Night Calypso

by Lawrence Scott

  He stood next to her desk. He reached out to anchor some papers which were fluttering in the breeze. He could smell her. She put her hands into her sleeves.

  Vincent started his lecture again. ‘We need to find the reasons in history, in personal history, in political history. Science and nature guide us there. Not comfort ourselves with hypothetical absolutes which are responsible for how things are.’ He could hear himself again. He wanted to kiss her.

  ‘Personal history?’ Thérèse broke off from her work abruptly. They were both feeling they did not know how to talk to each other.

  The Angelus sounded. She stood and prayed. Vincent continued with his work, impatient. The bell for the sisters’ lunch summoned her. She tidied her papers.

  ‘Such order.’ She turned at the door and looked at him.

  ‘There’s so much disorder.’ There was longing in her eyes.

  ‘Or it is just how things are?’ he differed.

  ‘We don’t agree,’ she said emphatically.

  ‘We might? Will you be back after lunch?’ He checked his wooing tone.

  She smiled, brushing her veil from her face.

  ‘This Chaulmoogra Oil, more headache than it worth.’ Vincent had a view through the window from the verandah into the pharmacy. He waited for a moment before entering. Singh and Theo were sitting at the work counter. They had their backs to him. ‘This have side effects.’ Theo was looking on intently as Singh prepared the tray to be used for the afternoon’s treatment.

  ‘The skin get pulpy and inflamed, yes?’ Theo repeated.

  ‘That’s right. You listen well.’

  ‘You think the patients get some help, because it work like a placebo.’ Theo went over his lesson.

  ‘You have the correct terminology. You learning quick,’ Singh praised the boy.

  ‘I does pick up vocabulary fast.’

  Vincent smiled at Theo’s eagerness. He did not want to eavesdrop, but he did not want to interrupt the science lesson.

  ‘What we want is new medicine.’

  ‘I frighten when I look at them, you know. When they have sores, and deformed hands and feet.’

  ‘You mustn’t fear that, man.’ Singh was talking as an equal to the boy. ‘They will feel bad if you show that. As I tell you, you have to understand what you seeing.’

  ‘So, if this not really helping them…’ Theo pointed to the Chaulmoogra Oil preparations.

  ‘Well, is what the doctor say. Hygiene and care. Clean bandages.’

  ‘How that go help that look in their face. Those stumps? What you call it? Claw hands?’ Theo began to bend his fingers to illustrate his horror. ‘Short short fingers. The way they hand bend so. No thumb, bones sticking out. Septic wounds! You hear that! More vocabulary I learn.’

  Vincent did not have the heart to walk in and interrupt. He left the verandah. As he did so, he heard Singh. ‘Colonial contempt and religious superstition, too many documents and prayers.’ He stopped in his tracks. He had to wait to hear what Theo was going to make of this first lesson in politics.

  ‘Oh gawd! What’s the time? I suppose to meet Doctor in the clinic for lunch,’ Theo shouted.

  ‘Go then. Come back after your lunch. I go teach you some more.’

  Vincent returned to the door of the pharmacy and met Theo as he came out onto the verandah. ‘Eh, eh, I was just coming to see what you were up to.’

  Singh followed Theo out. ‘Checking up on your boy. In case I lead him astray.’ He put his hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘Bright, you know?’

  ‘I learn science and thing, you know,’ Theo enthused.

  ‘Good, good. Thought you must be starving.’

  Theo went down into the yard.

  ‘Easy on the politics, eh?’ Vincent said to Singh as he walked off, following Theo.

  ‘So you was really checking up on me.’

  Vincent smiled. ‘Keep to the science.’

  ‘That alone not going to save us. You know that.’

  ‘He’s a vulnerable boy, Singh. Young.’

  ‘You know what I was doing at fourteen. Lighting fire in the cane. Sabotage on the estate. Golconda had the record in the riots.’

  Vincent looked to see if Theo was within earshot. ‘You know what I mean. Take it easy. I’ll deliver him safely after lunch.’

  ‘You still have a lot to learn, Doc.’ Singh looked at Vincent searchingly. ‘I have more story.’

