My language study is coming along pretty well in spite of interruptions, and I do like Rodnadhar as a teacher very, very much. He is a very nice looking young man of about thirty, speaks beautiful Assamese and very good English. He is much interested in Christianity, and I think really has Christ for his ideal, but has never openly decided to follow him. He would be such a wonderful power for good if he would come out four square, but it would mean a lot of persecution.
I tell you, we at home do not even know the meaning of the word. A boy who has been working on the compound went to Miss Holmes the other day and said that he wanted to become a Christian. His relatives all came and one after the other pled with him and then threatened him, but he was adamant.
Finally, his father came and said, “Have either your mother or I been unkind to you? Haven’t we always given you plenty to eat, a place to sleep, and clothes to wear?” etc., and finally said, “Will you come home?” and again the boy said, “No.”
The father said “A second time I ask you, will you come home?” and again the boy said, “No.” The father was furious and said, “Think well before you answer the third time. Will you come home?” Again the boy said, “No.”
The father tried to drag him away by force, but Miss Holmes intervened. The father then turned to the boy and said, “Never tell anyone that you are my son, never say that you are the son of your mother, never say that these are your brothers and sisters. You have made of my name a jest and disgraced me because you have refused to follow the religion of your people and of your race. Someday we will be avenged.”
The boy will probably be baptized next Sunday in the river near the church.
Traversing the distance between cultures was a challenge Dorothy had expected, but oh, how she had underestimated the distance. Her nursing staff were the remarkable living testimony to that fact. Some of the girls had become Christian, but some had not yet reached that decision. And brought up as Hindus, all of them had to break caste to be a nurse. They promised to serve all patients, not just the ones who were born to the same caste as they were. If they couldn’t promise that, then as good Hindus it would be taboo for them to even touch most of the patients who came through the door, patients who were born into a different caste.
What a nursing nightmare that had been! It had become immediately clear to her that it would have to be the first issue of any import into which she must land with both feet. She was repeatedly told that an Indian woman must never directly touch a person born into a caste higher or lower than herself. So, one nurse might touch this patient but not that one, and another might be allowed to touch that one but not the eight others in the ward. This nurse might be able to handle night soil, but another might be breaking caste to do the same task.
At first they had recoiled. But her young nurses carried such a commitment to healing in their hearts that every single one of the nursing students from the village had made the decision to break caste, to defy their heritage, and use their healing gifts indiscriminately. Now that took courage.
Oh yes, Dorothy had been presented with more than a few daunting barriers upon her arrival in Gauhati. Some posed ideological conflicts, but the most vexing on a daily basis were the ones that played havoc with practicality, common sense, and expediency. One of the most immediately frustrating issues to Dorothy had been the simple practical task of getting from one place to another without benefit of motorized transportation. The hospital simply had no car.
Of course, there were plenty of other options available to her. Dorothy could hike as easily as any seasoned athlete. She had sensible shoes and excellent posture to thank for that. But if she had much to carry, she could either wait and hitch a ride on the mail truck, or make do with one paniwalla (bearer) to carry her bundles. And when she took the dispensary into the hills once a month, it could take a whole crew of paniwallas to carry all the medicines, wound wraps, minor surgical instruments and more. Half a dozen bearers at least, to carry what one vehicle could have accommodated.
The most disagreeable part of the equation, though, was the fact that while a vehicle might carry her baggage, it might not always be able to navigate the traffic on Assam’s over-burdened roads and bridges any faster than she could walk it.
April 1930
You wouldn’t believe that the traffic here is even more nerve-wracking than it is at home. One starts off down the road in a car or cart, and the road is narrow to begin with. On either side of the road and sometimes in it there are tiny babies and youngsters playing in the dirt.
Then as one gets by these, a goat decides to meander across the road and a cow and her calf decide that the middle of the road is the best and safest spot and they have to be dodged. About this time one arrives at a street meeting over which a holy man is presiding. They are ghastly looking beings as they have covered their bodies with dust and ashes and wear nothing but a loin cloth. The dust gives a deathly grayish tinge to the skin, and their hair hangs in long mats to their waist, or is roped (that is the only word that expresses it as it looks more like rope than hair) around their heads. It is well dusted.
Some of them have such hard cruel faces and one wonders how people can believe and worship them.
After getting safely thru this crowd, one usually has to wait at the railroad crossing in order that a train may switch, and when one finally arrives at the bazaar, the street is so filled with people that going is difficult. It certainly is a paradise for cows that are able to fend for themselves as they are allowed to go and come where and when they please. Here in Gauhati there is a cow farm for disabled cows and a great deal of money is given yearly for the upkeep of it. Most of the cows starve to death, however, and the proprietors get most of the money.
Whether or not she might have imagined these strange and challenging circumstances before she left the U.S., she hadn’t truly understood their dimension. And every complication that existed was doubled on a Hindu holy day to the point that it took a fair amount of courage just to venture out on those days.
Even now, approaching her seventh year of facing and vanquishing every hurdle, that innate underpinning of courage bolstered her senses and steadied her nerves. If courage flagged, if training forsook her, and if the sticking post broke, her ingenuity nearly always carried her through.
