Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [92]
As for Ghosh, proximity to Hema was his drug. He brushed against her when he lowered the sleeping babies into the crib that replaced the incubator. He was encouraged when she didn't turn around and snap at him. He gazed at her while sipping his morning coffee as she wrote out shopping lists for him, or consulted with Almaz about the plans for the day. One day she saw him looking.
“What? I look horrible first thing in the morning. Is that it?”
“No. You look the opposite of horrible.”
She blushed. “Shaddap,” she said, but the glow in her face did not fade.
One evening at dinner, he said, more to himself than to her, “I wonder what has become of Thomas Stone.”
Hema pushed her chair back and stood up. “Please. I don't want you to ever mention that man's name in this house.”
There were tears in her eyes. And fear. He went to her. He could bear her anger, he could suffer it, but he couldn't bear to see her in distress. He grabbed her hands, pulled her toward him; she fought but finally gave in, as he murmured, “It is all right. I didn't mean to upset you. It's all right.” I'd sell my best friend down the river to be able to hold you like this.
“What if he comes and claims them? You heard the astrologer.” She was trembling. “Have you thought about that?”
“He won't,” Ghosh said, but she heard the uncertainty in his voice. She marched to her bedroom. “Well, if he tries, it will be over my dead body, do you hear me? Over my dead body!”
ONE VERY COLD NIGHT when the twins were nine months old, and while the mamithus slept in their quarters, and when Matron had returned to hers, everything changed. There was no longer a reason for Ghosh to sleep on the couch, but neither of them had brought up the idea of his leaving.
Ghosh came in just before midnight, and he found Hema sitting at the dining table. He came up close to her so she could inspect his eyes and see if there was liquor on his breath—it was what he always did to tease her when he returned at this hour. She pushed him away.
He went in to look at the twins. When he came out he said, “I smell incense.” Hed scolded her before for letting the twins breathe in any smoke.
“It's a hallucination. Maybe the gods are trying to reach you.” She pretended to be absorbed in the task of putting his dinner on the table.
“Macaroni that Rosina prepared,” she said, uncovering a bowl. “And Almaz left chicken curry for you. They are competing to feed you. God knows why.”
Ghosh tucked his napkin into his shirt. “You call me godless? If you read your Vedas or your Gita, you'll remember a man went to the sage, Ramakrishna, saying, ‘O Master, I don't know how to love God.’ “ Hema frowned. “And the sage asked him if there was anything he loved. He said, ‘I love my little son.’ And Ramakrishna said, ‘There is your love and service to God. In your love and service to that child.’ “
“So where were you at this hour, Mr. Godly Man?”
“Doing a Cesarean section. I was in and out in fifteen minutes,” Ghosh said. Hema did three Cesarean sections in the weeks after the birth of the twins: once to teach Ghosh, once to assist him as he did it, and the third time to stand by and watch. No woman would die at Missing or be sent elsewhere for want of a C-section. “The baby had the cord wrapped around its neck. Baby is fine. The mother is already asking for her boiled egg.”
Watching Ghosh eat had become Hema's nightly pastime. His appetites engaged him; he lived in the center of a flurry of ideas and projects that made piles around her sofa.
Her mind had been drifting, so she had to ask him to repeat what he said.
“I said I would be in the middle of my internship at Cook County Hospital now, had I gone. I was ready to leave Ethiopia, you know.”
“Why? Because Stone left?”
“No, woman. Before that. Before the babies were born or Sister died. You see, I was convinced