  After lunch, Vincent and Thérèse were back in the clinic and Theo had rejoined Singh in the pharmacy.

  Gertrude Palmer, one of the very needy patients, entered the clinic. Vincent could not contain himself as he saw her walking in. ‘Gertrude, Gertrude! What’re you doing?’ He checked his irritable tone. Gertrude had walked in on the end of her tibia. When he examined her he found bits of gravel and leaves wedged in the marrow cavity. ‘Gertrude, Gertrude!’ His voice was more sympathetic.

  He and Thérèse exchanged looks and smiled. Gertrude left happier for her new dressing. Vincent and Thérèse threw up their arms in despair.

  ‘Totally anaesthetised!’ Vincent screamed.

  ‘A kind of amnesia, isn’t it?’

  ‘Those messages just not getting through.’ Vincent paced the clinic.

  ‘She sauntered in completely indifferent to pain.’

  ‘Seemingly without any instinct for self-preservation.’

  ‘Nerves, the peripheral nerves all gone!’

  ‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound,’ Vincent said.

  Thérèse looked up, inquiringly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.’

  ‘Doctor,’ she said teasingly. ‘A literature scholar?’

  ‘We’ve got to understand how these channels of transmission, how that wiring has been impaired. Otherwise, we’re doomed to sores, ulcers, leaking blisters, sepsis, and necrotic tissue! A nursing and doctoring of bandages and more bandages. Chaulmoogra Oil for another century!’ They both collapsed laughing into their chairs.

  ‘Madeleine,’ he leant over to take her hand. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, no, Vincent. What are we going to do?’ She took his hand. They heard a sister passing in the corridor outside.

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ they said together, encouraging each other.

  ‘Something?’ Thérèse, more serious, asked. ‘Something?’

  ‘You’re the one with the faith, Sister.’ Vincent smiled. They were talking about themselves and their research. ‘We’ll experiment. Science will work with nature.’

  ‘Where has reason and science brought us?’ she asked another kind of question.

  Vincent knew that Thérèse had moved onto the war. She didn’t really believe that. ‘That’s lunacy.’

  ‘Yes, we think so. My father thought that. But look. A lot of science and culture, and philosophers of reason, are brought into the service of this vision, their lunatic vision.’

  Vincent could see that Thérèse was getting sad again. ‘Thérèse.’ He was going to put his hand over hers, but restrained himself.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Let’s get back to work.’

  ‘Where were we?’

  The afternoon had disappeared. ‘I need to get Theo back. We’ll continue later. Can you work late?’

  ‘I’ll see what Mother Superior says.’ Her eyes said what her heart was telling her.

  As Vincent approached Singh’s pharmacy, he saw Theo leaving. He met him in the yard. ‘Science lesson finished?’

  ‘Mr Singh say he have to teach another lesson. He have another student.’

  ‘Oh? I’ll be late tonight. I’ll ask Jonah to stay with you. Leave Cervantes for me.’ They found Jonah on the jetty.

  ‘Don’t worry, Doc. We go do some fishing, eh Theo?’

  Theo was already in the bow of the pirogue.

  On the way back to the clinic. Vincent looked in on Singh. He entered the pharmacy without knocking. ‘Oh, sorry, I forgot Theo said you had another student.’ Singh and Christiana lea
pt to their feet as he entered. They had been sitting close to each other reading from a pharmaceutical manual. The girl hurried from the room. ‘You don’t have to go,’ he called as she ran along the verandah.

  ‘Come back later,’ Singh called after her. ‘She shy.’ Singh stood at the door.

  ‘I see. Well. How did it go with Theo?’

  ‘Good man. He does learn fast.’

  ‘Christiana? Not sure why she’s still here. I haven’t found any signs of the illness,’ Vincent commented.

  ‘She herself knows that, and is scared now.’

  ‘Maybe we need to get her back home. How old is she?’

  ‘Sixteen.’ Singh looked embarrassed.

  ‘Must get back to the clinic. Sister Thérèse is waiting.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, relieved.

  Back at the clinic Vincent and Thérèse picked up where they had left off. The evening came on quickly. The kerosene lamp hummed and spluttered, as moths torpedoed themselves at the glass lantern unable to learn a lesson in injury. ‘We need to operate. I need to do an autopsy. I need hands,’ Vincent was saying.

