Undoubtedly, there were other hospitals that were newer and bigger, at least as depicted in their brochures. But you couldn't trust a brochure, I was discovering.
Fifty yards to the side of the hospital stood the two-story house staff quarters to which he led me. On the glass door to its lobby, someone had taped a handwritten sign in thick black felt-tip pen on yellow legal paper.
India Versus Australia, 2nd Test At Brisbane
Special Cable Viewing In B. C. Gandhi's Room
(Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, and West Indians welcome,
but if you cheer for Australia management reserves the right to eject you.)
Friday Night, July 11, 1980, 7 p.m.
($10 a person and bring drink and non-veg dish, repeat, non-veg dish only.
If it didn't move before it was cooked, we don't want it!!!
Single ladies free and chairs provided.
If you bring spouse, $10 extra and bring your own chair.)
B. C. Gandhinesan M.D.,
Captain Our Lady's Eleven,
Cricket Commissioner, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour
In the lobby I registered coriander, cumin—the familiar scents of Almaz's kitchen. On the stairs I inhaled the very brand of incense that Hema lit each morning. I heard the faint drone on the second-floor landing of “Suprabhatam” sung by M. S. Subbulakshmi and the sound of a bell being rung, as someone in some other room did their
A tall, good-looking Indian man with long hair still wet from the shower came bounding down the stairs. He had big strong teeth, a winning smile, and an aftershave that smelled simply wonderful. (I found out later it was Brut.)
“B. C. Gandhinesan,” he said sticking out his hand.
“Marion Stone.”
“Excellent! Call me B.C. or Gandhi,” he said squeezing my hand. “Or call me Captain. Do you—?”
“Wicketkeeper,” Pomeranz said, triumphantly. “And opening batsman.”
B. C. Gandhi struck his forehead and staggered back. “God is great! Wonderful! Can you keep wickets for a pace bowler? A genuine fast bowler?”
“That's the kind I like best,” I said.
“Smashing! I'm a fourth-year resident. Chief Resident–to–be next year. Deepak is our Chief Resident. I'm also captain of Our Lady's First Eleven. Winners of the interhospital trophy for two years. Until those
“Jerks,” Louis said, his face dark, referring I think to the other program. “They should have forfeited that last game.”
“Turned out their star's a batsman all right, but not really a doctor,” B.C. said. “The bugger was a photocopy expert. But on paper, by the statutes of New York, he was a doctor when we played, Lou. So we don't get our money back.”
“Cocksuckers,” Lou said. “They killed us.”
“This year we have our own secret weapon,” B.C. said to me, a consoling arm around Lou. “I personally flew to Trinidad with one of our Old Boys to recruit him. You'll meet him soon. Nestor. Tall, strong fellow. Six foot four. Fast bowler, new-ball bowler, seam bowler, body-line bowler. But none of us can keep wickets for him—ferocious pace. Now, with you, we will kill those
39. The Cure for What Ails Thee
PATIENT IS UNDER. What are we waiting for? Who is doing the case?” Dr. Ronaldo asked.
“I am,” I said.
Ronaldo spun a dial on the anesthesia cart, as if this news mandated a change in the gas mixture.
“Deepak is supervising me,” I offered, but Ronaldo ignored this.
Sister Ruth, the scrub nurse, unfolding her tray, shook her head. “I'm afraid not. Popsy just called. He wants to operate. Marion, you'd better come over to this side.”
“Popsy! God help us,” Dr. Ronaldo said, slapping his palm to his cheek. “Take the clock down. Call my wife, tell her I'll be late for dinner.”
I picked up the scent of Brut and then Winston tobacco, and seconds later B. C. Gandhi was at my shoulder. He must have had a last drag in the locker room.
“I know. I heard,” he said before I could say anything. “I'm doing that gallbladder in the next room. Listen, Marion. In case Deepak doesn't get here before Popsy, your job is to contaminate the old man as soon as he picks up the scalpel.”
“What? How?”
“I don't know. Scratch your butt and touch his glove. You're a smart bugger. You'll think of something. Just don't let him get past skin, okay?” Gandhi walked off.
“Is he serious?” I asked.
Ronaldo said, “Gandhi is never serious. But he is right. Contami nate him.”
I turned to Sister Ruth, hoping she could help.
“Pray for the intercession of Our Lady,” she said. “And contami nate him.”
IT WAS THE TWELFTH WEEK of my surgery internship at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
Little did I know that the thirty-minute drive from the airport to the Bronx would be the only glimpse of America I would have for three months.
After just a week in the hospital, I felt Id left America for another country. My world was a land of fluorescent lights where day and night were the same, and where more than half the citizens spoke Spanish. When they spoke English it wasn't what I expected in the land of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The bloodlines from the
Three months at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour had gone by at lightning speed. We were severely shorthanded, compared with the norm in other American hospitals, but I didn't know the norm. At Missing, there were only four or five doctors at the best of times; here we had three times that number of physicians in surgery alone. But at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, we saw more patients. We kept so many complicated trauma patients alive on ventilators in the ICU, generated so many lab tests and so much paperwork, that the experience was completely different from Missing, where Ghosh or Hema rarely made more than a cryptic entry in the chart, leaving the rest to the nurses. I learned those quiet, long American cars, those floating living rooms on wheels, caused monstrous injuries when they crashed. The ambulance crews brought the victims to us before the tires on the wreck stopped spinning. They salvaged people we'd never see in Missing, because no one would have tried to bring them to a hospital. Judging someone to be beyond help never crossed the minds of police, firemen, or doctors here.
AT OUR LADY, we pulled every-other-night call. I had no time to be homesick. My typical day started in the early morning, when I made rounds with my team leader, B. C. Gandhi. Then my team and the other surgical teams came together to make formal rounds with Deepak Jesudass, the Chief Resident, at 6:30 a.m. On operating days, which were Tuesdays and Fridays, we interns manned the wards and the emergency room. We worked till early evening. Then if I was on call, I simply worked on through the night admitting patients from the emergency room
