Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [119]
THERE IS ONE LAST SIGHTING at Missing—which had nothing to do with Ghosh—that I must describe because it happened during that period: it explained Shiva's life course, and why it veered away from my mine.
Late one morning as Shiva and I sat on the culvert by the side of Missing's hill, a frail, barefoot girl, no older than twelve, came stiff-legged up the hill. Prematurely stooped like an old woman, she leaned heavily on her giant of a father. His muddy, patched jodhpurs ballooned above bare feet and horned toenails. He could have taken the hill in twenty strides. Instead he took small steps to accommodate hers. They crept forward like snails, while other visitors sped up when they neared these two, as if father and daughter created an animating field. When she reached us, I understood why. An unspeakable scent of decay, putrefaction, and something else for which the words remain to be invented reached our nostrils. I saw no point in holding my breath or pinching my nose because the foulness invaded instantly, coloring our insides like a drop of India ink in a cup of water.
In the way that children understand their own, we knew her to be innocent of her terrible, overpowering odor. It was of her, but it wasn't hers. Worse than the odor (since she must have lived with it for more than a few days) was to see in her face the knowledge of how it repulsed and revolted others. No wonder she had fallen out of the habit of looking at human faces; the world was lost to her, and she to it.
When she paused to catch her breath, a slow puddle formed at her bare feet. Looking down the road, I could see the trail she left behind. I'll never forget her father's face. Under that peasant straw hat he burned with love for his daughter, and rage against the world that shunned her. His bloodshot eyes met every stare and even sought out those who tried not to look. He cursed their mothers, and cursed the gods they worshipped. He was deranged by a scent he could have escaped.
Did I say she met no one's gaze? No one's but Shiva's. A moment passed between them, a barely discernible easing of her features, as if Shiva had caressed her, reached out to comfort her. His lifted chin dipped for her, his eyes shaded to blue and his lips set firmly together. Her lids suddenly sparkled with liquid. The father who had blasphemed his way up the hill fell silent.
My brother, who once spoke with anklets and whose dance could be as complex as a honeybee's, didn't know he would dedicate his life to just such women, the outcasts of society; he would seek them at the Autobus Terra as they arrived from the provinces. He would pay touts to go to the furthermost villages and find them where they were hidden away, shunned by their husbands and families. He would have pamphlets distributed wherever the Coca-Cola truck went, which is to say wherever there were paved roads, asking for these women—girls, really—to come out of hiding, to come to him, so that he might cure them. He would become the world's expert …
But I am ahead of my story. Shiva's understanding of the medical condition behind that odor came later. That afternoon, one of many that I spent wondering about my future, Shiva had already sprung into action. With his eyes on her, he walked to them and led father and daughter to Hema. I look back now and I realize that in that act his career was already