Till the Last Breath . . .

by Durjoy Datta

  All of a sudden, everything that had happened between them played out in a slow, excruciating replay and he felt crushed for having treated her the way he had. He had chastised, been rude to, disparaged and insulted a dying girl. A dying girl! Can anyone be worse? He dug his face into his palms and felt the worst he ever had … and that was saying a lot, considering he had been through some serious shit in life. Reading the underlined portions in the book over and over again, he felt like throwing up.

  Anxious and beaten down, he found himself dialling Kajal’s number. The phone rang a few times, but there was no answer from the other side. Of course, having changed his number more than a few times in the past, he didn’t expect her to have his number. After a few more calls went unattended, he called Zarah. Zarah wanted to know why he wanted to meet her so urgently and Dushyant said he would let her know when she reached there. Minutes later, Zarah walked into his ward and Dushyant was still in shock.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Zarah asked. ‘Are you okay?’ Instinctively, she put a hand across his forehead and checked his temperature.

  ‘I am fine,’ he answered and pushed her hand away. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Pihu?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘That she is DYING! She is dying, isn’t she? I saw her reading this book a few days back and read it today. She is dying, right?’

  ‘Which book?’

  ‘How the fuck does that matter? Just tell me. Is she dying?’

  ‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I thought you knew! Everyone knows. You spend hours together sitting in the same room. I just assumed you knew about her condition,’ she responded.

  Though it made sense, Dushyant was not looking for a sane explanation. Instead, he was busy struggling with the truth.

  ‘I didn’t know! Had I known I wouldn’t have been so harsh on her. She was always smiling and laughing, so I thought she had some minor problem like appendicitis or such. But ALS? She is not even old! The guy from the book was seventy!’ he protested as beads of sweat slowly trickled down his forehead. He was still far from being at ease.

  ‘Dushyant, you need to calm down,’ Zarah said and sat beside him. ‘How’s the pain today?’

  ‘I am not in any fucking pain! Why didn’t I know?’ He dug his face again into his palms.

  ‘I am sorry I didn’t tell you and also for having assumed you knew. Did she tell you about it?’

  ‘When I asked, she just told me that she had some problem with sensation in her limbs and that it was nothing serious,’ he told her.

  ‘You talked to her? That’s new. It will be fine. She doesn’t hate you for the way you were to her. In fact, she never hates anybody,’ she clarified.

  ‘I feel like such an asshole right now,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Feel? You’re an asshole, aren’t you? In fact, you pride yourself on being one,’ she chortled.

  ‘Now that’s mean,’ he said.

  The more they talked about it, the more the situation sank in and the pieces fell in place. It explained all the nights he had seen her mother cry and bicker. All the times she had looked at him in envy. It all fit in now because her daughter was dying and he wasn’t. As he sat there, he wondered if her mother had wanted him dead in lieu of her daughter living a few moments extra. Guilt kept wearing him down as he thought about the day her friends had come to meet him.

  Zarah probed him more about what they had talked about and Dushyant told her about Kajal, his unconsciousness, the hand holding and other details. He thought he saw Zarah’s face droop as he narrated Kajal’s rendezvous with Pihu. As he further shared his apprehensions about being in touch with Kajal again, he certainly noticed a distant look in her eyes. With so much going on in his head, he chose to ignore it. A little later, the crippling pain reared its ugly head again and Zarah had to inject him with sedatives to mute his screaming, dying organs.

  Soon, he drifted off as Zarah left the room without a smile on her face.

  22

  Zarah Mirza

  It was her sixth cup of coffee that morning, each one stronger than the last. Had her system not been used to the regular caffeine intake, her heart would have pumped itself out of her chest. She needed it. Her senior doctor was performing an experimental surgery on his patient and if he were to get caught, there were chances of her being in trouble too. She could lose her licence as well, and not by too long a shot at that. If that wasn’t enough, there was the news of Dushyant’s ex-girlfriend—the one that got away—hanging around Dushyant’s room, holding his hand, and trying to evoke feelings of lost love. That bitch!

  What really peeved her was the cloud of uncertainty on Dushyant’s face when he talked about Kajal and whether he should talk to her. Kajal wasn’t the one who was with him when he had almost died or when he was admitted and everyone thought he was an asshole. It was her! On certain levels, she felt betrayed. Cheated. On others, she felt extremely stupid for he was just another patient. If that wasn’t enough, it was a patient who might not see the next dawn. I can’t possibly like him, it’s stupid! This is insane!

  The words, the diseases, and the insurance forms she had to fill up blurred and she couldn’t think of anything else but Dushyant. Every passing moment became a mockery of her good sense and her pedigree. But it happens, right? Even Arman, a doctor far more experienced, clearly harboured feelings which were more than just concern for a patient he could potentially save. Irritated, she gulped down the hot coffee, singeing her tongue, and tried harder to concentrate. After the first few treacherous minutes, she managed to boot out the thoughts of Dushyant from her head and picked up speed. Throughout the day, she avoided the corridor intentionally. Although she knew Dushyant would be sleeping, she would still have found herself at his bedside.

