The Space Between Us (18 page)

Bhima stared straight ahead of her, ignoring his words.

But at the hospital, she was grateful for the foreman’s presence. She would have never made her way around the big, chaotic building without him. He strode ahead of her purposefully. He asked a nurse the way to the operating theater, and when she heard those words, Bhima almost cried out loud. Why was Gopal in the operating theater? This man, whose name she still didn’t know, had not said anything about surgery. Was Gopal sicker than she had been led to believe? But when she tried to stop him to ask, he simply clucked his tongue dismissively. “I told you. Your husband is fine,” he said shortly. “Just follow me.”

When they got to the cream-colored doors that said “Operating Theater,” he pointed to a large wooden bench. “Sit here,” he ordered. “I will return.” She saw him walk away and stop when he saw a nurse. She saw him reach into his pocket and pull up a note, although she was too far away to see the denomination. She saw the nurse swiftly accept the money and shove it into her pocket. The nurse bent down to consult a chart, and then she was pointing down the hallway. “Shukria. Thank you,” she heard the man say.

He came and sat down heavily next to her. “Okay,” he said as if picking up a conversation. “Gopal should be out of the surgery room very soon. It seems as if he has lost three of his fingers.” If he heard Bhima’s anguished cry, he did not let on. “Doctor sahib has done the best he can. Now, when they take him to his bed, someone will inform you. You can go visit him there.” He looked at his watch and cursed softly. “Saala, I’m very late. I have to return to my job. I am needing to report to the big boss what happened here.” He looked at her scared, bewildered face and frowned. “My boss has already lost so much time and money over this. That Gopal was al
ways a careless fellow. Many-many times I have told him to be careful. After all, a big machine is like a tiger—you don’t put your hand in its mouth. But he never listens, your husband. Too much herogiri on the job.”

Bhima was sobbing silently, wanting to defend Gopal, wanting to find the words that would put this nasty man in his place and not knowing how. The man looked at her for a long moment and then got up with a jerk. He dug into his pocket and peeled out a fifty-rupee note. “Here,” he said, flinging the note in her lap. “Take a taxi home when you leave here.” He stared at her weeping face for another second, began to walk away, and then took a few steps toward her. “I’ll be back to see Gopal tomorrow morning,” he said. “We’ll do all our hissab-kittab then, settle all our contractual obligations. Understand?” She shook her head no, but he ignored her. “Okay then. Tomorrow morning.”

When she finally got to see Gopal that evening, he was acting strange, looking at her with heavy, sleep-laden eyes and muttering rubbish. For a few minutes she had feared that the foreman had lied to her, that it was really Gopal’s brain that had been damaged in the accident. But the mother of the patient in the next bed told her that it was normal; the sleeping medicine that they gave patients before surgery made them look and talk in this manner. Also, there was the white gauze bandage around Gopal’s right hand, already stained with a rusty red from his blood and the yellow-orange of an unknown substance.

The next morning, Amit refused to go to school. “I want to go see Baba,” he said. “I know he needs me.” Bhima didn’t protest too much. At twelve, her son was already taller than she was, and she marveled at the easy, confident way in which he walked down the hospital hallways. So this is what knowing how to read and write does, she thought, and she felt a flare of pride at having provided her son with this gift.

When they reached Gopal’s room, his bed was empty. Bhima felt a moment’s blind panic—had he died in the middle of the night? she wondered and then dug the nail of her middle finger into her thumb to punish herself for such a thought. She spun around, wondering who to ask about her husband’s whereabouts, when the elderly woman from the next bed who had set her mind at ease last evening spoke up. “They’ve taken him downstairs for an X-ray,” she said. Bhima nodded her thanks, and this propelled the woman to get up from where she was sitting at the side of her son’s bed and come to Bhima. Lowering her voice and positioning her body so that she was blocking Amit from the conversation, the woman murmured, “Your mister was having some problems during the night. Had a fever and all. And he had a cough. Kept my boy up half the night with his hawk-hawk coughing.” She smiled to show Bhima that she didn’t hold this against her.

Fear settled on Bhima like the dust that blew onto her stainless steel pots and pans each morning. “But why?” she whispered. “He doesn’t have a cold. Why would he have a fever and cough?” She thought for a moment. “I myself have been sick the last few days. Could it be my Gopal has caught my cold?”

