  No one joined him after the first repetition of the prayer, but by the third or fourth time he repeated the mantra one or two people chanted along with him. Madhav felt the gods’ holy presence, and the people’s anger dissipated in the wind. Soon every one of the pilgrims joined in the chanting. Standing on that hillside in Ferntree Gully, thousands of people beseeched the great Saraswati for wisdom, peace and grace.

  ‘So what did he do with the money we raised for the saree?’ Brendan asked Kumar when he put the young boy in the car to drive him back to the hospital.

  Kumar smiled. ‘Don’t you worry about that! You just focus on getting your physiotherapy. Twice a day for the next three months and you’ll be walking before you know it!’

  The Finishing

  Melbourne, Australia, 2010

  Not many people could see the difference between Eggshell beige and Portobello beige. In fact, the director of medicine and the director of nursing had had an all out fight in front of the interior designers who were managing the refurbishment at St Jude’s about it.

  ‘There is no difference! I do not know what you are talking about. It just looks like yellow to me!’ the director of medicine had spat.

  ‘We have dying patients on this ward! I would much rather that our patients die in a warm environment rather than in a cold colour!’ the director of nursing had returned fire.

  The interior designer had just looked at me in desperation. She was tired of the incessant arguing and the politics behind something as simple as a colour choice.

  ‘Why don’t we go for Ecru beige?’ I’d suggested coming forward. ‘It sits in between those colours and straddles both.

  The directors had agreed with me for the simple reason it allowed them to agree on something that had not been suggested by either one of them personally. Egos saved and reputations untarnished. Not many in the medical profession would actually know even if I did, that Ecru beige was exactly the same shade of beige the walls were currently painted in. People only need to think that they’ve had some input to a change to feel that they’ve had some influence.

  Besides, it suited me to maintain the the colour scheme. It worked well for me for another reason; I’d spent the last five years stacking the clothes in my wardrobe exactly with that shade of beige. Pants, shirts and jackets – all in varying tones of off white and bone. On any given day, I could easily blend into a wall or curtain at the hospital without being noticed at all.

  Perhaps that was why the consultant cardiologist brushed so hard against me as he went past. He didn’t realise I was there against the back drop of the freshly painted wall. Only his bump sent the pen I was holding to sign off on the report flying across the page. His arrival on the ward had the same effect as opening the arctic-cold morgue downstairs, a pool of spreading icy silence like an invisible force field around him. I actually saw the duty nurse shiver as she stood up primly and dutifully followed him through into the ward. Even she didn’t realise I was there, because no one bar me saw the stabbing motion she made to his back as she followed him though.

  I hit print on the report and sat down to sign it again when Kristen the graduate nurse tried to perch her petite derrière on the chair I was already sitting on. Again I smudged my signature on the report. ‘Oh, sorry Mare, I didn’t see you!’ she chirruped brightly before turning to one of her colleagues and continuing. ‘They are just adorable aren’t they? Why do these things happen to people like them? Good people, you know? I just don’t get it.’

  ‘They are really lovely people. And she is so beautiful.’

  ‘They don’t seem old either. I bet she is no more than forty-five if she was a day, but it’s hard to guess his age though. I must check her charts!’ Kristen continued.

  The ebb and flow of the conversation continued around me as if I didn’t exist as specialist after specialist, physician after physician walked into the ward and out again all morning.

  ‘Oops . . . sorry . . . Did I make you do that?’ the young intern apologised as he bumped into me and made my pen fly across the report I was signing for the third time that morning. I generally don’t mind my invisibility; actually I quite enjoy it, except for instances like this when I have to redo whatever I was doing. Signing a cause of death report is never a trivial matter.

  ‘It’s quite okay, Luke, no harm done,’ I said with resignation as I hit print on the report again.

  ‘I don’t know how I didn’t notice you sitting there,’ he said. ‘It’s not like you’re small or anything, Dr Gamage . . . Marion . . .’ he stuttered as I unfolded my six foot frame out of the rickety office chair to get the fresh report from the printer. ‘I mean how could anyone not notice you . . . I mean . . . Sorry . . .’

  ‘It’s quite okay, Luke,’ I repeated looking down at the five-foot-five young man. He had a bright crop of red hair, cerulean blue eyes and a tubby paunch from having spent the last five years tied to a desk studying. There could be no greater contrast to my lean frame and dark colouring.

  He stomped off abruptly though when a few nurses strolled in, tossing his head arrogantly and muttering something under his breath. Apparently there had been a spat between young Luke and Kristen last week and the dust hadn’t quite settled yet. Not that the nurses noticed his rude leave taking. They were too busy gossiping about the latest arrivals on the ward. Rumours were running wild about the newest addition to the palliative care ward, a couple from India who’d sought last-ditch care in Australia.

