Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [184]
Almaz nodded, and though she let me hug her and try to reassure her, she was agitated. “We have not been prayerful,” she said. “That is why such a thing comes on us.”
I ASKED GEBREW if hed seen Shiva, and he said Shiva had been gone all day, but if he was back, he might be in his workshop. Gebrew walked down with me to the toolshed.
“Are you still wearing your scroll?” Gebrew asked, referring to the thin strip of sheep's hide on which he'd drawn an eye, an eight-pointed star, a ring, and a queen and copied a verse in fine script. He had rolled the scroll tight and eased it into an empty bullet casing. On the metal he scratched out a cross and my name.
“Yes, it's always with me,” I said, which was sort of true because I carried this phylactery in my briefcase.
“I should have made one for Dr. Ghosh and perhaps this would not happen.”
I marveled at my faithful friend. To become a priest in Ethiopia, it was enough for the archbishop in Addis Ababa to blow his breath into a cloth bag which was then carried to the provinces and opened in a church yard, allowing for the mass ordination of hundreds. The more priests the merrier, from the standpoint of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
But having thousands and thousands of priests had its problems for God-fearing people like Almaz. A small number of these men were drunkards and cadgers for whom priesthood was a means of avoiding starvation while satisfying their other appetites. The worst reprobate priest who held out his cross obliged Almaz to stop and kiss its four points. I met her one day looking distressed, her clothes in disarray. She told me she'd beaten off a priest's advances with her umbrella, and others had come to her assistance and pummeled the man. “Marion, when I'm dying, go to the Merkato and get me two priests,” she said to me then. “That way, just like Christ, I can die with a thief on either side of me.”
But Gebrew was different. Almaz was sure God approved of Gebrew. He spent hours with his nose buried in his prayer books, leaning on his makaturia—his praying stick—beads clicking through his fingers. Even when he shed his priest garb to cut the grass, to run errands, to be Missing's watchman and gatekeeper, his turban stayed on and his lips never stopped moving. “Please make Ghosh a scroll,” I said to Gebrew. “Have faith. Maybe it is not too late.”
SHIVA HAD JUST COME BACK. I hadn't been in that toolshed for ages, and I was unprepared for the extreme clutter. Parts of engines and electrical boxes covered the floor. The narrowest of paths led to where his tank and welding equipment stood along with scraps of metal. Shiva had shored up the walls and ceiling of the shed with a welded metal scaffold, and from this his tools hung on wire holsters. He was hidden at his desk behind a mountain of books and papers. I made my way there. He was sketching a design for a frame of some kind, an apparatus he said would allow better exposure during fistula surgery. He put his pencil down and waited. Hed known nothing about what had transpired in the bungalow earlier. I told him the truth about Ghosh.
He listened but said nothing. Though he turned a little pale, his face otherwise gave away very little. He closed his eyes. He had climbed into his tree house and pulled up the ladder. He had no questions. I waited. Not even this news could break down the walls between us, I saw.
I needed him. I had carried Ghosh's secret alone, and now I was ready to spread the burden. I needed his strength for the days that were to come, but I didn't want to admit it. What was Shiva thinking? Did he feel anything at all? I left after a while, disgusted that those eyes would not open, convinced I couldn't count on him.
But Shiva surprised me. That night and for two more nights Shiva slept in the corridor outside Ghosh and Hema's bedroom with just a blanket wrapped under and over him. It was his way of