  ‘Where’ll we operate?’

  ‘Here. Maybe in Porta España.’

  ‘Will they let you take the body there? Will they bring the operating theatre here?’

  ‘We could. I don’t see why not. What a memorial to life if a patient’s hands gave us the evidence we need.’

  ‘It’ll need to be a day on which the ice arrives. When we have plenty ice.’

  ‘If I’m called right away, we can operate quickly, before putrefaction. But we’re running before we can walk.’ Vincent slowed himself down.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We need to look at hands. We need to examine many hands, before we can think of operating. What are we looking for?’

  They were both exhausted. The night ticked outside beyond the hum of the kerosene lantern. Vincent watched Thérèse’s hands on the desk. Then she put them under her scapular like a good nun. They sat in silence.

  ‘Hmm,’ Vincent sighed.

  Thérèse looked up. Their eyes found each other’s. They smiled. Thérèse got up and started tidying her desk.

  Vincent went out the screen door onto the verandah and lit a cigarette. It glowed like a firefly. Thérèse could see his face in the glow when he pulled on it. It went dark again, as he flicked the ash on the zinnia beds.

  They were both thinking that they should not find themselves like this, alone, alone at night with each other.

  At the end of the verandah was the night sister in her cubicle, where Thérèse would be sleeping.

  When Thérèse came onto the verandah, Vincent was almost in total darkness. She bumped into him.

  ‘Off to bed?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I don’t like not being at the convent. In my own cell.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. I like to get home too.’ He did not sound convincing.

  ‘How long does it take?’

  ‘Depends on Cervantes.’

  ‘My father’s favourite author.’

  ‘He’s a good donkey. Not sure how he got his name.’

  ‘Take care.’ She put her hand on the bannister of the verandah, and inadvertently touched his. ‘Sorry.’

  But she did not move it. Vincent removed his hand and placed it on top of hers. They stood like that for what seemed an eternity to both of them. They could hardly see themselves in the darkness.

  Vincent had thrown away his cigarette. It smouldered on the ground. She smelt the tobacco on his breath.

  Further away, they could hear the surf on the beach below.

  Where was she? Vincent thought. As he pulled Thérèse towards him, he felt her voluminous sleeves, her scapular, her veil and the rosary hard at her side. His hands moved up to her face. He wanted to touch her body. The wildest thought was to get his hands under her skirt. She was running her hands up his arms.

  She was giving into her passion, as she broke through the buttons of his shirt to his chest, running her hands through the hair there. Resting her head on his chest, smelling him. It made it easier for her that she could hardly see him. They could both pretend that it wasn’t happening, because they could not see each other.

  ‘Madeleine,’ Vincent whispered as he found her lips which were wet, and not cracked as they had been at Salt Pond.

  ‘Vincent…’

  A screen door opened at the end of the verandah, throwing a shaft of light along the floor. A ward nurse came out and stood in the light. Vincent and Thérèse could see her, but she could not see them. They remained absolutely still, in each others’ arms. To break from each other would have disturbed the gloom, and the ward nurse might have seen the movement of shadows. She had come out for air. She returned and the screen door banged shut behind her.

  ‘I must go,’ said Thérèse.

  ‘Yes, me too. I must go home.’ He watched her disappear along the verandah. For how long could they continue with these kisses, this holding of hands? To talk about it would be to let it take a place alongside their work and the rest of their lives.

  Mounting Cervantes, Vincent thought he saw Singh in the shadows behind the stores with someone else. He could not see who it was.

  Feathers and Cocoyea Sticks

  Theo was up even earlier than usual, adjusting his wall maps and collages according to the latest news last night, and at dawn. ‘I looking after things here, Doc.’ Vincent smiled at his familiarity. He worried that he was not getting enough sleep, plugged into his crystal set. At least the night-time stories had ended, he hoped. The boy seemed so much better. Just letting him be had proved a sensible line of action.

  But Vincent could see that Saint Damian’s was a struggle for Theo. The science lesson had gone well. But he was not altogether surprised when, over breakfast of Crix and buljol, the boy suddenly asked, ‘I could get leprosy?’ There was real fear in his eyes, as he heaped the saltfish onto his dry biscuit.