  ‘Wonder how long they’ve been married.’

  ‘This is such a tragedy. Old people dying is fine; but she is so beautiful. I wonder if she was a Bollywood star. She certainly looks beautiful enough . . .’

  I wanted to point out that death didn’t differentiate between the ugly and the attractive. It was the one certainly that awaited all of us; the rich, the poor, the famous and infamous alike. But I held my tongue and listened absently as I finally signed off on the death report. The family hadn’t requested any follow up. They just wanted to bury their twenty-year old son who’d died of testicular cancer.

  I put the report in an envelope and slid it into the out tray, then stood up to go on my
rounds. I’d been on Christmas holidays up in Cairns for three weeks and I didn’t know any of the newcomers.

  ‘How was your break, Mare?’ Kristen asked as she faithfully trailed me out of the nurse’s station into the ward. ‘Was Paris all it was cracked up to be?’

  ‘I went to Palm Cove, not Paris,’ I replied wryly. ‘How are you Mrs Goldenblatt?’ I asked the octogenarian sufferer of liver failure cheerily. If spirit and strength of will were the only requisites for organ donation, Mrs Goldenblatt should have received one two years ago; but the lady was kind as she was determined. ‘Leave the organs for young ones – not old foggies like me,’ she’d insisted.

  ‘Well enough to go to a disco!’ she joked back.

  Palliative care is the death stop. None of my patients have any hope of recovery. It was my job to make sure the end was as painless and as peaceful as I can make it. I am under no illusion that the end is easy. I’ve seen people fight the end; gasping and hawing for their last breath as if . . . well . . . as it were their last breath.

  ‘Everything’s looking good, Mrs Goldenblatt,’ I assured the lady checking over her vitals which were those to be expected of a person dying slowly. ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’

  ‘Nothing m’dear . . . nothing,’ the lady replied lying back. Even the brief examination had tired her out. The end wouldn’t be long, though these things are hard to gauge. I’ve seen people who’d I’d been sure would pass in hours hang on for weeks. And people who’d be spry pass in minutes.

  There are fifteen patients currently in situ on the ward and the Nairs, the couple from India, were the fifth in order of room number for me to visit.

  ‘Good morning, I am Marion Gamage and I am the doctor on duty this morning,’ I said, briskly walking in. Mrs Nair was lying in bed, looking out the window.

  ‘It would be a good morning if I could get up and go for a walk in the sunshine,’ Mrs Nair replied.

  ‘Let’s see if we can organise for one of the nurses to take you out,’ I said, looking over her charts.

  ‘Oh, Mr Nair will take Mrs Nair out,’ Kristen the nurse interjected.

  ‘Your husband will be visiting today?’

  ‘He doesn’t just visit,’ Kristen said with a smile. ‘He’s staying with her. I doubt I’ve met a more loving husband in all my life.’

  I took a quick look around. The exclusive private hospital room was standard issue, but it somehow had a homely feel about it. The odd saree print cushion here and a bright bunch of gerberas sitting on the windowsill over there. It was as if the Nairs had taken it on as their own home and added touches to define it as theirs.

  I smiled and helped Kristen sit Mrs Nair up so that I could check her breathing. Yes, the woman was in the last stages of terminal myeloma, but chest infections in a hospital environment had a nasty habit of hurrying up the end.

  ‘You are kind,’ Mrs Nair remarked as I warmed the chest piece of my stethoscope in the palm of my hand. I was listening carefully for any fluid in the lower parts of the lungs when I noticed the yellowish tinge to Mrs Nair’s fingernails.

  ‘We should check on your liver function, Mrs Nair.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about my yellow fingernails,’ she laughed hoarsely. ‘It’s just turmeric from years of eating curry with my fingers!’

  ‘I thought as much, but I should still check.’

  ‘Are you Indian?’ Mrs Nair asked eagerly.

  ‘No, Sri Lankan,’ I confessed.

  ‘My husband is Sri Lankan, too. He’s lived in India now for nearly thirty years now, but he still loves paripu.’ Mrs Nair sighed wistfully. ‘I had the cooks learn how to cook it especially for him. Even I learned how to cook it!’

  ‘And it’s the only thing you can cook,’ a gentleman teased, coming out the bathroom from the adjoining door.

  As I turned to smile in greeting, I was thankful for the years of my medical training. For that and that alone stopped my smile from faltering. Mr Nair was horribly disfigured. Scars covered most of his face and neck. I could hardly see his right eye for the scar tissue that covered it. I quickly looked at his arms peeping from his long shirtsleeves and they too were covered with scars. From his strained gait, I assumed that the scarring extended down his back and legs.

  ‘Raju, she’s Sri Lankan,’ Mrs Nair told her husband.

