Till the Last Breath . . .

by Durjoy Datta

  Pihu felt bad for her dad. Not a single teardrop had escaped his eyes. He knew it would make his wife feel worse. But Pihu had noticed every time her father tried to look away from her. He did his best not to make any eye contact with her, to stem the barrage of overwhelming feelings he had held back behind those stoic eyes. At times, she would think that it would’ve been better if she had just died the first time around. She hated the false hope the experimental drugs had momentarily generated.

  ‘Dad’s not talking to me,’ Pihu said as her mother laid down lunch. ‘I am not going to be here for long, I think he should.’ Her mom’s mouth went dry and the colour drained from her face. Seeing that, Pihu apologized, ‘I am sorry. I won’t say that.’

  Sometimes, she felt suffocated. She wanted to crib and cry and shout at how unfair it was. But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t just she who was suffering. Her suffering would end with her last breath while her parents’ would just start.

  ‘I have cooked everything you like,’ her mom said.

  ‘I can see that.’ She giggled and loaded her plate till it almost tipped over. She didn’t know if she would be able to eat solid food again. They smiled at each other.

  ‘Your dad was saying that the doctor might try some new treatment on you? Do you think the new treatment will help? Has anyone been cured? How many patients have shown signs of relapse?’ her mom asked as she ate.

  ‘A few. The next stage has not been tried on anyone else. They might start with a few patients next week.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Her mom’s eyebrows knitted. Even though her daughter was to be a doctor a few years from now, she never believed a word other doctors said. She always viewed them with piercing suspicion.

  ‘We can hope for the best,’ Pihu assured her.

  Her mom stayed quiet for a while. ‘I don’t know why God did this to us. We have never cheated anybody. You have been such a good girl. I pray every day. Then why us? Why my little daughter?’ she said and patted Pihu’s head as she ate. Pihu tried hard not to cry. Seeing her mom’s tears made her maddeningly sad. But she had asked these questions a million times and had never got around to finding an answer. It was time to stop asking.

  ‘Maa, I don’t want you to cry. If you cry, I will too,’ she said.

  ‘But I had so many dreams for you. Your wedding, your kids, my grandchildren. What had we ever done to deserve this?’ her mom wailed and rushed to the other room.

  Pihu knew she would not come out of her room before she cursed God countless times for their pain. But she would still pray, and light diyas and incense sticks. She felt sorry for her mother. Though she wanted to hug her and assure her, she wanted her mom to prepare for the worst. She concentrated on the food instead. A little later, the bell rang and her father brought in twenty more boxes of their stuff, which were unloaded in her room. Her father paid the driver and he left.

  ‘Mom’s crying again,’ she said as her dad joined her at the table.

  ‘What else can she do?’ he asked.

  Pihu served him. He had not been eating a lot those days. She dumped a lot of rice and pulses on his plate. His attempts to stop her fell on deaf ears.

  ‘Eat. You need it,’ she commanded. ‘You’re under a lot of stress.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I am okay.’

  ‘Are you sure, beta?’

  ‘I will be fine. Plus, I have the best parents in the world to help me deal with this.’ She put her hands around her father’s neck and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Her father didn’t say anything. After they finished the food, they washed the dishes together—something that they had always done together.

  ‘Did you like the room you saw?’

  ‘Yes, I did. There is another patient in there. He is young, so it’s better. At least not like the other rooms where there were only old people,’ she laughed.

  ‘Is it a boy?’

  ‘Not really a boy. Five–six years older than me. Are you scared I might have an affair with him?’ she chuckled.

  ‘I wish you could. And then I could take away your cell phone and scold you,’ he said wistfully.

  ‘Aw. You’re the best dad ever,’ she purred and clutched his hand.

  He put his arm around his daughter and his eyes filled with tears. Pihu knew how difficult it must be for him. No matter how hard he tried, she could always see it. At least things were a little better now. She had got a second chance to live. Though she didn’t know how long it would last, she still wanted to thank the doctor who had made it all possible.

