Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [165]
Shiva danced first with Hema, then with women he knew from Hema and Ghosh's bridge circle, and then with anyone who looked keen to dance. Suddenly I didn't want to be there any longer; I left early, telling Hema and Ghosh I'd take a taxi home.
I thought of the probationer as I walked up the hill to our quarters. I'd been avoiding her. When her students were with her, she made no sign of recognition. When she saw me with Shiva, she greeted us without comment. The first time I ran into her alone, she stopped me, and said, “Are you Marion?” From her eyes I knew that nothing had changed, and that her door was still open to me. “No,” I had said. “I'm Shiva.” She never asked again.
I heard the murmur of the radio in Rosina's quarters, but their door was closed and in any case I wasn't looking for company.
I went to bed alone, went to bed with my thoughts—I felt older than my thirteen years.
I woke when Shiva came home. I watched him in the mirror. He was taller than I saw myself, and he had the narrow hips and the light tread of a dancer. He slipped off his coat and shirt. His hair was parted and combed to one side when he left the house, but now it was an unruly mass of thick curls. His lips were full, almost womanly, and there was a dreamy, prophetic quality to his face. When he was down to his underwear, he studied himself in the mirror. He held one arm up, and the other out. He was imagining a dance with a woman. He made a graceful turn and dip.
“You had a good time?” I said.
It stopped him in his tracks. His arms remained where they were. He looked at me in the mirror, which gave me goose bumps. “A good time was had by one and all,” he said in a hoarse voice that I didn't recognize.
CHAPTER 33
A Form of Madness
THE TAXI DROPPED SHIVA and me across from Missing's gate, in front of the cinder-block buildings, just as the streetlights came on. At sixteen, I was captain, opening batsman, and wicket-keeper for our cricket eleven and Shiva was a middle-order batsman. As opener, my forté was whaling away at the ball and trying to weather the first salvo while demoralizing the bowlers, while Shiva's strength was to doggedly defend his wicket, anchoring the team, even if he scored few runs. After practice it was always dark when we came home.
I saw a woman framed by the bead curtains and silhouetted against the light of the bar, at the end of the building closest to Ali's souk.
“Hi! Wait for me,” she called out. Her tight skirt and heels restricted her to mincing steps as she crossed the plank that forded the gutter. She hugged herself against the cold, smiling so that her eyes were reduced to slits.
“My, you have grown so tall! Do you remember me?” she said, looking uncertainly from me to Shiva. A jasmine scent reached my nostrils.
After her baby died, I'd seen Tsige many, many times but only at waving distance. She had worn black for a year. That rainy morning when she brought her baby to Missing, Tsige had looked quite plain. Hers was a simple, guileless face, but now with eyeliner, lipstick, hair in waves down to her shoulders, she was striking.
We touched cheeks like relatives, first one side, then the other, then back to the first side again. “Uh … this is … may I present my brother,” I said.
“You work here?” Shiva said. Shiva was never tongue-tied around women.
“Not anymore,” she said. “I own it now. I invite you to please come in.”
“No … but … thank you,” I stammered. “Our mother is expecting us.”
“No, she's not,” said Shiva.
“I hope you won't mind if I come another day,” I said.
“Whenever you want, you are welcome. Both of you.”
We stood in awkward silence. She still had my hand.
“Listen. I know it was a long time ago, but I never thanked you. Every time I see you I want to talk to you, but I don't want to embarrass you, and I felt ashamed … Today, when I saw you this close, I thought I'd do it.”
“Oh no,” I said, “it's I who worried that you were angry with me— with us. Maybe you blamed Missing for …”
“No, no, no. I'm to blame.” The light dimmed in her eyes. “That's