Cutting for Stone (57 page)

CHAPTER 47
Missing Letters

T
HOMAS STONE STAYED IN MY ROOM
past midnight. At some point he became one with the dark shadows, his voice filling my space as if no other words had ever been spoken there. I didn't interrupt him. I forgot he was there. I was inhabiting his story, lighting a candle in St. Mary's Church in Fort St. George, Madras, holding my own in an English boarding school, seeing how an unroofing of memory might lead to a vision of Mary. And if visions could happen in Fatima and Lourdes and Guadalupe, who was I to doubt that a secular vision of my mother had not appeared to him in a frost-rimmed rooming house window, just as I had seen and felt her in the autoclave room as a young boy? His voice walked me into a past that preceded my birth, but it was still mine as much as the color of my eyes or the length of my index finger.

I became conscious of Thomas Stone only when he was done; I saw a man under the spell of his own tale, a snake charmer whose serpent has become his turban. The silence afterward was terrible.

THOMAS STONE SAVED
our surgery program.

He did it by making Our Lady of Perpetual Succour an affiliate of Mecca in Boston. All it took was his affixing his signature to a letter saying it was so. But Our Lady of Perpetual Succour was no mere paper affiliate of Mecca. Each month, four medical students and two surgical residents came down from Mecca to do a rotation with us. “A safari to see the natives killing each other, and to catch a few Broadway shows,” is how B. C. Gandhi put it when he heard about the plan. But each of us also had opportunities to do specialty rotations up in Boston.

I finished my internship and began my second year of residency. The most important result of our affiliation with Mecca was that it allowed Deepak, the Wandering Jew of surgery (as B.C. referred to him), to finish. He was now a board-certified surgeon and could have gone anywhere to set up practice. Instead, he stayed on at Our Lady with the title of Director of Surgical Training; he was also appointed Clinical Assistant Professor at Mecca. I had never seen Deepak happier. Thomas Stone, true to his word, paved the way for publication of Deepak's study on in juries to the vena cava. That paper in the
American Journal of Surgery
became a classic, one that everyone quoted when discussing liver injuries. Though Deepak was getting a consultant's salary, he continued to live in the house-staff quarters. Courtesy of the Mecca surgical residents who came down to the Bronx for rotations, we had more manpower and Deepak got more sleep. In an unused basement space, Deepak researched the effects of different interruptions to the blood supply of pig and cow livers.

Popsy's dementia no longer needed to be concealed. He roamed safely throughout Our Lady, wearing scrubs, and with a mask dangling from his neck. He was turned away every time he wandered into the operating room, or tried to leave the premises, but he didn't seem to mind. He would sometimes stop people and declare, “I contaminated myself.”

LATE ON A FRIDAY EVENING,
a few months after Thomas Stone's first visit to my room, I heard a knock at my door. There he stood, tentative, embarrassed, and unsure what his reception would be.

My father's long confessional had changed things for me; it had been much easier to stay angry with him, to trash his apartment and violate his space, before I heard his story. Now his presence felt awkward and I didn't invite him in.

“I can't stay but I wondered … want to ask if … would you care to join me for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Manhattan tomorrow, Saturday? … Here's the address—about seven?”

This was the last thing I expected from him. If he'd invited me to go to the Met, or to dine at the Waldorf-Astoria, I would have declined without any hesitation. But when he said “Ethiopian restaurant,” it conjured up the sour taste of
injera
and a fiery
wot
and my mouth began watering and my tongue stopped working. I nodded, even though I really didn't want to be around him. But we had unfinished business.

On Saturday I emerged from the subway and I saw Thomas Stone at a distance standing outside the Meskerem in Greenwich Village. Though hed been in America more than twenty years, he looked out of place. He had no interest in the menu displayed outside, and he did not notice the students pouring out from a New York University building, instrument cases in their hands, their hair, clothing, and multiple ear piercings setting them apart from other pedestrians. When he saw me he was visibly relieved.