  Why? He is just an insolent bastard!

  To distract herself, she went to check how Pihu’s surgery was going. Arman had planned everything to the last detail. He didn’t want to use any hospital staff, knowing well that if he were to get caught, it would land the others in trouble too. Days before the scheduled surgery, he had complained of fungus growing in the ventilation vents of the surgery room. The surgery room was closed down for a few days till further notice. Arman was put in charge to see it was taken care of, and that it didn’t spread to the other rooms. Arman’s boss, the Chief of Operations, was surprised to see Arman take the initiative.

  The room was used that day to operate on Pihu. The surgery was supposed to be long and dreary and considering that Zarah had not seen Arman since the morning, it seemed like it was. Zarah knew Arman had sought external help—some surgeon buddy from his medical school—but he didn’t want her to know. The less she knew, the better it was for her.

  How much worse can the day get? With that in mind, she walked towards the surgery room. When she reached there, she found that it was sealed. She ran towards the elevators and saw Arman shaking hands with a guy almost of the same age. At a distance, she waited for the guy to leave and then walked up to Arman to ask how it went.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ Arman replied.

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked in hushed tones. There were others in the elevator too, some of whom were doctors. Arman kept mum till the time the elevator reached the floor of their office.

  ‘It went well. It was tougher than we initially thought it was. It’s a very, very difficult surgery. Thank God I had—’ he stopped.

  ‘Do you think she will be okay?’ she queried as they walked to his office.

  ‘I don’t know. I think we did everything right. We need to keep her under constant observation to test the progress. We aren’t sure of anything yet. The stem cells—’

  ‘She will be okay,’ Zarah interrupted. Arman clearly looked exhausted. The dark circles under his eyes and the slouch of his shoulders were screaming indicators.

  ‘I hope so.’ He lay back in his chair and sighed. It must have b
een a really long day for him, she thought.

  ‘You want me to get you something?’ she asked.

  ‘Coffee would be nice,’ he answered.

  ‘I don’t think you need coffee. You need sleep. I will close the door and switch off the lights,’ she said and reached for the lights of the room.

  ‘I don’t think I will get any sleep today. Will you do a favour for me and check on Pihu? If you don’t mind, that is. We need to keep her under observation and I can’t really explain why to the hospital administration. It will be nice if you can help.’

  ‘I will do that,’ Zarah nodded. Seeing Arman tired and uncharacteristically flustered, she felt a little bad for him. Having taken just three steps, she heard Arman call out from behind her.

  ‘I never thought it would be this hard,’ he mumbled. ‘Seven years, thousands of patients … seen many of them die too. This one, I don’t know. Every cut I make on her body makes me feel worse, even though I know she can’t feel the pain. Every time she loses some function of her limbs, I feel responsible. I never thought it would happen again. It’s horrifying.’

  Wait? Again?

  ‘Arman? Happen again? What do you mean?’ she asked, taking care not to probe him too much.

  Arman didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his eyes and lay down flat on his recliner. Zarah pulled a chair from his desk and sat beside him. Of all the sides she had seen of the eccentric doctor, not one of them was as vulnerable as this one.

  ‘It was in my father’s hospital,’ he started. ‘A woman, six years older than me, came in with severe abdominal pain. I was just starting out and I thought I knew it all. All the years that I had studied medicine, I had disparaged mediocre doctors and treated them like parasites. I knew I could cure the woman. Days passed and she only got worse. She was beautiful … and alone. I used to sit next to her, talking through those terrifying nights. My father, who was no longer involved medically with the hospital and oversaw administration, thought it was unhealthy. A month passed and my obsession with her long hair, her fair, drained-out face, her always parted pink lips, her sharp cheekbones and her protruding collar bones grew.

  ‘My failures kept piling up, but the woman had faith in me. She told me that even if she died, she wouldn’t feel bad because she had got the chance to see me every day before her last. We never confessed it in clear, lucid terms, but our relationship was far beyond that. Her pain soon became mine. Frustrated at my inability to cure her, I kept trying out one implausible treatment after another. Since my father owned the hospital, none of the senior doctors objected, more so because they didn’t know what to do either. Even if they would have come up with something, I would have written them off. She was mine to cure.

  ‘After two months of suffering at the hands of an incompetent, arrogant doctor, she died. The autopsy revealed she had a rare cancer, which was very hard to detect. No one blamed me; even cancer specialists would have missed it seven out of ten times. She had no family, so there were no lawsuits against me. She died at my hands. I could have saved her if I hadn’t been so pompous and pig-headed. I watched her die … slowly …’

  When he finished, Zarah found herself at a loss for words. Her throat dried up. She had only imagined Arman as a clinical, heartless doctor who had never gone wrong. Is this why he never works at his father’s hospital? Is that why his relationship is strained with his family? She wanted the answers to these questions but was unsure whether she should pry into his life.

  Before she could string her incoherent thoughts into a single sentence, he continued, ‘I left the hospital. I think my father would have wanted me to. I thought it would be best to leave and learn what it is to be responsible. I never had the confidence to go back to that. It took me years to get over it and not be emotional about the patients I treat. After all, it’s the first fucking rule of being a doctor.’

