A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

retorts. But Renny Banerjee pushes on.
    “Mary Burns is a lovely woman, a lovely woman. If I could marry a woman who would look like that when she got older! If there were a guarantee! Amazing. Oh, Doc, I recall a striking figure as well. Firm, athletic. I’m sorry to say this, but that’s one well-built woman. You still see her from time to time?”
    “I’m sorry to say I don’t.”
    “What’s this?” he says, his face all clamor and disappointment.
    I tell him, “She passed away last year.”
    “How terrible,” he says, obviously stunned. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. I never heard anything.”
    “Yes. It was liver cancer.”
    “I imagine it must have been quite sudden,” he says, still with a funny look on his face. He sits down again in the bedside chair.
    “Yes,” I answer. I wish to explain, but I realize there is nothing else to say. Owing to our health-related careers, we have come to know that with liver cancer, it can sometimes be a matter of months, which it was in Mary Burns’s case, from diagnosis to end.
    “I’m sorry now I talked about her like that,” Renny Banerjee says. “I didn’t know her, but I mean for your sake. I’m a very stupid man sometimes. I hope you’ll forgive me, Doc. Maybe I ought to leave now, and let you rest.”
    “Please, please,” I tell him, “there’s no need to go right now. I was very happy to hear your compliments. And I’m sure Mrs. Burns would have been as well. This is an unnecessary feeling. I must insist. You’ve done nothing but cheer me with your visit.”
    “I’m a fool,” he grumbles, knocking on his own head. “A big fool.”
    “Nonsense, I’m not upset, or offended. I’m very pleased, in fact, and look, you’ve even brought me a hot breakfast as well. Which is delicious.”
    He nods weakly. “I see I neglected to bring you coffee.”
    “You probably remembered that I don’t drink coffee.”
    Renny Banerjee smiles. “I didn’t, but it’s nice of you to say. I actually do have to get back upstairs if I’m going to do some work today, but I’ll be content to stay longer, whatever you wish.”
    “You know I’m not one to get in the way of someone and his work,” I say happily. “But perhaps I will see you tomorrow? Doctor Weil wants me to stay until Wednesday morning. My breathing feels good, but I guess he’s concerned about infection.”
    “Weil’s overcautious. And he’s pretty much a horse’s ass.”
    “He is new, isn’t he?” I ask.
    “A couple years,” Renny answers. “Young hotshot from the city. Everybody around here loves him. I don’t. He’s officious and arrogant. It seems they have to train them like that now.” He turns for the door. “I’ll bring breakfast again tomorrow. No, no, I will. No arguments. What do you want, omelette, pancakes, quiche lorraine?”
    “I’ll leave it to you,” I tell him.
    “Fine then. Rest well, Doc.”
    “See you tomorrow.”
    “Will be done. And I’m so sorry, again.”
    “No matter.”
    “Goodbye, then.”
    “Goodbye.”
    *   *   *
    THE FACT WAS , I didn’t see Mary Burns at the end. It was from mutual acquaintances that I learned she was ill, and by chance, this only a few weeks before she died. But I didn’t call on her at her house or here at the hospital, where she spent the final days of her life. At the time, it didn’t seem that I should, and the last thing I wished to do was to upset her or cause her distress in any way. But of course, I sometimes think that I should have visited her, sat by her bed and held her hand and said whatever words could have lent her comfort.
    When I saw the newspaper notice, I didn’t quite believe that she had passed away. I read the small print many times over, reading her full name again and again, the address of her house on Mountview (the same street as mine), the name of her long-dead husband, and her survivors and where they were living. She had two children and five grandchildren, none of whom I’d ever