Storyteller

by Zoe Daniel

  The three of us spend some time in the operating theatre rigging up cameras and working out how to avoid being in the way or contaminating the space. David has filmed medical documentaries in the past and I’m not fazed by blood, but there’s a huge sense of anticipation about witnessing such a major surgery. It’s obviously not without risks. Even the doctors feel that.

  ‘Do you get nervous before an operation like this?’ I ask Dr Albert Shun, a paediatrics veteran of 250 liver and 100 kidney transplants.

  ‘Yes, yes, every time we do a big operation. The nerves is a good thing, I think, because it makes you appreciate what you’re doing, makes you more on edge, aware, helping to prevent and look out for things and makes you more alert.’

  The doctors are extraordinary people. There’s no sense of arrogance or ego whatsoever.

  Professor David Baines has previously worked with Dr Shun on the separation of three sets of conjoined twins and, like the others, has paid his own way and donated his time to do it again. ‘I get an enormous amount of gratification doing it. I get far more out of it than what I put into it but I think the most important thing about it is working with people who are like-minded, who are professionals and who just get a job done.’

  Dr Gordon Thomas is the connection that has brought this surgery about: he and Padhar Hospital boss Dr Rajiv Choudhrie are old uni mates. ‘He called me and told me that these girls were born and if I could come and help separate them. So I said, “You’re kidding? You’re going to do it here?”’

  Rajiv responds, ‘We kind of just stuck to our guns and said we will do it over here because they belong to us and if there is something that is needed of us we have to be able to step up to the challenge.’

  All sorts of donated equipment has arrived to monitor the girls through the day-long surgery. Very early in the morning, Professor Baines and the hospital staff spend some time setting it up and making sure it’s operational.

  When all is prepared in the theatre, Deepa runs the gauntlet through the waiting media with Stuti and Aradhana in her arms. She’s pursued by journalists and camera crews across the car park until she slips through a side door into the main building, whispering reassuringly to the twins throughout. The door is slammed in the face of the scrum, as well as the girls’ mother, Maya, who isn’t quite quick enough. She’s left on the outer in tears before being shepherded away by staff.

  By the time we enter the theatre, the babies are sedated. We’ve watched a practice run in which the doctors used dolls, so we’re at least slightly prepared for what’s going to happen. A thick line is drawn along the section of torso that connects them. For a moment I consider how confusing it will be for them when they wake up separate. After always being one, they will suddenly be two.

  Hospital staff members have gathered outside the theatre to watch a live TV feed of the surgery. It’s tenser there than in the theatre itself, where the doctors operate with assurance, each move measured and planned and conducted with certainty. A few dicey moments are handled with calm decisiveness. Flies in the theatre are chased down and swatted. Extra medical staff, buzzing around with cameras, are shooed out. Presumably some of them sell their photos, which start appearing on various websites. That’s India.

  The two little hearts are exposed and I move to look. Dr Shun told me what an amazing sight it would be, but I’m still unprepared, stunned and fascinated. It’s without doubt one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen. Two baby hearts are beating side by side, tiny but strong. I’m speechless, but Trevor coaches me as I look up, teary. ‘Tell us what you see.’

  I try to explain it to the camera, but the story of those little hearts feels too huge, too important to put into words.

  ‘What’s very significant,’ one of the doctors says, ‘is you can see the two hearts in the same sac. It’s a very romantic sight because it’s two hearts touching each other.’

  ‘It’s so hard to describe, but two little hearts beating together like that for the last time, I suppose,’ I respond. ‘Soon they’ll be separate hearts.’

  For hours the surgeons work, delicately cutting, preventing bleeding and cutting again, sewing the hearts into separate sacs and halving the liver. There’s very little blood, just slow, careful work.

  The medical staff cheer as Stuti and Aradhana are separated and their trolleys are wheeled apart. It’s another emotional moment. David films it all and then we look at each other. ‘Wow.’

  A crowd has gathered outside and we hear singing in celebration. The doctors prepare to move the twins into the intensive care ward. David and I go with Stuti, who is wheeled out first into the night, her trolley surrounded by enthusiastic supporters and media, camera flashes popping amid joyful cheering, singing and dancing. Aradhana has a few complications, but she follows soon after.

