Outside People and Other Stories

by Mariam Pirbhai

  “Bilkul Abba ke jaysa hai,” she muttered, irked once again by the uncanny resemblance between father and son.

  “Your son is not with you today?” Doctor Eleniak inquired as Umara entered the office.

  “Only me.” Umara answered flatly.

  Doctor Eleniak waited her for her to take her seat. “The news is not very good, I am afraid, Mrs. Siddiqui.”

  “Not out of woods?” Umara asked, anxiously rubbing the part of her wrist where the gold bangles she had worn since her wedding had pressed against her skin. She hadn’t thought to put them back on since the radiation therapy.

  “Unfortunately not. Your body has failed to respond favourably to your last round of treatments.”

  Umara wasn’t sure if she understood correctly. “Failed” seemed to suggest that it was her fault the treatment had not worked. Had she done something wrong? The question made her regret leaving Kashif in the waiting room: “And eating? The tube?”

  “Patience and persistence, Ms. Siddiqui.”

  “How long?” Umara asked again, wondering if her English was to blame or if the doctor just didn’t know how to speak plainly.

  “Let’s just say it will be a while before you’re out of those woods.”

  Umara caught her reflection in the window and touched the side of her face. She thought of the sparrow, comforted that at least she’d had a few crumbs to throw its way before leaving.

  THIRTY-FIVE SECONDS

  FEBRUARY 12, 2010.

  Bondye bon. May this letter find you protected, sister. Today I write with air in my lungs and a spring in my step. I have received an information package from the group I was telling you about—Canadian Nurses for Haiti. I am going to apply to be among the next group of nurses to help our brothers and sisters. Can you believe it? I may see you again, sooner than we thought.

  Frances put down her sister’s letter and rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t slept since her arrival. How could one sleep at such a time? The monotonous hum of the computer on the policeman’s desk reminded her that the video she had paused—the one she had insisted on watching—was taunting her, behind the black screen. So far she was only able to stomach watching the first twelve seconds. All she could see was a woman walking down a dimly lit street. The woman was wearing a raincoat and a backpack dangled off her shoulder. She used her left hand to hold up a large umbrella. Her right arm swung freely at her side. Frances moved her hand toward the mouse to reactivate the screen and then retracted it. She picked up the letter instead.

  When I think back to when it happened, I could barely breathe with the fear that I had lost you, Frances. The number of days I walked around in a state of shock, not knowing if you were dead or alive, and thinking of the countless others, roofless, homeless, childless, motherless … the number of nights I woke up with the screams of thousands in my head. Day after day, the news of the horrors worsened to the point that I could not bear to hear another word, or see another image. How it tore me apart not to have any means of contacting you, much less any hope of returning. And the shame that I was too weak to watch the images on a television screen while you were living the horror, the shame that I could hear myself breathe so freely while so many were suffocating under piles of ruin. As God is my witness, Frances, please know that I would have come the moment it happened, but all travel into and out of the country was restricted. Only official and authorized parties, they said.

  Why hadn’t Agatha sent her these letters? Frances wondered. The police had recovered them from her backpack. They were stuffed into one envelope. Had she been planning on sending them to her in one batch? Maybe she decided it wasn’t worth the bother given the chaotic state of the country’s services. Or maybe she was holding on to them for some reason Frances did not as yet understand. None of this made any sense. She read on:

  Someone here told me that even if I could return with the emergency medical teams, I could risk losing my status as a permanent resident. That is what they call the period it takes to become a citizen. I know what it is to complete a nurse’s residency, but how strange to complete an immigrant’s residency. It is as if I am in training as a citizen! Am I not also a citizen of Haiti? And surely there is much to be learned from a people who lose everything and must rebuild not only their lives, but also their cities and communities, time and time again. But I promise not to dwell on this now, for there is hope that I will be accepted into this program and permitted to return to do God’s work—permitted to return to you. I miss you terribly, but just knowing that you are alive and safe gives me hope and strength. Bondye beni ou. Agatha.

