Cutting for Stone

Matron and Ghosh look for Thomas all night. They send their patients to other hospitals and cancel all the probationer classes. The Minister of the Pen calls from the palace to offer Matron condolences on behalf of the Emperor. She is amazed that he knows about it but not surprised. He then asks her to inform them if an Imperial Bodyguard comes to be treated at the hospital. After they hang up, Matron reflects that losing Sister and Thomas, as medical practitioners, is terrible for the hospital and its patients. She then receives a call from Eli Harris, a member of the Baptist congregation of Houston, Texas, who is one of the hospital’s biggest donors. He is in Addis Ababa, and Matron is so flustered that she hangs up on him. A donor has never come to visit before.

Ghosh returns to the hospital after failing to find Thomas. As he and Matron leave to make funeral arrangements, they see Eli Harris arrive. Matron assumes that he has come to check the progress of a project he has funded, a project that does not exist. She is worried—the hospital relies on donations and has no savings or patient income. At the cemetery, Matron tells Goshe about the man she loved, who died trying to save her when looting erupted in the city in 1935, just before the Italians attacked. Matron decides to bury Sister on the hospital grounds.

Ghosh assigns two men the task of digging Sister’s grave. When he returns to the hospital, he sees Eli Harris again but is distracted by a patient. Ghosh diagnoses him with a bowel obstruction, but the four men who came with the patient are arguing among themselves. Ghosh tells the man that surgery is necessary and asks why he is not at a military hospital, as they are all clearly officers. Ghosh then recognizes the man as the executioner at a hanging he witnessed. The man, Colonel Mebratu, says he executed his friends, and that it was painful to do so. Ghosh tells Mebratu that Matron was asked to contact the palace if he came for treatment, but she has not. The man is relieved because if his location is revealed, he will be hanged. Ghosh realizes that these men have been planning a coup.

Because he is an internal medicine specialist and not a surgeon, Ghosh calls Hema to operate on the bowel obstruction, but she tells him to do it. Although Ghosh has not performed surgery, he has assisted Thomas several times, and the surgery is a success. He feels powerful, and afterward, he finds that Hema was nearby the entire time, ready to help if needed. He realizes that he is still in love with her.

That night, they bury Sister, and Matron asks Gebrew, who is a priest in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, to lead the ceremony. Ghosh has the sensation that Sister is telling him to leave and move on from loving Hema, and he decides to go ahead with his plan to work in America. Hema vows to take care of Sister’s babies.

Thomas has still not returned, and in the morning, Ghosh checks on Mebratu. He is leaving because he cannot be found missing from duty. His brother, also with him, is about to be exiled; this is what finally made Mebratu commit to the coup. After he leaves, Ghosh contemplates his new understanding of the Emperor.

Matron meets with Eli Harris. She tells him about Sister’s death and Thomas’s disappearance, and how dependent they are on their donors. He reveals that he is not there to check on her; he is there about a church mission that did not go well. Matron had advised against the mission, and they argue about his misconception that Missing’s people need saving and the fact that his congregation sends Bibles instead of food and money. He is embarrassed, and she gives him a tour of the hospital. She shows him the precarious nature of the operation and how many people need their help.

Ghosh goes to Hema’s bungalow and finds many of the nursing staff there, playing with the twins. He leaves to look for Thomas again. He has moved forward with his plans to leave for America in a month, but he has not told anyone yet. Later, Almaz tells him that one of the twins has stopped breathing, and they go back to Hema’s bungalow. The babies are both breathing now, and Hema is crying and hugs Ghosh. She tells him that Shiva stopped breathing but started again when she touched him, and now she is afraid to leave. Ghosh diagnoses it as apnea—because the baby is premature, his lungs are not fully developed, and he forgets to breathe sometimes. Ghosh rigs an alarm system between his finger and Shiva’s foot, turning some of Hema’s bells into an anklet for the baby. He reads while the babies and Hema sleep. At four in the morning, he wakes Hema up to take over and goes to sleep.

The next day, Ghosh finds an old incubator, cleans it up, and puts the twins in it. He watches over them at night, frustrated with himself for continuing to help Hema. At night, she watches him sleep, feeling grateful for his help. Ghosh cancels his plane ticket to America, giving up on his plan. The hospital has been closed since Sister’s death, but he takes a patient one day, and the hospital gradually reopens. Because Thomas is still missing and Hema is focused on the twins, Matron hires another doctor, leaving Ghosh to operate and manage the hospital.

When they place Sister’s headstone, Matron tells Ghosh and Hema that the British Consulate informed her that Thomas is now in Kenya. She has gotten Eli Harris involved in either finding work for him there or helping him get to America. Hema disparages Thomas, and Ghosh loses his temper, turning his back on her. She feels frightened as if she might lose him.

Hema is adjusting to being a mother but worries about Thomas returning, as he never gave up his claim to the children. Ghosh, meanwhile, has become the hospital’s surgeon. One day, Hema interrupts him while operating because the father has to whisper the babies’ names in their ears during the naming ceremony. He is happy to be the father and does so before returning to surgery.

As time goes on, the twins get healthier but cannot bear to be apart. Ghosh acts as their father and is able to put them to bed when no one else can. He and Hema have reverted to their old relationship, but she still worries that Thomas will return to claim the twins. Ghosh continues to sleep at Hema’s house, even though there is no need anymore. He tells her that he almost left because he was afraid she would return from India married. She laughs, and he becomes upset. She kisses him, and they have sex. In the morning, he proposes, and she says that she will marry him for a year. At the end of the year, they can decide on another year or not.