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By Root 1360 0

(lib dekam), or they had abdominal discomfort or cramps (hod kurteth), but these symptoms were reported as an aside and grudgingly, because rasehn-libehn-hodehn should have been enough for any doctor worth his salt. It had taken Matron her first year in Addis to understand that this was how stress, anxiety, marital strife, and depression were expressed in Ethiopia— somatization was what Ghosh said the experts called this phenomenon. Psychic distress was projected onto a body part, because culturally it was the way to express that kind of suffering. Patients might see no connection between the abusive husband, or meddlesome mother-in-law, or the recent death of their infant, and their dizziness or palpitations. And they all knew just the cure for what ailed them: an injection. They might settle for mistura carminativa or else a magnesium trisilicate and bella donna mixture, or some other mixture that came to the doctor's mind, but nothing cured like the marfey—the needle. Ghosh was dead against injections of vitamin B for the RLH syndrome, but Matron had convinced him it was better for Missing to do it than have the dissatisfied patient get an unsterilized hypodermic from a quack in the Merkato. The orange B-complex injection was cheap, and its effect was instantaneous, with patients grinning and skipping down the hill.

THE PHONE RANG, and for once Matron was grateful. Normally she hated the sound because it always felt like a rude interruption. The small Missing switchboard was still a novelty. Matron had declined an extension in her quarters, but she thought it was important to have phones in the doctor's quarters and the casualty room. Even this phone in her office she considered a luxury, but now she grabbed the receiver, hoping for good news, news about Stone.

“Please hold for His Excellency, the Minister of the Pen,” a female voice said. Matron heard faint clicks, and imagined a little dog walking on the wooden floors of the palace. She stared at the stacks of Bibles against the far wall. There were so many they looked like a barricade of shiny, cobbled rexine.

The minister came on, asked about Matron's health, and then said, “His Majesty is saddened by your loss. Please, accept his deepest condolences.” Matron pictured the minister standing, bowing as he spoke into the phone. “His Majesty personally asked me to call.”

“It is most kind, most kind, of His Majesty to think of us … at this time,” Matron said. It was part of the Emperor's mystique and a key to his power that he knew everything that went on in his empire. She wondered how word had reached the palace so soon. Dr. Thomas Stone with Sister Mary Joseph Praise assisting had removed a pair of royal appendices, and Hema had performed an emergency Cesarean section on a granddaughter who didn't make it to Switzerland. Since then a few others in the royal family came to Hema for their confinement.

Matron only had to ask, the minister said, if there was something the palace could do. The minister didn't touch on the manner of Sister's death, or the fate of the two babies.

“By the way, Matron …,” he said, and she was alert because she sensed this was the real reason for the call. “If by any chance a military … a senior officer comes to Missing for treatment, for surgery in the next day or so, the Emperor would like to be informed. You can call me personally.” He gave her a number.

“What sort of officer?”

She took the silence to mean the minister was giving thought to his answer.

“An Imperial Bodyguard officer. An officer who has—shall we say— no need to be at Missing.”

“Surgery, you say? Oh, no. We've closed the hospital. We have no surgeon, Minister. You see Dr. Thomas Stone … is indisposed. They were a team, you see …”

“Thank you, Matron. Please let us know.”

She mulled over the call after she hung up. Emperor Haile Selassie had built up a strong, modern military, consisting of army, navy, air force, and the Imperial Bodyguard. The Bodyguard was a force as large as the others, the equivalent of the Queen's Guard in England who stood outside Buckingham