Page 133 - Till the Last Breath . . .

had been sleeping like a baby for four hours, with his legs sprawled on his

table, dreaming of Pihu in a doctor’s coat, like a hopeless romantic.
He staggered to his feet and asked Zarah to come in. After excusing
himself for a moment, he trudged to the washroom, washed his face,

brushed and came back. For a change, he picked out a shiny new white shirt
(that he had ordered off the Internet) from the locker room, put it on and

wondered if Pihu would like it. It’s a white shirt for heaven’s sake! he told
himself. A cup of steaming coffee was waiting for him on his table when he

got back and Zarah was going over Dushyant’s file.
‘He had a fracture?’ Zarah asked, shocked. ‘The operation went well?’

‘As if you don’t know. You went to his room before you came here,
didn’t you? And you checked all the charts, too. Clearly, you care about
him,’ he smirked.

‘How do you—?’
‘Leave that. I just know,’ he said and sipped his coffee. He knew one

thing for sure and it was that Zarah was an excellent choice as soon as he
took a sip. ‘Brilliant coffee, I have to admit that. You’re weird, Zarah, and

you know that, but I like your coffee.’
Quite often, Arman had noticed her reluctance to hold men’s hands to

pump in medicines and how she tried to keep her distance from male
patients—except Dushyant, of course. There was something eerie about this
girl, but Arman had chosen to ignore it.

‘Okay,’ she said. Arman knew he had put her a little off balance by his
rare politeness. Zarah shrugged off the anomaly and asked him, ‘What

really happened with Dushyant?’
‘He fell down, but that didn’t break his arm. His bones were soft and

withering away. We tested him for cadmium poisoning and he tested
positive. That’s what is eating his liver. We have to treat him for that first

before we can start treating the tumours.’
‘That’s brilliant!’ she exclaimed as she always did whenever Arman
came up with an improbable idea like this. ‘Keep me around for the coffee,

but please do keep me around.’
‘I didn’t come up with it,’ he clarified. ‘Pihu did.’