  And again, she was lost in his words. The last thing she had expected was to see a doctor like him buckle down and spill out skeletons from his past. The first rule is not ‘not to be emotional’, it’s to ‘move on’. From one patient to another, from one disease to another, from one set of grieving moms and crying dads to another.

  ‘I don’t think you can blame yourself for that woman. Or for Pihu. You’re doing your best and that’s what we are supposed to do.’

  ‘I know that, Zarah. I just feel … sorry for her.’

  ‘We all do,’ she answered.

  ‘I just hope it works,’ he said and dug his face into his palms.

  ‘Same here.’ She patted his back.

  ‘How’s Dushyant doing?’

  She felt strange because of all the patients that she attended to, he always asked only about Dushyant.

  ‘He is fine. Let’s see. He is under observation and I hope he pulls through,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t make the mistake I did,’ he croaked and closed his eyes.

  Zarah switched off the light and left the room knowing she had already made the mistake.

  23

  Pihu Malhotra

  It had been thirteen hours and she was lying unconscious in her bed in a dreamless sleep. As she opened her eyes, the first hazy images that registered on her retina were six pairs of curious eyes trained anxiously on her. Immediately, her head started to echo with voices.

  Are you okay?

  How are you feeling now?

  Is there any pain?

  Can you see us?

  She closed her eyes again to escape those questions and to process what she felt at that point in time. There is no pain. I could see them. I still have some strength. I think I can get up. After taking a few long breaths, she opened her eyes and looked around. Mom. Dad. Dr Zarah. A previously unseen ward boy. Dr Arman. Sigh. Dushyant.

  ‘I am okay,’ she purred groggily as she opened her eyes again.

  ‘I need to ask her some questions; can I?’ Arman asked the others and everyone retreated except him.

  Arman sat next to her and breathed deeply. For a while, he just kept looking at her as if he had seen her after months. The sheer fragility of Arman’s demeanour, like he would break down if he looked at her for too long, made her feel alive. It wasn’t the brazen charm, or the brilliance, or the eccentricity that drew her to Arman; it was the frailty and the humanness behind the facade of arrogance that he so meticulously maintained.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she said, and reflected on the words that she had just said. Straight out of an old ’80s movie with a bad scriptwriter.

  ‘I was just wondering how you could look so at peace even as you went through one of the most difficult surgeries ever performed on anyone.’

  ‘I was in the hands of a very good doctor.’ She blushed.

  ‘Okay, before you enthral me with your kind words, I need to run some checks,’ he said and checked her pulse. ‘Do you have any pain?’

  ‘Not any more,’ she teased him and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘Can you stop doing that?’ he grumbled.

  Her parents witnessed the whole conversation and Pihu could sense their bewilderment at the rosy atmosphere between her and the doctor.

  ‘Fine, I will be serious on one condition—you will take me out on a date. I have never been on one and who knows … I might never go on one ever. I want you to be my first,’ she purred sweetly.

  ‘For a little girl, you use your death card very smartly. On a serious note, it never feels good when you say that,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t have to use it if you start behaving like a gentleman and treat me like you should,’ she chortled.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘What fine?’

  ‘Tonight. It’s a date. I will try to be a gentleman. But I have a condition, too.’

  ‘That is?’ she queried.

  ‘You have to get better soon,’ he mumbled.

  Pihu smiled. Next, she answered all the questions he had for her and couldn’t believe her luck that the most gorgeous doctor she had ever seen wa
s taking her out on a date. Wouldn’t her dad be proud? Tonight! Fairy tales are made of these. Later, she asked herself the question that she never thought she would ask. What should I wear? She looked down at her hospital robe and felt sorry for herself. But only for a bit. After all, it was her first date with a guy other girls would kill for. Brilliant. Millionaire. Stunning. Doctor.

  Her body was aching by the time it was evening. There was a huge scar that ran down her spine where they had opened her and stitched her back up. It pained. Throughout the day, she used the pain as an excuse to avoid having conversations with anyone around. It was strange that even Dushyant wanted to talk to her that day and was in fact very persistent in his endeavour. Why today? Restless and anxious, a million questions bounced back and forth in her head. A date in a hospital robe? She tried not to think about it and the more she tried, the more she ended up thinking about the same. There was a small cursory nerve conduction test she was made to undergo during the day and though it had not shown any signs of improvement, she hadn’t worsened either. A few times, she got down from her bed and checked if she could walk on her own.

  She couldn’t.

  Her legs were nothing but useless rubber-like extensions to her body which served no purpose whatsoever. A few laboured steps and she was panting as if she had been running. With her legs worthless, other parts of her body were following suit. The operation was still to show any effects. Inside her heart, she had just one prayer—let today be great and I will happily die. After trying a little more to walk with the crutches, she gave up. Once back in the comfort of her bed, she realized she had nothing to hide from Arman. If there was anyone who knew how far the disease had progressed, it was him. They were in this together.