In the end, after all Anil’s worrying, Sonia took the weight of responsibility at the M&M presentation, explaining that her team had missed the subtle signs of the ruptured aneurysm not only because it was a slow leak but also because the blood accumulated in the retroperitoneal space rather than the abdomen, making it difficult to detect through physical examination. She recommended a new protocol to flag blood pressure drops in aneurysm patients, to counteract the shift nature of the work, in which patients were handed off between teams and such gradual changes could be unintentionally overlooked. Anil stood by, prepared to face questions, but Sonia shielded him from most of them. Only Casper O’Brien asked Anil what he’d personally learned from the case. Anil was ready with the response he and Sonia had discussed, about having learned to order CTs and check hematocrit levels more aggressively with aneurysm cases.
In May, six weeks after the M&M conference, Anil received a nondescript letter confirming his second year of residency, the same form letter received by all sixty-five of his fellow interns. He did not join Charlie and the others at the Horseshoe Bar, where they gathered to commemorate the end of their internship year. There was no sense of accomplishment when Anil placed the check mark on the calendar that signified his biggest career milestone to date. Despite years of study, Anil had been unprepared for what he faced at Parkview: working under extreme pressure to treat patients who didn’t resemble what he’d learned in his books. The professional camaraderie he’d expected was supplanted by senior doctors who took pleasure in humiliating him, and by peers who preferred to compete for their favor.
Amber surprised him with a bottle of sparkling wine and was disappointed when he didn’t feel like celebrating. Anil didn’t know how to explain to her that mere survival was not what he’d hoped for when he’d come to Dallas one year ago.
12
IT WAS A PARTICULARLY HOT DAY, AND LEENA HAD COME IN from the fields to get a glass of water when little Ritu tiptoed into the kitchen. The girl could not stand to rest with her brother and the adults during the afternoon nap; she simply had too much energy to lie still for that long.
Ritu’s face was sticky with sweat, and her hair was a tangled mess. She followed the glass of water with her groggy, listless eyes. Leena gave her the glass, watched as she drank, and filled the glass again from the clay cistern above the sink. “Come,” she said. “There’s a breeze outside.”
They sat on the steps and Leena poured water over the little girl’s head, soaking her hair. Slowly, she pulled a comb through each section, holding the hair away from Ritu’s scalp as she removed the knots. Ritu giggled and squealed as Leena worked, pressing a hand over her mouth so as not to wake those inside. Finally, her hair was smooth and glossy. It was impossibly thick; even when slicked back with water, Leena could barely wrap her palm around the whole lot. Leena separated Ritu’s hair into several sections and began braiding it.
When Ritu asked, “What’s the name of that song?” Leena realized she was humming a song her mother used to sing, but she couldn’t remember the words, only the tune. Once Leena had finished one braid, Ritu ran her fingers down her cool woven hair and smiled. “I love you, didi,” she said.
Sweet Ritu. Leena hadn’t heard those words since she had left her mother’s arms on her wedding day.
“Please don’t go away,” Ritu said. “Don’t leave us like before. Promise?”
Before Leena could respond, Rekha came out the back door. “What are you doing out here? Why isn’t the afternoon tea ready?” She grabbed Ritu by the hand to take her inside. The girl cried out, but Leena smiled and gestured for her to go.
Leena never saw Rekha show her children any love or affection. Most of the time, she acted as if they weren’t there, and showed interest only when they were with Leena. Girish’s elder brother was also erratic with them. The other day, Dev had jumped into his father’s lap as he sat in the parlor, and Leena had watched the man bounce his son playfully on his knee, then grab his hand and mock his birthmark, teasing the boy that he hadn’t washed himself properly after using the latrine. Leena turned away in embarrassment for Dev and retreated to the kitchen, where she put aside two chocolate biscuits for when he would come into the kitchen later, sullen.
As Leena waited for the milk to boil for afternoon tea, she thought about the curious thing Ritu had said outside. But she was only a child; there was no reason to believe the imaginings that filled her mind.
