Cutting for Stone

point that the probationer delivered her summons.

Ghosh covered the wound with a damp sterile towel, and he ran home, tearing off his mask and cap, imagining the worst.

He burst into Hema's bedroom, breathless. “What is it?”

Hema, in a silk sari, had spread rice out on the floor. In Sanskrit letters, shed spelled out the boys’ names in the grains. Shiva was in her arms, and Rosina held Marion. Hema had assembled a few Indian women, who were glaring at him in disapproval.

“The post came,” Hema said. “We forgot to do the nama-karanum, Ghosh. Naming ceremony. Should be on the eleventh day, but you can also do it on the sixteenth day. We have not done it on either of those two days, but in my mother's letter she says as long as I do it as soon as I get her aerogram we are all right.”

“You made me leave an operation for this?” He was furious. It was on his lips to say, How can you subscribe to all this witchcraft?

“Look,” Hema hissed, embarrassed by his behavior, “the father is supposed to whisper the child's name into its ear. If you don't want to do it, I'll call someone else.”

That word—”father”—changed everything. He felt a thrill. He quickly whispered “Marion” and then “Shiva” into each tiny ear, kissed each child, then kissed Hema on the cheek before she could pull away, saying “Bye, Mama,” scandalizing Hema's guests before he raced back to the theater to fashion the flap over the stump.

THE TWINS WEREN'T EASY to tell apart but for the anklet which Hema had kept on Shiva as a talisman. While Shiva was peaceful, quiet, Marion tended to furrow his eyebrows in concentration when Ghosh carried him, as if trying to reconcile the strange man with the curious sounds he made. Shiva was slightly smaller, and his skull still bore the marks of Stone's attempts at extraction; he fussed only when he heard Marion crying, as if to show solidarity.

By twelve weeks, the twins had gained weight, their cries were lusty their movements vigorous. They clenched their fists against their chests, and now and then they stretched out their arms and focused on their hands with cross-eyed wonder.

If they didn't show awareness of each other, Hema believed it was because they thought they were one. When they were bottle-fed, one in Rosina's arms, the other in Hema's or Ghosh's, it helped greatly for them to be within earshot, heads or limbs touching; if they took one twin to another room, they both became fussy

At five months, the boys had a riot of black curly hair. They had Stone's close-set eyes, which made them appear hypervigilant, examining their surroundings like clinicians. Their irises, depending on the light, were a very light brown or a dark blue. The forehead, round and generous, and the perfect Cupid's bow of the lip was all Sister Mary Joseph Praise. They were, Hema thought, much more beautiful than Glaxo babies, and there were two of them. And they were hers.

To his delight, Ghosh had the magic touch when it came to putting them to sleep. He supported one child on each forearm, their cheeks against his shoulder while their feet rested on the shelf of his belly. He would circumnavigate Hema's living room, bobbing and swaying. For lack of lullabies, he reached into his repertoire of bawdy verse. One night Matron took Ghosh aside and said: “Your limericks are usurping my prayers.” Ghosh pictured Matron on her knees reciting:

There was a man from Madras

Whose balls were made out of brass

In stormy weather

They clanged together

And sparks came out of his arse.

“I'm sorry, Matron.”

“It can hardly be good for them to hear these things at such a tender age.”

GHOSH COULD BARELY REMEMBER what his life was like before the twins arrived. When they snuggled in his arms, smiled, or pressed their wet chins against him he felt his heart would burst with pride. Marion and Shiva; now he could not imagine any better names. Of late his shoulders ached and his hands were numb when the mamithus lifted the sleeping boys from his arms.

Since he started sleeping on Hema's sofa, he'd not had a twinge of discomfort when he peed.

Hema regained some of her old manner. At times he missed their sparring. Had he pursued her all these years precisely because she was so unattainable? What if she had agreed to marry him as soon as he arrived in Ethiopia? Would his passion have survived? Everyone needed an obsession, and in the last eight years, shed given him his, and for that perhaps he should be grateful.

Many a night, after putting the boys to bed, he had to return to finish up at the hospital. Not one drop of beer had touched his lips since his first night on Hema's sofa. On Hema's narrow couch he slept peacefully and woke refreshed.

Living under the same roof, Ghosh discovered that Hema chewed khat. It began during the night vigils with Shiva and it had helped her through her shift. Her bookmark was soon ahead of his in Middlemarch, and she was on Zola before he was done. She tried to hide the khat from him, and when he mentioned it, he found it touching how flustered she became. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said.

So he didn't bring it up again, though he knew when he saw her knitting late into the night, or when she waited up for him and was chattier than Rosina, that she had probably had a little chew before he arrived. Adid, the always smiling merchant she had seen on the plane coming back from Aden and whose company they both enjoyed, brought her the leaves.

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