Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

  Now she grabbed me by my shoulders. She spun me around. Her hands were paddles, slapping my chest, my shoulders, turning me like a top. When I yelled for her to stop she added a few more turns.

  “Count to twenty. And don't peek.”

  I was still turning in that inner darkness, wondering why nausea had to be such a firm companion of vertigo. I crashed into something. A hard edge. The sofa. It caught me in the ribs, but it did keep me from falling. This wasn't fair, tying my hands, messing with my balance … She'd tricked me. If she wanted to disorient me, it had worked. “Cheater!” I yelled. “If you want to win so bad, just say you won, okay?”

  A sharp sound on the tin roof made me jump. An acorn? I waited, but it didn't rattle down the slope. A thief checking to see if anyone was home? With my hands bound, I was doubly helpless. I sneezed. I waited for the second sneeze—they always came in twos. But not tonight. I cursed the musty sack.

  “Screw your courage to the sticking place!” I shouted. I had no idea what that meant, but Ghosh said it a lot. It sounded vulgar and defiant, a good thing to repeat when you needed courage. My heart hammered in my chest. I needed courage.

  The scent I had to follow wasn't as distinct as it had been in the morning. Not being able to reach in front of me and being saddled with a sack on my head were huge handicaps. “I'll find you,” I yelled, “but then never again.”

  In the dining room, using my foot, I traced the sideboard, saying “Screw your courage to the sticking place” as my mantra. From there I went on down the corridor leading to the bedrooms.

  I knew the spots where the narrow floorboards squeaked. There were many nights I'd stood outside Ghosh and Hema's room, listening, particularly when they seemed to be arguing. With them what you thought was a squabble could be just the opposite. I once heard Hema speak of me as “His father's son. Stubborn to a fault,” and then she laughed. I was shocked. I didn't think of myself as stubborn, and I had no idea that I might be anything like the man I sometimes fantasized might come through the front gate. Hema never mentioned his name, and her tone of voice when she compared me to him suggested faint praise. Another night I overheard Hema say, “Where? Exactly where? Under what circumstance? Don't you think we could have looked at Sister's face, or his face, and known? How did we not know?They should have told us. Say something, Ghosh.” I didn't get it. Ghosh was strangely silent.

  Now, with the blindfold on, I could recall every word of theirs. Covering my eyes had opened up new channels in my memory, just as it had fired up my sense of smell. I felt I needed to ask Hema and Ghosh about this conversation. What were they talking about? But how could I? I couldn't tell them Id been eavesdropping.

  MY NOSE LED ME TO our bedroom. I turned in. I inched forward. I came to where the scent peaked. I was up against the dresser. Bending forward, my face touched flannel. Her pajamas. Shed piled them on top of my dresser. Like a tracker dog, I buried my nose in the cloth, shook my face in flannel and scattered the pajamas, sharpening my instrument.

  “Very clever,” I said. I knew Shiva was on his bed. He must have strapped on his big dancing anklet, because it sounded now, a noise that was his equivalent of a noncommittal grunt.

  I retraced my steps. The kitchen was supposed to be off-limits, but that is where the trail led. But here, the scents of ginger, onions, cardamom, and cloves were like curtains that I had to claw through.

  On an impulse, I knelt and put my nose to the tiles. What chance did bipedal man have, nose high up in the air, against a four-legged tracker whose nose was to the ground? Yes, there she was. The trail veered to the right.

  Inching to the pantry, I knew that this game, born out of monsoon tedium, was no longer that. No rules now. Nothing would be the same after this. I knew. I may have been just eleven, but my consciousness felt as ripe as it would ever be. My body might grow and age and I would soon have more knowledge and experience, but all that was me, all that was Marion, the part that saw and registered the world and chronicled it in an inner ledger for posterity, was well seated inside my body and never more so than at that moment, robbed of eyes and hands.

  I stood up as I entered the pantry. “I know you're there,” I said. The echo gave me a fix on that long narrow room; I knew just where she was and I went to her.

  Genet was in front of me. If my hands were free, I would ‘ve reached for her, tickled or pinched her. I heard a muffled sound. It could have been laughter, but I didn't think so. She was crying.

