Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [173]
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.
I don't remember anything about that day in school. Ghosh and Hema had no idea what