  I find Maya and the girls’ father, Hariram, and lead them to the ward. Maya is in shock when she sees her babies separated for the first time, and so helplessly connected to tubes and machines. But confronting as it is for their parents, everything looks good for Stuti and Aradhana. The doctors are satisfied.

  I have no idea what time we leave the hospital that night. We stagger back to our beds sometime in the wee hours. The next morning we see the babies groggy but awake after the surgery. It’s still strange seeing them apart.

  We depart Padhar with a promise to return in a few weeks to see the girls up and about. Before I leave, I give Deepa a couple of Pearl’s dresses, barely worn, both size 1, a perfect fit for Stuti and Aradhana.

  During the next couple of weeks I keep tabs on the twins’ progress through emails with Dr Thomas. The others have headed back to Sydney and he stays a little longer to deal with any complications. There have been some issues, but they seem minor. I look forward to seeing the girls when I head back to India to film a postscript in a few weeks’ time.

  As a correspondent, I’m glued to my phone. Last thing at night and first thing in the morning, before I even get up, I check my messages. But I’m caught unawares when I roll over early one morning and open my email to find a message from Dr Thomas: Aradhana has died.

  ‘Dear Zoe, Aradhana sadly passed away early this morning. We thought she would make it. Sadly she didn’t.’

  I can’t believe it. ‘One of the babies died,’ I stammer to Rowan.

  Aradhana had a few problems after the surgery. Initially it seemed her wound was too tightly closed and restricting her organs. That was fixed but she struggled to recover. In the end it’s hard to know why she didn’t make it: a collapsed lung, infection and the sheer trauma of the surgery probably all played a part. I dwell on Stuti and whether she will live her whole life feeling that something is missing.

  I have a bleak Skype conversation with the three doctors.

  Dr Thomas tries to explain. ‘They had attempted to resuscitate her for almost six hours so they kept going for about six hours, so twice she actually returned and then the third time it was actually, no, she just didn’t. So they tried very hard. Unfortunately she didn’t make it.’

  Dr Shun adds, ‘In paediatric surgery, even though I do a lot of high-risk surgery, mortality is a low thing for us to cope with. We don’t have many babies that die so when there is actually someone that dies, it hits us pretty hard. I feel very, very sorry for the loss of the baby … I was totally devastated that day.’

  Aradhana’s death raises questions about whether separating the girls was the right thing to do, particularly at such a remote hospital.

  The doctors stand by their decision. ‘I feel that we did the best we could,’ Professor Baines says, ‘and probably offered them the best chance they had … but that won’t stop us asking the question over and over again, and it’s something we’ll think about for the rest of our lives.’

  I make the long trek back to Padhar to see Stuti. It’s lonely without David and Trevor. I have the cheerful Delhi cameraman Wayne McAllister with me, but he never met Aradhana. The specialists are missing, too. Deepa and Rajiv ar
e getting on with their work and dealing with their grief and shock.

  Rajiv fights tears when he tells me, ‘The amount of planning that had gone into this was phenomenal, but strangely we were not ready for this event.’

  Perhaps surprisingly, Deepa is more stoic. ‘Amazingly that never struck me – you know, that we would lose a baby. So I don’t think I even thought of death.’

  She’s in pain but she’s holding it together for Stuti. ‘Before the surgery it was very easy to carry the conjoined twins. You know, you carry them both together and you can kiss them both at the same time, and I used to think, “My goodness, it’ll be so difficult when they are separated, how will I manage to carry both of them together?” And that never happened. I never got to carrying them together. But yeah, Stuti’s there so I’m really grateful for that.’

  I visit Stuti in the paediatric intensive care ward. She’s zooming around in a walker on wheels, chasing a pretty coloured ball. Last time I was in this room there were two babies in two beds, but now there’s just one bed in the centre. Stuti has just had her first birthday and cards and gifts are piled on the bedside shelf. Poignantly the two dolls that the doctors used to simulate the surgery are on display.

