pressed me as to what was going on. I couldn't believe that she didn't know or that Rosina didn't tell her. It appeared that no one was talking about what happened the previous night. I was sure Rosina would go to Hema and accuse me and I couldn't understand why so far she had not. Had Hema talked to Shiva, I suspect she would have found out everything. But no one thought to ask him.
Shiva returned just as we were finishing dinner, pleased with his excursion to Akaki. Neither Genet nor Rosina was at the table. Almaz said that mother and daughter were having a big fight and that Rosina's relatives had come to mediate.
Hema rose to go see what was happening, but Ghosh held her back. “Whatever it is, if you get in the middle it's only going to get more complicated.” Shiva said nothing, eating his food.
I wasn't being noble by keeping quiet. I didn't think anyone would believe my side of the story. It was up to my brother or Genet to save me if they wanted to. I studied Shiva's face at the dining table. There was no sign that he was aware of the calamity he'd caused. No indication at all.
That night I told Shiva I was moving to a room in Ghosh's old quarters. I was going to sleep and study there. I wanted to be alone there, I announced, not looking at him.
He said nothing. It would be the first time in our lives that we did not occupy the same bed. If there were filaments and cords of yolk or flesh that kept our divided egg sticking together, I was taking a scalpel to them.
Saturday morning, when I came over for breakfast, it seemed to me that Shiva hadn't slept any better than I had. After breakfast, he left for Farinachi's.
I was about to go back to my room to study when Almaz burst into the dining room. “I think you better come, madam,” she said, addressing Hema.
She led the charge to the servant's quarters; Hema, Ghosh, and I followed.
Rosina sat in a corner of the darkened room, looking sullen, defensive yet anxious. Genet lay on her bed, her face pale, sweat beading on her forehead, her eyes open, but unfocused and dull. The room held a raw, sour odor of fever.
“What happened here?” Hema asked, but Rosina wouldn't answer or meet Hema's gaze. Almaz turned on the light, and she moved to block my view, then lifted the blanket to show Hema.
Ghosh said, “Open the window, Marion,” and he moved closer to look.
“My God,” Hema said. Genet moaned in pain. Hema grabbed Rosina's shoulders. “Did you? Did you just … this poor girl?” Choking with fury, Hema shook her. But Rosina wouldn't look up. “You stupid woman!” Hema said. “Oh, God, God. Why?” Hema's eyes were those of a madwoman, uncomprehending, dangerous. I thought she might strangle Rosina. Instead, she pushed her away. “You've probably killed her, Rosina, do you know that?” There were tears coming down Rosina's chin, but her expression remained surly.
Ghosh scooped Genet in his arms, and she let out an unearthly moan as he lifted her off the bed. “The car,” Ghosh said, and Almaz ran ahead to get the door. Hema followed. I lingered for a second in the doorway on the threshold of Genet's home. My nanny sat just the way she had when we came in. I thought of the day she'd taken a razor to scarify Genet's face and how her expression had been defiant, proud. But now, I saw shame and fear.
As I ran to join them in the car, Hema spun on her heel and thrust her face in mine. “I think you had something to do with this, Marion. I'm not a fool!”
She got in the car and slammed the door. They pulled away with Almaz cradling Genet in the back, Ghosh driving. I ran down our drive, cut behind the toolshed and across the field, and caught up with them as they took her into Casualty.
They poured fluids and antibiotics into Genet's veins. Then Hema took her to Operating Theater 3 for a more careful examination. When Hema came out, she was shaken but more composed, and quietly furious. She didn't seem to care if I heard her report to Ghosh and Matron. “Can you imagine Rosina paid to slice off the child's clitoris? Not just clitoris but also the labia minora and then sew the edges together with sewing thread! Good God, can you imagine the pain? I cut the sutures out. It is hugely infected. Now it's up to God.”
Genet was wheeled to the single room reserved for VIPs. I remembered Ghosh telling me it was the room that General Mebratu had occupied after emergency surgery, shortly after we were born.
I sat on a chair by her bed. At one point, Genet squeezed my hand, whether consciously or reflexively I couldn't be sure. I held it.
Hema sat across from me in an armchair, her elbows on her knees, head in her hands. We had nothing to say to each other. I was as angry with Hema as she was with me.
At one point, Hema lifted her head up and said, “The people who did this should all go to jail.” It wasn't the first time she'd had to rescue a woman in Genet's situation. She was probably one of the world's experts in treating botched and infected female circumcisions. But now her face was clamped down in a bitterness I'd never seen before.
It was evening when Genet opened her eyes. She saw me, and she tried to say something. I asked her if she wanted water, and she nodded. I guided a straw to her mouth. She looked around to see if there was anyone else in the room.
“I'm sorry, Marion,” she whispered, her eyes swimming with tears.
“Don't talk,” I said. “It's all right.” It wasn't, but that's what came to my mouth.
“I … should have waited,” she said.
She moaned when she tried to move, licking her lips. I gave her more water.
“My mother thinks it was you.” Her voice was weak.
I nodded, but said nothing.
“When I told her it was Shiva,” Genet said, “she slapped me. She kicked me and called me a liar. She didn't believe me. She thinks Shiva is a virgin.” She tried to laugh, but grimaced and then coughed. When she could speak, she said, “Listen, I made my mother promise not to tell Hema.”
I couldn't resist a sarcastic snicker. “Well, don't worry. She
“No. She won't,” Genet said. “That was our deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“I agreed to let her do this to me, if she wouldn't … say anything. She's to keep quiet. Not a word to Hema. Not one word. And no more shouting at you.”
I slumped back on hearing this. Genet allowed a strange woman to cut her privates with an unsterilized blade, and it was all to protect me? So now I was to blame for the circumcision? It was so absurd that I wanted to laugh, but I found I couldn't: the guilt had settled on me as if it knew that was its home and it would be welcome.
Shiva came in the evening, his face pale and drawn. “Here, sit here,” I said before he could open his mouth. I didn't trust myself near him and I needed a break. “Stay with her till I come back. Hold her hand. She gets restless when I let go.” There was nothing else I could say to him, now. I was beyond anger, and he was beyond sorrow.
GENET'S FEVER RAGED for three days. I sat by her bed day and night. Hema, Ghosh, and Matron were in and out all the time.
On the third day, Genet stopped making any urine. Ghosh was very worried, drawing blood himself, then Shiva or I would run to the lab, help W.W. line up our reagents and tubes and measure the blood urea nitrogen level: high, and getting higher.
Genet was never completely unconscious, just sleepy, confused at times, often moaning, and at one point horribly thirsty. She called for her mother once, but Rosina wasn't there. Almaz told me Rosina wouldn't leave her room, which was probably a good thing. The atmo sphere in the hospital room was tense enough without the prospect of Hema attacking Rosina.
On the sixth day, Genet's kidneys began to produce urine, and then they produced it in huge amounts, filling up the catheter bag. Ghosh doubled and tripled her intravenous fluid rates, and encouraged her to drink to keep up with the loss. “Hopefully this means her kidneys are recovering,” Ghosh said. “They just aren't able to concentrate the urine too well.”
One morning, when I woke up in the chair and saw her face, the texture of the skin, the relaxation around