Meskerem was small, with dark red curtains and walls that recalled the inside of a
chikka
hut. The aroma of coffee beans roasted over charcoal and the peppery smell of
berbere
made it feel a world away from Manhattan. We sat on rough-hewn, three-legged wooden stools, low to the ground, with a woven basket table between us. A long mirror behind Thomas Stone allowed me to see both the back of his head and people entering or leaving the restaurant. The posters thumbtacked to the walls showed the castles of Gondar, a portrait of a smiling Tigre woman with strong perfect teeth, a close-up of the wrinkled face of an Ethiopian priest, and an aerial view of Churchill Road, each with the same caption:
THIRTEEN MONTHS OF SUNSHINE.
Every Ethiopian restaurant I subsequently visited in America relied heavily on the same Ethiopian Airlines calendar for decor.

The waitress, a short, bright-eyed Amhara, brought us menus. Her name was Anna. She almost dropped her pencil when I said in Amharic that I'd brought my own knife and I was so hungry that if she pointed me to where the cow was tethered, I'd get started. When she brought our food out on a circular tray, Thomas Stone looked surprised, as if he'd forgotten that we would eat with our fingers off a common plate. To his dismay, Anna (who hailed from the neighborhood of Kebena in Addis, not that far away from Missing) gave me
gursha
—she tore off a piece of
injera,
dipped it in curry, and fed me with her fingers. Thomas Stone hastily rose and asked for the restroom, lest she turn to him.

“Blessed St. Gabriel,” Anna said, watching him leave. “I scared your friend with our
habesha
customs.”

“He should know. He lived in Addis for seven years.”

“No! Really?”

“Please don't take offense.”

“It's nothing,” she said, smiling. “I know that type of
ferengl.
Spend years there, but they look through us. But don't worry. You make up for it, and you're better looking.”

I could have taken up for him. I could have said he was my father. I smiled. I'm sure I blushed. I said nothing.

When Thomas Stone returned, he made a halfhearted effort to eat. Inevitably, one of the songs that cycled through the ceiling speakers was “Tizita.” I studied his face to see if it meant anything to him. It didn't.

The mark of a native is that your fingers are never stained by the curry; you use the
injera
as your tongs, as a barrier, while you pick up a piece of chicken or beef sopped in the sauce. Thomas Stone's nails were red.

Tilahoun singing “Tizita,” the cocoonlike atmosphere, and the frank incense brought memories bubbling to the surface. I thought of mornings at Missing and how the mist had body and weight as if it were a third element after earth and sky, but then it vanished when the sun was high; I remembered Rosina's songs, Gebrew's chants, and Almaz's magical teat; I recalled the sight of a younger Hema and Ghosh leaving for work, as we waved through the kitchen window; I could see those halcyon days, shiny like a new coin, glinting in sunlight.

“Do you plan to finish your next four years of residency at Our Lady?” Thomas Stone said, abruptly, breaking into my reverie. “If you were interested in moving to Boston …” So much for his perceptiveness. Just when I was ready to talk about the past, he wanted to know about my future.

“I don't want to leave Our Lady. The hospital is my Missing equivalent. I never wanted to leave Missing or Addis, but I had to. Now I don't want to leave Our Lady.”

Any other man would have asked me why I had to leave Missing. That was my fault—had he posed the question, I might not have answered. And perhaps he knew that.

As she cleared our plates, Anna said to Thomas Stone in English, “How did you like the food?”

“It was good,” he said, barely glancing at her. He reddened as she and I studied him. “Thank you,” he added, as if he hoped that would help get rid of her. She took two packaged towelettes out from her apron pocket and put them on the table.

I said to Anna, “Honestly, it was good, but you could make the
wot
hotter.”

“Of course we can,” she said in Amharic, a little taken aback by the implied criticism. “But then people like him won't be able to touch the food. Also we use local butter, so even if we make it hotter, it won't taste the same as home. Only someone like you would know the difference.”

“You mean there is no place to get real
habesha
food? The real thing? With all these Ethiopians in New York?”

She shook her head. “Not here. If you ever visit Boston, go see the Queen of Sheba. She's in Roxbury She is famous. The house is like our embassy. Upstairs, in one room, they sell groceries, and downstairs they serve home food. Cooked with true Ethiopian butter. The Ethiopian Airlines crew bring it just for her. All the Ethiopian taxi drivers eat there. You won't see anybody but Ethiopians there.”