  I watch Stuti, still so little, playing with a soft pink elephant that Pearl chose for her in Thailand. I wonder what she knows.

  Her future remains uncertain. She’ll need further surgery to cover her chest and protect her heart, and it’s still unclear whether she’ll stay with her adopted family at the hospital or return to Maya and her extended family in the village.

  Deepa and I take Stuti to see her parents in their simple cottage, for the first time ever.

  ‘I am so happy,’ Maya says, ‘but at the same time I am very sad. Had both my daughters lived, they’d have come home together.’

  Aradhana is buried on the family’s property. Her grave is an unmarked mound of dirt by the river.

  The entire extended family is here for our visit. Everyone sits around in the dirt under a covered area; smoke from a charcoal brazier taints the air and floats away over the green field behind the cottage. The women pass us silver cups of water and plates of fried snacks. Stuti chews on a biscuit and wriggles in her mother’s arms.

  I wonder if this is where she will grow up.

  I journey back to Bangkok and write the story. I remember the two wriggling babies I held on that first day in Padhar. It feels like so long ago. There’s no fairytale ending, but I remain hopeful for Stuti’s future.

  Arkie and Pearl are fascinated by the twins. I try to explain what went wrong but don’t have any answers. They can see I’m very sad about the way it’s turned out.

  When I finally have the story written and the editing is underway in Sydney, Rowan heads off to work in Hong Kong and we make plans for me and the kids to join him over a long weekend. My brother Troy lives there and we’d like to go to Disneyland.

  I’m in my office, filing and tidying up before heading home to pack, when my mobile rings. It’s Rowan.

  ‘She’s died.’

  My brain doesn’t compute. Stuti?

  Then I grasp it.

  Rowan’s mum has died.

  I put down the phone and sit silently for a few minutes. Then I pick it back up, cancel our flights to Hong Kong and book them to Melbourne.

  We fly home that night.

  FIFTEEN

  Rowan’s mother is buried on a bleak winter’s day.

  The funeral is at Woodend, in the hills north of Melbourne, where it’s bitterly cold and very nearly snowing. The sleet and hail seem right: a final protest in keeping with the spirit of a woman who was not ready to go.

  The Catholic church is packed and the children are as quiet as mice through the service, until Arkie, who is snuggled up next to me, whispers with awe, ‘Is Granny in that box, Mummy?’

  Ba’s eight grandchildren then wheel the coffin out to the hearse, with Marina’s daughter Tilly, the youngest at two, sitting on top of it.

  The clay around the grave turns to liquid mud as friends and family crowd the cemetery, wrangling black and bright umbrellas in the rain and icy wind. Rowan’s sister Rosi, wearing high-heeled boots, almost goes in with the coffin as the four siblings lower it with slippery ropes. Everyone laughs. It’s a quirky moment that Ba would appreciate amid the sombre chill.

  With frozen hands, the grandchildren throw silk bags containing the ashes of Katsy the dog in with her mistress – Ba made the decision to have her put down before she went herself. Both are joining Rowan’s dad, who was buried in the simple, rock-ringed grave when he was taken by cancer years ago.

  Hundreds gather at a cozy inn for the wake. Open fires glow as the rain whacks the windows, and we shed bulky winter coats and scarves. The grandchildren drink lemonade and eat sausage rolls, party pies and fancy sandwiches, the kind that Ba would have liked. A slideshow portrays an active life of skiing, dancing, horse riding, travel and family. Rowan and his sisters listen to old stories from their parents’ friends, people they may barely or never see again now that Ba has gone. Marina wears a winter suit of bright green and daffodil yellow, an ode to her mother’s irrepressible zing.

  My parents are both at the funeral and wake. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen them in the same place at the same time since their divorce more than twenty-five years ago. Dad’s partner, Kim, comes too. I’m touched that they’ve all made the effort to travel, Dad and Kim from Tassie. It’s an awful reason for a family reunion but wonderful to see them. Arkie and Pearl are delighted, hanging on Grandpa’s Every word, mucking around with pool cues and balls, and stuffing themselves with chocolate cake and too many cups of fizz while he tells them the sorts of wildly fantastic stories that Troy, Elie and I have grown up on.

