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By Root 1202 0

some bad news. We found something unexpected in your belly.” This was the first time in America that I had to give someone news of a fatal illness, but it felt like the first time ever. It was as if in Ethiopia, and even in Nairobi, people assumed that all illness—even a trivial or imagined one—was fatal; they expected death. The news to convey in Africa was that you'd kept death at bay. Those things that you couldn't do, and those diseases you couldn't reverse, were left unspoken. It was understood. I don't recall an equivalent word for “prognosis” in Amharic, and I'd never tried to speak to a patient about five-year survival or anything like that. In America, my initial impression was that death or the possibility of it always seemed to come as a surprise, as if we took it for granted that we were immortal, and that death was just an option.

Mr. Walters s expression went from joy over the tube being out, to shock, and finally sadness. A single tear trickled down his cheek. My gaze turned foggy. My beeper went off, but I ignored it.

I don't think you can be a physician and not see yourself reflected in your patient's illness. How would I deal with the kind of news I'd given Mr. Walters?

After a few minutes, he wiped his face with his sleeve. A smile cracked his features. He patted my hand.

“Death is the cure of all disease, isn't it? No one is prepared for news like this, no matter what. I'm sixty-five years old. An old man. I have had a good life. I want to meet my Lord and Savior.” A mischievous light flashed in his eye. “But not just yet,” he said, holding up a finger and laughing, a slow metronomic sound, heh-heh-heh …

I found myself smiling with him.

“We always want more, heh-heh-heh“ he said. “Ain't that the truth, Dr. Stone? Lord, I'm a-coming. Not just yet. I'll be right there, now. You go on, Lord. I'll catch up with you.”

I admired Mr. Walters. I wanted to learn to be this way, to possess his steady rhythm, to have that inner beat playing quietly inside me.

“You see, young Dr. Marion, that's what makes us human. We always want more.” He clasped my hand now, as if he was ministering to me, as if Ihad come to sit on his bed for reassurance, courage, and faith. “Now you go on. I know you're busy. Everything's just fine. Just fine. I just got to think this one out.”

I left him smiling at me, as if I had given him the greatest gift one man could ever give another.

CHAPTER 40

Salt and Pepper

AFTER LEAVING MR. WALTERS'S ROOM, I sat on the park bench by the house staff quarters. How unfair to Mr. Walters that his darkest day should be so impossibly beautiful. The trees of Our Lady turned colors I had never seen in Africa. And then they blessed the ground below with a fiery red, orange, and yellow carpet, which crunched underfoot and released a dry but sweet fragrance.

The laughter and shrieks coming from inside our building, from the patio, felt sacrilegious. B. C. Gandhi had christened our quarters “Our Mistress of Perpetual Fornication.” There were days when I felt I lived in Sodom.

When it turned chilly, I went inside. I caught a glimpse of the roaring wood fire in the cast-iron pot on the patio, and the scent of tobacco and something more pungent. Nestor, our Carribean fast bowler and my fellow intern, had a herb garden at the back of our building. The summer we arrived he grew a bumper crop of curry leaves, tomatoes, sage—and cannabis.

Beyond the herb garden the meadow sloped down to a brick fence topped with razor wire. It separated us from a housing project named Friendship by the city authorities twenty years ago. It was now called Battleship by one and all. At night we heard the pop of handguns from Battleship and saw comet streaks, messages from earth to sky.

On Mondays we gathered at the nurses’ quarters for a communal dinner at their invitation. But on this day it was their turn to visit us. I joined the crowd.

“How did it go?” B.C. said, coming over, putting his arm around my shoulders. I told him about my conversation with Mr. Walters.

B.C. listened quietly, and then said, “What a good