Page 34 of Six Days in Bombay

Amit said, “Mr. Bartos, I’m dreadfully sorry. I know this must be as much a shock for you as it is for us. Yesterday, she seemed to be on the mend.” He went to Mira’s husband and gently touched his arm. “I tried to get in touch with you several times before she was discharged yesterday. I tried to dissuade her from leaving the hospital. In my opinion, she needed further analysis, but as you know, she was determined to go.” He paused, searching the other man’s face to see if he’d understood. Filip Bartos merely stared at Mira’s lifeless body. Amit dropped his arm. “We knew the morphine was no longer working as well as it should have. Perhaps we missed something. I’m so sorry. She will be missed.Iwill miss her.”

I glanced at her chart. Dr. Holbrook had doubled her dosagesince she’d been readmitted to the hospital. Why hadn’t he just taken Amit’s suggestion about considering alternative possibilities for Mira’s treatment?

Filip’s face had lost what little color it had. “If Mira wanted to go home, Dr. Mishra, she was going to go home. You don’t—didn’t—argue with Mira.”

Her strong will was one of the things I’d admired about Mira. Was it what had led to her death? I closed my eyes and tried to contain the tears. I’d seen patients die before, and I’d been saddened by their passing, but I’d never been this close to them.

“Let’s talk in my office.” Amit led the painter’s husband by his elbow out of the room. As he passed me, Amit hesitated, as if he wanted to say something. Mr. Bartos’s eyes met mine. They were pleading with me, wanting me to do or say something. I could see he was grieving, but I couldn’t find the words to help him. Instead, I turned toward the bed. It was Mira and not Mira. It looked like her. But it wasn’t her anymore. It was the same way I’d felt about the sketch of Indira that Mira had made.

So many things would change. Our conversations about things Mira knew and I didn’t would cease. Her laughter. Her ability to make my day more interesting. How she made me feel like I belonged in her world. I would no longer feast on her stories of the places she’d been, countries she’d lived in, exotic people she’d known. She’d been more than a patient; she’d been my friend. She wasn’t just leaving the hospital; she was leavingme.I talked to her in my head the way I’d been talking to her just half an hour ago.Mira. Why did you go? I need you. I have more I want to ask you, more I need to know, more I need to tell you. You made my world come alive. You made me feel. Feel as if I mattered to you, to myself. Please. Don’t go!

But she wasn’t listening. She’d already gone.

***

Matron covered Mira with the top sheet and allowed the attendants to take her away. There was so much blood where thepainter had lain. I sat dumbly on a chair, still clutching the stack of clean sheets I’d brought. My brain was working furiously, running through my movements before I left for the stockroom. I’d put the cool washcloth on her forehead. I’d taken her pulse. I’d tried to give her water, but she hadn’t wanted any. Before leaving the room, I’d made sure the temperature in the room was to her liking and the window was open to allow fresh air.

In a daze, I glanced at the sheets in my arms, wrinkled now where my fingers were clutching the fabric. I loosened my hold on them. I regarded my fingernails, buffed to a shine. My nursing apron: white as the Himalayan clouds in Mira’s paintings. There was no evidence of the painter’s distress, her passing. Had it really happened? Was I in a nightmare? I pinched my arm. I looked at the red welt that was beginning to swell. I pinched harder. My eyes filled, and this time, instead of blinking them away, I let them roll down my cheeks.

When Mira talked, I saw the world as if I were in her skin, looking through her eyes. Chartreuse and azure and bloodred and turquoise—I saw the colors of her paintings as she saw them, as energy. That’s how she talked about her work. As if by some strange force, her paint and brushes compelled her toward the canvas; she wasn’t in control of what or how she painted. Did I understand? she asked. I nodded. Because Idid. It was like that with me and people I liked. I was drawn to them and reveled in their company, fascinated by their stories. I remembered verbatim all the things they told me, all the things she’d told me. The people she talked about, like her mother, imitating the haughty expression she wore. When she talked about her father, she stroked an imaginary beard, the way she said he did when he was deep in thought. She was a wonderful mimic, and her imitations made me laugh.

Matron was standing in front of my chair. I looked up at her. I could see her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear the words she was saying. She frowned, then shook my arm. I jerked back,the touch startling me, bringing me to the present. She and I were alone in the room.

“There will be questions, Nurse Falstaff. Do you understand?”

I merely stared, my jaw slack.

“Nod if you understand.”

Mutely, I nodded.

“We will want to know everything that happened leading up to Miss Novak’s death. You may want to write it down. Minute by minute.”

“I left the room for twenty minutes,” I said helplessly. I extended the folded linen toward her, as an answer. I wanted Matron to tell me it wasn’t true. That I was dreaming, as I often did at night, the one where Papa was boarding the train for England, leaving me standing on the platform, alone, clutching thekathputlidoll he’d given me. He never once looked back.

I retracted my arms, hugged the sheets to my chest.Why did you go, Mira?

Matron gently unfolded my arms and lifted the linen from them. “Experience comes with time. Perhaps the dosage was double what she should have received? Or perhaps the time between doses had been too short?”

My heartbeat quickened. I looked up at her, alert now, and shook my head. I wiped my eyes roughly with my palms. “No, Matron. I followed the doctor’s directions on the chart precisely. Miss Novak needed a dose before it was time, so I gave her a half dose…” Tears continued to flow onto my nursing apron, much as I willed them not to. I pulled a handkerchief out of my skirt pocket and dried my eyes properly.

“You’ve been working long shifts seven days a week. That can wreak havoc on a person’s ability to think clearly. Perhaps you were overly tired—”

“Ma’am, I don’t think— No, IknowI didn’t—” I searched for the right words. “—cause this. I would never have done anything to harm Miss Novak. The long shifts are not tiring forme. I enjoy my work. I enjoy taking care of my patients.” I regarded Matron through wet eyelashes, willing her to believe me. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t crying because I was sorry I’d made a mistake. I was crying for the loss of a friend.

Matron’s eyes went to the enamel pan and syringe that lay on Mira’s bedside table. She walked toward it. The vial of morphine lay in the pan.

“You left a vial of morphine and a syringe in the room? What were you thinking? Haven’t you been taught never to do that?” Matron’s voice brimmed with astonishment.

Puzzled, I joined her at the table. I had removed the pan and the syringe when I left the room. Then I remembered seeing Rebecca leave the room. What had she been doing in here?

My vision blurred. The room tilted. My legs felt unsteady. I turned to Matron. “I don’t know how it could have happened. I didn’t overdose her and I did not leave anything here.”

A chill ran up my spine. Or did I? How could I be sure? Maybe I was in a hurry and forgot to take the paraphernalia back to the pharmacy? I had been overwrought seeing Mira in such a state. Maybe I really did leave it in the room? How could I have been so careless?

She was frowning, her face and brows pinched. She seemed to be angry, disappointed and frightened at the same time. Was she afraid she would be blamed for my carelessness?

“There’s no need to make up the bed now. The authorities may want to examine the bed and the syringe and whatever else.” She took a moment, looked around the room, her eyes coming to rest on me again.

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