The Hospital of Fatima

by Isobel Chace

  “I see,” Katherine murmured. “Will it be very expensive?”

  Brahim did some calculations on his fingers.

  “A little expensive,” he said at last.

  Katherine hadn’t known that the water-supply was obtained from springs, and she said so now.

  “Oh yes,” Brahim told her. “There are many thousands of springs all around here. That is what Hamma means in Arabic — a spring. You will find the same name at El Hamma. In fact there are two El Hammas.” He went on to outline his plans in greater detail, making quick little drawings in the dust to illustrate his explanations.

  “You know a great deal about irrigation,” Katherine said admiringly.

  He nodded gravely.

  “I am an excellent manager,” he agreed seriously. “If I had not

  been the best Monsieur de Hallet would never have employed me.” He stood upright abruptly and started to walk back to the house. “It will be fine if everything is left in my hands,” he added, suddenly suspicious of her interest.

  “As it will be,” she assured him. But she was sorry, all the same. He didn’t really need her help at all. In fact she knew that she would only be in the way, preventing him from doing more important things, if she insisted on his explaining every detail of the management of the estate. “I have so very little to do up here that I’m bound to be interested, though,” she went on humbly.

  He gave her a look that might have been sympathy and went on walking.

  “Dr. Kreistler will come north soon,” he said gruffly. “Waiting always makes the hours seem long.”

  Katherine stared at his retreating back, her indignation boiling up within her. Did he really think that? Could it possibly be true? “But Dr. Kreistler is nothing to me!” she said out loud.

  His face crinkled up in that sudden way it had.

  “What woman will ever admit it?” he said simply.

  They parted company on the edge of the pleasure gardens and Katherine went on to the house alone. The dying fruit-trees depressed her, or so she told herself. It was time she got about and met some people, she decided, and thought about something else besides herself and her own problems. Accordingly she rang up the Verdons and told them she had returned to Hammamet. Madame, who answered the telephone, was delighted.

  “My dear, you must come and see us immediately,” she cried. “Can you bear the muddle our house is in? We are re-distempering the outside and we are doing a great deal of it ourselves to save costs.”

  “What fun!” Katherine said immediately. “Can I help?”

  There was an instant’s hesitation from the other end.

  “But of course, my dear, if you really want to?”

  “I do,” Katherine assured her. “There’s nothing for me to do in my own house, and I’m not used to an idle life. Can I come now?” She heard Madame’s surprised and pleased laugh quite clearly, followed by a very French squawk as she thought of something else.

  “Is Chantal with you?” she asked.

  Katherine licked her lips. Was this it? Had Chantal been right when she had said that she would never be accepted without the French girl’s backing? “No,” she said hoarsely.

  “Good!” Madame laughed brightly. “I do not wish to be unkind, you understand, but when one has Chantal to one’s house one must be all dressed up and everything must be just so. With you it is different, I think?”

  “Very different!” Katherine agreed in relieved tones. “How do I get to you?”

  Madame Verdon’s instructions were brief and to the point, and Katherine had no difficulty in finding the right house. It was much smaller than her own and very French to look at, with shutters at every window and a large painted wooden door that stood wide open in a perpetual welcome.

  The Verdons were both perched on the top of step-ladders with a large bucket of distemper in one hand and a brush in the other. “Hasn’t it a horrible smell?” Madame greeted her cheerfully. Katherine looked up at her and grinned.

  “Revolting,” she agreed.

  Madame put her bucket down on the top step and came slowly down the ladder, holding out both hands to her guest at the bottom.

  “You are thinner!” she announced frankly. “What have you been doing with yourself? Come inside at once and I shall make coffee and you will tell me all about it, hein? No, it is no trouble at all. I have been working all day and I need a short rest.”

  She led the way through the pleasant house to the kitchen where she made coffee without any fuss and clucked anxiously over Katherine.

  “I am angry with myself!” she told her crossly. “Peter rang up two nights ago and asked me to make sure you were all right, but I have been so busy here, and I kept telling myself that another day wouldn’t hurt. And now that I see you, I can well understand his anxiety!”

  “I am a little thinner,” Katherine admitted, “but surely I don’t look so badly. I’m very well and quite a lot browner.”

  Madame poured the coffee into two large, pottery cups.

  “You look tired — and scared,” she said flatly. “And if you were

  my daughter I would say you had fallen in love and that the affair was not going too happily.”

  Katherine looked at her with resentful admiration.

  “All that?” she asked faintly.

  “All that,” Madame repeated firmly. “Now begin at the beginning and tell me all about it.”

  Katherine sighed thoughtfully.

  “You’re being very kind,” she said at last, “but I’m not sure that I want to talk about it.”

  “Because I am a friend of Chantal’s,” Madame completed for her. “You need not worry about that. Chantal is my neighbour, and my husband and I never quarrel with our neighbours. It is a rule of life we both have. But that doesn’t mean that we necessarily approve of them, or even like them very much.” She pushed Katherine’s cup of coffee towards her and sat down opposite her, her clothes bespattered with distemper and her face completely innocent of any make-up. “Well?” she prompted.

