Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [243]
“No, he didn't.”
“Did he say why he wanted you to have the book?”
“No.”
“When you saw the bookmark and the reference to the letter, did you go back and ask him?”
“No.”
I sighed. I could have stopped there, but I had come this far. “Why not?” I asked.
“If he wanted me to have the letter, he would have given it to me.”
“Why did you give me the book, Shiva?”
“I wanted you to have it.”
There was no annoyance in Shiva's voice; his tone was no different than when we began—I wondered if he'd picked up the irritation in mine. Shiva was right: there either was no letter, or Ghosh had the letter and had his reasons for destroying it.
I was about to say good-bye. I knew better than to expect my brother to ask about my health or my welfare. But he took me aback by saying, “How are your operating theaters?” He wanted to know about the layout, how far away the autoclave and the locker rooms were, and was there a sink outside each room, or one common scrubbing area. I gave him a detailed picture. When I was done, I waited. Once again, he surprised me: “When are you coming home, Marion?”
“Well, Shiva … I have four more years of residency.”
Was this his way of saying he was sorry for everything that had happened? That he missed me? Did I want that from him? I wasn't sure, so all I added was, “I don't know if it is safe for me to come, but if it is, I'd love to come a year or so from now … Why don't you come visit here?”
“Will I be able to see your operating theaters?”
“Sure. We call them operating rooms here, not theaters. But I can arrange for you to see them.”
“Okay. I'll be there.”
Hema came back on the line. She was in a chatty mood, reluctant to let me go. Listening to her lilting voice, I was transported back to Missing Mean Time, as if I were sitting by the phone under Nehru's photograph and looking across the room at the portrait of Ghosh which consecrated the spot where he spent so many hours listening to the Grundig.
When I hung up I felt despair: I was back in the Bronx, my walls bare but for the framed Ecstasy of St. Teresa. My beeper, silent till then, went off. In answering its summons, I slipped the yoke back around my neck; indeed, I welcomed my slavish existence as a surgical resident, the never-ending work, the crises that kept me in the present, the immersion in blood, pus, and tears—the fluids in which one dissolved all traces of self In working myself ragged, I felt integrated, I felt American, and I rarely had time to think of home. Then in four weeks, it was time to dial Missing again. Were these phone calls just as difficult for Hema? I wondered.
In a letter after our call, Hema said that shed checked with Bachelli, Almaz, and even W. W. Gonad to see if they had heard of Ghosh or Sister leaving a letter behind, but no one had. She told me that Shiva's application for an exit visa to come visit me was held up by the government; he was asked to provide affidavits to show he had no debts in Ethiopia, and moreover that I had no debts for which he might be responsible. She said she would remind Shiva to work on the visa. Reading between the lines, I knew and she knew that Shiva had lost interest.
I wrote to Thomas Stone to let him know that the whereabouts of Sister Mary Joseph Praise's letter remained a mystery. He never wrote back to me thanking me for my troubles.
OVER THE NEXT FOUR YEARS, I saw Thomas Stone now and then when he came to conduct conferences or bedside teaching rounds; he was impressive, as I knew he would be, masterful, serious, and in command of his subject. He had the kind of perspective that could only come from careful study of the literature of surgery and from living it for many years. I much preferred being around him in that fashion than having a dinner with him. Perhaps he felt the same way, because he didn't call or visit again.
I went up to Boston for three separate, month-long rotations: plastic surgery, urology, and transplant, and the work was engrossing, challenging, so that each time my anxieties about being there and near him were forgotten.