  I wanted to console her. The urge to do so grew. It was a feral instinct, much like the one that led me to her.

  I drew forward.

  She pushed me away, but halfheartedly. The push was a plea for me not to leave.

  I'd always assumed that Genet was content with her life. She ate at our table, went to school with us, and was part of the family. She didn't have a father, and we didn't have our real parents, and I assumed that, just like us, she felt lucky to have Hema and Ghosh. I saw us as equals, but in doing so, perhaps I glossed over the things she could not overlook. Our bedroom was bigger than her narrow and drafty one-room quarters. At night, if she wanted to visit the privy, Genet had to step out into the elements, passing the open shed where we stacked firewood. While Ghosh and Hema tucked us into bed, transported us to the magi cal world of Malgudi, then turned off the lights, Genet read to herself under the single naked bulb, trying to tune out the radio which Rosina played late into the night. There was one bed, and mother and daughter slept in it, but Genet would probably have relished her own bed. A charcoal brazier provided warmth. The smoke and incense that permeated her clothes embarrassed her. If we found her quarters cozy, she was ashamed of where she lived. In earlier years, we were as often in that room as we were in our house. But of late, though Rosina welcomed us, Genet didn't encourage us to come in.

  Blindfolded, I suddenly saw all this so clearly. I understood her fierce competitiveness in a way I'd never appreciated.

  One more step forward. I waited. The push or punch did not come. I inclined my head, used it as a probe to find her. Her ear and then her cheek brushed against mine. Wet. Her jerky breathing was hot against my neck. Slowly she settled her chin there.

  The feral self stood dutiful and protective. Watch and learn, it said to me. Defend and comfort. I felt heroic.

  My feet were close together. I had tilted forward to counter her weight. When she readjusted, I fell against her, sandwiching her against the pantry shelf. Our bodies were touching at the thighs, hips, and at the chest, our cheeks still together. I waited for her to push me back to the vertical, but she didn't.

  How well we knew each other's bodies from wrestling, from pulling each other up to the tree house, and from earlier years, wading in our splash pool together. In the big packing cases stuffed with straw in which glassware was shipped to Missing, we played house and doctor. We were never self-conscious about our anatomical differences. But now, blindfolded, her face invisible to me and mine obscured by cloth, it was all new and unknown. I wasn't the Invisible Man. I was the blind man who could see, who is forgiven his clumsiness by the other qualities the blindness brings out.

  Though my arms were pinned to my side, I could swivel my hands forward. I touched her hips. Her skin was cold. She didn't flinch. She needed my touch, my warmth. I pulled her to me.

  She trembled.

  She was naked.

  I don't know how many minutes I stood there. It was precisely the comfort she seemed to need this night. If only she had known to ask, or I to give, we could've done away with the blindfold … Thank God for the blindfold.

  She worked her hands into the gap between my arms and my trunk. She hugged me. It was an awkward, painful pose for me. Yet I didn't dare say a word for fear she'd let go.

  The rain murmured gently on the tin roof.

  After an eternity, she withdrew her arms. She took the rice bag off my face.

  She undid my restraint, freeing my hands, and I heard the belt buckle clatter to the floor. But she left
the blindfold on. If I'd wanted to, I could have taken it off.

  I missed her embrace. I wanted to feel it again, now that my arms were free. I reached for her. Naked, she felt smaller, more delicate.

  Something soft, fleshy touched my lips. I had never been kissed before. At the movies, Genet and I groaned and laughed when we saw the actors kiss. There was always one Italian movie in the triple feature, particularly at Cinema Adowa. It was either dubbed or had subtitles. It typically came before the short comic feature—the Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy—and it always had lots of kissing. Shiva studied those onscreen smooches with great seriousness, cocking his head. Genet and I didn't. Kissing was silly. Adults had no idea how stupid they looked.

  Our lips were dry. A big nothing, just as I thought. Perhaps the kissing had the same purpose as the embrace. To give and get comfort. I tilted my head to one side, movie style, wondering if the sensation would get any better. I caught her lower lip between my lips. This was a new discovery, that the mouth could be this delicate tactile instrument, particularly in the absence of sight. Her tongue touched my lips and I wanted to snap my head back. I thought of the twenty-five-cent, one-hour sucker on which the three of us took turns. Now, slowly, our two mouths shared the candy without the candy. Not really pleasurable. Not disgusting either.