The woman shrugged. “That I don’t know, beti. I’m just telling what I saw-heard.”

Amit pulled at the bit of flesh near Bhima’s elbow. “Ma, what’s going on?” he whispered urgently. “Shall I go find Baba?”

“Better not to,” the old woman replied, as if he had addressed her. “The doctors here are very…” She made a face. “Better not to have them angry with you. Just wait here and they will bring him back after his X-ray.”

They sat on Gopal’s bed glumly. “Is Baba hurting?” Amit said after a while, and Bhima shook her head noncommittally. She still felt unwell herself from the lingering effects of the flu. She wondered if Murti, the woman from her building, had already delivered her
message to Serabai, informing her of Gopal’s accident. It might be days before she could return to work. How would Serabai manage without her? And with Gopal and her both not working, they would have to get by on Pooja’s salary. Then she remembered what the factory foreman had said yesterday—something about settling some business. So the company was going to give them money to live on while Gopal was sick. Good thing the foreman had thought about that—yesterday, her mind had flown away from her, like a bird from a nest, and she had given no thought to money or anything else. Bhima felt a throb of gratitude toward the man. Perhaps she had misjudged him. He must be a good man, to worry about their welfare at a time like this. She would apologize to him today for the coldness of her behavior. She tried to remember if the factory foreman had told her what time to expect him. Did he say he would come this afternoon?

A half hour later, they wheeled Gopal back into the room and transferred him onto his bed. Bhima let out a cry of apprehension when she saw his thin, shivering body. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since she had sent her cheerful, robust husband off to work, but she barely recognized the man who lay before her. Amit must’ve noticed the difference, too, because he crept closer to his mother and stared, mesmerized, at his father. “Ma, what happened to his hand?” the boy cried out in a harsh whisper.

Gopal’s eyes fixed on Amit and he tried to speak, but a coughing fit swallowed up his words. Listening to the guttural sounds, Bhima could barely believe her ears. When she had left Gopal last evening, his breathing had been smooth and even. Now, he sounded like those asthmatic old men who gathered in front of the bidi shop near their house each evening to while their time away. And when she touched Gopal’s forehead, she pulled her hand away with a jerk, as if she had accidentally touched a pot of boiling water.

Gopal’s eyes were agitated and helpless when he looked at her.
Again, he tried to speak, but the cough tore at his chest and slashed his words. “Don’t speak,” Bhima said, resting her hand on his chest in order to still its heaving. Under her hand, she could feel the roar and growl of his congested lungs. “Don’t speak, my Gopal. We are here with you. Rest for a little while.”

Gopal closed his eyes, and now Bhima could study his mutilated body. She noticed that the bandages on his hand had been changed, but fresh blood had still leaked on them; she saw the lines that had appeared on his face overnight; she saw how his brown face seemed almost reddish, as if the fever was a flashlight that shone just below his skin. And she heard the ominous sound of his ragged breathing, heard the air rattling in his chest. And along with that sound, another sound was penetrating her ears—the sound of Amit crying by her side, although it took her a second to recognize it. “Ma,” the boy sobbed. “What is wrong with Baba?”

Afraid that his weeping would awaken Gopal, she turned on him fiercely. “Go wait outside in the corridor,” she hissed. “Take your tears and your sourpuss face and go out there if you’re going to be acting like this.”

As if to punish her for the harshness of her words, a nurse came up to Gopal’s bed right then. She was holding a syringe in her right hand, and Amit and Bhima stared at the long, thick needle with fearful fascination. “This your patient?” the nurse said impatiently. “Please to wake him up. He needs to lower his pajamas.” Even while she was talking, the woman had grabbed the waistband of Gopal’s pajamas and was trying to pull them down. Bhima tensed, waiting for Gopal to wake up, but he slept on. “Heavy sleeper, eh?” the nurse said, and the next second, she had jabbed the needle into Gopal’s thigh. “Ah, ah,” Amit cried in vicarious pain, but other than jerking for a moment, Gopal slept through. The nurse clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Pain from the fingers must be so great, poor chap doesn’t even notice this jab,” she said.

Bhima followed the nurse as she prepared to leave. “Sister,” she said. “Can you please tell me—what is wrong with him? Why does he have a fever and cough?”

The nurse shrugged her shoulders. “Infection,” she said. “There’s infection in the body because of the surgery. Understand?”

