by Isobel Chace
The head nurse was a man. He came towards her down the long, green-walled corridor, looking tall and rather remote in his white uniform. He greeted her solemnly.
“The doctor told me you would be coming,” he said with a smile, “but I did not think today. You drove a long way yesterday, I thought you would be still asleep!”
She laughed with him.
“I couldn’t wait,” she admitted. “You have a very fine hospital here.”
“We are fortunate.” He sighed. “But we still have many things that we need. It is difficult to build hospitals everywhere at once,
and we are a long way from Tunis.”
He led the way, as he was speaking, towards the first room and started on the tour of his domain. Katherine was impressed by the way they had made use of everything that had been given to them. The radiography equipment was modern and extensive.
“There is much tuberculosis down here in the south,” the nurse explained simply. “You will see that it is in the theatre that we need more modern equipment so badly. Fortunately we don't often have to operate down here. We can fly our patients out to one of the big hospitals.”
But it was the wards that appealed to Katherine most. She cast a professional eye over the beds and saw immediately that they were properly made and that the patients had been made as comfortable as possible. And what patients! The men had clung to their headdresses and sat on their beds looking like so many camel-drivers in the gloomy light, and the women wound their veils tightly about them, or, if they were Bedouin, stared suspiciously out at her over their dresses of brightly coloured silk and tattooed cheeks. The silence was only broken when they tried to leave one of the wards, and then a chorus of cries would call them back again so that the patients could have another long look at this strange woman who had come amongst them.
Altogether she spent a very pleasant morning there. It was easy to follow the treatments that were being given, for they were all written up in French, and the brand names of the French drugs were mostly ones that were familiar to her. She could see how important the clinics were, for in a district such as this, prevention was much better than cure. Simple hygiene and antenatal clinics would have to come first, slowly educating the people away from their own customs which were a mixture of indifference and ceremonial to ward off the evil eye.
The sun was high in the sky when she went back to her own house and it was unbearably hot. She found the houseboy lying full-length under the palm-tree in the courtyard and hadn’t the heart to disturb him. Instead she went to the kitchen and made herself a long, very cold fruit drink and drank it very slowly, willing herself to feel cooler. Perhaps Dr. Kreistler would take her to one of his clinics tomorrow.
After lunch she found a light breeze had got up, and, determined to make the most of it, she took a book and ventured into the depths of the oasis. The date palms clustered round the hundred and one little springs, sometimes separated by cliffs of sandstone from the top of which one could see the splashes of blue and white houses and the endless miles of rolling sand beyond. She chose her place carefully and settled down to read. Below her she could see the chains of allotments and the blossoms of an apricot tree. She lay back and smiled at the little puffs of white cloud that hurried across the sky, and within a few seconds she was fast asleep.
She was awakened by a hand gently shaking her shoulder. She sat up with a start and found the doctor sitting on the ground beside her.
“Aren’t you afraid of snakes and scorpions, Nurse?” he asked her.
She gave him a rueful look.
“Terrified,” she admitted. “But I’m afraid I forgot that there were such things.”
He lay flat on his back beside her, completely relaxed in a way that she had never previously seen him.
“This is good,” he said. “I hadn’t realised how tired I was.”
She was silent, not liking to intrude on his few moments of peace. Moreover she was a little embarrassed that he should have caught her sleeping and aware that the uneven ground had left a pattern on her cheek and that a few twigs had somehow got caught up in her plaits. She thought of Chantal, immaculate and chic, and sighed. She would never, never be able to emulate her, even if she wanted to. A little black beetle ran across the sand beside her and she hurried it on its way by blowing on it. When she turned round again, she was aware that the doctor was watching her.
“Are there many scorpions — and things around here?” she asked him.
He laughed. It was amazing how good he was to look at, she thought. She liked his smooth brown throat and the way his hair grew away from his temples.
“Oh, lots! Especially things!” He reached out a hand and pulled a burr off the edge of her skirt. “Don't you wish those dates were ripe now?” he asked her. “So that we could reach up and take a few instead of having to go all the way home for some?”
She shook her head.
“I like to see the flower. It looks so unlikely.”
She looked down at him, leaning up on one elbow so that she could see him better. His eyes met hers, and she could feel herself blushing scarlet. Oh dear, this would never do! What on earth was she doing dallying with Dr. Peter Kreistler on the edge of Paradise? She turned away from him quickly and buried her face in her arms. She could feel the hot sun against her back and she knew the instant that his shadow came between her and it — long before she felt his breath on the back of her neck.
Then the silence was shattered by the thud of feet running towards them and a group of children came over the top of the hill, yelling for all they were worth.
“Doctori! Doctori! Doctori!”
The moment before might never have been. Dr. Kreistler was on his feet in an instant, his whole attention given to the children. Their eyes dark and tragic, they poured out their story to him.
‘I’ll need you, Katherine,” he called out, and he strode off down the hill without a single backward glance.
