Chapter 32: A Hundred and Twelve

The heart practical was the last examination of the term.

The anatomy hall was cold and smelled of formalin, with forty steel tables in rows under the high windows.

At the front table, under the examiner's lamp, a human heart lay on a white tray.

Javier stood on one side of it in a green apron and gloves.

Dante stood on the other.

He had not spoken to Javier in five days.

He had not been within ten feet of him since the east gate.

Now there was a tray between them and the examiner was watching.

"Open the right atrium," the examiner said. "Name every structure and explain the flow. Then your partner will trace the conduction pathway."

Javier did not look up.

"Scalpel," he said.

Dante put it in his hand.

"Retractor. Hold it there. No, lower."

Dante held it lower.

Javier's voice was quick and cool and perfectly professional.

He cut, and named, and Dante held and passed and said nothing.

Every instruction was one short word.

Every word was an order, and Dante obeyed all of them.

It was the nearest he had come to happy in a week.

"Tricuspid valve," Javier said. "Three leaflets, chordae tendineae to the papillary muscles. Forceps."

Dante gave him the forceps, and their gloved fingers brushed on the steel.

Javier's hand stopped.

It was only half a second, and nobody else in the hall could have seen it.

Then he went on cutting.

"Now trace the conduction," the examiner said to Dante.

Dante's mouth was dry.

He took the probe and began to draw the line across the tissue.

His hand was shaking.

It was a very small tremor, but the probe ticked on the steel tray.

"Stop," Javier said.

He reached across the tray, stripped off his own glove, and closed his bare fingers around Dante's wrist.

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