While Mr. Benfatti carried on about the details of the pain he’d been suffering, Samira struggled with what to do. Recognizing there was no rational way to make a decision short of the crystal ball she didn’t have, she opted for the more simple choice of acknowledging her impetuosity and just proceeding as planned. The deciding factor was the realization that Mr. Benfatti would not be discovered for hours maybe, since his wife had just left and the nurse had just given him a shot. What that meant was that Samira would have lots of time to be far from the scene when he was discovered. She pulled the syringe from its hiding place. Using her teeth to remove the needle cap, she reached for the IV port below the millepore filter.
Mr. Benfatti had seen Samira suddenly approach the bed, had caught sight of the syringe, and had stopped his diatribe about pain. “What’s this?” he questioned. When Samira ignored him and raised the needle up to the IV port to inject, he reached out with his right hand and grasped Samira’s right wrist. In the next instant, their eyes locked. “What am I getting?”
“It’s something for your pain,” Samira nervously improvised. The fact that Mr. Benfatti was holding her terrorized her. For a second, she irrationally worried that what she was about to give Mr. Benfatti would pass into her from the contact.
“I just got a pain shot two seconds ago. Isn’t this overdoing it?”
“The doctor ordered another. This is more, to get you to sleep longer.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Samira repeated, reminding her of the unpleasant conversation she’d just had with Charu. She looked down at Mr. Benfatti tightly gripping her wrist. The man was strong, and although she wasn’t yet experiencing pain, it was close. He was restricting her blood flow.
“Is the doctor here?”
“No, he’s gone for the day. He called this in.”
Mr. Benfatti maintained his grip for several more seconds and then suddenly released it.
Samira let out a silent sigh of relief. The very tips of her fingers had begun to tingle. Without wasting another moment, she struggled to get the needle inside the port, being especially careful in her haste not to prick herself. With succinylcholine, even a small amount could create problems. Without delay, Samira emptied the syringe. A second later a cry began to issue from Mr. Benfatti’s lips, causing Samira to clamp a free hand over the man’s mouth.
Mr. Benfatti responded by reaching for the nurses’ call button clasped to the edge of his pillow, but Samira was able to yank it out of reach with the hand holding the syringe. Almost immediately, she felt the resistance she’d had against her hand cupped over the man’s mouth melt away. Taking her hand away, Samira noticed a kind of wriggling under the man’s skin, as if suddenly his face had been infiltrated by worms. At the same time, his arms and even his free leg began to briefly and uncontrollably jerk. The next second, the twitching stopped. In its place was a darkening of his skin that was particularly apparent due to the white light from the TV. It had started slowly, then picked up speed until all of Mr. Benfatti’s exposed skin was an ominous dark purple.
Although Samira had purposely avoided looking into the man’s eyes while he’d gone through his rapid death throes, she did now. The lids were only half open and the pupils blank. Backing up toward the door, Samira collided with a chair and grabbed it to keep it from falling over. The last thing she wanted was for someone to appear, questioning a crashing noise. Taking one last look at Benfatti from the doorway, Samira was momentarily hypnotized by the fact that the man’s leg was still rhythmically being mechanically flexed and extended as if he were still alive.
Turning around, Samira fled from the room but then forced herself to slow to a walk by sheer will to keep from attracting attention. Maintaining her eye on the nurses’ station, where she could see all four nurses, Samira made her way to the stairwell. Only when she was inside did she allow herself to breathe, surprised that she’d been holding her breath. She’d been totally unaware.
After picking up the books and turning out the light in the library, Samira descended to the lobby floor. She appreciated that the lobby was empty and appreciated even more that the doormen had gone off duty. Out on the street Samira caught an auto rickshaw, and as they pulled away, she glanced back at the Queen Victoria Hospital. It looked dark, shadowy, and, most important, quiet.
During the ride home, Samira felt progressively better at what she had accomplished, and the fear, anxiety, and indecision she had experienced rapidly faded into the background. As the auto rickshaw reached the bungalow’s driveway, it seemed to her that such problems were mere blips on the radar screen.
“I have to leave you here,” the driver said in Hindi, as he pulled to a halt.
“I don’t want to get out here. Take me up to the door!”
The driver’s eyes nervously flashed in the darkness as he looked back at Samira. He was clearly afraid. “But the owner of such a house will be angry, and he might call the police and the police will demand money.”
“I live here,” Samira snapped, followed by choice Internet-learned expletives. “If you don’t take me, you won’t be paid.”
“I chose not to be paid. The police will demand ten times as much.”
With a few more appropriate words, Samira climbed from the three-wheeled scooter, and without looking back started hiking down the drive. In the background she heard a burst of equivalent profanity before the auto rickshaw noisily powered off into the night. As she walked, Samira mulled over how she was going to describe her experience taking care of the American. It didn’t take her but a moment to decide to leave out the minor concerns and concentrate on the success: Mr. Benfatti had been taken care of. That was the important thing. She surely wasn’t going to complain like Veena had.
Entering the house, she found everyone, all four officers and all eleven other nurses, in the formal living room watching an old DVD called Animal House. The moment she walked into the room, Cal paused the movie. Everyone looked at her expectantly.
“Well?” Cal questioned. Samira was enjoying teasing the group. She’d taken an apple and sat down as if to watch the movie without providing a report.
“Well what?” Samira questioned, extending the ploy.
“Don’t make us beg!” Durell threatened.
“Oh, you must mean what happened to Mr. Benfatti.”
“Samira,” Durell playfully warned.
“Everything went fine, exactly as you all suggested it would, but then again, I didn’t expect anything different.”
“You weren’t scared?” Raj asked. “Veena said she was scared.” Raj was the only male nurse. Despite his bodybuilder appearance, his voice was soft, almost feminine.
“Not in the slightest,” Samira said, although while she spoke she remembered how she’d felt when Benfatti was gripping her arm hard enough to hinder the blood flow.
“Raj has volunteered for tomorrow night,” Cal explained. “He’s got a perfect patient scheduled for surgery in the morning.”
Samira turned to him. He was a handsome man. In the evenings he wore his tie shirts a size too small to emphasize his impressive physique. “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine,” Samira assured him. “The succinylcholine works literally in seconds.”
“Veena said her patient’s face twitched all over the place,” Raj commented with a concerned expression. “She said it was horrid.”
“There were some fasciculations, but they were over practically before they began.”
“Veena said her patient turned purple.”
“That did happen, but you shouldn’t be standing around admiring your handiwork.”
Some of the nurses laughed. Cal, Petra, and Santana stayed serious.