Till the Last Breath . . . (19 page)

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 was 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.

They were supposed to meet at eleven in the night, when everyone else would have slept. Time had slowed down. From eight in the evening, she had glanced at her watch every few minutes, hoping time would move along faster.
9. 10. 10.30. 10.45.
The closer it got, the farther it seemed. In the last ten minutes, she sprayed perfume over herself and brushed her hair the best she could. There was a limit to things she could do and in all honesty, she liked that. It was simple.

Her eyes never left the door, waiting for her knight in shining armour—in her case, a knight with a stethoscope around his neck—to take her away. Her heart was literally throbbing and it was no longer just an expression. The electrodes and the monitors that measured the beating of her heart showed a huge spike and the graph looked as if she had just run a marathon. It became worse with every passing second. Sometimes, she felt she would pass out. Moments later, the door was pushed open and Arman walked in. Almost instantly, she felt dwarfed in front of his imposing personality, now dressed in a dark-blue shirt—a first—and a pair of fitted trousers. His short hair was neatly parted, his face shaved clean of any stubble and he smelled heavenly. The neatness of his face brought out his eyes, big and twinkling, and his teeth, sparkling white.
Oh my God! I hope my jaw hasn’t unhinged and fallen off my face! He is gorgeous!

Finding her voice again, she muttered, ‘You look fabulous!’

‘Thank you,’ he said, softly. Seemed like he had forgotten the rude, abrasive doctor side of him home, and kept the gentlemen part. ‘And you always look great.’

‘Yes, why not? Every girl dreams of being in a hospital robe on her first date, doesn’t she?’ she mocked playfully.

‘I don’t know about other girls, but I know what you want. Your first date in a hospital. It’s perfect, right? And not in a hospital robe, but a doctor’s coat,’ he said and put forward with his right hand a white coat, neatly folded, and along with it, a stethoscope.

‘What?’

She took it from his hands and memories of medical school came flashing to her mind. It was lame but it was not lame. It was by far the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. She spread open the coat and was in for the second shock of the evening when she noticed a badge attached to the coat. It spelled ‘Dr Pihu Malhotra’. Below it was the hospital’s logo and the name of the hospital.
I wish I could marry him!

‘This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me!’ she shrieked.

‘It’s nothing.’ The arrogant doctor blushed and shifted nervously on his feet.

‘It’s a lot!’ she said as she hugged the coat lovingly and smiled at Arman. She put it around her shoulder and slipped her arms in and hung the stethoscope around her neck. It felt like … it always felt in her dreams.

‘Shall we go?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ she answered and reached out for her crutches that were on the side of her bed.

‘They will not be of any use where I am taking you,’ he said and blocked her way.

‘Wheelchair?’

‘Better,’ he answered.

Confused, she looked at him as he swept in and one of his hands went around her neck. She instinctively put hers across his, and his other hand scooped her up from her bed. With one swift motion, she was high up in his arms; Arman’s smiling face bore no sign of strain as he headed to the door, carrying her in his strongly built arms. She was beyond words, beyond feelings, beyond senses; she was numb and all she did was stare at him in sheer admiration and heart-wrenching adoration. As he carried her through the corridor, she wished the moment would freeze in time. She wanted to leave her body and see what it looked like—him carrying her in his arms—and then click a mental picture of it and etch it in her mind.
Why wasn’t I dying before?
she asked herself.

Arman’s long strides were confident and powerful as he walked into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. Every step and every sensation of his body against hers took her to a different world altogether. If there was any sensation she wanted to live with as her last, it was the touch of him against her. The elevator reached the top floor and he walked out, his hands still tightly wrapped around her. His warm breath against her hair gave her untold happiness and she had goosebumps on her flesh. The feeling was indescribable as Arman walked to the stairs of the fire exit and climbed a flight of stairs to take her to the roof of the hospital.

It was only after they were up there that she realized she was not in her room any more. The cool breeze against her face broke her out of her trance-like state and she returned to the present. She looked around and it wasn’t really how they show it in the movies. The supposedly dreamlike sequence had no tiny red LED lights, or a small round table with candles on it, or a chunky black stereo piping her favourite songs, or glasses of wine, or fancy cutlery with delectable food hidden
under steel domes. Instead, there was a small rectangular table and two plastic chairs. On the table were two packed dinners and a couple of bottles of mineral water on the side. A frown appeared on her face momentarily which was creased out as Arman’s cologne wafted into her senses again and she found herself smiling.

Finally, he put her down on the chair and sat down next to her. For a few seconds, no one spoke. Okay, so this was strange. No candles? No lights? No music? Bad plastic-bound food? Would her last date be like this?

‘So …’ she said, as she tried to explain herself and ask him for an explanation too, all at the same time.

‘I know what you are thinking. Why this, right?’ he asked. One of his eyebrows was arched as if he was about to unfurl a devious scheme.

‘Yes. I am sure you have a logical explanation. I mean, everything is great, but no flowers? No music?’ she poked fun at him.

‘As a matter of fact, I do have a logical explanation. Imagine us together five years down the line. What would we be doing? Maybe we will go on dates with flowers, candles and whatever you might have thought of in your pretty little head. But that’s not going to be our life—is it? Our life will be this—sitting in the hospital cafeteria, eating bad food and discussing patients. Fighting over who’s wrong and who’s right. Learning from each other. Quarrelling. Laughing. Crying. That’s what we would be about. Those will be the big moments of our lives. Those will be the happiest moments of our lives. No one remembers one anniversary from the other. Years down the line our thirteenth or fourteenth or fiftieth anniversary will be the same to us. But we will remember those years, not those anniversaries. Days aren’t important, years are. Years aren’t important, experiences
are. Experiences aren’t important, lives are. And this will be our life.’

‘I get your point. But can’t we do that with flowers?’ she chortled. ‘Just kidding. I think it’s great and I don’t think you could have put it better. And you just said “ours”, so I am happy. But what’s all this?’ She pointed out to the file on the table which was almost six inches thick. The papers in the file were frayed at their ends and appeared to have been filed improperly.

‘This is the file of the sixty-three most interesting cases I have ever handled. Some of them died, some of them lived. These are the charts of their diseases, the progress, the medications and finally, the results. Some of them are beyond your understanding, but you have proved more than once that you’re more than just brilliant,’ he said. ‘I think we would have fun doing this.’

At that point, she hated to admit it but she was aroused. It was like mental sex with multiple, unending, exploding orgasms, only better. Gingerly she opened the file and started to go through the first patient.

‘2004, a fifteen-year-old boy came to the hospital with chest pain and rashes all over his body—’

‘You compiled this for me?’ she interrupted.

‘Let’s concentrate on the case,’ he said and continued.

For the next one and a half hours, they went through numerous cases, fought over potential diagnosis, ate the cold, tasteless food, looked into each other’s eyes and knew nothing would make them happier if this was their routine for the rest of their lives. Somewhere between the heated conversations, Arman had shifted right next to her and taken her hand. They were talking about dead patients, but both of them knew what they were
really
talking about. When both
of them were exhausted, Arman took her back to her room and tucked her into her bed. The goodnight kiss lasted an eternity and then Arman left.