A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - By Anthony Marra Page 0,28

thing, to be avoided, and he would have advised them against it, because had he known that not one but two wars were coming, he would have dropped out of medical school in his first year, his reputation be damned, and gone to art school instead; had he known a domineering, cold-hearted Russian surgeon would one day ask him to cut off this poor man’s leg, he would have studied still-life portraiture, landscape oil painting, sculpture and ceramics, he would have sacrificed his brief celebrity within the village, if only to safeguard himself from this man’s leg.

“There’s only one amputation now, but what about next time?” Sonja said. “There could be five, ten.”

He exhaled. Sweat pasted his surgical mask to his cheeks. Sonja pushed his hand forward. The blade grated against the bone. The vibration of each thrust ran up the blade, through the handle, to his hand, and into his bones. The name of the bone was tibia and it was connected to fibula and patella. He had studied the names that morning, but what he knew wouldn’t push the saw.

“Press harder,” she instructed, steadying the bone for him. “This isn’t a delicate operation.”

Halfway through, the blade unexpectedly went red with marrow. He stopped sawing.

“What’s wrong?” Sonja asked.

He could have answered that question several different ways, but he shook his head, and kept sawing. “I didn’t know human bone marrow is red. I thought it would be golden. Like a cow’s.”

“The marrow of a living bone is filled with red blood cells. If we were to shake a little salt and pepper on this bone and roast it in the oven, the marrow would turn golden in about fifteen minutes,” she said.

He feared he might vomit.

“Fine work,” she said, as he sliced through the tibia. “Just one more bone to go.”

He set the blade on the fibula and his quick hard saw-strokes spat into the air a fine white bone dust that drifted toward him, drawn by his breath, eventually dissolving into his damp surgical mask. Sonja’s dark eyes leered at him in his periphery, and he pushed the saw harder, faster, wanting Sonja to see in him more than his helplessness, wanting to finish before he fainted. A dozen strokes later the foot dropped to the table. He held the remnant by the ankle, and without pause or consideration, he flipped it on its end, and blood and marrow coated his fingers as he counted six shards of glass glinting in what was left of the man’s sole.

“Set that aside,” she said. “We’ll wrap it in plastic and give it to the family for burial.” She showed him how to round off the amputated bone and pad it with muscle. She pulled the posterior flap over the muscle-padded stump, trimmed the excess skin, and sutured it with black surgical thread.

When they finished, he peeled off his latex gloves and massaged the pink soreness of his right palm, where the skin between his thumb and forefinger had swollen from the handle’s pinch. Sonja noticed, smiled, and when she raised her right hand he wanted to be back in bed with Ula, where he could pull the covers over their heads and in the humidity of their stale breaths hold the one person who believed he was knowing, capable, and strong.

Calluses covered Sonja’s palm.

CHAPTER

5

KHASSAN GESHILOV COMPLETED the first draft of his Chechen history on the one day in January 1963 when it didn’t snow. The manuscript was 3,302 pages. When he submitted it to the city publisher in Volchansk he was told he needed to send it to the state publisher in Grozny, and when he submitted it to the state publisher in Grozny he was told he needed to send it to the national publisher in Moscow; and when he submitted it there he was told he needed to send three typed copies. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as he looked at his poor, battered fingers. But he purchased the postage, paper, typewriter ribbons, and cigarettes such a monumentally monotonous activity required, and eighteen months later he received a phone call from the head editor of the history section, Kirill Ivanovich Kaputzh.

“We’re launching a thrilling new series called ‘Prehistories of Soviet Autonomous Republics’ and we would like to publish your book as our lead title,” Kirill Ivanovich said. Even in his surprise and excitement, Khassan asked what the publisher meant by prehistory; the book he had written ended in 1962. “Prehistory,” Kirill Ivanovich explained, “is the