  Vincent was blunt. ‘Theoretically, yes. But it’s highly unlikely, if you take care with your hygiene. What did you learn in your science lesson? You’re in much less danger than me or Sister Thérèse, or Mr Singh. Only one of the sisters, after all their years of nursing, has contracted the disease.’

  Theo listened intently. ‘I see someone up Pepper Hill who skin turning white. One day, they find him rotting away in a hut up in the bush.’

  ‘Yes, that can happen, if the disease is allowed to take hold, and the patient does not get the required care.’ Vincent explained to Theo the theory that he had lectured about, and was constantly arguing on the wards.

  ‘Yes, Mr Singh tell me. Well, maybe I go come a doctor too, or a pharmacist,’ Theo said thoughtfully.

  ‘Those are fine ambitions. Your schooling is going to have to be more important than ever.’

  Later, Vincent noticed that Theo was at the jetty with him waiting for Jonah. He had elected to carry his doctor’s bag to the pirogue.

  Thérèse was already at her desk, making notes and continuing her research from the night before. Or so Vincent thought, as he stumped out his cigarette and entered the old clinic, and saw her bent over her desk. ‘Morning,’ his voice tried to give a normal ring to things as he entered the pharmacy.

  He expected her to turn and smile. He expected some joy, some sense of the continuing excitement of the night before to exist between them.

  He had hardly slept last night.

  When she looked up, he saw that she had been crying. He stood over her, his hand touching her shoulder. It was all that he could allow himself. She was sobbing.

  ‘Thérèse.’ He noticed how he used her different names, depending on whether they were doctor and nurse, or lovers. The word had entered his imagination. Her hands pressed against the desk. He wanted to hold them, touch her face, kiss her eyes. He had felt her body under her habit last night, but then let her go. She had sought the warmth of his body.

  Her right hand was clenched. It was
holding something. He moved over to her right side, putting his hand over hers, as was now their way. He unclenched her hand. It was a soft yellow cloth, like a stuffed pocket, shaped like a star, a yellow star. Pinned to the back of it was a printed message, WEAR IT.

  Even before the war had started, they knew that the German authorities required Jews to wear yellow stars when they walked in the streets.

  ‘Who’s doing this? Who hates me so much?’

  Then, he used her other name. ‘Madeleine, no one hates you. This is the action of a sick person. It must be one of the other sisters. You can see the work.’ The nuns did embroidery in the evening, sitting around the common room, after their tiring day at the hospital.

  ‘Surely not? She didn’t do this while sitting among the other sisters,’ Thérèse protested.

  ‘She must’ve kept it hidden in her cell then, progressing each day with her hate,’ Vincent speculated. ‘Let’s leave this, Thérèse.’ He had switched back to her religious name. ‘We’ve work to do. Hands. We’re going to start on the hands.’ Vincent tried to change the mood.

  She got up and followed him out of the pharmacy towards the adult wards, as he explained the plan he had come up with. Their night-time encounter in the darkness on the verandah had stimulated him, so that, as he rode back in the dark, he had planned the research.

  ‘Thérèse.’ She had stuffed the yellow star deep into her pocket, as they went down the steps to cross the yard. ‘For too long we’ve been seeing everything as if we were dermatologists. You know, if we look at our notes over the months, certainly in the last year, you’ll notice, as I’m sure you do.’

  Vincent looked across to her. She had dried her tears, but her face was sad. What a terrible world they were making.

  ‘You know, we’ve been making notes about colour and texture of the dry patches on the skin,’ he continued.

  ‘Yes. We’ve noted it all clearly, the different reactions in a macule and papule. We noted each and every infiltration of the dry skin.’

  ‘A nodule and a plaque.’

  ‘Yes, as you say, as if we were dermatologists.’

  Vincent could see Mother Superior at the window of her office. He felt as if he and Thérèse were naked, walking across the yard. He tried to look businesslike, and put a little more distance between himself and Thérèse, in case their arms knocked into each other. He noticed that he had quickened his stride, and that Thérèse had consequently done the same.