Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [61]
After his first liaison in Ethiopia (and the only time he'd not used a condom), he had relied on the Allied Army Field Method for “post-exposure prophylaxis,” as it was called in the books: wash with soap and mercuric chloride, then squeeze silver proteinate ointment into the urethra and milk it down the length of his shaft. It felt like a penance invented by the Jesuits. He believed the “prophylaxis” was partly behind the burning sensations that came and went and peaked on some mornings. How many other such time-honored methods out there were just as useless? To think of the millions that the armies of the world had spent on “kits” like this, or to think that before Pasteur's discovery of microbes, doctors fought duels over the merits of balsam of Peru versus tar oil for wound infection. Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion. Still, each generation of physicians imagined that ignorance was the special provenance of their elders.
There was nothing like a personal experience to tilt a man toward a specialty, and so Ghosh had become the de facto syphilologist, the venereologist, the last word when it came to VD. From the palace to the embassies, every VIP with VD came to consult Ghosh. Perhaps in the county of Cook in America, theyd be interested in this experience.
AFTER HE BATHED and dressed, he drove the two hundred yards to the outpatient building. He sought out Adam, the one-eyed com-pounder, who, under Ghosh's tutelage, had become a natural and gifted diagnostician. But Adam wasn't around, and so he went to W. W. Gonad, a man of many titles—Laboratory Technician, Blood Bank Technician, Junior Administrator—all of which were to be found on a name tag on his oversize white coat. His full name was Wonde Wossen Gonafer, which he'd Westernized to W. W. Gonad. Ghosh and Matron had been quick to point out the meaning of his new moniker, but it turned out that W.W. needed no edification. “The English have names like Mr. Strong? Mr. Wright? Mr. Head? Mr. Carpenter? Mr. Mason? Mrs. Moneypenny? Mr. Rich? I will be Mr. W. W. Gonad!”
He was one of the first Ethiopians Ghosh had come to know well. Outwardly melancholic, W.W. was nevertheless fun-loving and ambitious. Urbanization and education had introduced in W.W. a gravitas, an exaggerated courtliness, the neck and body flexed, primed for the deep bow, and conversation full of the sighs of someone whose heart had been broken. Alcohol could either exaggerate the condition or remove it entirely.
Ghosh asked W.W. to give him a B12 shot; it was worth a try—even placebos had some effect.
As he readied the syringe, W.W. made clucking noises. “You must be sure to always use prophylactics, Dr. Ghosh,” he said and immediately turned sheepish, because W.W. was hardly one to proffer such advice.
“But I do. After that first time I've never had unrubberized intercourse. Don't you believe me? That is why I don't understand this burning some mornings. And you, sir? Why don't you use a condom, W.W.?”
Gonad wore heel lifts that made him walk with an ostrichlike pelvic tilt. He teased his hair into a lofty halo that would one day be called an Afro. Now, he pulled himself to his full five foot one and said haughtily, “If I wanted to make love to a rubber glove I would never have to leave the hospital.”
IF GHOSH HAD BEEN AWARE that at this very moment Sister Mary Joseph Praise was in distress in her quarters, he'd have rushed to help; it might have saved her life. But at that point no one knew. The probationer had yet to deliver her message, and when she did, she failed to tell anyone how sick Sister was.
Ghosh made leisurely rounds with the ward nurse and the probationers. He pointed out a sulfa rash to the newest probationers, removed ascitic fluid from the belly of a man with cirrhosis. The outpatient clinics then took most of the day, except for a formal lecture to the nursing students on tuberculosis. Keeping busy helped him forget about Hema, who should have been back two days ago. He could think of only