Chapter 30 Summary
It has been sixty days since Zemui’s death. Genet is still confined to the house; Rosita, with her missing tooth, is still prickly and easily antagonized. Gebrew finally tells her it is time to stop mourning—even Zemui’s legal wife has finished mourning. When he says that, Rosina explodes with angry passion and calls that woman a harlot. The next day she boils everything she owns that is not already black and many of Genet’s school clothes in a vat of black dye. When Hema asks about sending Genet back to school, Rosina curtly replies that the girl is still in mourning.
Two days later, on a Saturday, Marion hears a shout of celebration from Rosina’s quarters and knocks on her door. Rosina opens the door just a crack, enough for Marion to see a blade in her hand and Genet with a towel pressed to her face and bloody rags on the floor. Rosina says everything is fine and quickly shuts the door. Marion feels compelled to tell Hema what he saw, and Hema immediately knocks on the door. Rosina is surly but tells her she can come in if she wants, since they are all finished.
The room smells of cloistered women and fresh blood. Marion finds it difficult to breathe. Rosina snaps at him to close the door, but Hema countermands the order, telling him to leave the door open and turn on the light. Genet is sitting demurely with a rag in each hand covering her temples. Hema gently pulls back the rags and finds two cuts, like the number eleven, on each side of Genet’s face, just outside her eyebrows. Hema demands to know who did this, and Rosina smirks quietly from across the room but says nothing. Genet says this is the tribal mark of her father’s Eritrean people and that he would be proud of her for carrying the mark. Hema softens a bit and tells Genet her father is dead but she is alive, then she asks the girl to come with her to have her wounds tended to. Marion kneels beside the stubborn girl and asks her to come with them; in response, Genet hisses that he is making it worse for her, that she wanted the marks as much as her mother did.
When he hears of the incident, Ghosh advises they practice patience and reminds Hema that Genet is not their daughter. Hema disagrees and says they cannot abdicate their responsibility to this girl who has been their daughter just when things get difficult. Marion is stunned at the thought of Genet as his sister; the concept certainly complicates his feelings about her. A week later Rosina is still in the throes of mourning. She loudly berates fate, the gods, the Emperor, and even Zemui for leaving her. Hema has had enough and worries that Genet may go mad if she has to listen to more of her mother’s mourning wails. She gathers a handful of people, including the twins, and they push open Rosina’s door. Hema grabs Genet by the arm and pulls her out of the house as Rosina screams to no one that her daughter has been abducted.
Hema and Genet spend an hour behind closed doors. When they emerge, Genet has been transformed. She is wearing bits of bright clothing from Hema’s dance outfits, and she carries herself regally, as a queen who has been restored to her throne. Marion is drawn to her, as always. They go to the local market to buy Genet some new clothes, and it is like all holidays rolled into...
(This entire section contains 1491 words.)
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one for the entire family. They finish their outing with ice cream, and Marion knows there is something he must do. After checking for obstacles, he kicks Genet hard in the shin as a reminder of her humiliating act when she came to his bedroom two weeks ago. The pain registers on her face but she says nothing. On the way home she shows Marion the welt on her leg and asks if he is done. He tells her he is not, and she leans against him coyly, telling him he will ruin her new clothes. Marion looks at her and, as always, is stunned by her beauty. The scars at the ends of her eyebrows make her look even more exotic to him. He knows Genet is not his best friend, sometimes his opponent, never his sister, and always the love of his life. She asks him again, seriously, if he is finished exacting his revenge. After he sighs and says he is, she takes his little finger and bends it back. It would have snapped if he had not wrenched it away from her grasp.
Genet sleeps in a bed in the family’s living room. The next morning Hema sends for Rosina, and the children sneak into the hallway to listen. Hema tells Rosina she expects her work in the kitchen again, helping Almaz. From now on the doors and windows of Rosina’s quarters are to remain open during the day to allow light and air to enter the dwelling. The children hold their breath, waiting to see if Rosina will reclaim her daughter. She does not. Rosina does not say a word, makes a curt bow, and leaves.
The three children fall back quickly into their school routine. They do homework, practice penmanship, prepare for current event discussions, and write book reports in addition to several more active pursuits. Shiva is exempt from assignments this year because of an arrangement Hema and Ghosh make with the school. Shiva is able to do all the work; however, if he does not see the need for an assignment, he simply does not do it. The school is relieved because they can collect the fees and let him attend class without guilt. The teachers know and understand Shiva (as much as it is possible for anyone to know Shiva), and most of them understand Shiva is an exceptional student but his mind does not work like most people’s do.
After school Shiva can be found at the Vision Clinic. He sneaks into a Cesarean section operation, and this marks the beginning of a new pursuit. He studies Grey’s Anatomy as if it were the Bible, and his drawings are now of women’s body parts and their dissections. Marion, on the other hand, seeks out Ghosh in Casualty, Operating Theater 3, or the post-op ward. One evening Marion and Genet are copying aphorisms in a penmanship exercise; suddenly there are tears in Genet’s eyes. She is angry that “Virtue is its own reward” did not apply to her father; she wonders why, if “Truth needs no disguise,” they cannot speak freely about the negative aspects of the Emperor. At the end of the school year, Rosina stuns everyone by asking for leave to return to her family home, to allow Genet to visit her grandparents and meet her father’s family. Hema is afraid she will not return and everyone tries to convince her not to go; however, Rosina is adamant. Genet tells Hema that she will return, no matter what. As the taxi pulls away, Genet is excited and happy; Hema and Marion are heartbroken. That night the winds pick up and the rainy season begins.
Marion knows the rainy season means an outbreak of croup, diphtheria, and measles. One rainy morning he sees a familiar woman walking up the hill with a coughing infant. Marion recognizes the cough and takes her immediately to the croup room. Ghosh arrives quickly and lets Marion listen with his stethoscope to the child’s noisy breathing. Ghosh shows Marion some outward signs and diagnoses the child with rickets in addition to measles and malnutrition. It is a difficult thing for the child’s mother, and Marion remains with her as the child labors to breathe in his oxygen tent. Tears stream down the woman’s face; Marion holds her hand and then lets her cry on his shoulder.
The child dies later that afternoon. Tsige, his mother, mourns quietly, unlike some mothers who get violent in their grief. Marion stays with her as she wraps her baby in a shroud and prepares to make the heartbreaking walk home. She holds Marion’s gaze for a long time, bows, and walks away. The child’s suffering has ended, but Tsige’s has just begun.
Ghosh is teaching an American doctor how to perform a vasectomy. Ghosh agrees to teach the man the procedure if he will perform the surgery on a very important patient—Ghosh himself. He asks Marion not to mention this plan to Hema. Ghosh begins the procedure, teaching as he works. For Ghosh, practicing and teaching medicine are one in the same, and he teaches Marion regularly. Everyone in the room enjoys the experience, including the patient.