Those children were the single ray of happiness in Leena’s life. Every morning, Ritu ran to the kitchen and wrapped her small arms around Leena’s waist. Her sweet face, with its round cheeks, bloomed with happiness, and Leena came to depend on that innocent smile.
Leena hadn’t received any more gifts from her parents, nor had she been allowed to visit them. She knew her husband and father-in-law had been to see them at least one more time, because she’d heard them discussing it afterward. A few times, when Rekha was napping, she secretly telephoned her mother, but their conversations were always the same. Leena said she missed them and wanted to come home for Diwali. Her mother spoke in a whisper too, though there was no need to hide on her end. Be good and stay strong, she said.
One evening, when the rest of the family was going out to a wedding, Leena was told to stay home to finish the ironing. Her mother-in-law came out of her bedroom wearing one of her best saris and earrings that resembled delicate gold waterfalls running over ruby and pearl pebbles. Leena recognized the earrings at once: they belonged to her mother—one of the few pieces of jewelry she owned. She had worn them on Leena’s wedding day.
Surely, there must be some mistake. Leena moved closer to her mother-in-law to look, and when she was shooed away with a wave of the hand, Leena noticed the etched gold bangles on the old woman’s wrist, which had also belonged to her mother. They departed then, all of them—her husband, his brother and his wife and children, their parents—and Leena was left alone in the house. She tried to do her best with the ironing, but she kept seeing those gold and ruby waterfalls before her eyes instead of the petticoat she was pressing. Rather than the sizzle and crackle of the iron, she heard only the tinkling sound of the two gold bangles on her mother-in-law’s wrist. She picked up the phone and dialed her parents’ number over a dozen times, but each time there was no answer.
Leena knew in her heart that something was terribly wrong. She worried that her mother was dead and her husband’s family had not told her. Or that her mother was ill and asking for her. Leena burned two blouses and one petticoat that night while she formulated a plan in her mind.
The next morning, Leena bathed and dressed in a special sari, one her parents had given her at her wedding. She wove fresh jasmine buds into her hair and applied kajal to her eyes. After Girish rose and went to take his bath, she made the bed, tidied the room, and then sat waiting for him. When he returned, she began.
“I was thinking perhaps I could go visit my parents for Diwali. I haven’t seen them since the wedding.”
“Hmm,” Girish grunted as he dropped his towel and reached for the fresh clothes she held out.
“It’s still two weeks away. There’s plenty of time to prepare—”
“That’s a long drive. You expect me to lose a full day’s work to take you there and back?”
Leena did not point out that Girish barely worked at anything other than playing cards and eating meals. “No, of course that would be asking too much. I’m sure my father would be willing to come and fetch me. I could call him today?” She desperately wanted her father to come and see this house, this land, to tell her whether she was wrong to expect more.
“And you’ll leave Rekha and my mother to do all the work while you’re gone? That’s pretty selfish, don’t you think?”
Leena bit her tongue. Rekha and Mother had been perfectly capable of caring for the household before she’d arrived. “It’s just a few days. They can manage better without me in their way.”
Leena had thought through all of this the nigh
t before. It was not an unreasonable request—to go see her parents for a few days after being here nearly a year. She had chosen the early morning to speak to Girish because nothing had happened yet to sour his mood. She’d anticipated his arguments and readied answers that would not anger him. What was the worst that could happen? He could slam her up against the wall, or pin her arms behind her back, as he had before. Leena was prepared for that; she was willing to endure it if it meant getting to go home.
But with Girish’s reaction, Leena could see she had miscalculated. Her question, her very presence, was enough to enrage him. By his expression and the way his lip curled up at the corner, she knew that he wanted to hit her.
Leena stepped out of the bedroom. “I should get the tea started before the others wake.” Girish followed her into the kitchen. Her hands shook as she lifted the heavy cistern outside to the water pump. Her arms had grown strong from doing this task every morning, but now they trembled as he watched her.
