The priest had taken the boy to his home, a basic hut by the banks of the Ganges. “You can stay here with me till such time as you find something better,” the priest had said. “You will need to help me with all the household chores though.” The boy had gratefully accepted the proposal.
The next day they had headed to the woods that bordered the railway tracks to collect firewood for the traditional stove in the priest’s house. The boy had gathered all the branches that had fallen from trees, tying them into bundles that could eventually be carried back. The priest had sat under a tree, looking at the boy’s sweating torso.
“Let me wipe the sweat off your body,” the priest had said, getting up and using his cotton shawl to dry the boy’s back. He’d asked the boy to turn around and face him but instead of drying him, he had attempted to kiss the boy on his lips. The boy had backed off in shock, but the priest had been persistent. “Love is a natural thing,” he had said. “God tells us to love our fellow human beings. I am merely expressing my affection for you,” and he had grasped the boy and pulled him toward his body.
The boy had now been fully alert. It had been as though that terrible night when his father had killed his mother was being played out with him as victim. He’d played along with the priest, allowing the pervert to kiss him and shove his tongue inside his mouth.
And then he had made his move.
The boy had been holding a heavy branch in his other hand when the priest had grabbed for him. He’d now swung it up toward the priest’s head with as much force as he could muster. An involuntary scream had emerged from the boy as he’d brought the wood into contact with the man’s chin.
The priest had sunk to the ground, dazed by the blow. The boy had continued to smash the priest’s skull with the branch until his head was a bloody pulp. “Die! Die! Die!” he’d shouted. He had pulled the priest’s lifeless body to the nearby railway tracks and lain him across the line. He’d waited by the side, at a safe distance, until a passing train ran over the corpse.
That day he had realized that as well as no longer just being a boy, he was no mere killer either. He was capable of taking care of himself and cleansing the world of vermin. Delivering purity in a world of filth. Delivering light in a world of darkness.
He was now the Deliverer.
Chapter 44
THE WINDOWLESS OPERATING room of the Delhi Memorial Hospital was freezing cold. Under the surgical lights a patient lay on the operating table, his eyes closed, an anesthesia mask over his face.
Doesn’t the patient wonder why a routine gallbladder operation is taking place so late at night? thought the senior nurse. She threw a look at Dr. Pankaj Arora: the slicked-back hair, the gap in his teeth. If only the world knew what a butcher he is. She should never have allowed herself to get sucked into his scheme, but the money was good—enough to pay off the staggering debts her husband had accumulated.
The anesthesia machine stood at the head of the table, and a tube ran from it to the mask that had been placed over the patient’s mouth and nose.
Wearing protective caps, surgical masks, vinyl gloves, and long green surgical gowns, the team was led by Dr. Pankaj Arora. It wasn’t an urgent surgery; it could have waited until morning. But Arora had insisted and no one ever argued with him. His temper was notorious.
Arora applied antiseptic solution to the areas he’d marked on the body. He then made a small incision above the belly button and inserted a hollow needle through the abdominal wall. This would pump carbon dioxide into the abdomen, inflating the cavity.
“Do we need intraoperative cholangiography?” asked the senior nurse. It was standard procedure to check if there were any stones outside the gallbladder.
Arora gave the woman a terrifying look. No one asked unnecessary questions while he was operating. “If you had bothered to check,” said Arora, “you would know that he has no stones outside the gallbladder.”
In fact, he has none inside the gallbladder either.
The senior nurse cursed herself for asking a stupid question. It was never a good idea to get on the wrong side of Arora.
He efficiently attached the umbilical port and then made three more incisions, no more than an inch each, in the patient’s belly. Next he inserted a wand-like laparoscope that was equipped with cameras and surgical tools into the umbilical port. Immediately, the monitor in front of him came to life with a view from inside the patient.
“How’s the blood pressure?” he asked the anesthesiologist.
“Steady—one hundred and ten over seventy,” replied the anesthesiologist, looking at the iridescent numbers and squiggles that mapped the patient’s vital signs.
Arora used the laparoscope to pull back both the liver and gallbladder and removed the connecting tissue to expose the cystic duct and artery. The senior nurse quickly used clips to clamp off the duct and artery. Arora cut the duct, the artery, and the connecting tissue between the gallbladder and liver, and used the laparoscope to suck out the pear-shaped gallbladder.
At this stage all the instruments should have been withdrawn, the carbon dioxide allowed to escape, and the patient stitched up. Instead, Arora increased the size of one of the incisions—to almost four inches.
“More suction,” he said to the senior nurse. She immediately grabbed a long plastic tube, and began using it to vacuum the puddles of blood. Arora was like a drill sergeant inside the operating room.
He used his instruments to separate the colon from the right kidney. He cut the splenorenal ligament to free the kidney entirely. He then cut the ureter, placed an endoscopic specimen retrieval bag around the patient’s kidney, and pulled it out through the larger cut.
From the corner of his eye he saw the senior nurse place the kidney in the Surgiquip LifePort unit, a transport device that would continuously pump the kidney with a cold liquid solution. It would double the organ storage time until it could be transplanted.
Arora began to stitch up the patient.
Surgery completed, he walked over to the scrubbing area, removed his gloves, mask, and cap, and washed his hands. He then walked through the doctors’ lounge and into the corridor. The patient’s wife was seated in one of the visitors’ chairs. She had been looking at the clock anxiously for the past four hours.
She got up instantly. “Is everything all right, Dr. Arora?” she asked.
He smiled at her, his expression softening only momentarily. “Don’t worry,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “He’s perfectly fine. He’ll be discharged in two days.”
A look of relief was evident on the wife’s face. “I was worried when it took so long. I was under the impression that the gallbladder could be removed in two hours.”
“Laparoscopy takes a little longer but most patients seem to recover faster and feel less pain after the surgery,” he explained, taking off his glasses and using his kerchief to clean them. “We also needed to carry out intraoperative cholangiography to check for stones outside the gallbladder. That’s why it took some more time.”
Oh, and we also removed a healthy kidney along the way.
Chapter 45