Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese Page B

that threatened to choke her and which her mouth could no longer contain, “pregnant.”
    Every observer I later talked to remembers this moment in Theater 3 , when the air stood still, when the loud clock across from the table froze and a long, silent pause followed.
    “Impossible!” said Stone, for the second time that day, and even though it was incorrect and hardly the thing to say, it allowed them all to breathe again.
    But Matron knew she was right.
    She would have to deliver this baby. Dr. K. Hemlatha—Hema to all of them—was out of station.
    Matron had delivered hundreds of babies. She reminded herself of this now to try and keep herself from panic.
    But how was she to push away not just her qualms but her confusion? One of her own, a bride of Christ—pregnant! It was unthinkable. Her mind refused to digest this. And yet the evidence—an infant's skull— was there, right before her eyes.
    The same thought distracted the scrub nurse, the barefoot orderly, and Sister Asqual, who was the nurse anesthetist. It caused them to trip over one another and knock down an intravenous drip as they scurried around the table, readying the patient. Only the probationer, who was mortified that she had failed that morning to recognize this crisis when she visited Sister Mary Joseph Praise, didn't stop to wonder how Sister Mary Joseph Praise got pregnant.
    Matron's heart felt as if it might gallop right out of her chest. “Lord, what worse circumstance can you construct for a delivery? A pregnancy that's a mortal sin. A mother-to-be who is like my own daughter. Massive bleeding, ghostly pallor …” And all this when Hema, Missing's only gynecologist, not only the best in the country, but the best Matron had ever seen, was away.
    Bachelli up in the Piazza was marginally competent in obstetrics but unreliable after two in the afternoon, and his Eritrean mistress was deeply suspicious of him leaving on “house calls.” Jean Tran, the half-French, half-Vietnamese fellow in Casa Popolare, did a bit of everything and smiled a lot. But assuming they could be reached, it would still be a while before either man would come.
    No, Matron had to do this herself. She had to forget the implications of the pregnancy. She had to breathe, concentrate. She had to conduct a normal delivery.
    But that afternoon and evening, normal would elude them.
    STONE STOOD BY, his mouth open, looking to Matron for direction, while Matron sat facing the vulva, waiting for the baby to descend. Stone alternately crossed his hands in front of him and then dropped them by his sides. He could see Sister Mary Joseph Praise's pallor increasing. And when Nurse Asqual in a panicked voice called out the blood pressure— “systolic of eighty palpable”—Stone wobbled as if he might faint.
    Despite uterine contractions which Matron could feel through the belly and see in Sister Mary Joseph Praise's contorted face, and despite the fact that the cervix was wide open, nothing happened. A baby's head high up in the birth canal with the cervix flattened like a gasket around it always reminded Matron of the shaved scalp of a bishop. But this bishop was staying put. And meanwhile, such bleeding! A dark and messy pool had formed on the table and tidal eddies of blood came out of the vagina. Blood was to delivery rooms and operating theaters what feces were to tripe factories, but even so it seemed to Matron that this was a lot of blood coming out.
    “Dr. Stone,” Matron said, her lips quivering. A bewildered Stone wondered why she was calling on him.
    “Dr. Stone,” she said again. For Matron, Sound Nursing Sense meant a nurse knowing her limits. For God's sake, she needs a Cesarean section. But she didn't say those words because with Stone it could have the opposite effect. Instead, her voice low, her head drooping, Matron pushed down on her thighs to bring herself to her feet and to vacate her spot between Sister Mary Joseph Praise's legs.
    “Dr. Stone. Your