  Genet's hands were on my face. They did that in the movies. I slid my right hand to her shoulders, then down her chest. I felt the hillocks on which her nipples sat, no different than mine. Her fingers slid down to touch my chest, where it should have been ticklish, but it was not. My hand swept over her belly, and then down farther, between her legs, running over a soft fissure, the absence, the empty space, more intriguing than what might have been present. Her hand, tentative like mine, slipped past my waistband, prospecting. When she held me, it felt so different than when I touched myself.

  THE DOOR FROM THE OUTSIDE to the kitchen opened.

  It had to be Rosina. Or perhaps it was Ghosh and Hema. The footsteps went on into the living room.

  I stepped back. I pulled off the blindfold, blinking in the dark pantry, an alien landing on earth.

  In the reflected light of the kitchen, Genet's eyes were moist, her face puffy and her lips swollen. She didn't want to meet my gaze. She preferred me blind. Her eyes were slanted, her nose rising to a quick point. Her forehead planed back, not at all like Rosina's rounded one. She looked like the bust of Queen Nefertiti in my Dawn of History book.

  My blindfold was off but I still possessed a hyperacuity of the senses. I could see the future. Genet's face in that pantry was the face that most revealed her. It carried intimations of the woman she would grow up to be. I could see how those eyes would stay serene, beautiful, concealing the kind of restlessness and recklessness so evident tonight. Her cheekbones would push out, expressing the sheer force of her will, making her nose even sharper, further elongating her lovely eyes. The lower lip would outgrow the upper, the buds on her chest turn into fruit, and her legs would grow like tall vines. In a land of beautiful people, she would be most beautiful and exotic. Men—I knew this before I should have known—would perceive her disdain and would want her. Iwould want her most of all. She'd put up obstacles. I might never be as strong for her or as close to her as I was this night. Despite this knowledge, I'd keep trying.

  I knew all this. I felt it, saw it. It entered my consciousness in a flash, but the proof was yet to come.

  Rosina called Genet's name from somewhere in the house.

  I picked up the belt. How we could both be so serene, I'll never know.

  I touched Genet on her shoulders, gently, carefully. The other moment of touch was long gone. Her eyes turned to me with what could be love or its opposite.

  “I will always find you,” I whispered.

  “Maybe,” she said, bringing her lips close to my ear. “But I might get better at hiding.”

  Rosina walked in and stopped, frozen at the sight of us.

  “What are you two doing?” she said, in Amharic. She smiled out of habit, but her brows conveyed her puzzlement. “I've been looking all over for you. Where are your clothes? What is this?”

  “A game,” I said waving the blindfold and belt as if it answered her questions, but my throat was so dry I don't think any noise came out.

  Genet brushed past me, heading back to the living room. Rosina grabbed her hand. “Where are your clothes, daughter?”

  “Let go my hand.”

  “But why are you naked?”

  Genet said nothing, her face defiant.

  Rosina jerked her by the arm. “Why did you take them off?”

  When Genet replied, her voice was cutting, spoiling for a fight. “Why do you take your clothes off for Zemui? When you send me out, is it not for you to get naked?”

  Rosina's mouth froze in the open position. When she could speak, she said, “He is your father. He's my husband.”

  Genet's face showed no surprise. She laughed, a cruel, mocking sound, as if she'd heard these words before. I cringed for my nanny as Genet spoke. “Your husband? My father? You lie. My father would stay the night. My father would have us live with him in a real house.” She was angry, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Your husband wouldn't have another wife and three children. Your husband wouldn't come home and send me out to play so he can play with you.” She pulled her arm free and went to get her clothes.

  ROSINA HAD FORGOTTEN I was there.

  Innocence, the carefree days, hung over a chasm. She finally turned to me.