  ‘Oh, I came here as a baby. I don’t even speak Sinhalese,’ I said.

  ‘You’re Sinhala, then?’ Mr Nair asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I confirmed before moving back to Mrs Nair. The bright summer Melbourne sun filtering through the east-facing window must have caught Mr Nair straight in the eye because I heard a sudden hiss of breath from him. ‘Sorry,’ I apologised. ‘Kristen, could you bring the blind down somewhat? I think Melbourne is the worst for sun in the eye of all the Australian cities – it’s like you are being blinded with clarity!’

  ‘It’s not the sun, child. Where in Sri Lanka are you from?’ he demanded. There was a strange urgency to his question that made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.

  ‘I was born in Badulla, but my family is from Colombo.’

  ‘Where in Colombo?’

  ‘I can’t rightly say. I’ve never been back,’ I said evasively. Doctors were trained not to reveal too much of their lives or to get involved with their patients. ‘Someone will come and take your bloods shortly and I will be around this afternoon to check on you again, Mrs Nair.’

  Mr Nair limped to the door with Kristen and I. ‘How is she doing? How long do you think she has?’ he asked in a soft voice.

  ‘I wish I could give you a definite answer, but I can’t. Your wife is too unwell for you to take her back to India, but if you have family who could come and visit, then I suggest they do so in the next few weeks. She may have only weeks or a month at the most.’

  Raju Nair sighed deeply. ‘Yes, perhaps it is time I sent for our son.’

  It didn’t take me long to understand why all the nurses were absolutely enamoured with the Nairs. They were a charming couple. Absolutely divine.

  She, Shanthi Nair, was sweet as sweet could be – never demanding, never complaining. Kristen, the nurse, had once walked into their room to find the couple rugged up with all the spare blankets and woollen caps from the cupboard despite the balmy weather outside.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the air conditioning was on the blink again?’ she had asked seeing them huddle together for warmth.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t want to bother you,’ Mr Nair had insisted.

  ‘I have never really experienced a winter. I’ve lived all my life in Tamil Nadu, where it is warm all year round. I may never really experience the cold again,’ Mrs Nair had giggled. ‘Oh, how I wish I could see snow.’

  When Mrs Nair had indicated she’d like to see a zoo for the last time, Mr Nair had paid for two nurses to travel with them to Parkville. Not only that, he’d also paid for an extravagant banquet meal at the Langham Hotel for the nurses though neither he nor his wife could join them. He ate whatever she ate, which was bland hospital food. ‘I don’t even want her to think of all the spicy food she so craves. What if she smelt it on me?’ he said.

  She was just as devoted to him. ‘He needs to rest. Please? Can we have a larger bed?’ Mrs Nair had begged and begged until the hospital administration had relented and procured a queen-sized bed for them to share. ‘We have not slept apart in thirty years!’

  And both protected and coddled the other to a ridiculous degree.

  ‘He doesn’t like watching TV, so don’t worry about bringing around the DVDs,’ she explained to the volunteer who brought the library cart.

  ‘She hates stupid storylines, so I don’t watch TV. Why aggravate her? She is a sick woman.’

  ‘He adores gingernut biscuits. Could you please bring extra when you have them?’

  ‘I am neither here nor there on gingernut biscuits. But they helped her when she was having chemotherapy, so I pretend I like them so she’ll have some to
keep me company,’ Mr Nair explained.

  It made the nurses laugh. ‘They are so sweet to each other. So rare to see these days,’ the director of nursing said one morning at the staff meeting.

  ‘So when is their son arriving?’ Kristen had asked. ‘If he looks anything like his mother, he’ll be hot!’

  ‘I don’t know that he’ll be coming soon,’ I told her.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t know his mother is sick.’

  Raju Nair had sought me out in my little office to explain. ‘Our son Lucky has been living in the UK for some time now – he runs the European arm of our business,’ he’d said.

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘All kinds of textiles now, but we started with sarees. We do everything from coarse woven cotton to fine silk sarees.’

  ‘Sarees? I love sarees. Don’t know how to wear one, of course, but I love looking at them.’

  ‘Bring one in one day and I can show you. I used to be quite a dab hand at draping them,’ Mr Nair had laughed.

  ‘You were saying about your son?’ I’d reminded him, embarrassed at the thought of being dressed by a complete stranger.

  ‘Yes, well, when we got Shanthi’s diagnosis, the oncologists in India assured us that with treatment she would have between three and seven years. So we didn’t want to worry him. We didn’t expect things to progress so quickly. Lucky will be devastated now.’

  ‘I understand Mrs Nair was only diagnosed six weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes. She’d been feeling under the weather for quite some time, though. We were in Europe visiting Lucky over the summer. She was so busy fussing with him and fussing with me that we hardly noticed she was not as active as she used to be.’