by Isobel Chace
She smiled up at him.
“I rather like it!” she said provocatively.
But he only took his bag from her and gave her a little shake.
“Go home, Katherine,” he repeated.
The camel market was almost over when she strolled back through the open square. Only a trickle of people and animals were left, sitting quietly in the evening sun, their baracans wrapped tightly round them. The old men were playing dominoes or draughts and indulging in the soothing ritual of making tea on their little charcoal stoves. They glanced up as she passed and nodded a greeting, their eyes following her every step of the way. So they had already been told about the birth, she reflected, and wondered what they thought of it all. A small boy offered to sell her some outrageously coloured imitation Iceland poppies, and his face fell when she said no.
“Perhaps some dates, then?” he pleaded. “Deglats Nour!” he coaxed her. “Fingers of Light. You can’t buy any better. They will only grow in the oasis here, where they can have their roots in water and their leaves in the burning sun!”
She bought a box, knowing that she didn’t like dates very much. She could offer a few to the doctor, she thought, and knew that was really why she had bought them. She gave the boy a note from her purse and waved away the change. She must be mad! She carried the box into the house and took it straight into the kitchen, hiding it at the very back of the store cupboard, hoping that she would never have to see it ever again. She was not, repeat not, going to fall in love with the doctor!
It was inevitable that the box of dates should have been brought out to decorate the dinner table that night. Her houseboy enjoyed the full ritual of European dining and would lay the table with infinite care, even placing a finger bowl beside her place when he brought the fruit. Katherine sat and hated it all through the first course so that she didn’t even notice the letter that had been put beside her plate until the Tunisian stamp caught her eye, twice as large as any English stamp and with a jaunty-looking female riding a dolphin on it.
She didn’t know the handwriting. It was large and feminine and surprisingly difficult to read. Katherine opened it slowly and turned immediately to the signature. It was from Chantal.
She read through the truculent demand for more money with dogged care and penned her answer before she had time to weaken and change her mind. There was no more money, and the de Hallets would simply have to manage like everyone else. She was glad though when the houseboy picked up the addressed envelope with the rest of the dishes and offered to post it for her. She felt mean and prissy, and the canning plant seemed very, very far away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KATHERINE began to fall into a routine at the hospital. There were six nurses there besides herself, and all of them had trained in Tunis and were proud of the fact that they no longer had to go to France to learn their profession. Four of them were men and two were women, and they were the most enthusiastic and dedicated people Katherine had ever met. They made her very welcome, finding a multitude of tasks for her to do that didn’t involve too many language difficulties.
“You should learn Arabic,” they told her. “Dr. Kreistler learned it in less than a year. He would help you, I’m sure.”
But she didn’t like to ask him. Instead she asked Lala. The Berber girl had found her book, where she had left it on top of the hill, and brought it to the house in person in the middle of one particularly hot afternoon.
Katherine found her sitting in a little huddle in the middle of the courtyard, listening to the transistor set she had hidden under her veil. The houseboy had shouted at her and had finally tried to push her bodily outside, but Lala had continued to sit there, calmly swaying in time to the music and waiting for Katherine to notice her.
“Bring tea,” Katherine told the houseboy sternly. “And cakes,” she added a shade more doubtfully. She wasn’t sure if Lala would try any strange foods and she regretted that she hadn’t any Arabic sweetmeats to offer her.
The houseboy lingered, plainly reluctant to serve a woman of his own kind. In his eyes she should have been serving him.
“Go quickly, Ali,” Katherine said. “Lala is my guest.”
Lala giggled, allowing her veil to fall back as Ali departed. With great care, she placed the radio on the ground beside her and turned it off, eagerly looking about her. Katherine offered her one of the light wicker chairs that stood under the palm-tree, but she shook her head, preferring to sit on the ground.
The cakes were a great success. Lala ate them all with a fierce concentration that alternated with the inevitable giggles that broke from her at the slightest provocation. She tried drinking lemon tea as Katherine was doing, but hated the faintly bitter taste and hastily ladled spoonfuls of sugar into her cup and drank the resulting syrup, her dark eyes full of laughter as they peered over the edge of the cup.
When she had done, Katherine showed her over the house, and then her first Arabic lesson began. By the time Lala left they both knew that this was going to be a regular feature of their days, and Katherine was already wondering if she could remember how to make such things as coconut-ice and fudge, or anything else that would be sweet enough to appeal to the other girl.
It was only just as she was leaving that Lala produced the book and gave it to her, with a pretended indifference that dismayed Katherine. It was the first time that she realised that Lala, like most of the other women of Tunisia, couldn’t read or write, and that she envied anyone who could. A hundred other woman wouldn’t have cared at all, but Lala had an intense curiosity about anything that came her way. Lala, in fact, was a darling.
“Salaam ’aleikum!”
“Wa ’aleikum es salaam!” Katherine responded automatically.
“So it’s true what they say in the market place, you are learning Arabic!”
