a whirlpool of family approval whom Ming increasingly feared and hoped to imitate. He dated, and she was jealous. He told her that what they had between them was a special thing, and she tried to believe this.
In Ming’s last year of high school, Karl went away for a month of rural training, and Ming felt cleaner and lighter. She aced chemistry without his help. When he returned, Ming told him that she didn’t need his tutoring anymore. Karl threatened that he could influence her medical school application. He said it with such bravado that she recognized that this was not the first of his lies. The study sessions ended.
Now, Karl was doing his surgical residency in Toronto, and they avoided each other at family gatherings. He had put his hand on her breast once this year, in an upstairs hallway during a birthday party, and she had threatened to scream.
It was four-fifteen in the morning.
She said, “You thought I was so perfect.”
“You seem to have everything under such control.”
“I cultivate that notion. I used to stand in front of the mirror and call myself slut, bitch. Not out loud—I was afraid someone would hear, so I mouthed the words. I felt like I deserved to be called names. Then Karl told me how good I was when we did what he liked, and when I brought home my grades my parents were happy and proud.”
“You were a kid. How could you know what to do?”
“That idea should absolve me, except it also takes something away. I looked forward to seeing him, although he was my nightmare. I got stuck. If I don’t recognize that I enjoyed certain things, even the sex, then I was a stupid lump. No. I was there and made decisions, but was I coerced? Of course. I got things, but only some of them were what I asked for. These thoughts go round and round. You know how I distract myself? I study. Every last little detail, and it fills my head. Karl taught me how to study for marks—how to write all these stupid tests—and now I forget myself by stuffing my head full.”
There was quiet, and then after a little while Fitzgerald said, “You know I love you.” Again silence, and then, “I might as well say it.”
“It may be the same for me, but I’m afraid of it.”
At seven in the morning, when she woke up, Ming realized that she had not asked Fitzgerald whether he was coming to Toronto. Ming’s father delivered her to the train station, the long line of travellers snaking under the black maze of girders. She saw Fitzgerald buying a ticket at the booth. Her father, for whom Fitzgerald was an invisible telephone threat, was oblivious as Fitz walked past them toward the end of the line. At the platform, Ming’s father squeezed her and told her how much honour she would bring to the family if she succeeded. Ming boarded, and sat alone until she had waved her father goodbye. Only then did she find Fitzgerald. At nine-thirty, the soft clanking rhythm of the iron wheels on the joints of the track came quicker and closer as the train escaped Ottawa’s southern suburbs. Exhausted from the sleepless night, Ming grasped Fitzgerald’s hand, and rested her head in the cleft between his shoulder and chest, amazed at the way the sides of their bodies fit together. It was a physical relief for them to touch. He kissed the top of her head and, as she fell asleep, Ming breathed in deeply this sweetly unfamiliar warmth.
—
—
—
THE THREE STUDENTS STOOD BESIDE THE WRAPPED body lying on the metal table. They all wore clean, new laboratory coats that still had creases down the arms and over the breast pockets from being folded and stacked in a box. These white coats were the same size, even though the wearers were of varying build. All three medical students were size medium, but differently framed. Ming had her cuffs rolled up twice.
They had come in from the hot early afternoon of an autumn day, a remnant of summer. They had entered the basement by an unmarked inner staircase, and then approached the lab through a plain, combination-locked door. There were fourteen dissection rooms, eight tables per room, three students assigned per table, checking the tags to find their cadaver, whispering and shuffling like white-coated ghosts in the basement anatomy lab. No windows. Instead, a dry fluorescent light flattened every surface.
“You want to go first?” asked Ming.
“I don’t mind,” said Sri.
“Me neither,” said Chen, holding the blade hesitantly between his thumb and second and third fingers.
“Well, to me, it doesn’t matter,” said Ming. “What about you?” she asked, turning to Sri. When he paused, she said, “If it’s a problem for you I’ll start the cutting.”
To Sri, Ming seemed both overly eager and fearful regarding the task, and Sri did not want their dissection to begin with this mix of emotions. Sri felt only fear, which he believed was a better way to begin this undertaking, and so he said, “I’ll start.” He gripped the blade handle firmly.
“Not if you don’t want to,” said Chen, seeing Sri’s discomfort. “I can.”
“I’ll start.” Sri shifted closer.
That morning, they had been briefed in the lecture theatre by Dean Cortina: “A few of you might be upset initially. You may temporarily excuse yourselves if necessary. In any case, I would rather you be a bit emotional than, shall we say, overly cavalier. Keep in mind that distasteful incidents regarding cadavers have, in the past, resulted in expulsion.”
She reminded them that there was to be no eating or drinking in the dissection rooms, although snacks could be consumed in the anatomy museum as long as it was kept tidy.
“I think it’s easier if you hold it like a pen,” said Ming. When Sri said nothing, she added, “All I’m saying is that if you hold it like a. … Well, never mind, suit yourself of course, it’s only that—”
“Just let me do it,” said Sri. “Let me stand there.” He moved to stand where Ming was, without waiting for her to make way. She shifted, avoiding collision. Ming and Chen were quiet.
Sri began to cut the cotton wrap, a stringy damp net, discoloured yellow in its folds. It smelled tough. First he cut downward like when you lean with the first finger on a boned meat. This dented it, but the fabric was swelling inwards instead of giving. He turned the scalpel upward, and lifted the edge of the fabric to slip the blade beneath it. He sawed back and forth, and the threads twisted when severed.
“What about scissors?” whispered Chen.
Dr. Harrison, their anatomy demonstrator, appeared at their table, congratulated them upon entering the study of medicine, and said, “This fine cadaver is your first patient. Dignity and decorum are crucial. You must be mindful of this gift you are given, and treat your patient nobly.” He paused. “Nobility. You may give him … or her?” Harrison checked the tag. “Ah, him, a name if you like. Or not. That’s up to you. No frivolous names. Questions? No? Very well. Continue, then.” All of this he managed to say with his hands crossed neatly in front of himself, and then he was at the next table, nodding seriously.
The fabric now open, Ming took scissors and cut it wider in a quick, impatient motion, spreading the fabric up to the neck and then down to the navel. The damp skin of the cadaver’s chest was a shocking beige within the yellowed fabric.
“There,” said Ming.
“Are you going to do it?” said Sri, not offering the scalpel. He hadn’t moved, and she had leaned across him to open the swath of cloth.
“I was just trying to help, you know, get