Dorothy tidied the vanity, dropped the hairpins in the carved wooden box, rose to check her underslip, and made a mental note to not fall asleep tonight without setting her hair with Wink’s hair pins. She passed the kitchen on her way out of the bungla, sliding the previous night’s sadness into the secret corner of her heart that she reserved for the patients she could not save.
Never forget. Don’t dwell.
“Monglu, good morning.”
“Missahib,” he said softly with his usual shy deference. Monglu had cooked for her at the medical bungalow for over six years now, a welcome, stabilizing figure in her household. The deep crinkles that appeared at the corners of his eyes reassured her as they did each morning. All was right with the world. Whether those familiar crinkles were the result of myopia or a self-conscious smile, she was never sure. But to her mind, they would always be clear evidence of Monglu’s happy soul.
She had come to rely on the little fellow, more than she would ever let him know.
A man may bring his wife into the mission field to provide all manner of conveniences for him. Not so for a woman. Not that there had not been a suitor or two. Or three.
September 16, 1931
Last night I went over to the Longwells for dinner with Lucile, Dr. Savage (a research man who is very unusual in that he is a devout Christian and much interested in Missions and very friendly) and Dr. Abraham, a man from the Malabar Coast who is head of the English Department in Cotton College here. Had a delightful time. Dr. S. brought me home about 11:20. First time I have ridden with an unmarried man since I arrived I guess. (Don’t put this in the mimeograph!!!!!!!)
Yes, there had been opportunities lost. Not that she�
��d have it any other way. She relished her single-blessedness. No wife to cook and clean. No strapping husband to carry the heavy loads.
But praise God, she did have Monglu.
Dorothy accepted the china teacup he held out to her and sipped the warm morning chota he never failed to have ready for her no matter what hour she rose. Near the edge of the table she spied a tin of apple rings that had arrived in a box from home along with Wink’s letter.
“Mm,” she smiled. “Let’s have the apple rings for supper, shall we?”
He nodded and reached for a can of peaches. Dorothy slid the tin of apples toward him as he realized his mistake. His spoken English was quite good, making it easy to forget that he could scarcely read a printed word. And the printed labels made one foreign fruit look much like the other.
“They’ll be best if you soak them for several hours, Monglu. Would you see to it for me, please?”
The little cook’s straight back and bobbing chin reassured her that she had managed to correct his misunderstanding while leaving his pride intact.
Apple rings for supper.
Marvelous.
CHAPTER THREE
LASTERDAY
Her faraway sister lingered cheerily on Dorothy’s mind as she followed the path to the hospital clinic almost without thinking. Its plain rocky borders no longer depressed her as they had in the early years thanks to the abundance of poinsettia and English violets that now whispered along the path’s winding perimeter. She must remember to tell Edna how very much the little floral border has cheered her this morning.
Two years previous, Edna Stever, who shared the bungla with her, had spent hours and hours lining the path with rock and planting countless seedlings along its edges. What a gift she had given them all, even though week by week the jungle crept in to try and reclaim it.
Still, this was India, and the path was perpetually dusty. She could never in her wildest imaginings picture this place without dust.
Over time, Dorothy had half-consciously customized her gait, modifying her step so as not to raise great puffs of dust that would settle on her ankles and stick with her for the remainder of the day. It had taken some doing, perfecting what Edna called her “Greta Garbo” walk.
Wink, she sighed, if she were here, would execute a perfect Lillian Gish skippity-hop and to hell with the dust. Singing along her merry way, tra-la.
It was a ridiculous exaggeration, but it kept Dorothy moving along with a smile and a nod to the dhobies (washermen) she passed along the way. The piles of laundry the men carried seemed staggering in weight, but the launderers were clearly undeterred by it as they managed their own masculine dance along the pretty path.
A man to carry the heavy loads. She had them in spades here. Paniwallas were practically a dime a dozen. Dhobies even less. And the dherzies (tailors) were actually quite good for the pittance they were paid. So why did the words husband and companion and…mate…batter her most private thoughts so relentlessly these days, when she had such ready help?
Dorothy cast off the thought. She knew why. She was thirty-three years old. And home and hearth and a child in the cradle were the stuff of her dreams. They were the epitome of a life fulfilled.
Dorothy shook the dust from the freshly laundered white coat she carried over her arm and slipped it on, smothering the unbidden longing for something greater. She knew full well she was the most fortunate of souls. She was, after all, engaged in the most exhilarating enterprise—building a future not only for herself, but for every patient she discharged well and whole.
Home and hearth and a child in the cradle? Now that was the stuff of sacrifice.
She stepped into the hospital’s airy vestibule and stopped in surprise, sensing immediately something was wrong. It was far too quiet. Eleven student nurses, even when they were attempting to work quietly, created a certain energy in the wards, a subtle rustling and soft chatter, a busy movement of air redolent with healing.
Dorothy listened. No footsteps, no rustling.
Nothing.
She walked down the wide hall, casting her glance left and right, and there they were. All eleven of them. Clustered on the south verandah, hands folded, heads down.
“She will not have it, do you hear me?”
