It was the first time in a week that he wasn't either at the operating room or in his bed. Dr. Mansoor was finally sitting on a bench. He didn't intend on sitting on the bench, and he didn't even notice any of the hardy joggers appearing and disappearing in front of him. He was lost in his thoughts, staring into blue skies, or at the glass skyscrapers across the Charles River where Boston's downtown was probably still humming on this midweek afternoon. Not too far north of all that conglomeration of business and busyness, to his left, behind all those tall buildings, was where he had been working for the past three years, as a surgeon at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. It was his last year as a resident, and all winds were whispering louder and louder his great fortune of becoming a great doctor with an enviable career.
Or at least that was what many voices, some inside his head, had been telling him most of is adult life. Save one. One voice never showed much admiration for the path he had chosen for himself, a path to which he had dedicated so much of his energy.
He wasn't going to sit here. It was getting dark early on this winter afternoon. People were still looking at the clock, counting the hour that still remained before they could leave. At least those with a 9-5 job was. He didn't have such job. He was just working at the most absurd hours and for the most absurd quantity of hours, broken only from time to time by the need to sleep.
"You're seeing someone, no?" a friend had asked him once, not too long ago.
It was amazing that he was, considering that he barely had time for dating. Like this bench, it came unexpected. And like this bench, he was never sure if it was wanted.
But now the same friend called him as he was walking briskly to his date, or "meeting", as he called it, with this woman he could finally see after a week of nearly no-communication. It was this very friend who said, "Not sure if you wanted to know this, but...." He started out the same way when he told him that she was now dating her best friend from when they were still married. And he couldn't remember, as the chilly Bostonian winter wind uninvitedly caressed his unprotected neck, if that same friend started this way when he broke the news that they were getting married. He was single back then. He was still bitter that she had left him after all these years.
What years?
They were also best friends in high school. Then he convinced her to be someone different. Then she fell in love with him. Then they came here, to this country, away from the politics and poverty on the other side of the world. Then they got married.
He remembered the wedding, too. They weren't traditionalists. She never wore a veil in her life except that one day when she looked so beautiful. And all this time, even though she was not the most supportive person for his career as a surgeon, she always admired him. Or so he thought. He tried, he believed, his best to accommodate her needs as a wife, a modern wife, that is, to spend time with her, to pay attention to her life. But it was difficult, and yet, he thought he had given his best. But if he did, it wasn't enough. She had cried many times in front of him, and surely, he believed, many more times in his absence. She was always very expressive, and while sometimes it touched him, most of the time, especially towards the "end", her complaints had vexed him. He considered himself a secularist, but there were times, he was ashamed to admit, that he wished she were more of a wife.
"I can't believe you are just giving up like this. After all these years, just giving up like this."
That was what he remembered saying to her on one of the last evenings they were together in that apartment in Brookline, where he still lived now. The feeling of betrayer still had a whiff of rawness to it, as his moist eyes glowed with the fiery orange of the sky. Once she had made her decision, her complaints stopped; she stopped responding to his anger. She just bide her time and left the apartment as soon as she could. Still, he was stronger than he had expected. He was able to continue on the next year with her absence and betrayal having no effect on his career. It was not that difficult to come home to an empty apartment and crawl into a cold bed. At first it meant something to him, but then he got used to it; his mind was preoccupied with the events of the day, the patients, the strategies, and of course, the paperwork and the often frustrating interactions with colleagues. In the medical world, everything flowed through a hierarchy of powertrips, and being a resident in many ways bore the worst of the suffering. But it was almost over for him, and he cold climb to the higher rung next. And all this eventually, quickly, overwhelmed any sentimentality he bore still against her, or for her. In the beginning he missed her, missed the few times when he had a day off and could sleep in only to be gently awaken by her making coffee in the kitchen for him. They didn't spend a lot of time together, but he missed her company. At least in the beginning.
But while his sentimentality had been drowned out by his work, his anger took longer to dry out. And that was why it roiled him so much the news his friend had told him about her dating this man from her former employment, the man she called her bestfriend, sometimes in front of his face. But he never felt jealous; perhaps he should have. Shouldn't your husband be your best friend, especially when that was how you more or less started? And it didn't help at all that he was an Israeli, a Jew. He never felt anything against Jews, having many close friends from that religion, but he remembered hoping that their religious identities would drive them apart soon.
But it didn't. In fact, that was the second devastating piece of news from his friend, who didn't preface the story the same way, but simply told him that they just got married and were in Costa Rica for their honeymoon. He wanted to shoot the messenger if he weren't on the other side of the phone line. He could barely resist hanging up on him. Was he sadistic? Really was he trying to be helpful? Dr. Masoor was still single, still struggling at that time to be an accomplished resident so he could go to the best hospital of his choice. Suddenly the loneliness returned, suddenly the feeling of betray opened its nasty, festering wound, and the cantankerous yellow pus rushed out like streams of people coming out of a theater on fire.
Costa Rica, she had wanted to go so many times, but he never could manage. Should he feel guilty? Did he deserve all this?
So Dr. Masoor sat here watching the sun setting and then the sky displaying its magnificent colors that change in a procession much like different, beautiful models come in and out of the catwalk. How come he never noticed this before? The sunset. How complicated its transitions are. How beautiful.
He wasn't angry this time. He was emotional, but not angry, not frustrated, and even the feeling of betrayal had dried out its wounds that would probably never heal. He wasn't at peace, which was why he had to sit down on this cold, wooden bench that lined the Charles River, in front of a row of MIT dorms in which studious human creatures were being churned out to stressful but powerful positions in society, like the one he had placed himself. He for a moment stopped thinking about his career, and he thought about the phone call that had just come.
"Not sure if you wanted to know this, but Aida is expecting a child!"
So it was really over. He could let her go now. Dating a woman who he was slightly interested but whose company he had slowly become dependent on, this was not enough to make him let her go. But now he felt he could, if he wanted to. How ironic, "Aida" meant "The return". She wasn't returning. A gust of cold wind swept his face, but it felt almost like a slap, and with that, his pride dropped like a cold stone to his humble feet and let open the first sliver of tears down his cheeks.
