Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [105]
We ran to Hema and Ghosh and then to Matron to tell them the exciting news. We thought up names. In retrospect, the adults’ lack of excitement should have warned us.
OUR TAXI DROPPED US at Missing's front gate after school. We had just crested the hill when we saw it, though at first we had no idea what we were seeing. The pups were in a large plastic bag whose mouth was tied with cord to the exhaust pipe of a taxi. We found out later that the driver had seen Gebrew making off with the litter, and he'd proposed a less messy means of getting rid of the pups than drowning them. Gebrew, always in awe of machinery, was too easily convinced.
Under our eyes the cabbie fired his engine, the bag ballooned out, and in a few seconds, the car stalled. Koochooloo, who that morning could hardly walk, tore around the wheels of the car, nipping at the smoke-filled bag. Inside it, her puppies, their snouts overblown when they pressed against the plastic, tumbled over one another looking for an exit. Koochooloo's expression was beyond grief. She was crazed and desperate. Patients and passersby found it entertaining. A small crowd had gathered.
I was numb, disbelieving. Was this some necessary ritual in the raising of puppies which I didn't know about? I took my cues from the adults standing around—that was a mistake. But inside, I felt just like Koochooloo.
Shiva took his cues from no one. He ran to the car and tried to untie the plastic bag from the exhaust pipe, burning his palms in the process. Then he was on his knees, ripping at the thick bag. Gebrew pulled him away, kicking and fighting. Only when Shiva saw that the puppies were quite still, a hillock of fur, only then did he stop.
I glanced at Genet and was shocked by her deadpan expression: it said she was well aware of the undercurrents of the world we lived in and had known well before us. Nothing surprised her.
How Koochooloo could forgive us and live on at Missing, I never understood. She knew nothing of Matron's quotas and edicts for Missing dogs. Just as we didn't know that several times in the past, Gebrew, under orders, had plucked Koochooloo's newborns from her teats and drowned them.
SHIVA HAD SCRAPED HIS KNEES and blistered his hands. Hema, Ghosh, and Matron rushed to meet us in Casualty.
Ghosh put Silvadene on Shiva's burns and dressed his knees. The grown-ups had nothing to say about the pups.
“Why did you let Gebrew do that?” I said. Ghosh didn't look up from the dressings. He was incapable of lying to us, but in this case he'd withheld knowledge of what would happen.
“Don't blame Gebrew,” Matron said. “They were my instructions. I'm sorry. We just can't have packs of dogs roaming around Missing.”
This didn't sound like an apology.
“Koochooloo will forget,” Hema said soothingly. “Animals don't have that kind of memory, my loves.”
“Willjyou forget if someone kills me or Marion?”
The adults looked at me. But I hadn't spoken. Moreover, I was a good eight feet away from where Shiva was getting bandaged. His irises had gone from brown to a steely blue, his pupils down to pinpoints, his chin thrust higher than ever, exposing his neck so that he was sighting down his nose at a world populated by people for whom he seemed to have the greatest disdain.
Will you forget if someone kills me or Marion?
Those words were formed in the voice box, shaped by the lips and tongue, of my heretofore silent brother. For his first spoken words in years, he'd crafted a sentence none of us would forget.
The adults looked at Shiva and then at me. I shook my head and pointed to Shiva.
Finally, Hema whispered, “Shiva … what did you say?”
“Will you forget about us tomorrow if someone kills us today?”
Hema reached for Shiva, wanting to hug him, tears of joy in her eyes. But Shiva drew back from her, drew back from all