No, Bhima wanted to say, I don’t understand. I thought the surgery was to help my husband, not give him a fever. But before she could say a word, the nurse nodded curtly and walked away.

Bhima walked back to where Amit was waiting. “Stay here with Baba,” she told the boy. “I have to make a phone call.”

From a public phone booth, she dialed Serabai’s number. She dialed slowly, in the careful way that Sera had shown her. At the time Serabai had insisted she learn how to use the phone, Bhima had resisted. Now she was grateful for this skill. Although the numbers all looked the same to her, she had memorized their places on the dial, and now she placed her index finger in each hole and turned it.

“Yes?” It was Feroz seth’s voice, strong and impatient as always. Bhima wondered why he was still home.

“Feroz seth?” she yelled. “ ’Allo? Yes, this is Bhima calling.”

“Bhima? Stop screaming, for God’s sake. Just talk in your normal voice. No, lower your voice. That’s better. Now tell me, how is Gopal? Your neighbor was just here, giving us the news.”

“He’s not well, Feroz seth,” she said, trying to remember not to raise her voice. “The nurse said he has a”—now what was the word?—“influxtion.”

Feroz cursed softly. “That’s not good,” he said briefly.

“So I was calling for that reason only,” Bhima said. “What is this thing? Is it an illness?”

There was a slight pause. “Hold on,” Feroz said. “Sera is here and wants to talk to you.”

“Hello, Bhima?” Sera’s voice came into Bhima’s ear like a comfort. “What’s going on?”

“The nurse said Gopal had an influxtion.” Something about Sera’s familiar, kind voice melted the rigid fear that had held Bhima captive since yesterday, so the tears now came easily. “He’s very sick, Serabai. Has a high fever and a cough like ten mad elephants are jumping on his chest. What is this new disease he is having?”

“What about his hand?”

“He’s lost three fingers.”

She heard the sharp intake of Sera’s breath. “And they did surgery? Do you know what they did?”

“No, nobody has said. Nobody here talks to me, bai,” she said.

“I see.” Sera sounded angry. “I’m sure these gadhera doctors screwed something up during the surgery.” She paused and then spoke again, more slowly this time. “Bhima, an infection is like something that enters your blood. It sometimes happens after surgery. But with good medicines they can clear it up, usually. But you have to be careful.”

“Should I make him drink some narial pani?” Bhima asked. “I can have Amit run outside and buy some coconut water. They say it flushes out all illnesses.”

“No, this will call for medicines that are stronger than narial pani.” Sera paused. “Are you going to be at the hospital all day? Yes? Good. Okay, hold the phone for a second.” Bhima heard her talking to Feroz. Then she was back. “Hello? Okay, Bhima, listen. Feroz and I are to go out today. It’s our wedding anniversary, you know? But we will stop by the hospital before that. At that time we can see what can be done. What floor is Gopal on?”

Gopal had woken up by the time Bhima returned to his bedside. Amit was sitting next to his father, stroking his head and singing a song from a new film that he and Gopal had seen only last week.
“Baba asked me to sing to him,” he said to Bhima. The boy’s eyes were shiny with tears. Bhima nodded, and Amit went back to his singing. Watching the two of them, Bhima’s heart ached with love. Until this accident, no dark shadows had fallen over their lives. Despite having two children of his own, Gopal was as playful and carefree as a child. While Sujata’s marriage to Sushil had withered on the vine, her marriage had blossomed like the pink flowers that appeared each spring on the tree outside their apartment building. And from the moment of Pooja’s birth, Gopal had treated his children with a degree of tenderness and love that made them the envy of the other children in the chawl.

Amit was still singing, even though Gopal had fallen asleep. Bhima rubbed the boy’s bony back, her heart twisting again as she felt the familiar rise and fall of his muscles in the cup of her hand. “Baba is sleeping,” she whispered. “You can stop singing now.”

“He asked me to,” the boy whispered. “I could tell, Ma, it was helping him.”

She nodded and hugged her son. “You are the pillar in my life. Everybody should have a son like you,” she said to him and watched as he picked at a pimple on his face to mask his embarrassed pride. Oh, God, restore my family to me, she prayed. Let this illness running like a darkness through Gopal’s blood leave his body. Give me back my Gopal, laughing and smiling like always.