  Katherine found that once she had started on the story she couldn’t stop. It came pelting, without any embellishments.

  “I hate her,” she said at last. “I hate her, and I’ve never hated anyone before!” And with that she burst into tears, and for some obscure reason felt a great deal better.

  “But of course you don’t hate her,” Madame said briskly. “You are far too sensible to waste your energies doing any such thing. She leaves a bad taste in the mouth — in my mouth too! But to hate her? She is not worth the trouble.”

  Katherine smiled bleakly through her tears.

  “It isn’t exactly something that one can control,” she objected. Madame looked at her with approval.

  “That is much better! Now, we shall see what can be done. First, I shall introduce you to my friends here, and you will be too busy to be anything else but gay and friendly. Then, after that, we shall think again. Where is Chantal now?”

  “She’s still at Sidi Behn Ahmed,” Katherine told her.

  Madame wrinkled up her forehead.

  “Peter didn’t mention her,” she said doubtfully. “Still, it is not of the least importance.”

  Perhaps not to her! Katherine thought bitterly.

  But it mattered to her! She knew exactly what the daily routine would be with Peter calling in every evening for a drink and a chat. In fact he probably called in a great deal more often than that with only Chantal there. And she quite simply couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “Why not?” she asked rather tearfully.

  Madame looked first embarrassed and then determined.

  “Because she is really a very boring topic of conversation,” she said firmly, “and we have a great deal of painting still to do.”

  “Oh yes!” Katherine stood up immediately. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been keeping you from it, but if you give me a brush and some distemper I’d love to help.”

  “And so you shall!” Madame agreed warmly. />
  The more Katherine saw of the Verdons the more she liked them. They were as good as their word too about introducing her to all their friends, and she began to wonder why she had been so worried as to whether she would be accepted by the local people. More and more she became aware of the careful phrases and the polite silences when Chantal’s name came up in the conversation, and she gradually became used to the idea that the French girl wasn’t really very popular at all; more, that she was actively disliked by quite a number of her fellow countrymen who lived round about.

  Katherine found that she was beginning to relax. She laughed more and she worried less. It had been years since she had had to take so little responsibility, and she made the most of it, enjoying her new freedom with a zest that half amused her in her saner moments because she knew that it was all really quite unlike her usual rather sober self. If Peter Kreistler could see her now he really would have reason for considering her a completely useless female. She had done nothing but please herself for days.

  The bubble broke a few days after they had finished re-distempering the Verdon’s house. Brahim came up to the house bringing the account books with him and also a short note in Arabic written in a very careful hand on cheap, lined notepaper.

  “I brought this up from the Post Office for you,” he said in his usual dignified manner. “Can you read it for yourself, or shall I do a translation for you?”

  Katherine glanced at it curiously.

  “I’m afraid I can’t read any Arabic at all,” she confessed. “In fact I can’t think who could be writing to me in that language.” Brahim took the letter from her.

  “It has been written by the letter-writer of Sidi Behn Ahmed for a woman named Lala.”

  Katherine flushed with pleasure.

  “Lala!” she exclaimed. “What does she say? Has she had the baby yet?”

  Brahim perused the short note with deliberate care. “The baby is due,” he said at last. “She asks that you should go down and be with her as you promised.” He shook his head sadly. “Did you promise so rashly to do this thing?” he asked. Katherine pulled the letter away from him, staring down at it, half hoping that by some miracle she would be able to read it for herself.

  “Of course I promised! Lala helped me with a very difficult case, and after that she taught me Arabic. She’s a friend of mine!” Brahim’s face crinkled up.

  “It is too far to go for such a thing,” he told her. “You would do better to telephone to the hospital and find out from the doctor if it is really necessary.”

  It was the sensible thing to do. Katherine could see that for herself. But she had become fond of Lala and she had promised to be there — and if she went south she would see Peter again. It was funny how he had become Peter to her now. She hardly ever thought of him as Dr. Kreistler as she had schooled herself to do when she had worked for him for those few brief weeks.

  “All right, I’ll telephone,” she agreed reluctantly. “I’ll put through the call for this evening to make sure Dr. Kreistler will be there.”

  Brahim nodded approvingly.

  “The doctor will tell you what you should do.” He pulled his robes more closely round him and put the account book carefully down on the table. “Shall we begin with these?” he suggested quietly.

  All through the day she would suddenly catch sight of the telephone and her mouth would go dry and her heart would start to hammer within her. It was nothing more than a bad attack of stage-fright, she told herself, for she wouldn’t know what to say to the doctor, and he would think her a perfect fool for phoning!

  But as the hour approached she felt more confident, and after a harassing half-hour with the various exchanges who were putting her through and seemed quite unable to understand a word she said, she felt positively ready for anything.

  “May I speak to Dr. Kreistler, please?” she said to the nurse who took the call.

  “Hold the line.”

  “This is a long-distance call,” the exchange put in helpfully.

