Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

  I couldn't take much more teasing; it was hard to hear her mention the names of other suitors. I spied the stack of women's fashion magazines in her hands. “What's happened to you?” I demanded. I was angry now. I remembered the girl who had mastered Bickham's Penmanship, and who, after Zemui's death, had read books voraciously, anything that Hema fed her. “You used to be … serious,” I said. Now her best friends were two beautiful Armenian sisters. The three of them went shopping together in the afternoons or to the movies where they observed actors whose dress and behavior they held to be the gold standard. They kept all the boys guessing. Genet's grades had once been so good that she skipped a grade and joined our class. But of late she rarely studied, and her grades were average. “What's going on, Genet? Don't you want to be a doctor?”

  “Yes, Doctor, I want to be a doctor,” she said coming very close to me. “Doctor, I want you to give me a checkup.” She held her arms apart, the book bag in one hand, the fashion magazines in her other hand. She brought her body close to mine and thrust her hips into me. “I hurt down here, Doctor.”

  Rosina jumped out of the front door of our quarters like a jack-in-the-box. Her sudden appearance was startling, and I admit it was comical, but I didn't think that the way Genet burst out laughing would please Rosina.

  In a torrent of Tigrinya, with italinya thrown in, Rosina screamed at Genet and descended on us. Genet danced around me to stay out of Rosina's reach, finding even more humor in her mother chasing her. I understood Rosina's words here and there and guessed what she was saying: Where are your brains and what do you think you were doing just now? Who is that boy with the car and do you know he only wants one thing? Why are you pressing against Marion as if you are a bar girl? Each question provoked fresh laughter from Genet.

  Rosina glared at me, as if I should answer for her daughter. This was the second time she'd caught Genet and me in a compromising position. She switched to Amharic as she grilled me. “You! Why didn't she come back with you and Shiva? And what were you two doing just now?”

  “We're going to be doctors, don't you know, Mother?” Genet shouted in Amharic, tears in her eyes, barely able to speak. “I was teaching him how to examine a woman!”

  Rosina's shocked face was Genet's reward, and she found this so hysterical that she dropped her magazines and her book bag, clutched at her stomach, and staggered away in the direction of their quarters. The two of us watched her sashay away, holding her sides. Rosina turned to me, hiding her dark confusion by putting on the stern look she'd use when Shiva or I had been naughty. But it felt artificial, more so now because, at six feet and one inch, I towered over my nanny. “What do you have to say for yourself, Marion?”

  I hung my head, took two shuffling steps toward her. “I want to say …,” I said, and then I grabbed Rosina, lifted her up in the air, whirled her about while she beat on my shoulders. “I want to say that I am so happy to see you. And I want to marry your daughter!”

  “Put me down. Put me down!”

  I put her down, and she tried to slap me, but I jumped away.

  “You're crazy, you know that?” Rosina said, trying to adjust her blouse, smoothing out her skirt, determined not to smile at all costs. “The evil spirits have gotten into all you children.” She picked up the book bag and the magazines and retreated after Genet, shouting for her and me to hear, “You two just wait, I'm going to get a stick and line you evil children up and beat that devil out of you.”

  “Rosina, why talk to your future son-in-law that way?” I called after her.

  She made to turn back and come after me, but I dodged away.

  “Madness! Lunacy!” she said and stalked off, talking to herself.

  I looked up to see Shiva standing in the big picture window, looking out. The wind in the eucalyptus trees stirred up the kind of dry rustling sound that could fool you into thinking it was a rain squall. But the sky was cloudless. Through the glass I could see Shiva studying me, his face flushed. Our eyes met, and his expression suggested he'd been laughing, that he probably saw and heard everything. I admired his pose, one hand in his pocket, knees locked, his weight on one leg—my brother was elegant even in the act of standing in place; it was a quality he shared with Genet. He rarely smiled, and there was, in the tautness of his upper lip, the hint of a leer. I grinned, holding nothing back. I felt good, pleased with myself. My brother could read my mind. My brother loved me, he loved Genet, and I loved them both. Yes, Rosina was right, madness all around at Missing, but only a madman would want to be anywhere else.