  The taxi pulled over at GKL Hospital. The three boxes were in the trunk of the car. Sealed. Pihu got off the car without any help. She was feeling a little better. The hospital was made of red-brick stone and was preposterously huge. One of the hospitals she could have worked in, had she graduated. She was yet to meet her doctor, Arman Kashyap, and was dying to meet him. She stifled a giggle at her choice of words. He was the man with all the answers. And he was good-looking too!

  They walked to the reception and filled up the elaborate patient-admission and insurance forms. They were asked to wait so that the room could be prepared for her. Pihu was asked to accompany one of the nurses into a changing room.

  Unlike others, Pihu loved the stale, nauseating formaldehyde smell that hung around in a hospital. It smelled like a dream to her. A broken dream now. The nurse handed over a robe and pulled the curtain so that she could change. Tying the knots of her robe was a little difficult as her fingers failed her. The nurse asked if she needed any help and Pihu called her in. She felt naked and embarrassed as the nurse tied the knots behind her back. But she had been through much worse. Before she took the experimental drugs, she was used to a nurse bathing her and seeing her naked every day.

  ‘I am going to die,’ she said to the nurse and smiled.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ the nurse replied.

  ‘No, I just said that because you might be the only one who will see me naked before I die. That is, apart from the other nurses who have seen me naked before. Why don’t we have hot guys as nurses? I mean, I wouldn’t mind that. Even you wouldn’t, would you?’

  The nurse laughed and Pihu laughed with her. ‘Shall we go?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘Only if the knots are tight enough.’

  ‘They are,’ she said. ‘Which ward do I need to take you to?’ She picked up her chart and read out the room number. ‘509 … Oh, seems like you have another patient with you in that room.’

  ‘I know. I’ve met the guy,’ she said and grabbed her crutches.

  She stopped by a few mirrors to look at herself. And prayed that her robe wouldn’t fall off. Even with the flimsy robe on, she felt as good as naked, as if everyone could see through it. The nurse offered her a wheelchair, but she refused. She staggered on to her crutches and walked to the elevator, which took her to the third floor. She didn’t know how long it would be before she lost the strength to walk again. She walked towards room no. 509.

  Hepatic encephalopathy. She read out the words written on the chart of the guy who was to be her room-mate in her last, dying days. It’s curable, she thought. In most cases.

  ‘There.’ The nurse gestured. ‘I will set you up and call your parents?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She saw the guy again.

  Dushyant Roy.

  He was sleeping. She thought he looked gorgeous with his unruly hair, four-day stubble and carefree arrogance. He drinks. He smokes. Probably does drugs too. Hmm. Probably owns a bike and drives it really fast. Within minutes she had imagined him as a bad boy straight out of old English movies. Or more like Ajay Devgn, with his legs in a 180-degree split on two Yamahas, from the cult Hindi action movie Phool aur Kaante!

  In the eighteen years before her disease was diagnosed, she had never looked at boys like a girl usually does. They were always classmates, not potential boyfriends. Over the last few months, she had grown fat on a healthy diet of her mother’s old Mills & Boons, the Fifty Shades and the S
ylvia Day trilogies, and felt an insuppressible urge to be amongst the opposite gender. To feel what it was like to be attracted to a guy, to feel the little goosebumps when a guy touches you, to be in the naked company of a man. To …

  ‘There,’ the nurse said as she tucked Pihu in. Pihu thanked the nurse, who asked her to push the button if she needed anything and left.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ Pihu mumbled to herself. She fiddled with the controls of the bed. Up. Down. Stop. Up. Down. Stop. Up. Down. Up. Down. Stop. She giggled.

  ‘Can you stop?’ the voice from the other side of the curtain said. It was hoarse and demanded attention.

  ‘Oh.’

  Dushyant. She drew the curtain to the side and met his piercing gaze.

  ‘I am trying to sleep here,’ he grumbled.

  ‘You’re not trying to sleep. It’s a symptom of the disease you have. You will feel sleepy for the next month or two,’ she explained, her playful enthusiasm anachronous with the news she delivered.

  ‘Whatever. Will you just stop making that noise? It’s annoying.’

  ‘Hi, I am Pihu!’ She thrust her hand out.