  It’s almost evening when the crowd dwindles. We depart in the waning light and take one last pass by the cemetery at Arkie’s request. The muddy grave is forlorn now that the mourners have gone. We walk around reading the headstones; Woodend is a historic town and there are many old graves nestled under the gum trees. It starts raining again and Pearl is like an ice block, her lips blue from cracking cold like she’s rarely experienced in her lifetime. Rowan takes her back to the car while I linger with Arkie.

  ‘Time to go, mate,’ I say, after a while. ‘Do you want to say anything to Granny?’

  He stares at the grave, his face pale and bleak, freckles standing out against his white skin. ‘Bye Granny.’ His tears come with big gulping sobs. He holds me tightly. ‘I want Granny. I miss Granny. I need Granny to come back.’

  It’s pouring with rain now and freezing. Miserable.

  Rowan gets out of the car and sends me back. Pearl is asleep in the child seat. The windows are fogged up but through them I can see Arkie and Rowan standing at the foot of the grave, heads bowed, hunched against the bitter wind.

  It’s crazy timing but we decide to get some furniture out of storage and move it into our Wye River shack before we head back to Bangkok. It just seems too soon to resume life overseas as if nothing’s happened.

  In a windy warehouse, a forklift places giant wooden crates in a row, full of the long-forgotten household items from our Australian life. It’s tempting to fossick but as we’re paying by the hour we just load a small hired truck with the basics. Afterwards we add a few items from Ba’s kitchen, among them a rolling pin and some retro-looking mixing bowls so I can make pizza and pancakes for the kids.

  Rowan leaves first, driving the truck, and I put the kids in the car. Pearl is in tears because she’s lost the precious ‘baby’ doll that she goes nowhere without. Rosi, Katie and Marina stand on the footpath with tired smiles while I go through the bags, finally locating the toy, a gift from Rosi, which is grey and stained from years of being dragged around the world. They wave us off.

  It’s another blustery winter day but the sky has patches of blue and the sun is breaking through sharply here and there. We’re all excited when we arrive, despite the fact that it’s
raining again and the keys won’t open the door. We dismantle the front security screen to get in.

  The builder has finished and the shack looks tidy, so different from that day we viewed it with Ba during the summer. I know she’d love it now that it’s been cleaned up. There are new doors onto the front deck and a simple bathroom with a loo. The whole interior has had a fresh lick of white paint.

  Rowan has backed the hired truck up the muddy, rutted excuse for a driveway, but he’s forced to move it when another truck arrives, loaded with firewood. I’ve done some googling and made a phone call so we can fire up the wood stove. When the delivery man can’t get his truck up the slippery slope, he dumps the logs in the middle of the driveway. Everything in our truck has to be carried over this pile into the house. The kids laugh hard when I slip backwards and end up covered in mud.

  Finally we’re done. Rowan has grabbed a Persian rug from his mum’s and we unroll it for the kids in front of the blazing stove. I make pizza dough on the kitchen bench, a slab of rough-cut timber. When it stops raining we go koala spotting and walk down to the local shop to get fresh basil and ripe tomatoes and coffee. By the time we come back, the dough has quadrupled in size in the warm house, climbing out of the bowl and expanding across the bench as if it will take over the kitchen.

  Kookaburras sit on the back deck, their beady eyes fixed on the door, apparently waiting for attention from the kids. We can’t afford to fix the deck yet, so it’s a mess of rotten, mossy boards and wobbly railings. But it’s the perfect sun trap, protected by the house from the wind, a sheltered spot to sit and drink in the sight of endless forested hills, and to look for koalas in the treetops.

  That night the kids crash out in their new bedroom after revelling in the novelty of doonas and blankets and flannelette pyjamas. I make up a bed for myself and Rowan with brand-new linen: soft, pale-grey sheets and a crisp white cover over the Merino wool quilt that I’ve pulled out of storage. I throw a couple of indigo cushions from Laos on top of the bed and hang a Burmese throw rug over the end.