THOMAS STONE HAD WATCHED
this exchange, his face blank. When Anna left, he reached into his pocket. I thought he was reaching for his billfold. Instead, he pulled out the bookmark I had left in his room, the one on which Sister Mary Joseph Praise had written her note to him.

I dried my hands carefully and took it from him. I realized that I had missed it; it felt as if it shouldn't be here on a basket table but in a bank vault. It had been my talisman on a harrowing journey, an escape from Ethiopia which he knew nothing about. I read her last lines—”Also, I am enclosing a letter to you from me. Please read at once. SMJP”—and then I looked up.

Thomas Stone fidgeted in his seat. He swallowed hard, leaning on the basket table.

“Marion. This bookmark … was in the textbook, I presume?”

“Yes, it was. I have the textbook.”

He grew stiff, his hands trapped under his thighs as if an electric current were running through him. “Would you … Can I ask if … Do you have … Was there a letter?”

He looked helpless, sitting so low to the ground, like a parent visiting kindergarten, his knees under his chin.

“I thought
you
had the letter,” I said.

“No!” he said, so emphatically that Anna looked over at us.

“I'm sorry,” I said, though I wasn't sure what I was sorry for. “I assumed that you took the letter when you left. That you left the book with the bookmark in it.”

His face, so expectant a moment ago, collapsed.

“I took almost nothing,” he said. “I walked out of Missing with the clothes I had on and one or two things from the office. I never went back.”

“I know,” I said.

He cringed when I said those words. No wonder he was reluctant to probe my past. No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son. But did he really think of me this way? As a son? “But you took the finger with you?” I went on.

“Yes … that's all I took. It was in her room. I went back there.” He looked up.

I said, “I'm sorry. I wish I had the letter.”

“And the bookmark?” he said. “How did you get it?”

I sighed. Anna served us coffee. The small cup with no handle felt inadequate for my task of trying to cover a lifetime for this man. “I had to leave Ethiopia in haste. The authorities were looking for me … It's a long story. They thought I was involved in the hijacking of an Ethiopian Airlines plane. They thought I was a sympathizer for the Eritrean cause. Ridiculous, right? You remember your maid, Rosina? One of the hijackers was Rosina's daughter, Genet. Rosina is dead, by the way. Hanged herself.”

It was more than he could digest.

“Rosina and Genet …,” I began. “Suffice it to say, I had an hour to get out of town. As I was leaving, climbing over Missing's wall, I said my good-byes to Hema, Matron, Gebrew, Almaz, and to Shiva, my brother …” I stopped. I had hit a roadblock. “Shiva, your other son … ?”

Stone swallowed. This was proving impossible. And yet he needed to know, particularly if it was painful.

“My son …,” he said, trying out the word.

“Your son. You want to see what he looks like?” He nodded, expecting me to pull out a wallet. “Look at that mirror behind you.”

He hesitated as if this might be a joke, a trick. But he turned, and our eyes met in the mirror, startling me, because it was suddenly more intimate than I'd expected. “Shiva and I are mirror images.”

“What is he like?” he asked without turning around.

I sighed. I shook my head. I dropped my gaze. He turned back to me.

“Shiva is … very different. A genius, I would say. But not in the usual way. Impatient with school. He'd never answer an exam question in a way that might make him pass, not because he didn't know … He has never understood the need to subscribe to convention. But he knows more medicine, certainly more gynecology than I do. He works with Hema doing fistula work. He's a brilliant surgeon. Trained, but by Hema. No medical school.” None of this would have been difficult for Stone to discover on his own had he been interested. He was interested now.

“I was very close to Shiva when we were little boys.”

Stone's eyes were unblinking. I couldn't tell him the details of what had happened since. I had told no one. Only Genet and Shiva knew the truth.

“He and Genet did something to hurt me that I cannot forgive …”

“Something related to the hijacking?”

“No, no. It happened long before. Anyway, I was and still am very angry with him. But he
is
my brother—my twin—and so when I had one hour to leave the city, when the time came to say good-bye to Shiva— well, it was very painful for both of us.” Suddenly I found myself fighting for composure. It was terribly important for me not to cry in front of Thomas Stone. I pinched the inside of my thigh. “As I was saying good-bye to Shiva, he handed me two books. One was his
Gray's Anat omy.
That was his most valued possession. He dragged it around like a blanket.