Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

She wondered how a man could look in the mirror and not see the absurdity of his own appearance.

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.”

Hema’s style was precise and careful—a living example, Matron thought, of why more women should be surgeons. Matron sometimes believed she saw Hemlatha listening and then thinking when with a patient in the clinic, rather than trying to do both things at once.

A fool with a tool is still a fool.

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by”—her voice broke as she thought of Sister Mary Joseph Praise—“by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don’t think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”

“A rich man’s faults are covered with money, but a surgeon’s faults are covered with earth.”

They record it in Addis Ababa, but also in exile in Khartoum (yes, Khartoum! which proves that even hell has a recording studio)

I am convinced that one can buy in Harrods of London a kit that allows an enterprising Englishman to create a British school anywhere in the third world. It comes with black robes, preprinted report cards for Michaelmas, Lent, and Easter terms, as well as hymnals, Prefect Badges, and a syllabus. Assembly required.

Knowledge shall be promoted by frequent exercise Art polishes and improves nature Fortune is a fair but fickle mistreſs Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.

guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

I had sailed into a world more damp and wretched than my own, and strangely, I was happy to be there. Thanks to C. S. Forester, I was on a creaking ship on the other side of the world and in the head of Horatio Hornblower, a man who was like Ghosh and Hema—heroic in his professional role. But he was also like me—“unhappy and lonely.” Of course, I wasn’t really unhappy or lonely, but in the monsoon season it seemed necessary to think of myself that way. The unfairness of the Admiralty in London, the irony of Hornblower’s seasickness, the tragedy of his returning from a long voyage to find his children mortally ill with smallpox … I had my equivalents, trivial as they were, for all these perils.

Malgudi was populated by characters that resembled people we knew, imprisoned by habit, by profession, and by a most foolish and unreasonable belief that enslaved them; only they couldn’t see it.

I was trying to decide where to peg my own truth, how much to reveal about myself—it helped to have such a steadfast father in Ghosh, never fickle, never prying, but knowing when I needed him.

Ghosh, in giving me the stethoscope, was saying, Marion, you can be you. It’s okay. He invited me to a world that wasn’t secret, but it was well hidden.

You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened: you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive.

For a fleeting moment they’d have the same awareness of us that we had of them.

So often we never truly see our own family and it is for others to tell us that they’ve grown taller or older.

“Another day in paradise” was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understood what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift.

“Death is the cure of all disease, isn’t it?

“Whatever America needs, the world will supply. Cocaine? Colombia steps to the plate. Shortage of farmworkers, corn detasselers? Thank God for Mexico. Baseball players? Viva Dominica. Need more interns? India, Philippines zindabad!”

That’s the funny thing about America—the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others. I’ve had my share of angels.

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.

Shiva had taken the first and only girl I loved and spoiled her for me. Now, he was making headlines in my backyard, in my newspaper. I’d followed all the rules, and tried to do the right thing while he ignored all the rules, and here we were.

She had died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.