  We studied each other as if we were looking at strangers. I'd gone into the pantry sightless. Now the blindfold was off. Zemui was Genet's father. Was I the only one not to know this? How stupid was I? Why had I never thought to ask? Did Shiva know? All the long hours the Colonel spent with us playing bridge … It made sense that Zemui was also around all that time. True, in a matrilineal society, one accepted these things and didn't ask about a father when none was present. But I should have asked. I saw it now. The signs were there. I was blind, and naïve and dumb. All the letters I had written for Zemui to Darwin inquiring about his family and conveying best wishes from his pal had given no clue that Genet was his child. All those written words, spoken words, were just the shimmering surface of a deep and swift river; to think of the nights I lay in bed, hearing that motorcycle, feeling sorry for Zemui trudging home in the rain, in the dark. Clearly, I wasn't the only one to feel compassion for him.

  Rosina knew me so well, she could read the progression of my every thought. I hung my head: I'd slipped in the esteem of my beloved nanny. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that now her head was down, too, as if she'd failed me, as if she had never wanted me to know this side of her. I wanted to say, About what you saw, it was a game …

  I said nothing.

  Genet returned, clothed in the flannel pajamas. She left without a backward glance, and Rosina followed.

  Shiva was in the dining room, just beyond the door to the kitchen.

  I stayed in the pantry after shutting the door, and I stood facing the shelves. A scent lingered, an ozone generated by me and Genet, by our two wills.

  I heard footsteps draw near and stop, and I knew that Shiva was on the other side of the door, just as he knew I was on this side. ShivaMar-ion couldn't hide much from Shiva or Marion. But I squeezed my eyes shut and turned invisible and carried myself to a place where I was completely alone and no one could share my thoughts.

  CHAPTER 21

  Knowing What You Will Hear

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, when Rosina ran her fingers through my curls, or insisted she iron my shirt before we went out, it was as if nothing had happened. But I saw these acts of hers differently They were familiar, but also designed to have a hand on me at all times, and thereby put her body between me and her daughter.

  Something had transpired that night in the pantry, just as Rosina feared. Id leaned on a hidden panel, and much like in the comics, Id plunged through. The falling was unintentional, but now that I wa
s on the other side I wanted to stay. I wanted to be around Genet more than ever, and Rosina knew it.

  I saw a new dimension to Rosina—call it cunning. The same cunning was in me as well, because I no longer felt safe telling her what I was thinking. But my feelings were tough to hide. When I was with Genet, I felt the blood rushing to my face. I had forgotten how to be.

  For the rest of the holidays, Genet gravitated to Shiva. His presence generated no awkwardness, while mine clearly did. I watched them put on their practice record, clear the dining room, strap on their anklets, and run through their complex routines in Bharatnatyam. I wasn't jealous. Shiva was my proxy, just as I had been his when Almaz had given me her breast. If I could not be with Genet, wasn't Shiva's being with her the next-best thing?

  Perhaps my bloodhound instinct, my ability to find Genet by scent, was no more than a party trick. But perhaps not. We never played blind man's buff again. The very idea was disquieting.

  I AVOIDED ZEMUI when he came to pick up or drop off his motorcycle, or when Colonel Mebratu came to play bridge. The Colonel enjoyed driving his Peugeot, or his jeep, or his staff Mercedes, and the last time Zemui spotted me, hed been riding shotgun and he waved and grinned. When I finally did encounter Zemui, I wanted to be annoyed with him; he had something in common with Thomas Stone, though Zemui at least saw his daughter every day. But when Zemui shook my hand and excitedly pulled out a new Darwin letter, I found myself sitting down with him on the kitchen steps. I was tempted to say, Why don t you ask your daughter to do this? But I didn't because I understood something I had missed before—that Genet surely didn't make things easy for her father. I was reading and writing letters for Zemui because his daughter had refused.

  ON A FRIDAY EVENING, the Colonel breezed into Missing and into Ghosh's old quarters bringing energy with him, as if not one man but a regiment in full colors had arrived, along with the marching band. Half an hour later, there were two tables going. The players—Hema, Ghosh, Adid, Babu, Evangeline, Mrs. Reddy, and a newcomer they brought— seemed to inhabit their bridge hands, becoming Pass and Three-No-Trumps, their faces flushed with concentration. Adid, the khat merchant and old friend of Hema's, owned a shop in the Merkato right next to Babu's and had brought him into the group. A burst of conversation like a collective sigh signaled the end of a round. I loved to observe them play.