Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [88]
“But what about his books, and his things?” Ghosh said. “Should we send them on to him?”
“I imagine he'll write for his books and specimens once he is settled,” Matron said.
The news both annoyed and pleased Hema. It meant Stone had abandoned the children, and that he'd given up any claims on them. She wished he'd signed a paper to that effect. She still felt uneasy. A man who made his name at Missing, whose lover was buried at Missing, and whose children were being raised at Missing, might not be able to cut the Missing cord that easily. “The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole,” Hema said.
“He's no serpent,” Ghosh said sharply, contradicting Hema. She was too astonished to reply. “He is my friend,” Ghosh continued in a tone that dared anyone to disagree. “Let's not forget what a valuable colleague he was all these years, the great service he gave to Missing, the lives he saved. He's no serpent.” He spun on his heels and walked off.
Ghosh's words pricked Hema's conscience. She couldn't assume that he was to feel everything she felt. Not if she cared for him. Ghosh was his own man, had been all along.
She gazed at Ghosh's receding back and was frightened. She'd never worried particularly about Ghosh's feelings, but now, at the graveside, she felt like a young girl who, while drawing water at the well, meets a handsome stranger—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—but she ruins it by saying the wrong thing.
CHAPTER 16
Bride for a Year
THE MILK COW WAS HEMA'S FOLLY, but once the first cream-rich mouthful slid down her throat there was no going back, even if Ghosh had taken away the reason for a cow.
“Are you joking, Hema? You can't give cow's milk to newborn babies!”
“Who says so?” she said, but without conviction.
“ I do,” he said. “Besides, they've been thriving on formula for weeks. They are staying on formula.”
After his sharp words at Sister's graveside, she'd felt a terrible premonition that he would leave Missing, but in the ensuing days he had proved true to her, returning to sleep on the sofa. The calm, methodical way he'd approached Shiva's problem was a side of him she hadn't appreciated. On the wall by the door he'd taped a paper that graphed the waning and disappearance of those terrifying episodes of apnea. Hema would never have had the confidence to say what he said one evening— that the night watch was over.
He'd been sleeping on the sofa since the day she summoned him, and now she didn't want him to leave—his snoring was a sound she'd come to depend on. But she couldn't resist arguing with him now and then; it was an old reflex. She thought of it as her way of being affectionate.
They didn't take the anklet off Shiva's foot, even though it was no longer needed. The sound had become part of Shiva, and to remove it felt akin to taking away his voice.
In the early morning a stone bell heralded the procession of cow, calf, and Asrat, the milkman, up the driveway. The cowbell was tonally related to the chime of Shiva's anklet. Asrat charged more for bringing the milk factory to the house, but by milking under Rosina's or Almaz's watchful eye, there was no question of the milk being watered down.
By the time Hema rose, the house was suffused with the scent of boiling milk. She took to adding more and more milk to her morning coffee. Soon when Hema heard the cowbell, her mouth watered, just as if she were one of Professor Pavlov's mutts. Her morning “coffee” grew to two tumblers, and she had another two glasses during the day, more milk than coffee, loving the way the buttery flavor lingered on her tongue. Unlike the buffalo milk of her childhood, this milk was made so very tasty by the highland grass on which the cow fed.
When Asrat, whose bovine equanimity Hema believed came from having his cows sleep inside his hut at night, said one morning, “If only madam would buy corn feed, the milk would be so thick a spoon would stand up in it,” she didn't hesitate. Soon a coolie arrived with