"Seeing Deeper by Mary Soon Lee" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee Mary Soon)

Seeing Deeper
by Mary Soon Lee

I stood in the sterile hospital theater, watching sweat runnel down the side of Geetha's face and trickle into her damp black hair. Geetha panted, resting between cramps, her head turning to look for me.

"I'm here, Geetha." I stepped forward, my hand reaching to cup her cheek. Her skin was wet beneath my fingers, and for once almost as pale as my own. Just an hour ago, I'd returned home from work to find Geetha doubled over by the rose bushes, surrounded by white petals and the heavy fragrance of incense. She had been in pain all day, but put more faith in her grandfather's superstitions than American doctors. If the old man had been in the hospital with us, I'd have hit him.

Geetha's eyes squeezed closed, her back arching impossibly. I tried to tell her it was going to be all right, but my throat choked and I could only hold onto her.

A green-gowned doctor reached between Geetha's knees. A second later, he raised one plastic glove, smeared with crimson, and gave something to a nurse. As the nurse walked past me, I glimpsed the tiny blood-wet lump in her grasp. Two perfect minute arms, fingers curled, a smudge of nose, and a wrongness where the legs should have been.

One of the other nurses lifted my hand from Geetha's cheek. I stared at the young nurse, and saw that she was saying something to me. Abruptly, I registered the background noises: the clink of metal instruments, the anesthetist reciting a numerical litany, the nurse's brusque kindness as she eased me out of the way.

But there was something missing.

I leaned against the wall, squinting at Geetha stretched beneath the angled glare of the lights. Her face was still now, her body relaxed as strangers inserted tubing into her veins. I stood there, empty as a hollow egg-shell, listening, listening for the missing sound, not sure what it was.

The young nurse took my arm again, and steered me out of the operating theater. "Your wife's going to be just fine, but she'll be asleep for a few hours. Why don't you get yourself a coffee?"

Numbly, I nodded.

The nurse stepped back inside, the door swinging behind her. For an instant, I saw a steel-bright dish perched on a table, a shallow bowl with a tiny white-wrapped bundle inside it.

I waited, listening, my forehead pressed against the cold door. But our child was silent.



Even though I was sitting beside her bed, it took me a while to realize Geetha was awake. She lay motionless, staring up at the grey ceiling. I bent over, and kissed her lightly.

She ignored me, her dark brown eyes gazing upward.

"Geetha?"

Still no response. Uselessly, I stroked her arm. The doctor had warned me that she might be in shock. "I'm so sorry," I mumbled, over and over, "I love you."

Geetha blinked. "Where is Madeleine?"

"She, she's dead -- it was too soon."

"Where did they put her?"

I shivered, unnerved by the brittle dryness of her tone, the way her eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.

"_Where is she?_"

"I don't know. I suppose in the hospital morgue . . ."

"You have to bury her. Quickly."

"But your family, my mother, they'll want to come. And I haven't even told them yet." It was stupid; we sounded as though we were arranging a dinner-party. And what I wanted to say, what I wanted to do, was to fold my head into the crook of Geetha's neck, and hug her all night. I laid my hand on her cheek. "Geetha . . ."