Katherine ran after him, her book forgotten, doing her best to restore some order to her appearance as she went. Her hair was in acute danger of coming down and the pins refused to hold it properly, so that she was obliged to stop and anchor it more firmly. When she had done, the doctor was almost out of sight and she had to make a dash to catch up with him.
He came to a stop outside the door of a single house, set a little apart from any of the others, and rapped on the door, pushing it open without bothering to wait for an answer.
Katherine arrived hot and breathless behind him, wondering what on earth her ex-Ward Sister would have said if she could have seen her now. The doctor took a long, critical look at her and started into the house.
“Wait here until I send for you,” he commanded her. “And this time do as you ’re told!” he added over his shoulder.
She stood on the doorstep, rigid with indignation, and waited for him. It was so unfair! When had she ever not carried out the orders of a doctor well and efficiently? Just because she hadn’t obeyed his telegram and stayed in Hammamet but had decided to travel alone!
The doctor came out again with the owner of the house, a scowling Berber, with tight lips and a fanatical look in his eyes.
“If you don’t your wife will surely die!” Dr. Kreistler shouted at him. He was brusque, almost rude, in his impatience. Katherine couldn’t ever imagine him suffering fools gladly, but she couldn’t help feeling that this was not the way to get the man to change his mind.
“Then die she must!” the man retorted. But there were tears in his eyes even as he said it. It was a bitter moment for him.
“And you will have killed her!” the doctor pursued him relentlessly.
Katherine took a step forward, her eyes soft with pity.
“May I see your wife?” she asked the man in French.
He saw that she was a woman and therefore harmless, and nodded.
“See her if you will, but she is already dead to me.”
Katherine didn’t dare look in the doctor's direct
ion as she stepped into the house. He made a movement as if to stop her and then stood back a trifle uncertainly.
“It might not be very pleasant,” he warned her.
She looked at him then, directly in the eyes.
“I’ve seen unpleasant things before,” she told him quietly.
But she had never seen anything like the scene that met her eyes in the courtyard of the house. Keening women stood in groups, weeping and wailing and generally making so much noise that Katherine could feel it like a solid wall in front of her. Which one was the patient she had no means of knowing.
The house itself was very much like her own, if a little smaller, and instead of a date-palm in the courtyard, there was a well with high walls all round it to prevent the children from falling in. Katherine went over to it and stood there, surveying the scene until someone should notice her.
In the end it was a young, very obviously pregnant, girl who came towards her, her eyes bright with curiosity. She said something in Arabic and put out a hand to finger Katherine’s dress. It was clear that she liked it, for she smiled and touched it again.
“Whose house is this?” Katherine asked her.
But she only giggled, not understanding a word. It was only the men who could speak French. The women spoke Arabic or Berber or a mixture of both and still found Europeans an exciting novelty.
Katherine pointed to the well and pretended she wanted a drink. Perhaps that, she thought, would make the girl find her hostess. At first she only laughed, but she nodded her head with comprehension and disappeared into one of the darkened rooms that led off the courtyard. Katherine followed her quickly, for she was afraid that once she let her out of her sight she wouldn’t recognise her again.
But she had only gone to get a glass from a tall dresser that stood against one of the whitewashed walls. Katherine went over to the bed that stood in the corner only to find it empty. Bewildered, the girl followed her, watching her closely and obviously wondering what she was going to do next.
“Lala,” she said, pointing to herself.
“Katherine,” Katherine responded.
“Ah!” The girl giggled and shifted her veil to show a cloud of hennaed hair beneath, her dark eyes never leaving Katherine’s face for an instant. Then suddenly she seemed to make up her mind, and, grabbing Katherine’s hand, she led her into the next-door bedroom and stood waiting in the entrance, her face a mask of fear.
Katherine approached the bed with the confidence her training had given her. An old crone stood over it, murmuring incantations and waving a piece of paper over the girl who lay, writhing in agony, beside her.
There was a hushed silence as Katherine drew back the bedclothes and smiled reassuringly at the young mother-to-be. A hundred black eyes tried to see what she was doing from the doorway, pushing and shoving each other to get to the front, but at least no longer keening as they had been before.
It was a breech baby. She was as sure of that as she could be without any proper equipment. Silently she replaced the bedclothes and turned to face the wall of women in the doorway. They stood back to allow her to pass, padding after her as she made her way through the courtyard and out into the sunshine in the street.
“Well?” the doctor demanded.
“It's a breech,” she said briefly, “and the mother is very tired. She’ll have to be taken to the hospital. We couldn’t possibly cope here.”
“We?” he repeated briefly. “I’m not even allowed to see her!”
She knew a moment’s panic.
“But I couldn’t do it,” she said helplessly.
“You’ll have to!” he retorted grimly.
“Then you’ll have to explain to Lala how to help me,” she told him. “I will not have that old woman breathing down the back of my neck!”
He smiled, and the look she had first noticed at the airport was back in his eyes.
“I’ll tell her,” he agreed. “Bring her out here to me.”
