Cutting for Stone

look she'd use when Shiva or I had been naughty. But it felt artificial, more so now because, at six feet and one inch, I towered over my nanny. “What do you have to say for yourself, Marion?”

I hung my head, took two shuffling steps toward her. “I want to say …,” I said, and then I grabbed Rosina, lifted her up in the air, whirled her about while she beat on my shoulders. “I want to say that I am so happy to see you. And I want to marry your daughter!”

“Put me down. Put me down!”

I put her down, and she tried to slap me, but I jumped away.

“You're crazy, you know that?” Rosina said, trying to adjust her blouse, smoothing out her skirt, determined not to smile at all costs. “The evil spirits have gotten into all you children.” She picked up the book bag and the magazines and retreated after Genet, shouting for her and me to hear, “You two just wait, I'm going to get a stick and line you evil children up and beat that devil out of you.”

“Rosina, why talk to your future son-in-law that way?” I called after her.

She made to turn back and come after me, but I dodged away.

“Madness! Lunacy!” she said and stalked off, talking to herself.

I looked up to see Shiva standing in the big picture window, looking out. The wind in the eucalyptus trees stirred up the kind of dry rustling sound that could fool you into thinking it was a rain squall. But the sky was cloudless. Through the glass I could see Shiva studying me, his face flushed. Our eyes met, and his expression suggested he'd been laughing, that he probably saw and heard everything. I admired his pose, one hand in his pocket, knees locked, his weight on one leg—my brother was elegant even in the act of standing in place; it was a quality he shared with Genet. He rarely smiled, and there was, in the tautness of his upper lip, the hint of a leer. I grinned, holding nothing back. I felt good, pleased with myself. My brother could read my mind. My brother loved me, he loved Genet, and I loved them both. Yes, Rosina was right, madness all around at Missing, but only a madman would want to be anywhere else.

34. A Time to Reap

THE MADNESS OF THAT EVENING came at a most inopportune time. It was my last year at LT&C and I was hell-bent on doing well in the school finals. My motivation was simple: a magnificent, ivory-colored hospital, five times as large as Missing, had been built on a rise looking down at Churchill Road and the post office and the Lycee Francais. It was to be the teaching hospital of a new medi cal school to be staffed with the help of the British Council, Swiss aid, and USAID. The teachers were distinguished physicians from these countries who had recently retired from long academic careers and ac cepted short assignments to Addis.

So while Rosina went after Genet, hauling the magazines and textbooks Genet had dropped, and certain to continue her fight, I wasted no time. I went inside, washed up, and then spread my books out on the dining table. Hema and Ghosh were playing bridge with a few others at Ghosh's old bungalow.

I ate as I studied. Every minute counted, as far as I was concerned. Id mapped out how many days and hours and minutes remained before the school-leaving exam. If I wanted to sleep, play cricket, and get into medical school, I had no time to waste.

Genet arrived an hour later to study with me. I tried not to look up. Soon, Shiva joined us. Hed brought Jeffcoates Principles of Gynaecology to the table, and it bristled with bookmarks. Shiva didn't read books as much as he disassembled and digested them, made them appendages of his body.

For Genet and me to get into medical school we had to get top grades in the school finals. Genet professed to be just as enamored with medicine as I was, but she was often late joining me at the study table, and she packed it in earlier than I did. Sometimes she didn't come at all. On two weeknights I took a taxi to Mr. Mammen's house, for tuition in math and organic chemistry. Genet came once, bristled at Mammen's ironclad discipline, and wouldn't go back, while I found his help to be priceless. On weekends I retreated to Ghosh's old quarters to study, leaving Ghosh and Hema free to turn the radio on or entertain without worrying about disturbing me. Genet could have joined me at Ghosh's quarters, but she rarely did.

Shiva didn't have any of our worries. He'd been lobbying to drop out of school altogether. He wanted to function as Hema's assistant— degrees and diplomas did not matter to him. Hema was blunt: if he wanted to work with her, he'd have to finish his final year, even if he didn't take the exams. Meanwhile, on his own he was learning everything he could about obstetrics and gynecology. I overheard Hema tell Ghosh that Shiva knew more than the average final-year medical student when it came to obstetrics and gynecology.

Shiva had appropriated the toolshed where we'd hidden the motorcycle. He'd learned to weld from Farinachi, and he kept his torch and equipment in there. A month or so earlier, I'd stuck my head in the toolshed and was surprised to see the back wall was visible, with no sign of the motorcycle, or the wood stacks, gunnysacks, and Bibles we'd used to conceal it.

“I took it apart,” Shiva had said, when I asked. He pointed to the base of his heavy worktable—the square wooden plywood support concealed the engine block. The bike's frame he'd wrapped in oilcloth and tarp and buried under the table. The rest of the bike was stored in containers which ranged from matchboxes to stacked crates, neatly arranged on metal shelves he'd welded together.

“TELL ME ABOUT IT, Shiva,” Genet whispered from behind her book, Chemistry by Concept. She'd lasted just ten minutes before breaking the silence and my concentration.

“Tell you about what?” Shiva said, not bothering to lower his voice.

“About your first time! What else? Why didn't you tell me before? I just heard from Marion that you're not a virgin.”

Shiva's story, which I'd been too embarrassed and envious to ask about myself, was stunning in its simplicity.

“I went to the Piazza. Down the side street next to the Massawa Bakery, you know, where you see the rooms, one after the other? A woman in each doorway, different-colored lights?”

“How did you pick?”

“I didn't. I went to the first door. That was it,” he said, smiling, and turning back to his work.

“No, it isn't it!” She snatched his book away. “What happened next?”

I pretended to be annoyed, but every cell in my brain was attentive. I was glad that Genet was doing the questioning.

“I asked how much. She said thirty. I said I had only ten. She said okay. She took off her clothes and lay on the bed—”

“ All her clothes?” I blurted out. Shiva looked at me, surprised.

“All but her blouse, which she pulled up.”

“A bra? What was she wearing?” Genet wanted to know.

“A little sweater, I think. A half-sleeve thing. And a miniskirt. Bare legs and high heels. No underwear. No bra. She stepped out of her heels, dropped her skirt, lifted her blouse, and lay down.”

“Oh, God! Go on,” said Genet.

“I took all my clothes off. I was ready. I told her it was my first time. She said, ‘God help us.’ I said I didn't think we needed God. I got on top of her, she helped me start—”

“Did it hurt her? Were you …”

“Erect. Yes. No, I don't think it hurt her. You know the vagina has walls that are expansible, they can accommodate a baby's head—”

“Okay, okay,” Genet said. “Then what?”

“She started to move, showing me how till I understood. I did that till I experienced the ejaculatory response.”

“What?” Genet said.

“The contraction of the vas and the seminal vesicles mixing with pro-static secretions—”

“He came,” I explained. I'd learned the word from a scruffy little pamphlet authored by a T N. Raman, a writer of purple prose. My classmate Satish brought these pamphlets back from his holiday in Bombay. T N. Raman