  Frances put down the letter and looked up at the screen. The image of the woman walking in the rain in the twilight morning hours was emblazoned in her brain, even as some graphic 3D screen-saver swirled about on the monitor. Frances clicked the mouse and the video reappeared, frozen at the image on which she had hit pause. She touched the screen, tracing the outline of the woman. The video camera must have been perched somewhere above, like a bird on a wire, so the people whose images it captured below were faceless. Any chance of seeing the woman’s face was further expunged by the large umbrella she was carrying. All one could see were the woman’s coat, her swinging arms and legs, and the few metres of pavement surrounding her, which was speckled with leaves. It is autumn, Frances muttered under breath, suddenly struck by the realization that this was her sister’s favourite season in this cold northern climate. How much she had raved about it on the rare occasions they had a chance to talk on the phone. She remembered Agatha describing the exhilaration of walking through clouds of falling leaves, walking through a prism of colour—golds, browns, oranges, the darkest greens and crimson, crimson, crimson. But in the monochromatic video the leaves looked like shadows on the pavement, ominous and dark. The leaves on the ground brought to her attention the woman’s shoes: a pair of white sneakers. What an excruciatingly long walk it must have been after being on her feet all day long. How cold it must have been at such an hour. And how lonely. If only she hadn’t been alone, Frances fumed. Everything would be different now. She wouldn’t be sitting in this silent, empty room. She wouldn’t be thousands of miles from home. She wouldn’t be looking at this ghastly video. She wouldn’t be reading these letters. These damn letters!

  August 9, 2010.

  Bondye bon. May this letter find you protected, sister.

  Her sister’s customary greeting jumped out at her from the second letter. Frances looked about in fright. She was still alone in the room where the policewoman had left her, to give her some space, they said. This was after she overheard them mention the surveillance camera. When she asked what the camera had to do with anything, they looked at each other uneasily. As they hesitantly informed her of this highly unlikely aspect of the case, her knees buckled for the second or third time that day and she found herself being propped up by several people as they walked her over to a chair. “I must see it,” was all she could remember whispering into a policewoman’s ear, who sympathetically nodded in agreement. She picked up the letter again.

  I told myself I would not watch another news report about what they are calling the “rescue effort” unless I can be there myself. But a recent setback has made me look back to that terrible day the earth shook its fist, yet again, at our ailing land. Seeing the presidential palace lie in ruin like so many particles of dust, the great cathedral swallowed whole, like Jonah … even the green rooftops of the hospital where I spent those precious years learning my practice, now lying like so many blades of grass on a carpet of steel pipes, broken tiles, shattered glass, rusty nails, shredded concrete. And below it the people, in their anonymous graves, or the lucky ones among the walking wounded, still unaware, as the injured often are, of the extent of their wounds, the intensity of the pain to come. And all the while I was looking on with one eye closed, hoping against hope that I would not see you lying among the dead. It is too much, Frances. Too much f
or the eyes to see, for the heart to bear. Please do not misunderstand me: it is not the suffering that I wish to shield myself from. It is the distance between us that sits, more heavily than ever, on my heart today. I was so sure that I had found a way to return. But now this passage has been darkened again. I was just informed that a moratorium has been placed on foreign aid workers. Now even restricted travel is impossible. I don’t know why, when there is so much need to this day. But this is what they tell me here. How long this moratorium will last, nobody can tell me. How long before I can return, nobody can say. What good is this life, if it cannot be put to the aid of our Lord? What good is it to look back without being able to move forward? As you can see, my steps are heavy today, but your survival and your well-being help me stay the course. Bondye beni ou. Agatha.