  CHAPTER 34

  A Time to Reap

  THE MADNESS OF THAT EVENING came at a most inopportune time. It was my last year at LT&C and I was hell-bent on doing well in the school finals. My motivation was simple: a magnificent, ivory-colored hospital, five times as large as Missing, had been built on a rise looking down at Churchill Road and the post office and the Lycée Français. It was to be the teaching hospital of a new medi cal school to be staffed with the help of the British Council, Swiss aid, and USAID. The teachers were distinguished physicians from these countries who had recently retired from long academic careers and ac cepted short assignments to Addis.

  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 tool-shed 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.

  Eventually, I bid Gebrew good night, and I headed back. When I turned up from the roundabout to the road leading to our bungalow, I saw that there was a light on in the toolshed. Shiva worked late there many nights.

  Whenever I came this way in the dark, I felt dread as I neared the spot where the army man went airborne. There was a crack in the concrete of the curb that commemorated that moment when the BMW's front wheel had been arrested.

  The tree trunks creaked and groaned. The rustling of the leaves sounded ominous, like a hand sifting through coins. I fully expected to see the army man rise out of the darkness. After years of imagining him, I would find it almost a relief when he appeared. Shiva had no such qualms because he stayed in the toolshed late into the night. The passing years hadn't taken away from me the weight of what had happened at this spot; but the fear had become familiar. I understood what made people confess to murder years after the fact; they believed that it was the only way to cease tormenting themselves. I hurried past that turn in the road.

  I heard music from Shiva's radio in the toolshed.

  I was just past the toolshed, almost to our house, when I saw a figure come purposefully down the hill. It was pitch-dark, and now I heard a muttering sound—it was talking to itself. My heart was in my mouth, but what kept me from panic was that it sounded like a woman. Only when the figure was almost on me did I see that it was Rosina. Where could she be headed at this hour? She came up very close to me, studying my face the way she often did to be sure I was not Shiva. Then, before I registered her anger, she slapped me. She was all over me, cuffing me and pulling me down by my hair with her left hand while she slapped me with her right.

  “I warned you!” she screamed.

  “Rosina! What are you talking about?” I said, cowering.

  This only infuriated her. I suppose I could easily have stopped her, or run, but I was too shocked to react. She slapped me again.

  “Five minutes I leave you alone, and this is what happens! So clever, you pretending to go to the souk, and she to the bathroom.”

  When I asked her to explain, she swung at me, and this time I turned so her blow found the back of my head.

  “I waited,” she said. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Then I went looking for you. I saw her coming up the hill. You sent her out first, didn't you? If she gets pregnant, what happens?” Rosina hissed in my ear. “It means she'll be a maid like me. All that English and studying books won't make any difference in her life.”

  “But, Rosina, I didn't—”

  “Don't lie to me, my child. You were never good at lying. I saw you two looking at each other. I should have kept her home right then.”

  I stood silent, staring at her.

  “You want proof? Is that it?” she yelled. “She reached to her waist and drew something out and flung it at me. A pair of women's panties. “Her blood … and your seed.” I picked the garment off my face. In the dark I could see nothing. But I could smell blood
, the scent of Genet … and I could smell semen. It was mine. I recognized my starchy scent. No one else shared that odor.

  No one but my twin brother.

  I HAD NO HEART, no energy, to do anything but to crawl into bed. I felt battered. I felt alone. Shiva came to bed much later. I waited to see if he would say anything. At some point he fell asleep while I lay there awake. In Ethiopia there was a method of divining guilt called lebashai: a little boy was drugged and taken to the scene of the crime and asked to point out the guilty party. Unfortunately, a hallucinating youngster's pointing finger too often stopped in front of an innocent who was then stoned to death or drowned. Lebashai was banned in the empire, but it still went on in the villages. That was how I felt: falsely accused by the pointing finger, but unable to defend myself.

  What I could do was extract revenge. The guilty party slept next to me. I could have killed Shiva that night. I thought about it. I decided it would solve nothing. My world was already destroyed. My arms were dead. My brain was numb. My love had been turned into a mockery of love, into shit. I had no reason, no desire, to do anything anymore.

  GENET DIDN'T GO to school the next day. Shiva left with Hema's reluctant permission to go with Mr. Farinachi to Akaki, to the textile factory where one of the giant dye machines had seized. Farinachi had been asked to manufacture a part, and he wanted Shiva to come and see the giant looms.

  I stayed in bed. When Hema came to see why, I said I didn't feel well and wouldn't go to school. She took my pulse, looked at my throat. She was puzzled. When she tried to quiz me, I said, “Never mind, I'm going.” That was easier than facing an interrogation.