14. Knowledge of the Redeemer
THE DAY AFTER THE FUNERAL, Ghosh rose early. For a change his waking thoughts were not about Hema but about Stone. As soon as he was dressed, he went straight to Stone's quarters, but he found no sign that the occupant had returned. Deflated, he went to Matron's office. She looked up expectantly. He shook his head.
He was eager to see his postoperative patient and check his handiwork. He'd been a reluctant surgeon, but now the anticipation he felt was a revelation to him. It must have been a feeling Stone had regularly enjoyed. “This could be addictive,” he said to no one in particular.
He found Colonel Mebratu sitting on the edge of the bed, his brother helping him dress. “Dr. Ghosh!” Mebratu said, smiling like a man without a care in the world, though he was clearly in pain. “My status report: I passed gas last night, stool today. Tomorrow I will pass gold!” He was a man used to charming others, and even in his weakened state, his charisma was undiminished. For someone fewer than twenty-four hours out of surgery, he looked great. Ghosh examined the wound, and it was clean and intact.
“Doctor,” the Colonel said, “I must return to my regiment in Gondar today. I can't be gone for much longer. I know it's too soon, but I don't have a choice. If I don't show my face I will be under even deeper suspicion. You don't want to save my life only for me to be hanged. I can arrange for intravenous fluids at home, whatever you say.”
Ghosh had opened his mouth to protest, but he realized he could not insist.
“All right. But listen, there is a real hazard of the wound bursting if you strain. I'll give you morphine. You must travel lying flat. We'll arrange intravenous fluids, and tomorrow you can sip water and then clear liquids the next. I will write it all down. You will need the stitches removed in about ten days.” The Colonel nodded.
The bearded brother clasped Ghosh's hand and bowed low, muttering his thanks.
“Will you travel with him?” Ghosh said.
“Yes, of course. We have a van coming. Once he is settled, I'll go to my new posting in Siberia.” Ghosh looked puzzled. “I am being banished.”
“Are you also in the military?” Ghosh said.
“No, as of this moment, I am nothing, Doctor. I am nobody.”
Colonel Mebratu put his hand on his brother's shoulder. “My brother is modest. Do you know he has a master's degree in sociology from Columbia? Yes, he was sent to America by His Imperial Majesty. The Old Man wasn't happy when my brother was attracted by the Marcus Garvey Movement. He didn't let him pursue a Ph.D. He summoned him back to be a provincial administrator. He should have let him finish.”
“No, no, I came willingly,” the brother said. “I wanted to help my people. But for that I am off to Siberia.” Ghosh waited, expecting more.
“Tell him why,” the Colonel said. “It's a health matter, after all.”
The brother sighed. “The Health Ministry built a public health clinic in our former province. His Imperial Majesty came to cut the ribbon. Half my budget for the district was consumed to make everything look good along His Majesty's route. Paint, fences, even a bulldozer to tear down huts. As soon as he left, the clinic closed.”
“Why?”
“The budget for the clinic was spent!”
“Did you not protest?”
“Of course! But no replies to my messages. The Health Minister intercepted them. So, I reopened the health center myself. It took about ten thousand birr. I got a missionary doctor in a town fifty miles away to come once a week. I had a retired army nurse doing dressings, and I found a midwife to move there. I got supplies. The local bootlegger gave me a generator. The people loved me. The Health Minister wanted to kill me. The Emperor summoned me to Addis.”
“How did you get the money?” Ghosh asked.
“Bribes! People would bring over a big
“You told this to His Majesty?”
“Ah! But that is complicated. Everyone is whispering in his ear. ‘Your Majesty,’ I said, when I got my audience. ‘The health center needs a budget to keep going.’ He acted surprised.”
“He knew,” the Colonel interjected.
“He heard me out. Those eyes give away nothing. When I was done, His Majesty whispers to Abba Hanna, the Minister of the Purse. Abba Hanna scribbles in the record. And the other ministers, have you seen them? They are in a state of constant terror. They never know if they are in their master's favor or not.
“His Majesty thanks me for my service to that province, et cetera, et cetera, and then I bow and bow and walk backward. I meet the Minister of the Purse at the rear of the room, and he gives me three hundred birr! I need thirty thousand, or even three hundred thousand, I could use. For all I know the Emperor said one hundred thousand and Abba Hanna decided it was worth only three hundred. Or was three hundred the Emperor's idea? And who do you ask? By then, the next petitioner is telling his story, and the Minister of the Purse is running back to take his position near the Emperor.
“I tried to shout from the back of the room, Your Majesty, did the minister make a mistake?’ My friends dragged me away—”
“Otherwise you wouldn't be around to tell us this story,” the Colonel said. “My foolhardy brother.”
The Colonel turned serious, his eyes on Ghosh as he took Ghosh's hand in both of his. “Dr. Ghosh. You're a better surgeon than Stone. A surgeon in hand is worth two who are gone.”
“No, I was lucky. Stone is the best.”
“I thank you for something else. You see, I was in terrible pain all the way from Gondar to here. The journey going back is going to be easy by comparison. The pain was … I knew whatever this was would get worse, would kill me. But I had options. I came to you. When you told me that for my fellow countrymen, if they have to suffer this, they simply die …” The Colonel's face turned hard, and Ghosh could not be sure if it was anger or if he was holding back tears. He cleared his throat. “It was a crime to close my brother's health center. When I came to Addis Ababa for this meeting with my … colleagues, I was prepared to listen. But I wasn't sure. You could say my motives were suspect. If I wanted to be part of a change, was it for the best of reasons, or just to grab power? I'm telling you things you can never repeat, Doctor, do you understand?”
Ghosh nodded.
“My journey, my pain, my operation …,” the Colonel went on, “God was showing me the suffering of my people. It was a message. How we treat the least of our brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus,
Later, when they had left, Ghosh realized how he'd been so predisposed to dislike Colonel Mebratu, but the opposite had happened. Conversely, as an expatriate, it was easy to project benevolent qualities on to His Majesty. Now he was less sure.
MR. ELIHU HARRIS was dressed all wrong. That was the first thing Matron noticed when he closed the door behind him and stepped up to her desk and introduced himself. He had every right to be annoyed, having visited Missing on the two previous days without meeting Matron. Instead, he seemed grateful to see her, worried about intruding on her time.
“I had no idea you were coming, Mr. Harris,” Matron said presently. “Under any other circumstance, it would have been a pleasure. But you see, yesterday, we buried Sister Mary Joseph Praise.”
“You mean …” Harris swallowed hard. His mouth opened and closed. He saw such sorrow in Matron's eyes, and he was embarrassed to have overlooked it. “You mean … the young nun from India? … Thomas Stone's assistant?”
“The very same. As for Thomas Stone, he has left. Vanished. I am very worried about him. He is a distraught man.”
Harris had a pleasant face, but his overdeveloped upper lip and uneven front teeth left him just short of
