Chapter 8: Thursday at Two

At five to two on Thursday afternoon, Tong Yu told himself he was only going to stand in a corridor.

Deputy Director Lu had clinic until four. Jiang Tao was on the wards.

The teaching floor was the sixth, in the north block, and it was nearly empty.

Its lecture rooms were dark and its simulation lab was locked.

At the far end stood the teaching theatre, a spare operating room used for exams twice a year.

The booking sheet said *Maintenance* against every Thursday afternoon for eight years.

The door was shut and had a narrow window of wired glass set into it at head height.

Tong Yu stopped a few steps short of it, because there was a light on inside.

He had meant to stand with his back to the wall and guard the corridor.

Instead he took the last steps without deciding to, and looked through the glass.

The theatre was bare, with the big lamp switched off and a single bench pulled under the window.

Han Zhiyuan sat at the bench in a short-sleeved scrub top, with his glasses pushed up on his forehead.

A phone stood on a stand beside him.

In front of him lay a square of grey foam, and in his right hand was a needle driver.

His hand was shaking.

It was a fine, steady, rapid movement, and it made the tip of the needle chatter against the foam.

Han gripped his own right wrist with his left hand and held it down until the movement slowed.

He drew the thread through, laid it over the driver, and began a knot.

The knot came apart.

He did not swear or sigh. He cut the thread, set the driver straight, glanced at the phone, and began again.

Tong Yu watched six knots, and then a seventh.

He watched Han write numbers in a small black notebook after each one, in a hand that wobbled and sloped downhill.

It was the same handwriting as the note in his wallet.

He had always thought the man who wrote it was tired.

Every column he had kept in three years added up at once.

He had operated only in the morning. Nothing started after half past ten, and nothing ran past half past one.

Deputy Director Lu at the chief's left, taking over every closure.

A glass held in both hands at the Society dinner, and a pair of hands kept in coat pockets at three in the morning.

*Your hands, Dr Tong. Tell me.*

He had not been shocked.

What he felt was quieter and much worse. The question he had carried for three years finally had an answer.

He did not feel pity.

He found, to his surprise, that he was angry on the man's behalf, for all the years he had done this alone.

Behind him a pair of rubber soles squeaked on the floor.

"Dr Tong," said Jiang Tao. "What are you doing on six?"

Tong Yu turned and stepped squarely in front of the window.

Jiang Tao stood ten feet away, in his creased coat, with a lanyard in one fist.

His tired eyes went past Tong Yu's shoulder to the door.

"The deputy director asked me to check the teaching theatre," he said. "For the quarterly maintenance audit."

"It's closed for maintenance, Dr Jiang. There's a sign on the sheet."

"There's no work order."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Intern Memorized the Surgeon's Schedule from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.