It was Lahaori, Dorothy’s prized student from early days, now her right hand and head nurse, indispensable in her gift for teaching the new girls.
“Do you think you will see her cry?” Lahaori looked around at the downcast heads. “Do you think she will hide her smile from you, from the patients? Do you think she will wear her grief on her sleeve as you do and mope around in front of the new mothers all the day? Do you think she will make them suddenly worry that they might lose their beautiful new baby just as their friend lost her little daughter lasterday? Hm?”
Lasterday.
The childish word caught Dorothy off guard, and she stifled a nostalgic gulp. Lahaori’s English had become quite marvelous, and the few mistakes she made from time to time were so endearing that Dorothy had not sought to correct her over the years.
Lasterday. So much more expressive than yesterday.
“No. No. And no,” Lahaori said. “Never. And never will you. You will never forget that poor little girl we lost last night. But never will you remind these patients of it. Do you understand me?”
Slow nods.
Dorothy caught her breath. How many times had she schooled Lahaori in this way? How many times had she denied a mother’s instinct to put an arm around a wailing nurse, to comfort her, to let her cry her little heart out. Such a thing could never happen. Not here. Such coddling would never make a nurse. Denying such tender gestures didn’t make the grief any less painful, but it kept her staff strong and efficient in the face of any trauma.
“Lahaori, there you are,” she called quietly. “I’ll be in my office when you’re ready with your morning report.” She turned to the group. “Good morning, ladies. And thank you,” she said, sweeping her eye over the small group and making sure she had a moment of contact with each set of young eyes. “Thank you for your excellent work yesterday. You are the jewels of Gauhati, each of you. Truly.”
She smiled. They were startled, momentarily unsettled at the unexpected compliment. Their day would go well now—better, anyway—girded as they now were by Lahaori’s lesson and bolstered by her own praise.
“Carry on.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DEPOT BRIDES
And carry on, they did. Her student nurses’ curiosity was a constant source of amazement to Dorothy, almost as much as their constant misunderstanding of the English language. Reading their notes on a patient’s chart was often the most fun she had all week.
“Patient temperature good on arms all over body.”
“Patient like food yes stomach like no.”
“Take patient head for stitch.”
It was clear that even though their chart notes were a bit scrambled, they actually comprehended a great deal, and when Dorothy drew pictures for them, she saw veritable light bulbs of understanding flash in their eyes.
So Dorothy had taken to sketching illustrations for them on a regular basis, and tacking them up on the walls of the nursing students’ bungla.
She had been surprised to discover that student nurses at the Satribari Compound had very little in the way of textbooks. And stunned to discover that the widely accepted nurses’ training “bible” had never been translated into Assamese.
So Dorothy did what anyone would expect Dorothy Kinney to do. She translated the English nursing guide into Assamese. It had taken a year to accomplish, and had proven to be a huge boon to the student nurses. Where it was woefully lacking in images that, to Dorothy, were so vital to conveying the book’s meaning, her own sketches made up the difference.
She’d been working over an hour tonight on sketches for her journal, and had fallen easily into the comforting rhythm of her endeavor. Life was replete with r
hythm, and this particular rhythm was one of her favorites, perhaps because it marched to her own internal beat rather than the excruciatingly slow tempo in which the people of Assam seemed to be locked.
Move. Wait. Sigh... Speak. Wait. Smile.
That was the rhythm of life here. It had its own languid melody.
But Dorothy’s internal song moved faster. Stronger. More decisively. She could not modulate her melody if she tried. To her, any other pace felt awkward, unproductive. So she kept her own steady beat, moving briskly through her days with the rhythm dictated by her heart. In truth, it had a dance of its own.
Dorothy sipped the last of her tea and spilled the remaining drops onto the saucer. She dipped the nib of her pen into the small Waterman Ink bottle and resumed drawing.
Scratch. Dip. Glide.
Dip. Dot. Glide.
Even the mere sound of her sketching was comforting, the feel of it magically fluid as the nib scratched evenly across the page of her journal. Long curving swoops defined the outline of the image she sketched in today’s early morning light. It was better than a photograph as it documented the massive sores that had brought this morning’s little patient to her. Kala Azar. Leishmaniasis. A parasitic killer nearly as deadly as malaria. And far more brutal.
The leaves of her book bulged with similar drawings, all attentively lined in pen and ink. The images—accurate in both detail and drama—chronicle the medical cases Dorothy has encountered, a lavish tale more vibrant than mere words. The pages illustrate in grisly splendor the plights of her many patients, like this boy decimated with the horrid sores, fever and weakness of Kala-Azar; or the nasal passage and sinus of the toddler from whose high nostril she removed a truly remarkable amount of putrefying wood; or the shocking condition of a cervix decimated by tetanus before she removed it.
Here and there in many of her sketches are brownish areas, intentionally stained with the simplest of watercolors—a mere drop of tea or sometimes chota from an ever-present teacup. The tea splotches have been meticulously dabbed with a fine horsehair brush, and identify places of inflammation or infection. Once she discovered the effectiveness of enhancing her sketches with her “watercolor tea”, her journal took on a rather artistic life of its own.
Courage in a White Coat Page 2