Katherine looked up and smiled at the doctor. He was leaning negligently against her front door, his eyes faintly amused, and she was quite terribly glad to see him.
“I’ve learned a few words,” she admitted. “Not enough to become the on dit of the oasis, I should have said,” she added ruefully. “I find it terribly difficult.”
He came right inside, scooped up a chair with one foot, and sat down in it, facing her. His eyes wandered round the courtyard, and she was glad she had taken the trouble to make Ali clean the whole place that morning. The smell of polish mixed pleasantly with the heavy scent of the creepers and there wasn’t a grain of sand anywhere. Tomorrow it would all be back, creeping in through every door, on the soles of one’s shoes and in the creases of one’s clothes, but it was nice to be without it, even for a few minutes.
“It seems different in here,” he said at last. “It’s more peaceful than I remembered it.”
Was it? Katherine wondered. It probably was so, for she couldn’t imagine that there would ever be much peace around Chantal.
“I make you free of it,” she said. “You’re always welcome here.”
He looked surprised and then a little anxious.
“How long have you been here,” he asked. “A fortnight? I supposed I have been neglecting you?”
Katherine shook her head.
“I didn’t come here to be entertained,” she reminded him. “I came to work. It’s pleasant, though, to see you doing nothing for a few minutes.”
He leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“I could do with a drink,” he told her. “A very long, very cold drink.”
She got him it herself, squashing the cold citrus fruit straight out of the refrigerator and fishing out the few pips that had fallen into the glass. She added a teaspoonful of water and filled up the glass with bottled soda water. When she took it to him her hand was trembling slightly and she was glad to get back to her own chair where she could sit on her hands and hide behind the cool good manners of a hostess.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” She smiled serenely. “Why don’t you stay and have some dinner here? Ali always cooks enough for a
t least three people, and I — and I’d like your company!” she ended with a rush.
“So you have been lonely!” he shot at her.
She swallowed, knowing that she was on the point of making a fool of herself.
“No, I haven’t! But it’s nice to hear someone talking English.”
He laughed.
“My English? I’m afraid I speak it with a very bad accent.”
It was impossible to tell him that there was no way that she would rather hear it spoken.
“It’s still English!” she said flippantly.
He looked at her thoughtfully and she could feel herself flushing under his regard.
“Actually I came to talk about work,” he said. “I’m taking a film out to a neighbouring village and I thought you might like to come along.”
“Tonight?” she asked.
He nodded.
“It’s quite a business setting up the screen and what have you. Also I think you will find it interesting. Will you come?” She hadn’t realised how charming he could be when he wanted. Gone was that faintly irritable manner that he usually adopted and in its place an obvious desire to please that might have taken her in if she had been a little less wise.
“Are you making an outing for me?” she asked him abruptly. She didn’t want to be in his way all evening merely because he thought she might be a trifle lonely!
He stood up, the smile completely gone and his eyes hard and searching.
“Certainly not!” he retorted. “I shall need your services tonight, Nurse. It is as simple as that. I shall pick you up here at seven-thirty.” He cast one final glance in her direction and walked towards the door. “And wear something over your head to keep the sand out of your nose and throat.”
“Wh-what sort of thing?” she stammered.
“You could do worse than buy a veil,” he said dryly. “Ask Lala to help you choose one.”
Of course he would like that! she thought angrily. Then he could laugh at her when she didn’t know how to manipulate it properly. But at least that wouldn’t happen, because if she did get Lala to help her buy one, she would also get her to show her how to wear one. She might even look very nice in it at that!
He arrived at twenty-five past seven on the dot, and one look at his uncompromising back as he brought the Land Rover to a screeching halt was quite enough to make her break into a run as she hurried over to join him. The back of the car was completely filled by the rolled-up screen and the projector with its massive batteries and loops of thick black wire. She stepped up into the front seat and sat down quickly.
“You’re early!” she accused him, working on the principle that attack was the best form of defence.
“Four and a half minutes early,” he agreed. “Did you get a
veil?”
She nodded. She pulled it out and flung it around her shoulders and over her head, dragging one corner of it across her face. She rather liked the cool feel of the material against her skin, and she had to admit that Lala had taught her well, for it clung to her in easy folds and showed no signs of falling down the back of her neck, which had been her secret fear at first.
Dr. Kreistler regarded her critically.
“Very fetching!” he said at last.
She had enjoyed buying it too. Lala’s enthusiasm had inspired the owner of the small general stores, and who had taken down his entire stock for the two girls to finger and try. In the end they had chosen a veil made half of wool and half of silk, a long length of white cloth that shimmered and glowed. It had been ridiculously cheap too, considering it was handmade and embroidered all round the edges.
The sun was just setting as they drove out across the desert. The date-palms threw long, pencil-slim shadows across the sand that had a fragile beauty all their own, and the sand dunes looked dark and menacing, like enormous waves in the sea waiting to meet over their heads. Katherine shivered at the thought and closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t see them. When she opened them again the whole sky was scarlet with great purple clouds gathering here and there in the distance. Then that too was gone, and the greyness of evening turned the whole world to monochrome that slowly deepened into the black of night.
