Page 194 - Till the Last Breath . . .

The stem cells—’

‘She will be okay,’ Zarah interrupted. Arman clearly looked exhausted.
The dark circles under his eyes and the slouch of his shoulders were
screaming indicators.

‘I hope so.’ He lay back in his chair and sighed. It must have been a
really long day for him, she thought.

‘You want me to get you something?’ she asked.
‘Coffee would be nice,’ he answered.

‘I don’t think you need coffee. You need sleep. I will close the door and
switch off the lights,’ she said and reached for the lights of the room.

‘I don’t think I will get any sleep today. Will you do a favour for me and
check on Pihu? If you don’t mind, that is. We need to keep her under
observation and I can’t really explain why to the hospital administration. It

will be nice if you can help.’
‘I will do that,’ Zarah nodded. Seeing Arman tired and

uncharacteristically flustered, she felt a little bad for him. Having taken just
three steps, she heard Arman call out from behind her.

‘I never thought it would be this hard,’ he mumbled. ‘Seven years,
thousands of patients … seen many of them die too. This one, I don’t know.

Every cut I make on her body makes me feel worse, even though I know
she can’t feel the pain. Every time she loses some function of her limbs, I
feel responsible. I never thought it would happen again. It’s horrifying.’

Wait? Again?
‘Arman? Happen again? What do you mean?’ she asked, taking care not

to probe him too much.
Arman didn’t answer. Instead, he closed his eyes and lay down flat on his

recliner. Zarah pulled a chair from his desk and sat beside him. Of all the
sides she had seen of the eccentric doctor, not one of them was as

vulnerable as this one.
‘It was in my father’s hospital,’ he started. ‘A woman, six years older
than me, came in with severe abdominal pain. I was just starting out and I

thought I knew it all. All the years that I had studied medicine, I had
disparaged mediocre doctors and treated them like parasites. I knew I could