Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [70]
“Let's take a ride,” Matron said.
As they drove down to Missing's gate, they saw a taxi coming up the hill carrying a white man. “That must be Eli Harris,” Matron said, sliding down in the passenger seat with an alacrity that surprised Ghosh. She told him about Harris's call. “If I remember correctly, I got Harris to fund a project that was your idea: a citywide campaign against gonorrhea and syphilis. Harris has come to see how we are doing.”
Ghosh almost steered them off the road. “But we have no such project, Matron!”
“Of course not.” Matron sighed.
Ghosh never looked his best in the morning, even after a bath and shave. He hadn't had time for either of these. Dark stubble swept up from his throat, detoured around his lips, and reached almost to his bloodshot eyes.
“Where are we going?” he said.
“To Gulele. We need to make funeral arrangements.”
They rode in silence.
THE GULELE CEMETERY was on the outskirts of town. The road cut through a forest where the dense overhanging canopy of trees made it feel like dusk. Suddenly the forbidding wrought-iron gates loomed before them, standing out against the limestone walls. Inside, a gravel road led up to a plateau thick with eucalyptus and pine. There were no taller trees in Addis than in Gulele.
They trudged between the graves, their feet crunching and crackling on the carpet of leaves and twigs. No urban sounds or voices were to be heard here; only the stillness of a forest and the quiet of death. A fine drizzle wet the leaves and branches, then gathered into big drops that plopped on their heads and arms. Matron felt like a trespasser. She stopped at a grave no larger than an altar Bible. “An infant, Ghosh,” she said, wanting to hear a living voice, even if it was only hers. “Armenian, judging by the name. Lord, she died just last year.” The flowers by the headstone were fresh. Matron began a Hail Mary under her breath.
Farther down were the graves of young Italian soldiers: NATO à ROMA, or NATO à NAPOLI, but no matter where they were born they were DECEDUTO AD ADDIS ABABA. Matron's vision turned misty as she thought of them having died so very far from home.
John Melly's face appeared to her, and she could hear “Bunyan's Hymn.” It was the hymn they had played at his funeral. At times the tune found her; the words came to her lips unbidden.
She turned to Ghosh, “You know I was in love once?”
Ghosh who already looked troubled, froze where he stood.
“You mean … with a man?” he said at last, when he could speak.
“Of course with a man!” She sniffed.
Ghosh was silent for a long time, then he said, “We imagine we know everything there is to know about our colleagues, but really how little we know.”
“I don't think I knew I loved Melly until he was dying. I was so young. Easiest thing in the world is to love a dying man.”
“Did he love you?”
“He must have. You see he died trying to save me.” Her eyes welled up. “It was in 1935. I'd just arrived in the country, and I couldn't have picked a worse time. The Emperor fled the city as the Italians were about to march in. The looters went to town, pillaging, raping. John Melly commandeered a truck from the British Legation to come and get me. You see, I was volunteering at what is now Missing. He stopped to help a wounded person on the street, and a looter shot him. For absolutely no reason.” She shuddered. “I nursed him for ten days, and then he died. One day I'll tell you all about it.” Then, uncontrollably, she had to sit down, her head in her hands, weeping. “I'm all right, Ghosh. Just give me a minute.”
She was mourning not Melly as much as the passage of the years. She'd come to Addis Ababa from England after getting restless teaching in a convent school and running the student infirmary; she'd accepted a post with Sudan Interior Mission to work in Harrar, Ethiopia. In Addis, she found her orders were canceled because the Italians had attacked, and so she had simply attached herself to a small hospital