Cutting for Stone

her.

The music wouldn't stop, and I never wanted it to stop, and just when I thought that, it faded. The American announcer's lazy drawl was so unlike the crisp formal tones of the BBC. “Well, well,” he said. “My, my. Umm, hmmm,” as if hed seen us carrying on. “Have you ever heard anything quite like that? This is the Rock of East Africa. East Africa's Big 14. Armed Forces Radio Service, Asmara.” It wasn't a station that I knew existed. I knew of a huge American military presence, a listening post, I'd heard it called, just outside of Asmara in Kagnew. Who knew they had something we could listen to?

We were still pressed together, holding the world at bay. She gazed into my eyes, I didn't know if she was about to cry or laugh. All I knew was that I'd have cried with her, or laughed or got down on all fours and pretended to be Koochooloo if she asked.

“You're so beautiful,” I said, surprising myself.

She gasped. My words seem to ripple through her. Had I said the wrong thing? Her lips quivered; her eyes shone. She was expressing joy. I'd said the right thing.

She lowered her face, brought that lip with the puckered scar and the bulges on either side close to mine. Her mouth overlapped mine, forming a seal. The silliest image entered my mind, and it was that of connecting one garden hose to another. What flowed across wasn't water, but her tongue. This time, unlike in the pantry with Genet, I received her tongue eagerly. It was so very exciting. I put my hand behind her head. I pressed my body to her, feeling every atom in me come to a point.

I pulled away once to look at her and say, “You're so beautiful,” because it was a magical phrase, one I knew I should use often, but only if I believed it to be true. I don't know how long we were coupled by our mouths, but it came most naturally, as if I were satisfying a hunger. I didn't realize this potential existed in me. It carried me forward. Whatever was next, I didn't know, but my body knew. I trusted my body. I was ready.

Suddenly, she stepped away. She held me at arm's length. She sat on the edge of the bed. She was crying. Something had happened about which my body had failed to inform me. Or perhaps there was a rule, an etiquette, that I'd failed to observe. I eyed the door, measuring my escape.

“Can you ever forgive me?” she said. “Your mother shouldn't have died. Maybe if I told someone she was sick, they could've helped her.”

This was astonishing. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rise. I'd entirely forgotten this was my mother's room. I couldn't picture Sister Mary Joseph Praise in here, certainly not with a poster of Venice on the wall, and on another wall a black-and-white poster of a white singer, his pelvis thrust forward at the microphone stand which hed pulled toward him, his face contorted with the effort of singing. I looked back to the Staff Probationer.

“I didn't know how sick she was.” She hiccuped through her tears, just like a baby.

“It's all right,” I said, feeling as if someone else gave me those words.

“Say you forgive me.”

“I will if you stop crying. Please.”

“Say it.”

“I forgive you.”

She only cried louder. Someone would hear. I didn't think I was supposed to be in this room. And I certainly wasn't supposed to make her cry.

“I said it! I said I forgive you. Why are you still crying?”

“But I almost let you and your brother die. I was supposed to help you breathe when you came out. I was supposed to resuscitate you. But I forgot.”

WHEN I FIRST CAME to this room, I was adrift, feeling as if a part of me was missing, all because Genet was away. Then I'd forgotten all that and found happiness, no, ecstasy, in the dance, a hint of what I wanted with Genet. And now I was adrift again, and confused. Paradise had seemed so close, and now I was clawing through fog. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her, to the bed.

“You can do anything you want to me. Anytime,” she said, tilting her head back, looking up at me as I stood over her.

What did she mean?

“Do what?” I said.

Anything.

She let me go and she fell back on her bed. She was spread-eagled. She was ready. For whatever I might want to do.

Yes, there was something I wanted to do. If I were given free rein, dominion over her body, I knew I'd discover it by instinct. I had a general idea. I was nearly fourteen after all.

She was giving me license and still I waited.

She rolled over onto her belly, showing me her buttocks and peering at me over her shoulder. Her eyelids were puffy, her expression dreamy and faraway She spun one hundred eighty degrees so her head faced me. She propped herself up on her elbows. Her breasts hung down, the nipples barely concealed. She followed my gaze to her cleavage.

I heard voices and footsteps outside. The other nurses and probationers were back from dinner.

I didn't want to leave. But the world had intruded. My hesitation doomed me. That and her uninvited confession.

“I want to dance with you again,” I said, in a whisper.

“You can …,” she whispered, but as if that were the wrong answer.

“I do want to do … anything with you.”

“Yes! That's what I want, too.” She was kneeling on the bed now, brightening, smiling through her tears. “Come,” she said, arms extended, beckoning.

“But nothing right now. I'll be back another day.” I put my hand on the doorknob.

“But … how about anything now?” she said, loud enough for the world to hear.

I slipped out quickly, hoping that if anyone saw me, they'd think it perfectly normal for me to visit.

The rain hadn't let up. I let it beat on my head. I didn't mind. Rain was familiar. But this balancing on the edge of feelings so powerful they seemed capable of making me fly, this was a revelation. By the time I reached our quarters I was soaked. When I saw the door to Rosina and Genet's room, I longed for the padlock not to be there. I stood staring at that closed door.

It was at that moment, with raindrops smacking me on the fontanel, that I came to the decision that I must marry Genet. Yes, that was my destiny. What I felt with the probationer, I never wanted to feel with anyone but Genet. There were too many temptations out there, great forces ready to shake me free of my avowed intent. I wanted to succumb to temptation. But with just one woman, and that was Genet.

If I married her, I'd solve everything. It would keep Rosina from pulling away, it would make Hema, Ghosh, and Rosina happy, and they'd have both of us as their children. I could see us having kids of our own. We'd tear down the servant's quarters and build the twin to the main house, with a linking corridor, so we could all be under the same roof; we'd have a room, or maybe a suite, for Shiva. He'd be happy to have Genet as a sister-in-law. Since Shiva wasn't one to look back, to celebrate the past, it was all the more important for me to preserve the family, keep us as one.

I STEPPED INTO THE HOUSE, dripping water on the floor. In the bathroom I stripped naked and studied myself in the mirror, looking to see what the probationer saw. I was tall for my age, nearly six feet, and my skin was fair. I could perhaps have passed for someone of Mediterranean ancestry; my irises were brown—I never saw the hint of blue I could see in Shiva's. My expression seemed unduly earnest, particularly when my hair was damp. Once it dried, the curls would return and would have a life of their own, refusing to be corralled. This is what it means to arrive at manhood, I thought, hands on my hips, turning to admire my flanks, my buttocks.

I dressed and returned to the kitchen, breathing in the scents steaming out of the pots and snatching a piece of meat before Almaz could slap my hand away. She scolded me, but it was a sweet sound, as was the music from the living room with the heavy beat of a tabla, and the thump and thud of Hema and Shiva dancing, of Hema calling out instructions. I heard the rattle of the loose bumper on the Volkswagen as Ghosh came up the driveway. I felt ecstatic, as if I was at the epicenter of our family, missing only Genet and Rosina who surely would come back, and