Lala came willingly enough. She enveloped herself in her white woollen veil until only one eye was showing and followed Katherine out into the street. Her air of importance vanished, however, when she saw the doctor. She listened to all that he had to say, her one visible eye growing as round as a saucer. Dr. Kreistler pointed to the husband and she followed his finger with a look of outraged contempt.
In silence the doctor handed Katherine his medical bag.
“I’ll be here,” he called after her. “I’ll be here all the time.”
It seemed to her that the suffocating atmosphere had grown worse in the last few moments. Little prickles of heat all down her back made her uncomfortable and irritable, but it fell from her as she saw her patient. She made a signal to Lala and the girl pushed the old woman out with a flood of words that cowed most of the rest of the audience as well.
And then they set to work.
Lala was delighted with the baby. She wrapped it up and placed it in the waiting wedding basket beside the bed, laughing and cooing at it all the while. The husband should be pleased as well, Katherine thought grimly. It was a boy.
She herself was tired out. It was the heat, she thought, the suffocating heat, and the endless chatter from the women outside. For one horrible moment she thought she was going to faint. She watched Lala tuck the infant in and laughed as she patted herself and pointed to the child. It was so very obvious that Lala was pregnant that she certainly didn’t need telling! She hoped that her husband was more modern in his views, for she liked the girl, with her gentle hands and curious eyes.
Dr. Kreistler’s bag shut easily, and it was pleasant to feel its solid weight in her hand as she went out into the courtyard. It was almost as though she had a part of him with her. She was surprised to discover that she had been conscious of his presence all through the difficult birth. He had said that he would wait, and in some ridiculous way it had given her confidence to know that he would be there when she came out.
But it was a long time before she was allowed to escape. The women crowded round her, offering her sweetmeats and mint tea and trying desperately to make her feel at home. They got out the very best perfume they had and poured it over her hands, laughing out loud when she put some behind her ears instead of pouring it down the front of her dress as they would have done.
They were amazed too by her long fair hair. The bolder among them would put out a hand and touch it, giggling and discussing it amongst themselves. Lala tried to persuade her to take it down, and it was Katherine’s turn to be shy as she shook her head. But the Berber girl considered herself a friend and wouldn’t take no for an answer. With eager fingers she pulled out the pins that held it and shook it free so that it fell in corn-coloured profusion around Katherine’s shoulders.
There was a gasp of pure admiration from the women. They led her to the one chair in the house, and, a little reluctantly, she sat in it. She wanted to go home, to change her dress and to somehow get cool. And she wanted to see Dr. Kreistler. She wanted that more than anything. But she knew it would be the worst thing she could do to offend these women. If she could once win their confidence they would insist upon attending the clinic no matter what their husbands said, if it was only out of curiosity.
Lala sat on the floor beside her and basked in her reflected glory. She showed Katherine how to eat the honey-sweet doughnuts without getting them all over her dress and she guarded her from the others with her quick tongue and lightning laughter.
At last Katherine felt that she could make her escape. She retreated backwards to the doorway, shaking hands with a dozen that were eagerly extended to her.
She was terribly conscious of her loosened hair and her distinctly dishevelled appearance. She stood in the entrance to the house, blinking in the sunlight and taking deep breaths of the unbelievably fresh air, trying to restore some order before the doctor saw her.
She was unlucky, however, for he stepped forward immediately and grasped both her hands in his, swinging her round to face him.
“How did it go?” he asked her.
She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, but her lips twitched
with amusement.
“Mother and child are both doing nicely,” she said. “As well as can be expected, anyway,” she added on a more doubtful note.
His eyes swept up her, fastening on her hair.
“And the nurse?” he laughed.
She bit her lip and tried to free her hands so that she could plait it up again into her usual staid style, but he wouldn’t allow her.
“I like it,” he told her. “I like the way it ripples.” He smiled at her outraged face. “You’re tired, Nurse,” he said more formally. “It’s time I took you home to rest.”
But she found that her temper was still very much alive under her fatigue.
“It’s nothing more than ignorance!” she said stormily. “These women need to be taught some simple hygiene more than anything else —”
He took her by the arm and started to lead her away.
“We are doing our best. We show them films and instruct them in every way we can. A lot of them do come to the clinics now. Especially the Berber women, they have a little more freedom than their Arab sisters.”
“And I suppose that girl is an Arab!” Katherine exclaimed angrily. “Her husband is,” he replied quietly.
She tossed her hair back behind her shoulders and peered up at him, a little nonplussed.
“I don’t know how you can stay so calm about it,” she said at last. He laughed.
“My dear Katherine, I am not calm! I burn with the same indignation that you do. Only I know also the value of a little patience. All these things are so new to these people. It is only six years since they had to take responsibility for their own lives. They cannot do everything at once.”
“But something is being done?” she insisted.
He nodded gravely.
“But this is no time to talk about it,” he said. “Go home and get a bath. That scent they have smothered you in is a trifle overpowering!”