  ‘Umm … I don’t need to know your name. I am leaving in a day or two,’ he said, ‘and your voice is more annoying than the noise you were making earlier. Let’s not make it any more difficult than it already is.’

  ‘Fine. By the way, you’re not leaving in a day or two. Your liver is shot. Your treatment is going to be long. So it’s better if we became friends.’ She forced a smile on her face.

  ‘I don’t want to be friends with a kid. And mind your own business,’ he growled. He paused. Pihu waited for him to realize that they had met earlier. His eyes widened. ‘Aren’t you the—’

  ‘Pihu.’

  She stretched her hand out again for him to shake. Reluctantly, he shook it. Just then, her parents walked in with a few bags in their hands. Pihu felt Dushyant jerk his hand back and saw him bury his face in his pillow.

  Such beautiful eyes, Pihu thought to herself. Snap out of it! You pervert! Lately, the urge to be with a guy had peaked. She didn’t want to die un-kissed. Being a good girl for nineteen years hadn’t yielded anything, maybe being bad would.

  ‘Are you comfortable?’ her mom asked. ‘Is the air conditioning okay? Are you cold?’

  ‘I am fine, Maa.’

  She clutched her mom’s weathered hands. Her mother sat next to her, patted her forehead and mumbled some terms of endearment she used to call her when she was a kid. Her father opened the bags, arranged the bottles, the books and a couple of framed photographs from the thirty-six-photos-a-reel days.

  ‘I wish I had a brother. I always missed a sibling,’ she said as her eyes fell on the picture in the photo frame. It was from the time they had gone on a ten-day vacation to Dwarka-Puri to celebrate her tenth board examination results. She would never forget those ten days of scrumptious food, parental pampering, sandy beaches and long walks.

  ‘Our world was complete when you were born,’ her mom said. ‘Plus, it’s such a problem raising young boys. Girls are like little angels.’ She ran her hand through Pihu’s hair. Pihu didn’t know if she had ever felt better.

  ‘Do you need to sleep?’ her father asked.

  ‘I think I will read for a bit,’ Pihu answered. She could sense Dushyant writhing uncomfortably in his bed. Was he in pain?

  ‘Which one?’ her dad asked.

  She pointed out to the book Pathology of the Liver by R.N.M. Macsween. Her dad handed over the book, which was thickly bound and cruelly heavy, and she opened the book from where she had stuck small yellow and red Post-its.

  ‘I will be outside if you need anything,’ her dad said.

  She nodded. Her mother took the couch and scrunched up to fit in. The room suddenly felt silent. The medical instrument beeped. Beep. Beep. The drips dripped. Drip. Drip. She rustled through the yellowed pages. There were diagrams and pictures. Her eyes widened. It was fascinating as well as disgusting. Dushyant was snoring now.

  Pihu read through the night. Near morning, she fell asleep.

  8

  Dushyant Roy

  It was a painful morning for Dushyant. The sedatives wore off and the pain escalated. He had rung the bell twice but he hadn’t been attended to. He clutched his stomach, rolled in his bed from side to side and whined. Had Pihu and her parents not been nearby, he would have screamed his lungs out. His guts were on fire.

  ‘Can you call someone?’ he heard Pihu say to her father. Her father promptly left and came back with a nurse.

  A transparent liquid was injected into his bloodstream and he felt immediate relief, followed by a spinning, whirling sensation in his head. As if he had just got off a merry-go-round. The nurse left just when he was about to ask her for more. His hand was stretched out, wanting more of the liquid that had just got him high as a kite. Slowly, his eyes closed and the boundaries between truth and fantasy began to blur. He heard the woman—Pihu’s mother—say to Pihu, ‘He used to drink and smoke. The nurse told me. He needs a liver transplant, but he has no donors. I don’t know why you chose this room. He will give you some infection.’

  ‘Maa, his disease is not contagious and it is too late for him to give me a drinking habit.’

  Her mom gave her an icy stare. ‘Whatever it is. I wonder where his parents are. Since the time we have come, no one has come to meet him.’

  ‘Why are you so worried?’