  Frances folded the letter, pressing down on the edges as Agatha would have done. If only they could have talked more during these past months, then the space between them would have weighed less heavily upon her. Even though the telecommunications lines had been restored in the richer parts of the city, for most people a telephone was still a luxury, and when one could be borrowed, it was erratic and unstable at best. If only they had talked, then the space … “to give you some space,” she heard the words of the police invade her racing thoughts. The last thing one needed at such a time was space. This was a time for communion. A time for gathering. For companionship and vigil. For eating together, praying together, chanting together, night and day. For bringing together enemy and friend. For making sure the greater journey to come is taken in peace. Frances suddenly felt overcome with anxiety in thinking about the preparations ahead. Everything had to be done the right way, she was going to make sure of that. How many thousands have been robbed of that most basic right, she thought, the image of countless bodies lying on a treeless hillside as fresh in her mind as the image of bulldozers tearing up an already wounded land for their unmarked graves. She was about to get up and call the policewoman—the kind one who had shown so much compassion—to beg her to let her take her sister home, to beg her to let her take her home now, without further delay, while there was still time to do things right. Then the image on the screen caught her eye. She noticed she had hit pause at fifteen seconds rather than twelve seconds, and there was the shadow—a half shadow, like half a man — frozen at the far right edge of the screen. She braced herself and was about to hit play when an icy chill gripped her entire body and her hand froze, like the image on the screen. She hugged herself, rubbing her hands on the sides of her arms to warm herself up. Then she picked up the next letter, desperate to hear her sister’s voice.

  September 30, 2010.

  Bondye bon. May this letter find you protected, sister. I cannot explain in words the state of my heart today so I will just speak plainly. My application has been rejected. I had to read the letter at least three times to understand the reason. Before I tell you what it is, I have to be honest with you. Yes, it is time for confession. Life has not turned out as I planned here. Forgive me for burdening you with this—I am ashamed to share such thoughts with you, when you have seen so much, endured so much. This is not your weight to bear. It is mine and mine alone. But you need to know. I need to tell you the truth about my situation.

  Frances stopped reading. Surely she had endured enough aftershocks for one lifetime. Whatever her sister had to confess, she did not want to know. Putting the letters aside, she reactivated the video at fifteen seconds, where she had hit pause, partly to prevent herself from finishing the letter and partly because she knew she would not be able to leave the room till she watched the video in its entirety. She owed her sister that much. She regretted her decision as soon as the image of the man reappeared, his menacing shadow preceding him. Even at the angle the camera had recorded his movement, she could see he was tall and burly. Seeing him walking like that—just steps away, seconds away—made her sick to her stomach. She covered her mouth and hit pause again. She looked at the screen, her hand still over her mouth, unsure whether it was the nausea she was trying to suppress or the sound of her dread. The image was freeze-framed at a point where the man put his hand under an opening in his jacket, as if he were reaching for something inside it. It couldn’t be, she thought. Had he been reaching for the knife? She hit play again with a trembling hand, determined to have the courage to witness what the camera had witnessed, determined to have the courage to face this monster as he had been faced. With great courage, the police had told her. She was a brave woman, the words reverberated in her mind as he came to view again, his head concealed by a baseball hat. She noticed that only seconds after the camera caught his image, he hastened his steps. Was it at that moment he had decided to attack her? Had he planned it all along? But why? she agonized. What caused such rage against a poor, helpless woman, whose only desire was to get home and rest her tired feet after a long day’s work? Why? she had pleaded to the police for answers. But they had none. None that could satisfy her. He didn’t rob her. Her wallet and its contents looked as if they hadn’t been touched. The suspect in custody was neither a known felon nor a civilian with any record of a violent history. In fact, he was a boy—fifteen or sixteen—and would be convicted as a minor. She couldn’t believe it. He didn’t look like some helpless child, she thought, enraged. He looked determined, like a bird hunting its prey. But why? Why would a boy want to attack a stranger? Maybe they weren’t strangers, she surmised. Were they going to investigate this further? Maybe he was obsessed with her. Stalking her. Or maybe it was what they called a hate crime. That was not out of the realm of possibility, was it? No, this was highly unlikely, they were quick to assure her. He had confessed to everything upon his arrest but had not shown any indication of knowing his victim, much less her race. In fact, the crime scene was littered with his DNA. The sign of an amateur, they had remarked—maybe even a first time offender. There’s been an eruption of teenage violence recently, they noted when she looked at them disbelievingly. It seemed likely that this incident, too, was of that nature. They were sorry, so very sorry, they couldn’t tell her more. An incident? How could there be any justice for an incident? she had wanted to scream. Surely something so brutal and so senseless deserved further investigation? She picked up the letter again, desperate for answers, desperate to make sense of it all. Maybe the letters contained a clue that the police had missed. Something that would prove this was more than an incident. More than some indiscriminate act of violence. More than some random event. The terrible outcome would be the same but at least there would be an explanation. Frances picked up the letter again, retracing the place where she had stopped reading a few minutes earlier.

