Read Online The Unknown Errors of Our Lives by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni - Free Book Online

“Now what’s the problem?” he asks Mrs. Das, who attempts a look of innocence. What problem could he be referring to? The doctor sighs, hands Leela his torch, removes the sari strips, and clicks his tongue gravely as he examines Mrs. Das’s feet. There’s evidence of infection, he says. She needs a tetanus shot immediately, and even then the blisters might get septic. How could she have been so foolish as to keep this a secret from him? He pulls a thick syringe from his bag and administers an injection. “But you still have to get down to the hospital at Pahelgaon as soon as possible,” he ends. “I’ll ask the guide to find some way of sending you back tomorrow.”
    Mrs. Das clutches the doctor’s arm. In the flashlight’s erratic beam, her eyes, magnified behind thick glasses, glint desperately. She doesn’t care about her feet, she says. It’s more important for her to complete the pilgrimage—she’s waited so long to do it. They’re only a day or so away from Shiva’s shrine. If she had to turn back now, it would kill her much more surely than a septic blister.
    The doctor’s walrus mustache droops unhappily. He takes a deep breath and says that two extra days of hard walking could cause gangrene to set in, though a brief uncertainty flits over his face as he speaks. He repeats that Mrs. Das must go back tomorrow, then hurries off before she can plead further.
    The darkness left behind is streaked with faint cobwebs of moonlight. Leela glances at the body prone on the bedding next to her. Mrs. Das is completely quiet, and this frightens Leela more than any fit of hysterics. She hears shufflings from the other end of the tent, whispered comments sibilant with relief. Angrily, she thinks that had the patient been anyone else, the doctor would not have been so adamant about sending her back. The moon goes behind a cloud; around her, darkness packs itself tightly, like black wool. She pushes her hand through it to where she thinks Mrs. Das’s arm might be. Against her fingers Mrs. Das’s skin feels brittle and stiff, like cheap waterproof fabric. Leela holds Mrs. Das’s wrist awkwardly, not knowing what to do. In the context of Indian etiquette, would patting be considered a condescending gesture? She regrets her impetuosity.
    Then Mrs. Das turns her wrist—it is the swift movement of a night animal who knows its survival depends on mastering such economies of action—and clasps Leela’s fingers tightly in her own.
    LATE THAT NIGHT, Mrs. Das tries to continue up the trail on her own, is spotted by the lookout guide, apprehended and brought back. It happens quickly and quietly, and Leela sleeps through it all.
    By the time she wakes, the tent is washed in calm mountain light and abuzz with women and gossip.
    “There she was, in the dark on her own, without any supplies, not even an electric torch, can you imagine?”
    “Luckily the guide saw her before she went beyond the bend in the mountain. Otherwise she’d be in a ravine by now. . . .”
    “Or frozen to death . . .”
    “Crazy woman! They say when they caught her, she fought them tooth and nail—I’m telling you, she actually drew blood! Like someone possessed by an evil spirit.”
    Leela stares at Mrs. Das’s bedroll, two dark, hairy blankets topped by a sheet. It looks like the peeled skin of an animal turned inside out. The women’s excitement crackles through the air, sends little shocks up her arms. Are people in India harder to understand because they’ve had so many extra centuries to formulate their beliefs? She recalls the expression on Dexter’s face before he slammed the door, the simple incandescence of his anger. In some way, she had expected it all along. But Mrs. Das . . . ? She curls her fingers, remembering the way the older woman had clasped them in her dry, birdlike grip.
    “Did she really think she could get to the shrine all by herself!” someone exclaims.
    Leela spots Aunt Seema and tugs at her sari. “Where is