  ‘I just feel bad for his parents. Such a young boy with such bad habits. Disgraceful!’

  ‘It’s okay, Maa.’

  ‘What okay? My daughter is such a nice girl and she has to … and he will live. It’s so unfair,’ he heard the exasperated mother say. Would his death make it any better for the woman?

  ‘Maa, can you keep your volume down?’ Pihu begged. ‘He can hear us.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ her mother said angrily.

  He tried not to move and concentrate on what they said about him. Getting fucked up has its own advantages. It’s as if people assume you are deaf when you’re not. But they had shut up. Soon, he was in wonderland. Darkness. Clouds. Flying. Kajal.

  The ground beneath him shook, then his bed and then he. He woke up with a start and saw a familiar face staring at him. It was the offensive doctor with a rod jammed up his behind.

  ‘Good morning. Though it’s almost noon,’ the doctor said. ‘I am Arman. I believe we have met before. You’re the one who almost drank himself to death. I’m the unfortunate one who has to save you so that you can do it again.’

  Dushyant felt embarrassed and angry. He could feel the girl’s and her parents’ eyes on him, judging him, cursing him. The cocky attitude of the doctor made it worse, and the dreadful pain in his stomach made him want to slap the doctor across the face.

  ‘Can we get on with this?’

  ‘Yes, we can. I heard you were whining with pain this morning? Did he cry?’ Arman asked. The nurse nodded in affirmation.

  ‘I wasn’t fucking crying!’ Dushyant protested.

  ‘Shut up and keep your voice down. This is a hospital, not your house. If you’re not crying, the pain is not much. And for future reference, please don’t cry. You’re a grown man, for heaven’s sake. No more sedatives for you. We will start you on a fresh batch of antibiotics. The first ones didn’t work like they should have,’ he said.

  ‘Are you even sure what’s wrong with me?’ he asked, trying to get back at the doctor.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am,’ he retorted. ‘You are stupid and throwing your life away. Now the fewer questions you have, the better for you.’

  Dushyant felt offended, but before he could say something, another doctor, a girl, entered, dressed in a doctor’s coat that fit her snugly around her tiny waist and well-endowed chest. Her heels looked a little out of place in a room where someone was dying, but they looked good on her well-built yet slender legs. Her naturally tanned skin shone and Dushyant’s pain died out for the few seconds that he spent looking at he
r, imagining her in various scenarios, with and without the heels and the overcoat.

  ‘This is Dr Zarah. She will take the tests and try to keep you alive if you decide to cooperate with her. Do you understand?’ he asked him condescendingly.

  He was stumped and didn’t know what to say. The girl standing behind Arman looked more amicable, even though her expression remained unchanged. Arman piled the girl with medical mumbo-jumbo before he moved over to the other side. He saw him pull the curtain and block the disgusted faces of Pihu’s parents out of view. Was he that repulsive?

  ‘Is he always like this?’ Dushyant asked Zarah as she tied a strap around his arm.

  ‘More or less. It’s been just a few weeks for me too. But he is a brilliant doctor and he will end up saving your life,’ she answered. He noticed the sharp nose and the light-brown eyes. The lipstick was immaculately done; the outline matched her bronzed skin perfectly.

  ‘My life? You guys already know what I have, don’t you?’ he asked, a little scared. He wanted a smoke, a beer and maybe a snort of a line of cocaine.

  ‘You had another seizure last night. The problem can be neurological too. We are still looking at it.’

  ‘What? Neurological? You mean something is wrong with my brain?’

  ‘We’re not sure. It might be a tumour or a clot somewhere. We need to do a full-body scan and an MRI.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Right now,’ she said and pressed the bell. Two ward boys came rushing to shift him from his bed to the other stretcher.

  ‘I can move.’ He got up and climbed on to the stretcher. The ward boys started to wheel him away from the room. Zarah walked by his side, her heels clicking against the sandstone beneath, her hips swaying alluringly with each step. Dushyant wondered how old Zarah was. He really needed an ecstasy pill. Or at least a joint.

  ‘How come they never came when I was pressing the bell all morning?’ he complained.