  The truth is I am one of the fortunate ones, because I have “a foot in the door”—un pied dans la place! These local expressions are strange, aren’t they? A foot in the door seems like a painful and humiliating predicament. Does it mean the door has been closed on you? Or that you have pushed your way through the door, like an unwanted guest?

  Frances had to pause again. She and Agatha always responded to things in such similar ways, so much so that they had been teased all their lives about being twins. Of course they weren’t twins. They were born several years apart, and Agatha was the younger of the two but everyone thought of her as the older one. She was always so strong. She had always been her protector.

  Sister, I know I am talking in circles. It’s just that I find this so hard to admit. The truth is that I have not been working as a nurse. I work at the hospital — that much is true. And if you call changing bedpans, bathing the invalid, or pushing wheelchairs across hallways being a nurse, then perhaps.… But on days like today I am filled with regret. Regret that I had not stayed where I was needed. Among people who would not have asked me to fetch the “real nurse” or pushed me out of the way when a patient is in distress. Here I am changing urine-stained sheets when I should be changing bandages; here I am what they call an “auxiliary”—a helping hand. Sometimes even less
, where there are almost one hundred nurses per patient and yet they complain of a nursing shortage. And to think I have left behind a land where our healers lay dying alongside their patients, and our hospitals and schools lie in rubble below them. I know there are some of the world’s best medical teams there right now. But their task is to patch up the broken pieces and leave. Who is there for the long-haul? Three years, our President said—it will take at least three years just to clean up the city. What about the people? How long will it take to tend to their wounds? How many generations? I know, I know. I am talking in circles again. The fact is, up until this point I had hope that they would take my application seriously, that they would see how ready I am to face whatever awaits us in the place I know better than anyone here. Up until today, that is, when I received this dreadful letter, saying I am not qualified to be part of their volunteer medical assistance unit. While they appreciate my training, they say, the applicant must be a registered nurse in Canada. As this is not my case, and in light of my training in Haiti, I am being encouraged to re-apply under the general program, as part of a civilian volunteer effort, which may be needed in the years to come. So that is that, Frances. They call me a civilian. I call myself a fraud. What else can I be if I am not the nurse I claim to be? Never more acutely have I felt the admonition, in the Book of James: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.… I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, my sister, for my grievous inaction. Bondye beni ou. Agatha.

  Forgive you! Frances fumed. How can I forgive you! All this time Frances had consoled herself that Agatha was far from the chaos—from the war zone their city had become. Thousands still lived in the streets in makeshift shelters made out of anything they could find—cardboard, a broken car door, sheet metal, strips of cloth—since any building that hadn’t collapsed was being used to house the wounded, the invalid, the dying. The one thing that gave her solace was that at least she didn’t have to worry about Agatha. Agatha was safe, living the life she had worked so hard to make for herself. Woch nan dlo pa konnen doulè wòch nan solèy, Frances found herself reciting the old proverb: The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun. How foolish she had been, not thinking for a minute of her sister’s struggles, her sister’s pain. And to think that it was she who talked Agatha into leaving! She had pushed and pushed for months, trying to convince her it was the right thing to do—that if she had the chance, then she should take it. Why had she insisted so much? Frances admonished herself. None of the reasons seemed clear to her anymore. Had their situation been so desperate? At least back home Agatha worked as a nurse. But together they were barely ekeing out a living. So many like them got by just on the little money families sent them from abroad. Agatha didn’t want to go without her—this she remembered clearly. But there was no chance of their going together. Oh, why did she push her to go? Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? If anyone needed to beg forgiveness … Si mwen menm ki ta dwe mande padon. Forgive me, Frances gasped through her tears. Unable to read another word, she started to gather the letters together. She would finish reading them at another time, a time when it did not hurt so much. Then she noticed the date at the top of the page of the one letter she had not as yet read: October 21. Almost nine days ago, she thought, and urgently pulled it out from the bundle. As soon as she unfolded the paper, the jasmine perfume Agatha loved permeated the room. Frances held the letter away from her, wanting to preserve her sister’s scent, not wanting to stain it with her tears.