Outside, the horizon was streaked with pale pink and deep orange, and the birds were calling to each other. The air felt very still; it was going to be a hot day. Leena was lowering the cistern below the water pump when she heard the door creak open behind her. She did not turn around. She would not give Girish the satisfaction of seeing fear in her eyes. She would do her work, as she always did.
Leena gripped the thick iron lever and began pumping it up and down, relaxing into the familiar rhythm, using the strength of her legs to take the pressure off her arms. The lever groaned, and finally water began to trickle, then pour, into the cistern. It was because of the water that Leena did not hear the liquid splashing at her feet and onto her sari. She did not hear it, nor did she feel anything. She smelled it first, the sharp familiar scent of kerosene.
When the pungent odor entered her nose, she dropped the lever and turned around. Girish stood there, holding the square tin from next to the kitchen stove. With a wild lurch of his arm, he splattered the last of the oil at her, then tossed aside the empty tin. His eyes were narrow and their black pupils glinted at her. He was chewing lazily on something.
Leena opened her mouth, then closed it again without speaking. She had gone too far, crossed him, she now understood. Slowly, she began to move away from Girish, taking small steps backwards. He advanced on her, as if they were joined by an invisible rope. He reached into his pocket and, in a movement too quick for Leena to follow, lit a match, the orange flame flickering at the end of his finger. His lips opened into a sneer, and Leena was struck by how his expression transformed his face. It was so clear to her now—this man was evil. How had she not seen it before?
Leena never saw him throw the match. She believed there was still time to turn and run. She must have closed her eyes for a moment, or looked up to the heavens to pray for mercy, because when her eyes opened, she saw Girish’s back as he walked toward the house. Bright flames licked up at her feet—bright yellow, deep orange and red, the same colors of that morning’s radiant sunrise.
Warmth at first, as the flames crept toward her. They leaped to the hem of her sari, soaked through with oil. Heat, scorching heat, was spiraling around her. Leena looked about frantically. Girish had poured a ring of kerosene on the ground around her. She was trapped in a circle of fire, with nowhere to go. Her eyes burned with smoke. Her throat tightened. She was so tired of crying, tired of not crying. She wanted to lie down on the ground and close her eyes.
Everything was spinning around her, then the ground came up hard under her cheek. Searing pain in her foot unlike anything she had ever felt before, climbing up her leg. A sickly odor she had never smelled—thick and sweet and oily. It penetrated her mouth and nose; she choked on it. The odor of flesh burning. Her flesh. Leena tried to stand, but her foot was aflame. She crawled away from the fire, but it followed her. It was engulfing her. She tore off her sari and stumbled toward the well, lifted her foot and sank it into the cistern. With a sizzle and a crackle the fire went out, steam and smoke rising into the air. The odor infiltrated her nostrils and her eyes. Her hand went to her blouse and retrieved the peacock handkerchief. Leena covered her nose and mouth and tried to breathe.
Then, she ran. Although she could hear the fire burning behind her, she did not turn to look. Singeing pain radiated up her leg, and the near nakedness of her body shamed her. But it was the smell that most overcame her, the smell that burrowed deep into her nose and filled her mouth like a thick oil. With every breath, it moved deeper into her, flooding her with its pungency.
Leena ran until she was past the boundaries of her in-laws’ land, until the crops changed from cotton to sugarcane. The dirt road between the farms was empty of vehicles. It was still early morning and most people hadn’t yet risen. When she could run no longer, she walked along the edge of the road, wearing only her sari blouse and petticoat, burned off below the knee. She was humiliated to be seen this way, in her undergarments, but what choice did she have?
And where could she go? As the first house came into view, Leena felt a wash of relief. But she didn’t know anyone who lived around here. She had been kept inside her in-laws’ house since she’d come; she hadn’t met any neighbors other than Girish’s friends, and they would not help her. She would have better luck with a stranger. But without her clothes, any stranger would take her for a beggar, or worse.
