Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [74]
“No. It has to be untwisted. Surgically.”
“It's common, you say. My countrymen who get this … what happens to them?”
At that moment, Ghosh connected the face with a scene he wished he could forget.
“Without surgery? They die. You see, the blood supply at the base of the loop of bowel is also twisted off. It's doubly dangerous. There's no blood going in or out. The bowel will turn gangrenous.”
“Look, Doctor. This is a terrible time for this to happen.”
“Yes, it is a terrible time,” Ghosh burst out, startling Mebratu. “Why here, if I may ask? Why Missing? Why not the military hospital?”
“What else have you understood about me?”
“I know you're an officer.”
“Those clowns,” he said, nodding his chin in the direction of his friends outside. “We don't do a good job of dressing as civilians,” Mebratu said, wryly. “If their shoes aren't spit polished they feel naked.”
“It's more than that, actually. Years ago, shortly after I arrived here, I saw you conduct an execution. I'll never forget that.”
“Eight years and two months ago. July the fifth. I remember it, too. You were there?”
“Not intentionally.” A simple drive into the city had turned into something else when a large crowd on the road had forced him and Hema into being spectators.
“Please understand, it was the most painful order I ever carried out,” Mebratu said. “Those were my friends.”
“I sensed that,” Ghosh said, recalling the strange dignity of both the executioner and the condemned.
Another wave of pain traveled over Mebratu's face and they both waited till it passed. “This is a different kind of pain,” he said, trying to smile.
“You should know,” Ghosh said, “that earlier today the palace called. They asked Matron to inform them if a military person came here for treatment.”
“What?” Mebratu swore and tried to sit up, but the movement made him yell in pain. His companions rushed in. “Did Matron tell the palace?” he managed to ask.
“No. Matron told me she wouldn't turn you away knowing that you had nowhere else to go.”
The patient relaxed now. His friends had a quick discussion, and then they remained in the room.
“Thank you. Thank Matron for me. I am Colonel Mebratu, of the Imperial Bodyguard. You see we had plans, a few of us, to meet on this date in Addis. I came from Gondar. When I got here I found the meeting had to be called off. We feared we were … compromised. But I didn't get the message till I was already here. Before I left Gondar, yesterday, my pain began. I saw a physician there. Like you, he must have known what I had, but he told me nothing. He told me to come back and see him in the morning and that he wanted to check me again. He must have told the palace, or else why would they call the hospitals in Addis? Hanging will also be my fate if I am discovered in Addis. You must treat me. I can't be seen at the military hospital today.”
“There is another problem,” Ghosh said. “Our surgeon has … he has left.”
“We heard about your … loss. I am sorry. If Dr. Stone can't do it, then you have to.”
“But I can't—”
“Doctor, I have no other options. If you don't do it, I die.”
One of the men stepped forward. With his light beard, he looked more like an academic than a military man. “What if your life depended on it? Could you do it?”
Colonel Mebratu put his hand on Ghosh's sleeve. “Forgive my brother,” he said, then smiled at Ghosh as if to say, You see what I have to do to keep peace? Out loud he said: “If something should happen, you can say in good faith that you knew nothing about me, Dr. Ghosh. It's true. All you know about me are all the things you guessed.”
GHOSH DIALED Hema's quarters. It occurred to him that Colonel Mebratu and his men must have been plotting some kind of a coup. What else could the secret meeting in Addis have been about? Ghosh was faced with a conundrum: How did one treat a soldier, an executioner, who now was engaged in treason against the Emperor? But of course, as a physician, his obligation was to the patient. He felt no dislike for the Colonel, though he could do without