Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [187]
“Why tell me this now?” I said. “I stopped thinking about him after you came out from jail. He was never there when we needed him. Why should I waste my time thinking about him?”
“For my sake. I told you, this is for me. My one regret. It's not about you. But only you can help me.”
I said nothing.
“Let me see if I can explain …” He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Marion, there'll be something incomplete about my life if I don't let him know that I still consider him a brother.” His eyes became wet. “And that whatever his reasons are for being silent all these years, I still … love him. I can't see him, I can't tell him this. But you can. I won't live to see it, but that's what I want. Do it without hurting Hema's feelings. Do it for me. Complete what is incomplete.”
“Are you going to tell Shiva this?”
“If I tell Shiva that it's my dying wish, he'd do it. But Shiva may not know how to do it, how to … heal him. It requires more than delivering a message.” He hesitated. “Speaking of Shiva: what I also need to tell you about Shiva is that whatever he did to you, please forgive him.”
He stunned me there. Had he planned to say that? Was it an afterthought? I didn't think Ghosh knew the depths of my hurt, my bitterness toward Shiva, but I'd underestimated him. Still, what happened between me and Shiva wasn't a subject I wanted to bring up with Ghosh; it was too painful, too personal.
“I'll do my best about Thomas Stone. For you. But I can't believe this is what you want. You're forgetting this is the man who caused my mother's death … A nun's death. A nun he got pregnant. And then he abandoned his children. And to this day no one seems to know how any of it happened.”
As my voice rose and quavered, Ghosh said nothing, but looked at me steadily till my shoulders collapsed and I gave in. Id do what he asked.
WHEN THE END CAME a week later he was still in that chair, all of us with him, me and Shiva holding his left hand, Matron holding his right. Almaz, who had become so lean from rigorous fasting, squatted behind his chair with her hand on his shoulder; Hema sat on the arm of the chair, so Ghosh's head could rest against her body. Genet was not to be found. She wasn't in her hostel when Gebrew was sent in a cab to bring her to Missing. Gebrew stood next to Almaz, praying.
Ghosh's breathing was labored, but Hema gave him morphine—he'd taught her that, she said. Morphine “disconnects the head from the brain,” so although the breathlessness was unchanging, the anxiety would be gone.
He opened his eyes once, startled. He looked at Hema, then at us. He smiled and closed his eyes. I like to think in that last gaze he saw a tableau of his family, his real flesh and blood, because our blood was now in his veins. I like to think in seeing us he felt his highest purpose was served.
And that is how he passed from this life to the next, without fanfare, with characteristic simplicity, fearless, opening his eyes that last time to make sure we were fine before he went on.
When his chest stopped moving, my sorrow was mixed with relief: I'd been matching every breath of his with mine for days. I know Hema felt the same way as she laid her head on his and wept, her arms still cradling him.
WITH GHOSH'S DEATH came a new understanding of the word “loss.” I'd lost my birth mother and father, lost the General, lost Zemui, lost Rosina. But I only knew real loss when I lost Ghosh. The hand that patted me and put me to sleep, the lips that trumpeted bedtime songs, the fingers that guided mine to percuss a chest, to feel an enlarged liver or spleen, the heart that coaxed my ears to understand the hearts of others, was now stilled.
At the moment he died I felt the mantle of responsibility pass from him to me. He'd anticipated