“Wilson’s disease.”
“What is that?” asked Santosh.
“A genetic disorder,” replied the president. “Copper accumulates in the body’s tissues. It manifests as liver problems.”
“Rare?”
“Very. One in a hundred people is a carrier. The disease strikes only when both parents are carriers.”
“Is there no cure?”
“Sometimes a possible solution is a liver transplant. Unfortunately this was not an option in this case.”
“Why?” asked Santosh. “Either of the parents could have donated part of their livers, no?”
“The mother died a couple of years after childbirth,” replied the president. “The only possible course was for MGT to donate. Unfortunately he was a serious drinker on the verge of cirrhosis at that time.”
“No cadaver donations possible?”
“They waited, but sadly the boy died before an organ could be procured.”
Santosh nodded, his vision clouding a little as he thought of Isha and Pravir.
Chapter 34
BACK ON THE street, Santosh considered hailing a cab but took a look at the traffic—the constant noise and movement, each blare on a horn signaling a near miss, a driver on the edge—and
he found himself cringing away from the idea, his mind still on the accident that had killed his family.
He was back there. In the car with Isha and Pravir. He was driving and from the back, Pravir called, “Papa, look at my score!”
Pravir was playing a hand-held video game. Just a silly game. And because Santosh had pledged to be a better father, to pay more attention to his loved ones, he took his eyes off the road. Not really to look at the screen, more to simply acknowledge his son, congratulate him.
Either way, he took his eyes off the darkened, winding road for just a second, maybe not even that. But it was long enough to miss the bend.
Santosh had never been a particularly good driver. His mind was rarely “in the moment,” which, ironically enough, was part of the reason he needed to consciously pay more attention to his family. And it was the reason his reaction time was slower than it might have been.
In short, he was not the sort of driver who could afford to take his eyes off the road.
And for that he had paid: Isha and Pravir both dead, him in the hospital. For a long time after that he had walked with a limp until he’d been told that the injury was psychosomatic. He’d lost the limp; he’d kept the cane. There were psychological scars that would never heal.
So he walked, and as he did so, he thought how they had that in common, he and MGT: they had both lost their families. Both for avoidable reasons. If Santosh had not taken his eyes off the road then Isha and Pravir would be alive. If MGT had not been such a heavy drinker, then …
He stopped. Pedestrians flowed around him; one or two insults were tossed his way but he didn’t care because it was as though light had suddenly flooded his mind.
Could it be?
He fumbled for his phone, called Neel, dispensed with the pleasantries: “The bodies at Greater Kailash. Did you say there was one that was better preserved than the others?”
“Yes. Ash was due to examine it any day now.”
“Can you call him? Ask him how he’s got on?”
“He’s working. That might prove difficult for him.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” insisted Santosh. “There’s one thing I’m desperate to learn.”
“What is it?”