The first sight they had of the village was myriad little fires, on each of which was probably balanced the inevitable tea-pot. When they came closer they could see the low black tents of the Bedouin and further away a clump of palms and a few houses.
A dozen children came tearing over the sand towards them.
“Bon soir!” they shouted, and the younger ones echoed: “Bon soir, bon soir!” without having the faintest idea of what it meant.
Dr. Kreistler stopped the Land Rover and within seconds a whole swarm of wriggling, excited young creatures had flung themselves on to it, hanging on to any purchase they could find and wildly adjuring him to drive like the wind. In fact he edged forward a few feet at a time, shouting at the top of his voice for them to get out of the way. But the children only laughed, and finally he was laughing too. Katherine hugged herself further into her new haik and began to enjoy herself. If the children weren’t afraid of him, why should she be?
It took time to set up the equipment, and all the time a steady stream of people arrived over the dunes, whole families of them coming from miles around to see the doctor’s films, their relations, and possibly even to arrange a suitable marriage for their sons and daughters while they were about it.
Katherine went and joined a large group of chattering women, drawing her veil closely around her, for now that it was dark it was getting cold. The women drew her nearer the fire and offered her tea, but Katherine refused their offer. From where she was sitting she could see the doctor talking to the head man of the village, and she thought how fine he looked and how well he got on with these people. Chantal would take him away from them. Chantal would never put up with the lonely silence of the desert and the constant battle against the sand. Chantal —
“Katherine!”
She started to her feet and hurried down the slight slope towards him.
“I’m here,” she said.
He looked relieved to see her.
“I can’t tell you from all the others in that blasted haik!” he exclaimed impatiently. “I’m setting up an emergency clinic to deal with the nomads who have come in to see the films. I shall need you to help me sort them out.” He turned on his heel and strode off towards one tent that was larger than all the rest. “Come on!” he said. “Hurry up!”
The sand got into her shoes and she stumbled once or twice as she desperately tried to keep up with him. Oh, botheration take the man! Why did he have to make her so nervous?
She had never seen anything like the inside of the tent. It was lined with highly-coloured silks, and rugs lay strewn across the sand. It was lit by powerful kerosene lamps that hissed and sometimes flared, sending ripples of shadow round the enclosed space.
Dr. Kreistler knelt on one of the carpets and opened up his bag.
“The rush will begin any minute now,” he smiled at her. “The trick is to sort out the genuinely ill from the merely curious. Do you
think you can do that?”
Katherine wasn’t sure, but she was willing to try. She tried to imagine that she was helping a doctor at any ordinary clinic that she had ever attended, but she couldn’t forget that he was this doctor and not just any other. Her fingers felt all thumbs and her few words of Arabic made nonsense, reducing the patients to silent paroxysms of mirth.
But somehow she found the ones who were truly ill and the ones who were only pretending, and managed to lance their boils and prepare the injections without dropping anything and thus disgracing herself entirely.
She was glad when it was all over and the right people had been given chits so that they would be recognised when they came to the hospital for further treatment and the others had gone away, proudly bearing their bandages and their medicines.
“You don’t seem yourself tonight, Nurse,” Dr.
Kreistler told her as he snapped shut his bag. “Are you sickening for something?” He looked at her more closely, a worried frown between his eyes. “Have you been using the local water to clean your teeth in, or anything stupid like that?”
She glared at him angrily.
“I’m not a fool, Dr. Kreistler!” she told him proudly.
He grinned suddenly.
“No, I remember your saying so before. Ah well, if it isn’t that, there must be something else the matter with you.” And whistling softly under his breath, he ducked out through the door of the tent.
Katherine watched the films in a shaken silence. What on earth had he meant? Everyone had their off days when they didn’t work as well as on others. And there was nothing the matter with her. Nothing, that is, except that extraordinary nervous feeling that he created within her, and that was no more than her natural dislike of being treated as a tiresome child!
It was an extraordinary experience, sitting on the sand in the moonlight, watching the films as they flickered on the enormous screen in front of her. All around her were the women, looking like so many sacks of potatoes as they sat in little groups, their veils held closely around them. The men mostly stood in pretended indifference, occasionally shouting a word of explanation to their women-folk, who sat too far away to hear the commentary
properly.
Mickey Mouse was a great success. Silence fell as they watched his antics with absorbed good humour. Then came the film on how trachoma was caused, with the doctor giving the commentary, sitting on the bonnet of his Land Rover, a microphone in one hand and a small boy clutching the other. The audience watched the little worms embedding themselves in a piece of meat and followed their whole life history, seeing how they led to blindness in the person who ate them unless properly treated. It was a graphic lesson in hygiene, effectively and interestingly put across. Katherine was impressed, and she could well see why the government used this same method to explain the principles of democracy and local government to the nomadic tribes who wandered up and down the country.