Leena walked on, past that first house and then another, trying to ignore the pain of each step shooting through her left foot and up her leg. She walked toward the rising sun, to the east, toward Panchanagar, but her village was over a hundred kilometers away. Even if she knew the way there, and even if she walked all day, she would not reach it before nightfall.
Finally, when she could bear the pain no more, she sat down at the edge of the road and folded her foot onto her lap, forcing herself to look at it. The skin covering her ankle and calf was burned an angry shade of red and covered in blisters. On the top of her foot, where the flames had started, the skin looked as if it had already turned to gray ash. Dirt and leaves were embedded in the wounds.
Holding her foot that way, inspecting it closely, Leena could not avoid the odor. She turned her head to the side and held the kerchief to her nose, seeking the scent of sandalwood. She knew she could not walk for much longer on her foot, but she had to keep going. Leena hoisted herself up and began to walk again.
She was unaware of how much time passed, but less than a hundred steps later, she came upon a simple house: whitewashed with a wooden door, it reminded her of her own. Outside, marigolds grew on both sides of the door. Their bright, frilly blooms were welcoming, their fragrance happily overpowering. The plants were robust, full of new buds. Their dead leaves had been pared away, and the soil below was moist. Someone inside that modest house took great care with those flowers, Leena knew. A woman, perhaps, who would take pity on her.
13
ANIL EMBARKED ON HIS SECOND YEAR OF RESIDENCY IN THE blistering heat of summer, and soon found his new role to be a meaningful improvement over intern. He was now impervious to the gritty nature of Parkview and its patients. The new batch of interns and med students, in their wide-eyed fear, helped him see how much he’d learned over the past year.
Anil had been supplanted at the bottom of the hospital food chain, but he was now responsible for teaching his team of neophytes. As an intern, he hadn’t appreciated the demands of this role. In addition to his own patients—he always kept the most complex cases for himself—Anil had to demonstrate procedures and monitor his interns’ work.
There were many ways to fulfill the teaching requisite of his job. To do it well, Anil learned, took a great deal of time and energy, neither of which were ever in excess supply at Parkview. And along with his new responsibilities came increased expectations. There was no leeway to commit beginner mistakes; he could not squander the second chance he’d been given.
One of the marked benefits of being a second-year resident was that Anil could occasionally leave the hospital at the end of his shift
, having assigned the follow-up work to his interns. Tonight, he pulled into the parking lot at home while the sky was light, looking forward to spending the evening with Amber. When he went to retrieve the mail from the group mailboxes, two other neighbors were already there, blocking his access. They were big guys, one dressed in an oil-stained jumpsuit, the other in a cutoff T-shirt exposing both tattoo-covered arms.
Anil waited for them to step aside. When the tattooed one turned around and saw Anil, his eyes narrowed. “We in your way?” He slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Look, Rudy, this guy can’t get to his box. Ain’t that a shame?”
Rudy turned around and folded his arms across his barrel chest. Neither man made any movement away from the mailboxes.
“No problem.” Anil smiled and held up a hand. “I’ll wait ’til you’re done.”
The tattooed one stared at Anil. “We done, Rudy?”
“Yeah, we’re done.” Rudy turned his head a fraction and spit on the ground.
The men stood there for another long moment, then the tattooed one took a step toward Anil. “What’s your name?” he sneered. “Osama?”
It was a moment before Anil understood his implication. “No, i-i-it’s Anil.” He straightened his back. “Doctor Anil Patel.”
Rudy stepped forward again. Anil fought the urge to step back. He was close enough to smell the dank sweat and cigarette smoke lingering on the man. “I-i-is that right?” he mocked. “Well, if we need any extra towels, we know who to ask, right, Lee?” He jabbed his elbow toward his friend. “I bet this guy’s got a whole closet full.” Rudy laughed, pushing past Anil. Lee shot Anil a menacing look before following his buddy outside.
Anil drew in a deep breath and exhaled as he collected his mail, trying to rid his nostrils of the men’s bodily odors. After entering his apartment, he locked the door behind him and took a long, hot shower until he no longer felt shaky.