Fifteen Lanes - S.J. Laidlaw Page 0,41

to continue the interrogation, I was well prepared.

She just gave me a long look before standing up and moving over to Shami.

Taking the stethoscope from around her neck, she began the all-too familiar routine of checking him out. Even Shami knew what to do, taking deep breaths, which brought on another fit of coughing, leaning forward and back, opening his mouth, tilting his head. He followed every instruction almost before she asked.

She turned to me. “How long did you say he’s been coughing up blood?”

“It started yesterday.”

She pinned me with penetrating eyes. I felt myself sweat. I reassured myself that my anxiety didn’t show on my face. I was a master at hiding my feelings. Her loud exhale told me she knew I was lying. My gaze didn’t waver.

“He’s significantly underweight,” she said.

“He’s a picky eater.” I felt guilty, remembering the fruit.

“Is that true, Shami?” she asked in Hindi. Her voice was light but I saw through her act. “Don’t you like to eat?”

“Shami eat manga an’ napple,” said Shami.

“Oh, I love manga an’ napple!” the doctor exclaimed.

“Shami like ’nana,” said Shami.

“Me too!” said the doctor. “You and I must go out for lunch sometime, Shami. I can see we have the same culinary tastes. You relax now. I’m going to talk to Noor.”

“Where do you live?” She sat down again and picked up the chart and her pen.

“I told the nurse.”

“It says here you live in Bandra.” She named the upper-middle-class neighborhood I’d laid claim to. It was nowhere near Kamathipura, but familiar to everyone in the city for the number of Bollywood stars who lived there. It was also close to this clinic. I didn’t want to raise the slightest suspicion that I’d traveled halfway across town because I’d already been to every free clinic near my own neighborhood.

Her pencil stayed poised above the chart. “You live in Bandra?” Her distrust was badly concealed. The rich were so often poor liars. It made me wonder how they were so successful.

Though I was lying, I felt angry to be disbelieved. I didn’t answer. She glanced up. Her lips twitched as she tried to maintain a serious expression. Suddenly I was reminded of Parvati.

“Reclamation,” I amended my story. It was a mixed neighborhood on the edge of Bandra, mostly squatters’ shacks. I could have lived there. Despite my worn, too-tight uniform and scuffed shoes, I was still a school-going girl.

She put down the pen. What did she think she knew? Was my mother’s profession printed on my forehead? It wasn’t her business anyway. Her job was to give me the medicine. No wonder her line of patients moved so slowly. Did she think we had all day to pour out our life stories so she could spice up her boring life with our desperation?

“And you’re fifteen, you said?”

I stared at my feet. I could feel her watching me with the intensity of a raven, as if my words were morsels of food and she was just waiting for me to drop one. I hoped I looked humble, like a beggar. I didn’t want her to see the tiger inside me.

There was a long pause as she waited for me to say something.

“What do you say we try this again, Noor,” she said gently.

I didn’t know if it was her tone, or the stress of too many doctors, too many close calls with Shami’s life. A tear slid down my nose and dropped on my knee, and then another. I wiped them away as quickly as they fell but they wouldn’t stop coming. It was not worth it, all this trouble for a few days’ worth of medicine. I was so tired of it all. Shami’s sickness consumed us both. I could have no life while I watched his slip away.

I heard her chair roll toward me and suddenly her arms were around me, hugging me tight. The shock of it made me freeze; my belly seized, trapping my breath inside.

“Let’s see if we can’t help Shami together,” she said. Her face was close to my hair. I’d oiled it only yesterday but still I feared lice would leap from my head to hers. She rubbed my back and gradually my breath returned.

“I don’t know how to help him,” I said truthfully.

She slid back and lifted my chin so she could see my face. “An accurate medical history is a good place to start. How long has he been sick?”

I swiped my hand across my eyes and took a deep breath,