Next to the picture was a glass cylinder, filled with murky fluid. Closer inspection revealed a human finger floating in the liquid.
I had come there wanting to … to do damage.
That picture made me change my mind.
Instead, I opened all the kitchen cabinets and left the doors ajar. I pulled down the oven door. I opened both sides of the fridge. I took the top off the juice container. I opened the bathroom cabinets. I unscrewed toothpaste, shampoo, and conditioner, setting the tops carefully alongside the bottles. I opened anything that had a lid or a cover. I left open wardrobe, chest of drawers, filing cabinet, ink bottle, medicine bottles. I opened the windows.
In the center of his desk I placed the bookmark with Sister Mary Joseph Praise's writing on it.
I felt certain he had the letter my mother referred to. Now, in his home, I asked myself again: Where was it … and what did it say? I was tempted to ransack the place to find it but that would have spoiled what I had created.
I twisted open the formalin bottle, fished out his finger, shook it free of fluid, and put it next to the bookmark. I studied what Id done. I changed my mind about the finger. I put it back in the formalin bottle, capped it, and took it with me. It was only fair. After all, Id left him something of mine.
I propped the door open on my way out.
44. Begin at the Beginning
IT WAS TWO WEEKS LATER on a Sunday that I heard the knock on my door. We had beaten our archrivals from Coney Island at a limited overs match on their turf, coming away with the interhospi-tal cricket trophy Nestor had taken six wickets for twenty-five runs in a torrid spell of pace bowling, and four of those were by catches I took standing well behind the wicket. I had slipped away from the festivities in B. C. Gandhi's room, my fingers sore despite the keeper's gloves and my knees aching. I planned an early night.
“Come in,” I said.
He scanned the dark room, getting his bearings. If he saw the shadow of my bed, he didn't see me because he looked away, to the light leaking from under the bathroom door. Then to the curtained window. When he looked back I was sitting up. It gave him a start.
He shut the door and stood there, a man who had walked into his past.
I waited. I hadn't invited him here. The seconds ticked away and he showed no inclination to speak. I had to give him this: he tracked me down, he figured it out. Perhaps he did register my presence in the opera ting room the day he peeked over my shoulder. Perhaps in the auditorium when I answered his question he saw in my face features of my mother or of himself. How strange to spot a son you've never seen or thought of till the day he appears at morbidity and mortality conference and gives new meaning to that activity.
“You might as well sit,” I said. I didn't offer to turn on the light.
There was a chair beyond my bed. He walked forward quickly like a blind man who'd risk bumping into something rather than seem hesitant or ask for help. He sat down hard.
I didn't think he could see my face. I studied his. As his eyes adjusted, he looked at my possessions. I had more things than he did. If you didn't count books. I saw him linger on the framed print of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa—he must have recognized at once where that came from. Oh yes, and the finger in the jar. He knew he was in the right room.
The minutes passed. It was ten at night.
“Mind if I smoke?” he said at last.
“You don't smoke.” I hadn't picked up the smell of cigarettes in his condo. Just his scent, which my nostrils registered again.
“I do now … When did you start?”
His nose was pretty good. I took my time answering.
“Since coming here. It's a prerequisite for surgical training. Go ahead.”
He fumbled in his shirt pocket and brought out two cigarettes. I thought of Ali and his little souk, the only place I knew where you could buy loose smokes. In America you bought them in cartons or by the truckload.
He held a cigarette out to me. I stared at it. He was about to withdraw his hand when I took it. He flicked his lighter and stood to meet me as I swung my feet over the side of the bed.
His fingers shielded the fire, a nine-fingered sepulchre. I bowed to the flame and drew till my tip glowed.
Thank you, Father.
I sat back on the bed. He found an old Styrofoam cup in arm's reach. I took a thoughtful draw, passing judgment on his cigarette. It was a Rothmans, a throwback to his Ethiopia days, or, lest I forget, his British days. Rothmans was also what we puffed at Our Lady, courtesy of B. C. Gandhi, who got cartons at deep discount from Canal Street.
The smoke made sinuous shapes in the shaft of light leaking past the bathroom door. I remembered our kitchen at Missing and how the dust motes dancing in the morning rays formed their own galaxy. When I was a child, that sight had hinted at the wonderful and frightening complexity of the universe, of how the closer one looked the more one saw revealed, and one's imagination was the only limit.
“I don't expect you to understand,” he said, and for a moment I thought he was talking about the dust motes. The sound of his voice irritated me. Who gave him permission to speak? In my room?
“Then let's not talk about it.”
More silence.
He cracked first. “How do you like surgery?”
Did I really want to answer him? By answering, was I conceding something? I had to think about this for a few minutes. Let him sweat.
“How do I like surgery? Hmmm … I am lucky to have Deepak. He takes great pains with me. The basics, good habits. I think it is so important …” I clammed up then. I felt I had said too much. I detected in my tone a need for his approval, his affirmation—that was the last thing I wanted. I thought of Ghosh who became an accidental surgeon because of Stone's departure. He had no one to teach him. Ah, Ghosh! Ghosh's dying wish was that—
“I know some of the people Deepak trained with,” Stone said, interrupting my train of thought. Ghosh's message to him could wait. This wasn't the time. I wasn't in the mood.
“Oh, really?”
“I made inquiries about him. You are lucky.”
“But Deepak isn't lucky. He is going to get screwed all over again. In fact, we all are.”
“Maybe not,” he said.
I didn't pursue this. No favors, please. I wanted nothing from him. He squirmed in his chair, but not from discomfort. It was what he was holding back, waiting for me to ask. I would not give him the pleasure.
“I had a Deepak in my life,” he said. “All it takes is one. Mine was a Dr. Braithwaite. A stickler for the right way. I appreciate him more now than I did then. Despite him, after all these years, I find it extraordinarily difficult to …”
The words had dried up on his tongue. This was such an effort, a physical trial for him to converse. He wasn't a man who ever spoke like this, I didn't think. Sharing his inner thoughts wasn't something he had practiced. Not even with himself. I gave him lots of time.
“What? You find it extraordinarily difficult to … what?”
I should have just told him to leave. Here I was conversing, helping him along.
“I find it difficult to operate. Particularly elective surgery. I have anxieties.” He spoke slowly, drawing out his words. “No one knows. Even if I'm doing a hernia or a hydrocele … in fact the simpler the operation, the more likely this is to happen … I have to look up the surgical anatomy, go over all the steps in an operative book, even though after all these years I don't need to. I'm terrified I will forget. Or that my mind will go blank … Sometimes I throw up in the lounge. I feel sick, dizzy. It has never stopped. It made me consider giving up surgery. It's worse if it's someone I know, a hospital employee brings his mother …”