CHAPTER 75

Summary

• Dr. Mariamma (Mari) is working with a new colleague Dr. T. T. Kesavan at a clinic who is filtering her patients which gives her some respite.
• She encounters a dark, Nepalese-looking man in her office named Cromwell, who hands her a note from a doctor who knew her grandfather and requests her help with a severely ill patient.
• The doctor, Digby, is waiting in a vehicle outside the clinic. He is an old acquaintance of her family, having known her grandfather and her mother when she was young.
• Digby is in his late sixties or early seventies, with blue eyes and a patchwork of rust-colored and albino-white skin. He is lean and fit but not as rugged as his dark-skinned driver, Cromwell.
• Upon leaving the clinic in the vehicle, Mari asks about the patient's condition. Digby reveals the patient is not doing well, barely conscious, and worsening by the hour.
• Digby then explains how the patient, Lenin, wound up at his former estate, Gwendolyn Gardens. Lenin's mother had sought refuge there when she was pregnant and wounded, laying a connection between Lenin and Digby. Near to capture, Lenin fled to the estate, but it was too dangerous to keep him there due to a reward for his capture, so Cromwell transported him to Digby.
• Mariamma asks Digby about their plan of action for Lenin. Digby confesses he didn't know how to help Lenin, as his medical expertise are in leprosy, and Lenin had asked specifically for Mariamma's help.
• He believes Lenin might have acoustic neuromas like Mariamma's father, an inherited disorder. Mariamma is uncertain if she can cure him, and is very still and lost in thought following this information.
• Digby tells her that she doesn't have to be involved and it may be too late for Lenin anyway. This comment upsets Mariamma, who says how sudden it is for Lenin to show up asking for her help after all these years, and she begins to cry.
• Digby consoles her, and she leans on him for comfort, resting her forehead on his shoulder while he places his hand gently on her scapula.