  “I’ll hurry, then,” the nurse agreed enthusiastically, and in a few moments Katherine could hear the faint click of another receiver being picked up.

  “Dr. Kreistler here.”

  He sounded so exactly like himself that she couldn’t quite believe it. And she had been trying to persuade herself that she had been happy without him! She had never been so miserable in all her life.

  “Hullo — Peter,” she said weakly.

  “Katherine!” The impatience had gone and she could distinctly hear the smile in his voice. So at least he was pleased to hear from her. “Is anything the matter?” he demanded. “Or is this just a social call?”

  “N-neither. I had a letter from Lala.”

  “Did you?” She hadn’t thought that his voice could sound so warm and comfortable.

  “It was written by the official letter-writer of Sidi Behn Ahmed,” she went on. “I hadn’t realised that there were still such persons.”

  “Very important persons!” the doctor assured her. “And am I to know what the letter contained?” Katherine pulled herself together with an effort. This was a most expensive call, and really she couldn’t afford to waste the time in this silly way.

  “She wants me to be there when she has her baby,” she said briskly in her most professional tones. “I promised her that I would be there, you see,” she added.

  “So she told me,” Peter said. “Are you coming?”

  Katherine began to dither again.

  “I don’t know!” she confessed at last. “What do you think?”

  He laughed. “I am being very naughty and teasing you just a little,” he told her. “It would be too late for you to deliver the baby if you did come. Lala has already given birth to a son.”

  “To a son? Oh, she must be pleased!”

  The doctor chuckled.

  “She is pleased, her husband is pleased, and you sound pretty pleased yourself!”

  “I’m delighted!” Katherine admitted simply. But somehow she didn’t sound at all pleased after all. There was no reason for her to go down to Sidi Behn Ahmed now, and she hadn’t realised how much she had been looking forward to it, to getting back into harness and doing a real job of work. And she wanted to see Dr. Kreistler more than ever. She would be content, she thought, just to work with him. To see his strong competent hands dealing with his patients and to listen to his voice and to see him move.

  “Are you still there, Katherine?” Peter asked. “Lala and her husband want you to name the child for them. Can you think of a name off-hand that I can tell them?”

  She was immensely flattered.

  “Oh, Peter, how nice of them!”

  “And the name?” he prompted her with a touch of his old impatience.

  Katherine heard the pips go, signifying the end of her allotted time on the wire.

  Tell them —” she began, and her voice broke slightly. “Tell them to name him after you,” she said, and put down the receiver quickly before he could know that she was crying again. But it would be nice to think that somewhere on the edge of the great Sahara desert there was a little boy that had been called after Dr. Peter Kreistler.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ANOTHER letter came from Lala, this time written in the doctor’s firm hand so that Katherine could read it for herself in

  English. It was a simple letter, stating that the boy had been duly called Peter and that she and her husband had been pleased with the choice. Try as she would, Katherine could see no personal references in it from Peter. It was rather a let-down after the way her heart had leapt when she had seen the envelope with his writing on it.

  It was only later that she saw the postscript scrawled across the back of the paper:

  Only five more days, Peter.

  Only five more days to what? She counted them off on the calendar, and when the fifth day came she could hardly bring herself to go out. But Brahim quietly insisted that she should see the Efigults of their digging up the water
supply of the dying orchard. It was terribly hot away from the house, for the leafless trees afforded little protection from the blazing sun. Katherine climbed in and out of ditches and exchanged jokes with the weary labourers, who went on digging more or less mechanically no matter what the temperature was.

  “I think it’s here that the salt water is getting in,” Brahim told her at last, pointing to a join in the pipes that looked quite indistinguishable from any other to Katherine.

  “Can it be fixed?” she asked.

  He nodded cheerfully.

  “I think so. It is only a faulty join. We can try it and see if the trees improve.”

  Katherine looked at the fruit-trees all around her.

  “They look completely dead to me,” she said.

  Brahim took out his knife and slashed at the bark of the nearest tree, revealing the soft wood underneath.

  “The sap is still rising,” he reported, “and the roots go deep.”

  Katherine wished she had brought her dark glasses with her. The rays of the sun were in her eyes and her head hurt. It was a black world covered with white glare and she felt slightly sick.

  “I must get in out of the sun,” she murmured. She gave the men a last smile and turned quickly, stumbling over the rough ground towards the gateway that led into the gardens. She paused there, hanging on to the gate and willing herself to recover.

  “Sit down over here on this seat,” a voice instructed her briskly, “and put your head down between your knees. Really, I am surprised that I should have to tell you something so simple!” She did as he told her.

  “Oh, Peter!” she gasped. The world began to right itself and the colours came back to the flowers in the garden. “Oh, Peter,” she said again. “I meant to put on my prettiest dress and wash my hair just in case you came.”

  His strong hand pushed her head further down.

  “And why didn’t you?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” she said brokenly. “And I had to go and look at some trees of Brahim’s.”

  He released his grasp on her and she was able to look up at him, to make sure that it really was him and not some dream of her own manufacture.